Chapter 108 | The Shattered | Kael
The tentacle broke.
It wasn't cut by a blade—it was torn apart by his will. Something deeper than a prince's authority ripped it apart with pure force. The silver-white light tentacle twisted in the air, then scattered into specks of light.
The node screamed. That face of mine twisted from sweet to horrifying.
Kael held me as we fell backward. We crashed onto a platform outside the Spiral Tower, the hard stone ground slamming into my back. Pain shot through my whole body like an electric shock.
"Are you crazy?" I grabbed his collar. "You'll die!"
"I've been dead for three thousand years." He gasped, his dark red wings pressed flat against the ground like two trampled dead leaves. "Before I met you."
I looked at him. Really looked at him.
His skin was no longer pale jade, but ash-colored. Dead gray. His vertical pupils had lost their shine, like two pieces of frosted glass. His breathing was shallow and quick, each breath carrying a wet rattle from deep in his chest.
He was fading.
And me—my wings were brighter than ever, the silver light flowing under my skin denser than ever. I held him like holding a piece of melting ice, while I was a burning flame.
Fire holding ice can only mean destruction.
"There's a way," I said, my voice shaking. "There has to be a way. If the node is a trap, then where's the real way back? Ophelia wouldn't lie to us—she—"
"She was fooled too," Kael said. "The corrupted Elune fooled everyone. That node isn't a passage—it's bait."
"Then where's the real passage?"
Kael was quiet for a second.
Then he lifted his head, looking at the sky.
Looking at that crack.
"There," he said, his voice sounding far away. "Where the Moon-Eater came from. The door wasn't opened by it. It came through. If we—"
He coughed, dark red blood clots splattering on the back of my hand.
"If we go through it—"
"Are you insane?" I screamed. "It'll eat us!"
"Eat you," he corrected, blood at the corner of his mouth. "But I'm the waning moon. Extra darkness. It—"
He looked at the huge shape coming down through the crack.
"It might not want me."
"Might?"
"Might." He smiled. That smile was tired, gentle, like goodbye. "Worth a shot."
I didn't answer.
Because the golden flames below suddenly went out.
Ophelia's light disappeared.
In its place was total darkness—the Light-Eaters poured onto the platform. There were more than I'd imagined, tens of thousands, like a black tide flooding every inch of the Spiral Tower's surface. They didn't attack us right away, but formed a circle, stopping about thirty feet from us.
Then they parted.
From the black tide, a figure walked out.
Not a Light-Keeper. Not a Light-Eater. Something—
solid. Flesh and blood. Silver-black long hair, ice-blue vertical pupils, dark red wings.
Exactly like the person in my arms.
"Kael?" My voice shook.
No. Not him. His wings were perfect, his skin was a healthy pale, his eyes held—
authority.
A prince's authority.
He walked toward us, each step making the Light-Eaters bow. He stopped in front of us, looking down at the fading Kael on the ground, the corner of his mouth curving into a cold smile.
"Three thousand years," he said, his voice exactly like Kael's. "I finally found you. My other half."
The Kael on the ground went stiff.
He looked at that "self," something flashing in his pupils—fear.
"Who... who are you?"
"I am you," the perfect Kael said. "The part you threw away three thousand years ago. You chose to be a prince, chose duty, chose loneliness. And I—"
He spread his wings, dark red feathers rustling in the wind, each one perfect and whole.
"—I chose power."
He reached out, pointing at the fading Kael on the ground.
"Now it's time to become whole again. The waning moon made complete. Then—"
He turned to me, ice-blue vertical pupils burning with ten thousand years of hunger.
"—the Silver Moon will truly fall."