Chapter 14 Aria pov
Aria
The air in the basement was thick with the scent of ozone and rotting lilies. It was a heavy, cloying magic that made my skin crawl, but as the shadow stepped forward, I didn't flinch. I couldn't afford to.
I stood in the center of the damp concrete floor, the obsidian mirror gripped so tightly in my hands that the edges bit into my palms. Across from me, the shadow—the killer seemed to bleed into the darkness of the room. It was a man, or at least it wore the shape of one, his features shifting under a glamour that felt like oil on water.
"You’re the 'void' they all whisper about," he said, his voice a sibilant hiss that echoed off the damp walls. "The daughter of the High Witch who couldn't even light a candle. How poetic that you’ve come here to offer yourself up to a power you’ll never understand."
"I understand enough," I replied, my voice steady despite the frantic thrum of the bond in my chest. I could feel Kael—or what was left of him. He was a cold, distant anchor in the back of my mind, his consciousness flickering like a dying ember. "I know you're using these witches to fuel a spell because you aren't strong enough to take Kael down on your own."
The shadow laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "Strength is for those who don't know how to use leverage. I didn't need to be stronger than him. I just needed to be smarter. And you, Aria... you are the ultimate leverage."
He raised a hand, and the violet chains holding the Young One flared with a blinding light. The vampire suspended in the center of the room let out a silent, agonizing arch of his back. I felt the drain on Kael intensify instantly. It was like a physical vacuum, pulling the heat right out of my blood through the bond.
"Stop it!" I shouted, stepping forward.
"Why? It’s almost complete," the killer said, his eyes glowing with a sickly, stolen silver. "Once the King is fully stone, his essence will be funneled through this boy and into me. I will have the power of a centuries-old vampire and the magic of a dozen witches. And you... you will be the perfect vessel to store the overflow. A hollow girl for a hollow crown."
He lunged.
He moved with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for a non-vampire, but I didn't try to outrun him. I knew I couldn't. Instead, I did the only thing I had ever been good at.
I didn't cast a spell. I didn't try to shield myself.
I opened.
I dropped the mental barriers I had spent my whole life building the walls I used to pretend I was "normal," the shields I used to hide the hollow ache of my lack of magic. I let the "void" inside me expand, turning myself into a spiritual sinkhole.
When his hand, wreathed in stolen purple fire, slammed into my shoulder, the magic didn't burn me. It disappeared.
The killer’s eyes widened in genuine shock. He tried to pull back, but I grabbed his wrist. The stolen power he was wielding began to pour into me not as energy, but as a vacuum. I was a black hole, and he was the light being swallowed.
"What... what are you?" he gasped, his glamour beginning to flicker and fail.
"I told you," I whispered, the obsidian mirror in my other hand beginning to glow with a terrifying, white-hot intensity. "I’m the void. And you have way too much magic that doesn't belong to you."
The mirror began to hum, a high-pitched scream that vibrated in my teeth. It wasn't just showing me visions anymore; it was acting as a lens. I pressed the glass directly against his chest.
"Aria," the mirror’s voice boomed, no longer flat but sounding like a chorus of a thousand vengeful souls. "Consume."
The basement exploded in a whirlwind of grey and silver. The violet chains holding the Young One shattered. The stolen essence of the murdered witches Teresa, the others I had seen in the photos rushed out of the killer like a flood.
It was too much. The power hit me like a freight train, screaming through my veins, looking for a place to settle. It wanted to tear me apart. My skin felt like it was cracking, the heat of a dozen lives trying to burst out of my mortal frame.
Kael! I screamed in my mind. Take it!
I shoved the mirror’s energy through the bond. I used our connection as a pipe, forcing the stolen magic away from the killer and straight into the stone statue sitting on my library table blocks away.
The connection flared. I felt the stone in Kael’s heart shatter. I felt the grey receding from his eyes, his lungs, his hands. He wasn't just waking up; he was being supercharged by the very magic that was supposed to kill him.
In front of me, the killer withered. Without the stolen magic to hold him together, he was revealed for what he really was a small, pathetic man who had traded his humanity for a taste of godhood. He fell to the floor, gasping, his skin aging decades in seconds.
I collapsed to my knees, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My hands were scorched, and the obsidian mirror was cracked down the middle, its light finally fading into a dull, exhausted grey.
The basement was silent, save for the soft sobbing of the Young One as he slumped to the floor, finally free of his chains.
The bond in my chest suddenly went from a cold thread to a roaring furnace of warmth.
Aria.
The voice wasn't a whisper anymore. It was a physical presence, wrapping around me like a cloak. I looked up at the stairs, my vision swimming.
The heavy steel door at the top of the basement was ripped off its hinges with a sound like a thunderclap.
Kael stood there. He wasn't grey. He wasn't stone. He was glowing with an aura of pure, unadulterated power—a mix of his own ancient blood and the silver magic I had funneled back into him. His eyes weren't onyx anymore; they were a burning, molten gold.
He was at my side in a heartbeat, his arms wrapping around me, pulling me against the solid, warm heat of his chest.
"I’ve got you," he rasped, his voice shaking with a relief that vibrated through my bones. "I’ve got you, Aria."
"I did it," I whispered, clutching his shirt. "The void... it worked."
"You did more than that," Kael said, his gaze moving to the shriveled man on the floor and then back to me with a look of fierce, terrifying devotion. "You saved the city. And you saved me."
I leaned my head against his shoulder, finally letting the exhaustion take me. The war wasn't over there would be councils to face, a coven to deal with, and a city to rebuild but as Kael lifted me into his arms, I knew that for the first time in my life, the void wasn't empty anymore.
It was full of him.