Chapter 18 The world is falling
The transition from the warmth of the Great Hall to the biting chill of the Seattle night felt like falling into an icy grave. I hit the wet pavement of the service alleyway hard, the air driven from my lungs in a ragged gasp. Behind me, the stronghold the place I had finally dared to call home was screaming. The sounds of shattering glass and the guttural, unnatural roars of the infected vampires echoed off the brick walls, chased by the sharp, rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum of the Iron Order’s pulse rifles.
I didn't stop to look back. I couldn't. Kael’s voice, raw and distorted by the creeping contagion, was still ringing in my head: Run.
Rain lashed at my face, mixing with the hot tears I refused to let fall. My silk skirts were shredded, my feet bare and bleeding against the asphalt, but I ran. I ran until my lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass, heading for the one place in the city where the "Old Magic" still breathed: the underground catacombs beneath the Pike Place Market.
"Aria! Over here!"
A shadow detached itself from a dark doorway near the entrance to the old tunnels. I flinched, my hand instinctively diving into my pouch for the broken obsidian shard, but the silver glow that flared around the figure was familiar.
"Julian," I breathed, collapsing into his arms.
He looked terrible. His robes were singed, and his silver magic was flickering like a dying fluorescent bulb. He dragged me inside the doorway, slamming the heavy iron bolt home just as a squad of Iron Order soldiers sprinted past the alley, their tactical flashlights cutting through the gloom.
"What is happening?" I gasped, clutching my chest. "The wine... the Northern Coven... Julian, they turned them. They turned all of them."
"It’s a resonance frequency," Julian whispered, his hands shaking as he lit a small, magical candle. The light cast long, dancing shadows against the damp brick walls. "The wine was laced with a mineral-based catalyst obsidian dust from the same mine your mirror came from. When you used the mirror to 'save' Kael, you created a feedback loop. The Iron Weavers aren't just witches, Aria. They’re technomancers. They’ve combined ancient harvesting magic with human binary code."
I looked down at the shard in my hand. It was vibrating. The crack down the center was glowing with a faint, oily purple light the same light I had seen in Thierry’s veins.
"They used me," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "The whole thing the 'Young One,' the basement, the petrification it was all designed to get me to link my void to Kael’s bloodline. I didn't save him. I turned him into a biological transmitter for their virus."
"You didn't know," Julian said, but his voice lacked conviction. He looked at the door, then back at me. "The city is falling, Aria. The Iron Order has deployed 'Null-Spires' at every major intersection. They’re suppressing all magic that isn't their own. The vampires who aren't infected are being hunted like rabid dogs, and the witches who didn't join the Weavers are being stripped of their power and put into 're-education' camps."
"Where is my mother?"
Julian hesitated. "She fought back, Aria. But the High Priestess... she had a whole mirror. She didn't just take your mother’s magic. She took her shadow."
I felt a coldness settle over me that had nothing to do with the rain. My mother was gone. Kael was turning into a monster. And I was the one who had handed the world to the people who did it.
"We have to go back," I said, my voice suddenly hard. I stood up, ignoring the way my legs wobbled. "The broken shard... it’s still connected to the source. If I can find the other pieces of the mirror, I can reverse the resonance. I can pull the virus out of the bloodline and back into the void."
"Aria, that's suicide," Julian hissed, grabbing my arm. "You're a 'void.' You can hold a lot of power, but you're still human. If you try to suck a city-wide contagion into your own body, you'll be obliterated. You'll become a black hole that consumes itself."
"Then I’ll be the most useful black hole in history," I snapped, pulling away. "Kael is in there, Julian. Pierce is in there. Thousands of people who did nothing but trust me are being turned into puppets. I’m not going to sit in a tunnel and wait for the 'Order' to find me."
I reached into the void within myself that hollow space that everyone had spent twenty years telling me was a flaw. I didn't look for magic. I looked for the silence. I found it, deep and vast, and I pulled it to the surface.
The obsidian shard in my hand stopped vibrating. The purple glow didn't disappear, but it began to swirl toward my skin, drawn in by the vacuum I was creating.
"I need to find the shards," I repeated. "The mirror was broken into four pieces. I have the heart. The other three were scattered during the explosion in the basement. The Iron Weavers probably have one, the Order has the second, and the third..."
"The third is with the 'Young One,'" Julian finished, his eyes widening. "He wasn't a victim, Aria. He was the courier. He’s not in the infirmary anymore. He’s at the Space Needle. That’s where the main Null-Spire is. They’re using the shard to broadcast the virus across the entire Pacific Northwest."
I looked toward the north, where the iconic spire cut into the stormy sky. A beam of sickly purple light was already beginning to pulse from its peak, rippling through the clouds like a bruise.
"Then that’s where we start," I said.
I didn't have a plan. I didn't have an army. I had a broken piece of glass, a terrified warlock, and a hole in my heart where a King used to be.
But as we stepped out into the rain, I felt a new kind of power beginning to stir. It wasn't the fire of the witches or the strength of the vampires. It was the absolute, terrifying gravity of the void.
The Iron Order thought they had neutralized the magic of the city. They thought they had turned the monsters into slaves.
They were about to find out that the only thing more dangerous than a monster is the girl who has nothing left to lose.
We moved through the shadows of the market, dodging the blue searchlights of the low-flying drones. Every time a drone passed over us, I felt a tug at my soul the Null-Rays searching for a spark to extinguish. But there was no spark in me. There was only the dark.
"Aria, wait," Julian whispered as we reached the edge of the waterfront.
A group of infected vampires was huddled under a pier, their glowing veins illuminating the dark water. They weren't fighting. They were huddled together, whispering in a language that sounded like static.
And in the center of the huddle was Pierce.
His amber eyes were gone, replaced by that flat, milky white. He looked up as we approached, and for a split second, the white flickered.
"A...ria..." he rasped, the word a struggle against the virus.
He didn't attack. He held out a hand, and in his palm lay a small, jagged piece of black glass.
The second shard.
He had fought the hive mind long enough to bring it to me.
"Pierce," I whispered, reaching out.
But before I could touch the glass, a red laser dot settled on his forehead.
Crack.
The sound of the sniper rifle was muffled by the rain, but the result was deafening. Pierce slumped forward, the shard falling into the wet sand.
"Target neutralized," a mechanical voice boomed from the darkness. "The Void Queen is in sight. Deploy the containment unit."
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I picked up the second shard, feeling the vacuum in my soul roar to life as the two pieces of the mirror tried to pull each other back together.
I looked up at the looming shadows of the Iron Order soldiers as they surrounded the pier.
"My turn," I whispered.