Abolisher

The vision she’d always seen at the horizon became reality.

The vision—the one she’d dreaded like nothing else.

Inky Darkness was spilling across the night sky—unnatural and grotesque—eating away the stars and the moon like a wave of sea.

Terror claimed Syrene and Faolin as they tore through the forest—to the direction they’d come from. The direction where everyone was. Her mother, her prime—her people.

But they weren’t alone.

All around them an army of wolves, lions, jaguars, sorceresses, witches, and otsatyas knew what else, had formed—every tribe, clan, come together. They dashed past Faolin and Syrene, causing the ground to shake more violently, all armed, battle rage seemed to have thickened the air.

Growls crammed Syrene’s ears, failing to overpower the bellowing of her heart.

But those earthly growls weren’t the only inhuman noises.

Hers wasn’t the only army present here.

Hisses and snarls of baeselk rose above all others as they flowed into Lavestia like ants. Their battle cries thundered in the darkened clouds as the airborne rose higher, higher, higher, and the terrestrial dislodged the trees.

At those cries, the air thick with rage now sizzled with sparking fear. The legion slowed slightly as they beheld their horrendous enemies.

War—they were at war.

Syrene’s legs ached as she dragged them along, not letting the paralysis of terror take a hold of her even for a second. But—

The baeselk dashed for them from the skies. For the human bodies to be taken as hosts. For the endless feast sprawled across the ground for them.

Light flashed about the area—so bright that Syrene was blinded for mere moments—as majority of the shifters took their human form and drew their swords.

Cries of assault swallowed the area and Faolin and Syrene were still running. Clashes of swords and ripping of flesh—human and non-human alike—began sounding soon.

Screams—painful screams.

Death touched her environs and smiled.

Faolin and Syrene had every intention to not let their feet falter, but the beasts had something else planned. A bunch came at them at once.

Wordlessly, Syrene and Faolin instantly fell into a back-to-back position, as if they’d been fighting together since they were born. Neither of them hesitated as their daggers stabbed the baeselk and were dragged through their leather-sort flesh, slicing them open. Olive liquid spurted out and clothed their arms.

Syrene kept all her attention at her pulses, even as she drove her weapon through one’s neck, and dragged it to the other end, decapitating it.

Now would be a great time to come alive, Drothiker.

But of course, when had her own beast ever heeded whatever she had to say? Now of all the times. Baeselk were Felset’s people, and Drothiker was Felset’s power.

Loyal as a dog.

Syrene’s hands, legs, kept moving—by now, she didn’t even have to think over her maneuvers, every blow was a muscle memory—but her mind wasn’t here. Her mind, treacherous as it was, continued reiterating Kefaas’ image, wielded it like a sharp metal cord and stabbed her heart, twisted it so cruelly that each pulse heated her blood to the point it felt like molten lava had been poured inside her instead of blood, roasting the inside of her skin.

She didn’t allow her mind to win. She drew the images before they touched her eyes and managed to make her lose herself amidst the reigning chaos, before her heart could bleed, constructed barriers around herself, shielding herself from anything but anger.

For anger, hideous and profane, shot through her—flooded her mind.

Anger at the world, at Destiny. Anger at the universe and the otsatyas. Anger at herself and the violence around her.

Syrene’s limbs were shaking now. She yelled her own battle cry and carved the awful beasts.

One.

By one.

By one.

She didn’t hear their shrieks over the relentless pounding in her ears.

Anger, at the nature of this world.

One after another baeselk resigned to her feet, blood marring her head-to-toe, and Syrene pressed forward. Faolin, shielding her back, lost in her own viciousness, shadowed her lead.

Their weapons continued their lethal dance, careful not to let them slip from their grip—there were only so many daggers in their attires.

“We need to find the others!” Faolin yelled over the noise.

Indeed, they did. She didn’t even know how the portal had been opened when Navy still bore the Key, or how did Felset even get here … Silvervale sat at the other end of the world.

She just hoped no one was near when the portal unfolded, hoped they were all alive. She knew Azryle was, since there was no agony in her soul—and Vendrik and Navy, too. Being the Kaerions Syrene had been conversed with, Drothiker would have alerted her somehow. She hoped.

Hoped and hoped and hoped.

Syrene didn’t dare cast a glance in the direction, but she knew the portal had sucked open too damn near the cave her mother and Lady of Wolves had been in—the information would have shaken her had she not had unflinching trust in both women.

She refused to consider what she’d said to them—not now. How she’d spoken and held little to no respect in her tone. Refused to let guilt pave its way to her.

Maybe it made her petty and pathetic, but Syrene didn’t want to apologize for it—for speaking what had always been in her heart, for letting out the poison Jegvr had filled in her lungs, her blood. She had yet to face all of it, the poison—what she’d said to Hexet and Raocete had just been a drop of the dam she’d let crack.

But she loved them, loved them more than she’d ever loved. She loved her mother, who’d sacrificed so much for her, who had no doubt gone through her own Saqa when she’d lost her son, and then realized she must train her daughter to lose her too. Syrene never considered that the training might not have only been for her to sacrifice, but also for her mother to let go. Hexet was strong in ways she could never imagine. She’d lost her husband, then her son, then the tribes, and now …

Now she must lose her daughter.

Another wave of rage trailed through Syrene—this time her cry was purely from the sorrow threatening to suffocate her.

Her eyes went to the sky, and her breath caught.

Black—wholly black. Blacker than anything she’d ever seen—it looked like a void she might get lost in if looked long enough.

She paused further when she found the trees had grown unnaturally dark, the petals of flowers glassy black.

The distraction cost her.

Her attention edged when talons tore her arm.

Syrene snarled as pain lanced up the bone the beast had grazed, so brutal that she stopped feeling her arm for moments, but Deathraze’s blade found the beasts eye, and cut down its face. She felt the wound opening, felt as her torn skin curled back from the darkness that touched the gash.

She gritted her teeth against the pain, but her mind was on the Darkness conquering the world, all ready to take humans for slaves.

Eternity of slavery to their own minds.

The only salvation you can offer them—us—is death.

She shut out the words.

All she had to do was kill two of the three sisters and the third one should not be a problem. If she managed to ask—and convince—Vendrik and Navy to kill her, then all she had to do was kill either Felset or Delaya.

She could take Delaya just fine. But then Erauth …

She must close the portal before Erauth entered this world—that was, if he hadn’t already.

But before all that, she must free Ryle. Better a monster than a man suffering with half a soul for eternity.

No matter what his nature demanded, no matter what he thought he would become—Syrene knew, with an unfaltering trust and certainty, that Azryle’s humanity did not hinge on the leash. Knew, that the human heart she’d felt beat with her own was not rotten or dead.

Azryle was not a monster, and he was not a slave.

“Syrene.”

Faolin’s call snapped her to attention. Only then did Syrene notice the pause in the area. All the wolves, the sorceresses, even the witches on their brooms had paused, as if waiting for something. And the baeselk …

They disappeared.

Disappeared, as if they’d been bodies of water now swallowed by the non-existent air.

She looked down at herself, at the olive-green liquid slowly vanishing from wherever it soaked.

An illusion—they’d been an illusion.

She felt as color drained from her face.

The portal was still open, but the pull toward it had grown so strong that Syrene was surprised she was still on her feet.

Faolin was gripping her hand, and Syrene knew why when she squinted in the darkness.

And noticed a movement—a movement in the night itself.

Darkness—as vile as she remembered from the arena a year ago.

Darkness—descending from the sky like mist.

Darkness—as if Azryle’s and Faolin’s mejest had been squeezed out of them and was scattered across the world.

Syrene watched as the dark fog moved to loop itself around everyone present here, as it possessed. Watched, as humanity vanished from their faces.

Syrene felt numb—her eyes itched from the wideness, but she couldn’t shut them, couldn’t blink or do anything, but watch as mortality swapped with something beyond her ken.

Her first instinct was to go for her mejest and call the winds and clear the poisoned air, but when she made to reach for her mejest …

Her way was blocked.

Distantly, she felt Drothiker grinning.

Her blood boiled.

Only Faolin and Syrene remained untouched. Unharmed.

Human.

Darkness didn’t venture near Faolin, deeming her its own kind, for Faolin had let her own take over her for these moments—the veins beneath and in her eyes, in her wrists, were black as the sky.

Faolin hissed at the swirling night nearing them and it recoiled, as if truly afraid.

Devil incarnate.

But when she looked at Syrene with those dark eyes, her face was pained—her forehead, corded with veins, was slick with sweat, as if she were being burned inside.

“Others,” she breathed. “We need to find the others.”

Syrene nodded, her heart drumming.

Then, hand in hand, they were running through the endless night, fighting the pull of the tearing world.

The silence was so raging and so loud in the stilled world that Syrene heard each whisper of the twigs beneath her feet, so clearly that she felt as if she were laying on the ground and someone were walking beside her head, unsettling the twigs.

Syrene scrambled for whatever bond tethered her to Azryle, knew he must be unharmed too thanks to the Darkness he bore.

She just hoped, with a crumpling desire, that Navy and Vurian and Levsenn were near him, and were being kept safe as Faolin did Syrene.

Azryle, she sent when she grasped the leash.

Nothing. It was foolish and absurd and possibly vain but she kept calling for him. Again and again and again.

She thought to shout out his name, but … if Felset and Delaya were here … Syrene would like to catch them unawares.

They were still running when the world stirred around them. Quickly, without releasing each other’s hand, Faolin and Syrene equipped their weapons as people all around them turned slowly—beasts awoken.

But not towards Faolin or Syrene, but …

Towards the opposite direction.

Her heart thundered.

It couldn’t have been Felset or Delaya—Drothiker would have warned her if that were so.

Syrene’s heart was in her throat when she plunged into the marching army—now one, rather than two—shouldering past the bulky soldiers, tugging Faolin with herself. The sorceress gave a warning sound, but Syrene didn’t halt, not as her heart beat so hard that she felt it thrumming in her bones. Her throat tight with rising panic.

The army was never-ending.

Whatever everyone was headed towards was too far away. These beasts would reach it before she did.

But Syrene remembered her way through the forest—remembered all the shortcuts.

She steered east, taking Faolin with herself.

People all around didn’t even seem to know there was another living presence around them. As if Faolin’s mejest had made them invisible.

Syrene ran and ran and ran. The crowd began thinning around her—

Faolin grunted in pure agony.

Syrene paused and whirled.

The sorceress’ face was contorted in eternal pain. She was drenched in sweat, veins at her neck and forehead bulging as if pushing against the skin as one might a locked door.

“I can’t hold it.” Her words were quick, choked. “I can’t … hold it for much longer. I have to let go.” She curled into a crouch, cradling her stomach with the free arm.

A wave of utter panic brought nausea.

A cry had Syrene whirling to her back, where everyone was headed—

Shock, sharp and lethal, seemed to have wielded itself through her like a sword, knocking any life out of her.

The army seemed to have parted in two sections, clearing the view for Syrene. As if the beasts were aware of what would break her in two, as if they wanted her to witness this and wound her so deeply that she forgot what it felt like to be a sane person.

For across from her, stood her mother. Stilled. Her eyes wide and red, a bead of tear plunging from her thick lashes.

Her hand was at the wound in her waist, where the sword’s blade was wedged.

Her red-rimmed eyes weren’t on Syrene, or on anybody in the army. But at the bearer of the sword.

Raocete.

Syrene fell a step back, everything in her seemed to have been charred to nothing. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

Misery came like a pile of sweltering coals when Raocete withdrew her sword from Hexet’s waist and drove it right through her heart.

Syrene heard the tear of the muscle, the beats that ceased after that sound.

Everything was in a long, agonizing slow-motion. An infinity she’d never break away from.

In the that last moment, her mother’s blue eyes drifted to her before the guttering light in them vanished wholly. Before her body went limp and her blood spilled out on Raocete’s sword.

The silence in the world grew unbearable. Smothering.

Then Syrene was screaming. The cry of a wounded animal—so shrill and painful that it rippled in the world.

She would kill her. She would kill Raocete—

Syrene took a step forward, but an arm came around her waist, pressing her to a hard, warm wall in an unrelenting grip.

She was already thrashing against the tight hold. She didn’t know if the voice from her had died away or had she stopping listening. She only saw Raocete sheathing her sword, the veins in her arms stygian dark—only saw her mother collapsed on the ground, her unseeing eyes still on Syrene.

Soon enough she lost sense of what was happening. She was going farther from Raocete when she should’ve been there ripping her throat out.

Lost sense of the plaguing world and lost souls.

Because hers was lost forever.