Abolisher

The burning stopped.

Stopped—vanished.

Coldness seeped into her bones. Her mind felt as if it’d been boiled and ripped. Heart felt as if it’d been charred until it was black and unfeeling.

And her blood, her eyes, her limbs … they were all numb.

As soon as she gained sensation of her body, she felt cold claws digging into her shoulders, felt something hard and brutal behind herself. A tree.

But the pain was long lost from her. She felt nothing, even the blood spilling from her shoulders felt cold against her burning red skin.

If anything, she felt dead.

Her head lulled against the tree she was pinned to. It took even the last ounce of energy to open her eyes.

Everything was a red blur.

Felset—Delaya. A red mess.

The sounds of her breaths echoed in her ears. The sounds of Faolin’s and Ferouzeh’s horrified breaths. Everything was too loud, too sharp.

So were the snarls and hisses in her ears.

Baeselk. Two. They were towering behind her, nailing her to the tree. She felt their wet breaths against her skin, felt its revolting hunger. But … two baeselk …

No—no, there were more present here. There were more breaths—

She blinked tight, reaching for her senses, her tortured mind.

Grunted.

But then she stopped breathing entirely when her eyes landed on whom the breaths belonged to.

Raocete. Eliver. Navy. Vurian. Levsenn. They all knelt in a line—eyes and faces vacant. Heads bowed. Hands tied behind with invisible ropes. Felset lingered a few steps from them.

And behind the queen stood the Jaguar in his animal form. Guarding her.

Still guarding her—still her dog.

Syrene snarled at him—the talons dug deeper in her shoulders. Blinding pain gushed her. Helpless and desperate, she could only rest her head against the tree as her breaths quickened, silent sobs came as gusts of raspy breaths from her gritted teeth.

“Hm,” Felset pondered. “Only my ripper and my Second are missing.”

Delaya snickered. “Worry not, the pretty prince will come scrambling to save her in no time. Wherever Syrene is, that’s where Azryle is. And vice versa.” She angled her head at Syrene. “Isn’t that right?”

Syrene’s chest pained as different claws grated her heart to bloody mess. When Azryle came here—

Felset’s lips curled in scorn. “Let’s start with these, then.”

Her heart was beating hard enough that her hands began shaking with the echoes of it. Only when they stepped out of the Darkness did Syrene see the baeselk that loomed behind her kneeling friends.

Faolin made a sound of protest but it was cut short.

“Silence, sorceress,” Delaya growled.

But Syrene heard none of it as she beheld the baeselk. Human—it looked so utterly human, the shape of it at least. But the face so horrendous that Syrene couldn’t bear to look at it. Knew it would haunt her dreams.

If she lived.

Its skin was still wet sickly grey, like all the other baeselk. But his human shape was what had her whimpering in terror.

Its talons rose to Raocete’s shoulder.

For a moment, as horror and fear worked together and threatened cleave her apart, Syrene beheld her mentor—beheld the woman she’d loved so fiercely. Beheld the Darkness in the veins behind her skin—only Raocete and Eliver bore that Darkness—but maybe because the power had indeed burned any feelings out of her heart, maybe it was because hatred had branded her so deeply that none of the times she’d spent training with the prime mattered, times she’d protected her from the world.

Syrene only saw the woman who drove that sword through her mother.

Her mother, her beautiful, brave mother …

Icy poison stabbed through Syrene’s blackened heart.

Felset didn’t notice it. Neither did Delaya.

“Here’s how it goes,” Felset said. “You will have five chances.” She swept her finger across the five people kneeling before her. “Five chances to loosen your grip on Drighrem. With each chance lost, a head lost. Understand?” Nothing but cold fury in her voice. “Better believe I will whittle my power out of you, Heir of Grinon Alpenstride. Know that this is the least painful way.”

The baeselk’s talon grazed Raocete’s neck—for the beast, it might even have been a gentle touch, even as blood streaked the spot.

Her nails dug in the soft flesh of her palms, as if that would distract her from the pain about to rip her heart to bits and pieces.

Felset moved closer to Raocete. “Loosen the grip, Syrene.”

If she gave up Drothiker, there was no hope for this world, no salvation for all those people. Felset would claim its power and diffuse Destiny, stop the device from bestowing the promised death.

Syrene’s nails dug deeper in her palms and she knew the blood that filled her nails wasn’t entirely from the ruined fingertips.

Her gaze remained on Raocete. She was beyond words, beyond function.

She only urged her mentor, Get up. She willed all the fury in her thought, the entire scrap of power she had. If universe truly loathed the sisters, let it help her convey her thoughts. Get up, you coward. All the hatred filled her head. You’re going to die without knowing what you did to her? You deserve to feel the pain, you deserve to—

The prime’s head tumbled to the ground.

The blow was so swift, so sudden, that it took moments for Syrene to register what had happened. She paused. The pain in her shoulders, her entire body, paused.

She only watched as blood—olive-green blood—scattered across the twigs. Watched as the rest of Raocete’s kneeling form went down.

The woman who’d lived longer than anyone, the most powerful being on Ianov, the woman who had fought and fought and fought and had earned the unending amount of admiration from the people … went down without lifting a finger at her enemy.

The woman who’d made Syrene.

Every thought came like a glass shard grating her chest.

Even on the ground, Raocete’s face remained blank as the night overhead.

Then came the shrieking in her skull—the endless, wordless shrieking that had her trembling violently, even as it earned her the deepening of talons in her shoulder until they grazed bone.

Still, any sound died in her throat.

The obliterating horror that slaughtered her within succumbed everything else.

She barely registered as Felset moved to Eliver.

The curious gleam was long gone from his eyes, the life that hadn’t diminished even in Jegvr.

His face was dead.

“Loosen the grip, Syrene.”

Grip—all she had to do was loosen her grip, all she had to do was let it end, the suffering, the pain, the endless torments shall end.

She stared at Eliver’s face. The man who’d traveled half the world when she’d sent one letter only to help her with Drothiker, the man who hadn’t even demanded better living conditions and stayed in a frigid forest.

Loosen the grip, Syrene.

But her gaze drifted to Eliver’s veins. Dark against his pale skin—visible in the unnatural dark.

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

Her heart broke. Broke so violently she felt the echoes of the crack.

The head fell—the sickening rip rung in each part of her.

And Syrene only stared. Stared and stared and stared.

The shrieking in her bones, her blood worsened. She couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand the onslaught of absolute despair that drowned her.

She didn’t dare gaze towards where Faolin and Ferouzeh had gone still as death. As they felt the same horror, the devastation.

Then Felset moved to Navy.

The shrieking stopped. Such silence filled her head.

There were no Dark veins in Navy’s skin.

Alive—her friend—her sister—was alive. Not a host to some Darkness, but human.

“Loosen the grip, Syrene.”

Terror—utter terror paralyzed Syrene. Her lungs felt as if they’d been expanded, the airway blocked.

She saw the amusement on Felset’s face, the smirk, and knew the queen would be relishing every second of the breaking that would take place in mere seconds, knew the queen would suck on it and let it provide all the pleasure she’d been craving.

Move, Syrene urged herself. Move. Move. Move.

She attempted, but the talons pinning her scratched her bone again, brutally enough that her cry echoed in the empty world. The cry of a wounded, tormented animal.

Pain. There was so much pain. In her spirit, in her mind, in her heart, in her body.

She just wanted it to end. She only wanted a short reprieve from this.

For moments, Syrene only breathed as dread very slowly dug its claws in her and shook her to core.

Then baeselk rose its finger’s to Navy’s neck.

Syrene closed her eyes. She was dead anyway, there was no recovering from the wounds that had torn her today. No salve to heal all that’d been ruined.

She did not have to watch, did not have to witness—she only had to let the noises bewitch her and throw her in that state where she felt nothing—just had to let the sounds guide her and brand her soul.

As soon as her lids dropped, Syrene heard the rip.

And the sound rattled her to her essence. It began echoing in her, in the marrow of her bones, in the hollow that was her heart.

She let it rise and claim her. Let it grip her foot and tug her in the sea and drown her.

A gasp.

And then a shrill noise pierced the night.

Her eyes flew open as hope—crumpling, obliterating hope—paved its way into her.

There was a pause in the world. Not a single motion.

Navy knelt in one piece. So did Vurian and Levsenn. Their heads still on their shoulders.

But the baeselk behind them was burning. Not in any natural fires, not in any earthly flames.

But raw, vicious fire—anger brimming in its flames.

And the gasp, to Syrene’s crumpling relief, belonged to Delaya.

For there was a sword wedged between Felset’s ribs—Darkness coated the blade that stuck out of her chest, bubbling the blood that dripped from it.

Behind the queen towered Azryle, eyes darker than the ceaseless night conquering. Living shadows touched his shoulders, his neck, his fingers, which dug into the flesh of Felset’s neck.

Death incarnate.

“Hello, Your Majesty,” he whispered in her ear. And though his voice was softer than velvet, there was nothing but intent of suffering and endless tortures on his face.

Chaos reigned after that.

Delaya’s power came in a wave, brushed past Syrene to gather itself in her hand, with every intention to reduce Azryle to ashes, but Faolin lunged for her like a bird broken free of its bounds. They went rolling across the floor—powers and fists flying towards one another.

The baeselk beside Syrene shrieked their oncoming assault, but Vendrik was already on him, throwing fires.

Azryle met Syrene’s gaze across the chaos as the prince drove the queen to her knees.

The message conveyed.

You do not yield.

A command. With those shadows across him, that power he’d let take over, it was always a command.

And so, she didn’t.

Instead, Syrene went spiraling down into the abyss of the eternal power to find Drothiker.