Resurrection (Book Three of the Soul Forge series)

The Soul Forge did not heal from his wounds.

He didn’t take a breath and sit up. His eyes remained open, unseeing, and the body that had burned so hot with fever began to grow cold. When Elda laid her head against his chest, waiting for the next heart beat, it never came.

The intelligence and wisdom that was Sypher, the wit and determination that was Vel, the two halves of a whole that she loved more than life itself, had been extinguished. The wound left in Elda’s soul gaped, no amount of screaming or crying able to close it up.

“We need to deal with him before he turns,” Edward tried to tell her, tears thickening his voice. “Will you let me?”

She knew what he meant. He planned to slip the dagger into her husband’s temple, maybe even remove his head. It was the safest option, the logical thing to do given the danger, but the thought made her sick.

“He has time before it happens,” Hephaestus reassured her. “You can say your goodbyes.”

“How much time?” Edward asked when Elda was beyond answering. Julian knelt beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, Brady settling on her other side.

“I can’t be exactly certain, but several hours. Perhaps a day or two.” His rounded ears flicked towards the body on the ground. “It will take time for the magic to reanimate him.”

“It’s still safer to end it now,” Clover said quietly. “Unless you can help him?”

Hephaestus bowed his head. “I cannot.”

“Then we shouldn’t wait.”

Elda smoothed a shaking hand over her husband’s brow, tears falling onto his cooling cheeks. There would be nobody to make a stone from his ashes for her.

When Clover edged forwards, Elda whipped the remaining dagger from his boot and bared her teeth, levelling it at the Vampire so quickly the blade flashed.

“Do not touch him,” she warned. The emptiness in her voice should have frightened her.

“We have to,” Julian told her gently, kneeling in front of her with his palms out. “You know what will happen if we don’t.”

“You’re asking me to let you butcher his body before it’s even cold.”

Julian flinched. “Elda, sweetheart,” he murmured when he recovered. “The alternative is much worse.”

Slowly, Elda let the dagger drop. She accepted the hand Julian offered, getting slowly to her feet and allowing herself to be turned away from the Soul Forge. It felt wrong to leave him on the frozen ground.

She was eight feet away when night exploded. Blackness enveloped the trees, the sky, her friends. The world around her became a void, brimming with writhing, angry darkness.

It wasn’t the controlled tendrils of shadow Vel had taught her to use. It wasn’t even the thrashing blackness he’d wielded in the desert. This was something… unhinged.

Julian lost his grip on her, the pair of them separated by whatever magic had descended upon the clearing they were in. Somewhere to Elda’s left, Cain snarled and Ember whimpered.

And then the shadows rescinded and her world fell apart.

The thing standing there was not Sypher. It was not Vel. It was nothing, emptiness, absence. White irises surrounded by black stared blankly, feathered wings hanging low. Its head straightened abruptly, lifting like a marionette being controlled by its strings.

The Soul Forge was gone, and in his place was a monster. Elda reacted out of fear, smacking the blue gem on her Soul Blade and whipping her dagger towards the creature with absolute certainty that her husband, her Sypher, her Vel, would not want this.

And Hephaestus knocked it away with a wave of his hand. It stuck tip-down in the dirt, redirected by a pulse of shimmering power. The next wave threw her friends down, slamming her onto her back in the mud. Even the dragons staggered.

“Why?” Elda whispered, her eyes wide.

Hephaestus sighed, his expression infinitely sad. “Because you are not enough.”

The Spirit vanished, and blackness swallowed the listless corpse of the Soul Forge a second later, leaving nothing behind. The princess moved slowly, struggling to her knees with wide eyes.

You are not enough. Sypher, Vel, they were dead because she failed them. You are not enough. They were in this situation because she trusted Hephaestus to protect them. You are not enough. Everyone she loved was in danger because she failed.

You are not enough.

The scream that tore its way out of Elda’s chest cracked her heart in two.