Page 34 of Steeling Light (Shadowed Debts #3)
We created the High Fae Houses. We gave their bloodlines power. We gave them all purpose within this world. We were deliberate. But we didn’t anticipate the blending of bloodlines. It was a glorious mistake, and the world is better because of it.
~Inni the Destroyer, The Future of Magic and Dragons
Ainslee
I was not born to be a warrior, but Cole trained me to be one.
Light covers my entire body as I swing, the Nightforged steel daggers coming within inches of Morvael.
Over and over again, I attack, and all he does is slowly step back.
My blades don’t connect, but I’m pushing him away from my mother.
Her screams slowly quiet the further away from her I push Morvael.
He's snarling and hissing with each step. I can see him. Not just that strange emptiness that we’d all seen before. I can see the person he is. Wherever my light touches becomes solid, becomes a boundary, and I’m sure that if my blades connect with that part of him, they’d cut, and he’d bleed.
He’s just too fast. He’d grown as soon as my mother had fallen, as he’d pulled her power from her, but my light is burning him. I just have to keep fighting, keep pushing, and, like Rhion said, we’ll wear away his power.
And the face in the darkness is furious.
“I WON’T KILL YOU. I WILL KEEP YOU HERE IN NIGHTMARES FOREVER.
YOU WILL DREAM OF KILLING YOUR brOTHER, OF WATCHING YOUR FRIENDS BE TORTURED TO DEATH, AND OF NEVER FEELING YOUR LOVER’S TOUCH AGAIN.
I WILL PUT YOU SO DEEP INTO NIGHTMARES THAT YOU’LL NEVER KNOW HAPPINESS AGAIN FOR EVEN A MOMENT.
ALL YOU WILL KNOW IS FEAR AND SADNESS. I WILL FEED ON YOU UNTIL I brEAK FREE OF THIS CAGE, AND THEN I WILL AWAKEN YOU JUST TO LET YOU SEE WHAT YOU’VE brOUGHT THE WORLD. ”
I say nothing in response; my movements are my only speech. Raven wings sprout from my back, powerful yet agile. I leap forward, and my wings carry me further. This time, Morvael doesn’t step back quite far enough.
My blade catches him across the shoulder, and he screams. Black smoke rises from the wound before it closes up, and he shrinks a little more.
Yes! I can do this. I can kill a god. My daggers are a blur, cutting and stabbing the darkness in front of me. Each time those thin pieces of steel touch him, a bit of black smoke rises into the air. I miss more than I connect, but I could do this for hours. Cole certainly forced me to do more.
Morvael is shrinking by the second, and a cloud of black smoke hangs in the air. I move without thinking. My strikes are made by reflex rather than thought. I’ve never felt like this before. It’s like nothing in the world could stop me.
He spins. My blades rake across his back, and though he hisses in pain, I realize why he turned. In a solid hand, he grips Rhion by the throat. Tendrils of black hold his arms down.
And I stop. I can’t kill him before he crushes the life out of Rhion. There’s nothing I can do to save him. If Morvael wants to kill the man I love, he can do it.
Rhion shifts, a tail sprouting from behind him and sharpened vines snaking from his abdomen. His neck and head become smaller to escape Morvael’s grasp just as I’d done when the sylph had tried to collar me in the Keep of Shadows.
“Wait!” I shout.
Morvael ignores me. Pitch black darkness rushes around Rhion, and then Movael’s head swivels, his body staying perfectly still.
“YOU CAME HERE TO KILL ME, HIGH FAE. YOU CAME HERE HOPING TO DESTROY ONE OF THE GODS OF THIS WORLD. DID YOU EXPECT TO DO WHAT NO ONE ELSE COULD? NO MATTER HOW MANY CUTS, NO MATTER HOW MUCH LIGHT, YOU CANNOT DESTROY A PIECE OF THE INFINITE.
“YOUR PAIN IS ONLY JUST BEGINNING. I HAVE CHANGED MY MIND. I WILL NOT KILL YOUR LOVER. HIS STRENGTH WILL BE ENOUGH FOR ME TO brEAK THIS CAGE. A HUNDRED YEARS OF HIS AGONY WILL GIVE ME ENOUGH POWER TO BECOME WHAT I ONCE WAS. HE WILL RELIVE THE MOST TERRIBLE MEMORIES OF HIS LIFE. I HAVE TASTED THEM, AND THEY ARE DELICIOUS. YOU WILL WATCH THEM ALL. YOUR NIGHTMARE WILL BE SEEING HIM CRY OUT A THOUSAND TIMES.”
“No,” I snarl, but there’s not enough weight to it. “You won’t kill me, Morvael. I am not a god, but I am your weakness. You cannot destroy me unless I let you. I may not be able to kill you, but you can’t kill me either.”
I think of the man who has shown me what life should be. My daggers go back into their sheaths, and I step toward Morvael. The memory of our first kiss pervades every crack and forgotten place in my mind. Perfect control. A perfect memory.
He is a man who wants no one and nothing as much as he wants me. He’s waited a thousand years to press his lips to mine. There’s so much passion and love and need and trust. He could have anyone in the world, and he chose me. He gave his heart to me, and he’s never regretted it.
Pride rages through me like an icy fire, filling me up with possibilities , but they have nowhere to go. Instead, they sit, simmering like a colony of ants, ready to move as soon as there is something, anything they can do.
And I smile. The pride lingers patiently, but that memory is so much more than pride. It is hope. It is love. It is every single emotion that a nightmare cannot touch.
It is life, the thing that conquers the darkness, that reminds us mere High Fae that there is a reason to take another step. That kiss, that memory, is life. Not cheer.
Light explodes from me even stronger than that night. It isn’t a manipulation or an illusion. No, the light that pours from my body is something alive; it is a part of me.
And it is silver like the moon, not white.
The possibilities understand before I do. They flow into the light, traveling through the air in a way that shouldn’t be possible. They strike Morvael as daggers, axes, and swords. They pierce him with spears and arrows.
The entire world glows as if it’s alight with liquid silver. The very air I breathe contains it, bits of life . It gives me courage and hope, and I finally respond amid Morvael’s tortured hisses and cries.
“You are the God of Nightmares, but I am awake. Nightmares cannot control the mind and heart of someone who knows that tomorrow will be better than today. I will not succumb to fear because the worst days of my life are behind me. I have already survived my nightmares, Morvael. You have no power over me.”
He screams a final cry, and then he disappears as the silver light washes over the place where he was. Even the black smoke that had tried to pull me into despair is gone. His influence is gone.
Rhion is still unconscious, lying on the ground where Morvael dropped him when he disappeared.
I rush to him to see if he’s still alive.
I fall to my knees and realize his breathing is slow, but the rise and fall of his chest is steady.
He looks paler than I can remember, and tears run down his cheeks, but he’s alive.
I let go of the light and slump a little as I realize just how much power had flowed through me. Enough to kill a god. What had I done? How had my light been able to attack him like it did?
I run my hand over Rhion’s cheek to wipe off the tears, and his eyes flutter open. “Ainslee,” he whispers. “Ainslee, I had a terrible dream. You were… you were married to someone else. You were happy. I… I’d lost you. Forever.”
There’s no stopping my tears now, and they run freely onto the stupidly expensive gambeson that Rhion’s wearing.
“It was a nightmare,” I say and lean down to kiss Rhion.
This time, when I press my lips to his, there’s no explosion of light.
There’s just a sense of peace. This is right. Me and Rhion. Together.
I walked through a world of darkness before this past month. I stood against the storm clouds that always lingered on the horizon by telling myself there was no other option. I hoped to find happiness in the spaces between the tears.
But when I’m with Rhion, it doesn’t matter if there are storm clouds.
Even today, before we battled a god, we were happy.
Tragedies happen. Tears will be shed because that’s a part of life, but every moment with this man has been a bright spot.
For the past month, I haven’t walked through the world because that was the only option.
I have yearned for the nights that I could walk beside him.
I realized what life is supposed to be because of him. I never want to go another day without him.
“Rhion, I want to ask you for something,” I whisper.
He smiles up at me, and even though he’s still as pale as a sheet of white linen, he says, “I’d give you the world and moon if your pockets were large enough.”
“I don’t want the world and moon. I want you, Rhion Rahn. Forever.”
He chuckles, but it comes out as a cough. “Darling, you’ve always had me. You just didn’t know it yet.”