Drake snarls at the elders as the elder attempts to move through the crowds. The crowd disperses around them, and Everist takes one step forward. “Don’t,” he warns as they get closer. “She’ll get on the boat.”
They pause, mid-step, then hover nearby. My fingers tremble with the need to touch each of them, to let my powers seep through their bodies until they are nothing but ash.
The rest of the chosen embrace their families one last time until the watchful eyes of the elders force them to separate.
One of the veiled girls crosses her arms, then glares at Drake and my sister. “She’s ruining this for all of us!”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Isolda,” Drake warns. He glances at the elders, his nostrils flaring as he leads Arabella to the boat. She climbs inside with his help, her eyes widening at the surrounding sea waters we have been told to stay away from ever since I can remember.
“Where’s Cali?” Ari asks as Drake gets into his own boat.
“She’ll come,” he promises, casting his gaze around.
I close my eyes, unable to listen to them for another moment.
Isolda climbs into the boat in front of me. The crowd roars as the dongs sound from the ancient bell, one for each of the chosen. Half the group glances around frantically, as the elders walk to the shore.
I shift from Everist’s view, who stands behind Isolda’s boat. I notice my father is behind Arabella, tears in his eyes as he holds her hands in his, shaking his head at a question I cannot hear.
On the second dong, they push the boats out to sea, and one of the chosen grips the sides, shaking his head and removing his veil. “I don’t want to go,” he shouts in a chorus of cheering, his panicked pleas lost in the crowd. “Please, Mother!”
A man, woman, and two children turn their backs on the boy in the boat. I assume they are the boy’s family, from the parents’ tears. The boy who called out looks over the side of his boat, but recoils deeper into his seat upon spotting a ghostly hand breaking the surface of the waters.
There is no escaping now. To abandon the tournament means braving the dead in the sea, and if he survives, then he’d have to face the wrath of the elders and Azkiel, as well as breaking the tournament’s blood oath, resulting in the death of his family.
My mind fogs as I remove my hood, racing into the waters, my mouth drying as I push myself forward.
“Stop her!”
Yells sound behind me as people grasp the air behind me, all too afraid to touch the dark waters.
The energy shifts the instant I enter Azkiel’s domain, the only place where magic can be siphoned. Holding my satchel to my chest, I reach out for the guiding light of Isolda’s torch as the inky waves swallow my torso.
The icy waters prick against my feet, and seaweed slides around my ankles as I delve deeper, until I’m kicking my legs, treading water. I have only seconds before the dead find me and drag me to their depths. I swim a few feet to Isolda’s boat, grabbing its side just as I spot ghostly fingers breaking the sea’s surface.
The boat tips sideways as I swiftly push myself up and climb aboard, water sloshing inside. With the boat still rocking and my heart beating wildly, I sit myself up and draw in a deep breath, trembling from head to toe.
My father screams my name into the night, but I refuse to meet his frightened gaze. Instead, I turn to Isolda. Even though I know it’s too late to turn back now, that doesn’t stop the tears from stinging my eyes.
I hesitate as she stares at me. “What in the Darklands are you doing?” She shouts as gray-blue arms rise from the waves, followed by the heads of the moving corpses.
My heart pounds as I glance over the edge.
“Get off my boat, you lunatic,” she screams, pushing me to the side. I grimace and fall against the wood.
Glancing into the water, I gasp as the dead draw closer, their white, sunken eyes as terrifying as the stretched skin over their mouths. I always believed it was only souls in these waters, but they still have physical, decaying forms.
Hands reach inside, toward me, and I close my eyes, willing the decay magic to come. Death said they only will allow those with the chosen one’s magic in their veins to pass, but as the decay magic slips into my fingers, bile climbs my throat.
She shoves me harder this time, her weight slamming against mine.
I grab her wrist, and my fingers darken at the ends. “I’m sorry,” I say as the townspeople’s yells fill the night, but it is Isolda’s blood-curdling scream that runs me cold.
Under my touch, her fingers turn to ash, and as the rot swiftly climbs through her veins, her skin adopts a sickening gray color. She grasps at her chest as it caves inward, her jaw slacked as her screams dry into silence. I avert my eyes, unable to watch as I will the magic to consume every inch of her.
Her family’s cries ring into the night, following me to Tenenocti as they watch their daughter crumble to ash, dead before she even had a chance to fight.
A tear slides down my cheek, and my stomach knots. Isolda’s magic leaves her body, and siphoning becomes as easy as breathing. Her mental resistance seeps unfamiliarly into my mind, melding with the decay magic until they are forced to coexist.
In my peripheral vision, I spot Drake and Ari, horror mixed with disappointment in their expressions. Tears fall, thick and fast, but as the dead rest back within the waters, sensing Isolda’s magic inside of me, I accept my inevitable fate.
I am a murderer, a monster just like Death, and as Tenenocti draws closer, I know I am about to become so much worse.
TWENTYAzkiel
I have never seen such destruction at the hands of a mortal. It is wondrous, like watching an echo of myself.
If she wasn’t heading to my sisters and brothers—bringing the prophecy to the precipice of fruition—I would be proud of her bravery. However, the sentiment is overshadowed by the panic shuddering in my bones.
She cannot die there. I must stop her.
I run cold as the reality of what I must do sinks in.
Fuck.
I watch from the empty stretch of shoreline, away from the crowd. Calista’s every movement demands attention. Flames flicker from inside the boats, and the pale, rotting fingers of the corpses caress the symbols etched into the wood.
They long for the souls of the sacrifices to join them, to quench the loneliness. But no matter how many they drown to join them in the Black Sea, they will always feel empty. Or perhaps some of the dead, foolishly, believe if they obey my commands, I will one day free them.
