Promise of Wrath (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 6) (35 page)

“You don’t really think that’s it, do you?” he asked, coming toward me, the purple glyphs blaring brightly across his arms.

I avoided a punch I was certain would have taken my head off, and hit him in the chest with another electrical shock, sending him back a few feet again. Mordred took that opportunity to wrap tendrils of blood magic around Baldr’s arm, which caused him to yell. He threw a ball of light that exploded in Mordred’s face. He screamed and dropped to his knees.

Baldr ignored him, and turned his attention to me once more. “I hear you can’t use blood magic,” he said with a chuckle, as his own blood magic trickled over his fingers, forming a blade. “It’s a real shame; you’ll never know the joy of using it to take someone’s life.”

I hadn’t had the time to take any souls before I’d come upstairs to face Baldr; I hadn’t wanted to leave Mordred alone for a second longer than necessary. But it meant that my necromancy wasn’t as strong as it might have been otherwise. Baldr was stronger, faster, and much more powerful than I was, even with my new upgrades. I wished that I’d taken Kay’s spirit. The extra power could have really come in handy.

So I did the only thing I could, and, keeping an eye on Baldr, who didn’t seem that concerned about us, walked over to Mordred.

“Are you okay?”

Baldr looked at his nails and scratched his jaw a little, but was in no hurry to fight us.

“My light magic lets me heal much quicker than most sorcerers. I’ll be back to normal in a few seconds. Didn’t realize light magic could hurt
me
though. That’s new.”

“I need time,” I whispered.

“How much?”

“I need to take Kay’s spirit, but I have no idea what it’ll do to me. It’s the only way, though. I need the power. We can’t beat him like this.”

Mordred got to his feet. “I’ll give you time, Nate. Just hurry.”

I sank down into the shadows around me, landing in my shadow realm. I moved the gray world around until I found the shadows that left the room, and tried to go further, but it was too difficult, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to make those shadows come to me.

“You can only emerge from shadows that are within a certain area of you,” Erebus told me as he stepped out of the gray. “Hello, Nate.”

“Are we in the shadow realm or my head?” I asked.

“Both. We’re still in your head, but you’re physically in the shadow realm. I can’t go into that realm; I’m not actually a real person.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To stop you from making a huge mistake.”

CHAPTER
37

I
really don’t have time for this. Mordred is going to die if I don’t help.” I snapped.

“We are in your mind,” Erebus said, his voice calm. He looked exactly like me except with longer hair. “Time doesn’t pass here in the same way. A few seconds there, a few minutes here. We have time.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Go.”

“Do you really want to take Kay’s soul? You know what you’ll see?”

“Jane’s death. I’m aware. But I need the power. We can’t beat Baldr; he’s too strong. I need something, and if that means putting myself through whatever awful shit sits inside Kay’s soul, then so be it. I’ll deal. Besides, maybe it’ll show me who these
my liege
are.”

“You don’t believe that for one second. You know full well that whoever manipulated the minds of these people isn’t about to let you figure it out just by taking their souls. You know there will be traps and things planted inside his memories for an occasion such as this. Besides, can you even take Kay’s soul? He didn’t die fighting; he died kneeling on the floor, gagged so he couldn’t beg for his life.”

“So what do I do?” A thought occurred to me. “The blood elves. I can take
their
souls, use them instead. Some of them fought back.”

“You can, yes. And then what?”

“Is there a point asking me?” I snapped. “And then I go kill Baldr.”

“Even with added power, killing him won’t be easy. He’s much older than you or Mordred and considerably more powerful. He walked through your magic; only lightning had any effect. And we’re not outside, so using natural lightning is impossible.”

“Okay, so what do I do?”

“When those curse marks were added to you, when they stopped you from accessing your magic, they also planted the knowledge of how to use them inside you. I am that knowledge. I taught you how to use your lightning, didn’t I?”

I nodded. “So you tap me on the head, and I know how to use my shadow magic?”

He shook his head. “Shadow magic is powerful—more powerful than most realize. And while it’s true you can’t bring sorcerers into your shadow realm, and anyone you do bring in here will start to weaken quickly, there’s another reason you shouldn’t bring people down here.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

Erebus pointed behind me. “That’s the reason why.”

I turned and almost jumped out of my skin. A few feet away was a floating mass of darkness. The shrouded figure wore long, dark robes that rippled along the floor, seemingly with a life of their own. It wore gray armor over its chest, visible under the robes, and its hands were little more than claws. Two orbs of blue light bobbed inside the shadow where the creature’s face should be.

“What is
that
?” I asked.

“A wraith. Don’t worry; we’re still in your head. I’m just showing you what’s currently happening in your shadow realm.”

“They live in my shadow realm?”

“This one does. Every sorcerer who uses shadow magic has his own realm. The realms are a part of you; you are linked to it by more than just the ability to go there. Should it be damaged, that damage will happen to you. It’s your own little place to tend and take care of.”

“And the wraith does what?”

“Well, the wraith feeds on anyone you bring in here. It’s why you really shouldn’t bring anyone in here. They don’t distinguish between friend and foe. They distinguish between you, and not-you. And the not-yous are to be eliminated as quickly as possible.”

“So this realm is dangerous to anyone I bring in here?”

Erebus nodded. “There’s an upside, though. The wraith feeds on the bodies of those you bring here. It literally folds that person’s power into you. It increases your power without having to take a soul to do it. It isn’t as powerful as your necromancy, but it’s quicker, and it means you don’t have to learn everything of the person from the souls you take.”

“Will it help strengthen my necromancy?”

Erebus shrugged. “The number of sorcerer necromancers can be counted on both hands and feet. Those of you who use shadow magic, too—probably on one hand; I have no idea. When those blood-curse marks were put on you, so was some knowledge of how to use your magic: knowledge that’s still inside your subconscious mind, inside
me
. You need to know how to use it. You need to confront your wraith. It won’t hurt you. You’re its master, its reason for existing. A little bit like me.”

“You want to take control of me, though.”

“True. Although not for the reasons you think. I’m hoping once those other marks are gone, I’ll be able to explain why. You’ll be able to understand what I truly am, and why you need me. And then I’ll vanish forever.”

I whipped around toward him. “
You’ll vanish?”

“Once you have no more marks, and I’ve done what needs to be done, yes. I have no interest in keeping control of you forever. That’s not what a sorcerer’s magic does. You have been lied to about us, about the power a sorcerer possesses. All of you, all sorcerers, have been lied to. We are not your enemy. I know you don’t believe that, not truly. And I understand why. But you will. Like I said before, we are your birthright, not your enemy.”

“So every single sorcerer under two thousand years old has been lied to?”

“That’s my guess, yes. At some point, you’ll have to find out why, and who arranged it, but they are problems for another time. Less immediate than your current situation.”

The idea of not having Erebus there, to have him leave—it didn’t feel good. I didn’t know what he was, or why my magic felt the need to create someone for me to talk to, and I had no idea if it happened to every sorcerer, but the thought that we’d been lied to about what the magic was, about what nightmares were . . . That was something I would not allow to continue, and would need to be investigated further.

“Good luck,” Erebus said. “Your power is greater than it ever was before. Calling me to help will be much harder, the amount of power you’d need to use to bring me to the surface, incredible. But we’ll see one another again, soon. Until then.”

He vanished and the wraith began to move toward me, the robes trailing it. It stopped just in front of me and looked down. It was over seven feet tall, and the robes brushed against the bare skin on my arms. It wasn’t scary, or worrying. I felt no malice or anger from the being.

“So you’re like my gardener in here?” I said.

The wraith’s voice echoed all around me.
I am here to protect you. I am here to feed you power. I am a wraith. I will sustain you.

“‘Sustain?’ I don’t need food and water?”

Sustain your power. You should probably continue to eat and drink.

I wasn’t sure, but I thought I noticed a hint of sarcasm in its voice. “Wait there.” I moved the shadow realm around me until I found the exit I needed and emerged on the staircase outside of the room where Mordred was fighting Baldr. I wished Mordred luck and sprinted down the stairs until I saw the bodies of the elves. I enveloped them in shadow and dropped them into the shadow realm, where I followed a second later.

The six elves were lying in the middle of the realm as the wraith hovered nearby.
You should not watch this.

“I have questions,” I said as it hovered close to the bodies.

Be quick; their presence causes me pain.

That was information I hadn’t been expecting. “Can you leave this realm?”

It turned back to me, and regarded me with its eyes.
Yes. If you wish it. I am strong, fast, and magic cannot harm me. But light will harm me, and I cannot feed in your realm. My time there is fleeting. I would not be able to recognize friend from foe for long, either. I advise against bringing me out of this realm.

I removed the tablet from my armor. “Can I leave this here?”

Anything you leave in this realm will be here when you return. The exits might change for you, depending on the shadows around you, but this is your realm, your creation. Go help your friend.

“Thank you.” I placed the tablet on the ground before leaving the shadow realm. I ran back up the staircase to Mordred and Baldr and reached the floor as Baldr stepped out of the room.

“You ran off,” he said. “Mordred didn’t fare so well by himself.”

I looked behind Baldr and saw Mordred lying on the floor, his face a mask of blood. His chest rose and fell steadily, though, so he wasn’t dead. He turned my way, opened one eye and smiled as the cuts on his face began to heal in front of my eyes.

I nodded.

“So what’s the plan here?” Baldr asked. “Going to use your shadow magic a bit more? Maybe you’re going to try to electrocute me. That worked well for you last time, but it’s not likely to kill me. You’re not even as powerful as Thor.”

“You like talking about him,” I said as the feeling of power swept through me. I placed a hand against the nearby wall to steady myself.

“Weakening already?” Baldr joked. “And I like talking about it because it’s the single greatest thing I’ve ever done. Murdering that unbearable asshole was my pleasure. But killing you and Mordred: that might just be even more fun.”

The feeling of gathering power had stopped, and I moved away from the wall, noticing the cracked rock where my hand had been. I wondered just how much I had after the wraith had taken all six of the blood elves. Time to find out.

A blast of lightning left my hands, smashed into Baldr and lifted him off his feet, throwing him back into the room behind.

“That it?” Baldr asked, sprinting toward me.

He was moving as fast as he had the last time, but for some reason I was able to track him with greater ease. I dodged the punch and hit him square in the jaw, which forced him to step aside. The shock on his face was easy to read, but he wouldn’t leave himself open like that again.

I motioned for him to come fight me. And winked.

He kicked out, and I wrapped his leg in air, throwing him across the hallway to the wall behind us, but he absorbed the impact and came racing back, punching me in the jaw before grabbing my arm and throwing me up into the air.

I hit the ceiling high above and immediately created a sphere of lightning in my hand, making it bigger and bigger, until it was a few feet in diameter. I fell back toward Baldr, who hastily moved aside, as I detonated the magic, tearing the floor beneath me to shreds. Baldr backed into the room with Mordred. A small blast of air magic changed my trajectory and I landed on the crumbling hallway floor, only to be met with a flash of light that forced me to turn away for a second. A second was all Baldr needed.

The blow lifted me off my feet and forced me back into the hallway, over the destroyed portion and into the wall on the far side, just as I used the shadows around it to cushion the blow. Shadows exploded up from the floor all around me and streaked toward Baldr, who dodged most of them. A few grabbed hold, but he tore his arm free, his strength greater than that of the shadows. But it kept him busy as I jumped over the hole, creating a second sphere, this one of fire, before I landed.

I drove the fire sphere into Baldr’s chest. The flames and air engulfed him, wrapping all over his body. But a second later the fire was turned into steam as water tore through the maelstrom, forcing me to dive aside.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs beside us took Baldr’s attention, and he walked back into the room, putting some distance between himself and whatever was coming to join the fight. Kasey, in her werewolf beast form, ran toward me, stopping as a low growl escaped her throat. She glanced over at Mordred and me as we got back to our feet, and then turned to Baldr, opened her mouth, and sprayed ice at him. He jumped out the window.

I ran over and watched Baldr fall the hundreds of feet, losing sight of him well before he hit the bottom.

“You think he’s dead?” Kasey asked, changing back into her human form.

I shook my head.

“He’ll survive it,” Mordred said. “If nothing else, his matter magic makes him almost impossible to kill. But it’ll be a while before he’s even close to full strength again. Thanks for the save.”

Chloe ran into the room and hugged me. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, passing Kasey her leather armor to put on.

“Me too,” I told her. “Did everyone make it?”

I got my answer quickly as everyone else walked into the room. “So far we’re all here,” Diane told me. “I’d quite like to go, though. I think we may have pissed off a lot of blood elves.”

“Also, we blew some up,” Remy said. “And part of the citadel fell off and destroyed the bridge. It was so cool. The elves were all, ‘Nooooo!’ and then they got squished. But they were colossal assholes, so I don’t exactly feel bad about it. Did you do that?”

I nodded.

“We found Stel. He’s dead too.”

“Did
you
do that?” I asked him.

“Actually no. He ran away and got squashed by part of the falling bridge. I’ll admit, I chuckled for a good solid minute.”

“He laughed so hard, I thought he was going to have an asthma attack,” Chloe told me.

Remy shrugged. “Stel threatened Kasey, kidnapped her, and almost got us all killed rescuing her. Fuck the pancake-shaped prick. So, how’d you break the citadel?”

“Another time. I know how the tablet works.” I explained about the blood use, and why the blood elves had been unable to use it to go through to the earth realm. Before everyone asked questions at once, I dropped into my shadow realm, and retrieved the tablet. I looked around for the wraith, but it was nowhere to be found, so I left.

“I figured Baldr would have gone through to the earth realm too,” Irkalla said, as I emerged. “Surprised he didn’t.”

“Wasn’t allowed to,” Mordred said. “He’s not the top of the tree. He’s close, but he’s not up there. And once we’re back in the earth realm, we’re going to have to deal with Mara, and her reason for sending us here. This isn’t over, Nate.”