Darksprites weren’t as strong as Empyreals, so the sudden lack of strength in the rest of Nicole’s body would make her useless in a physical fight. But Darksprites were prone to mischief, which meant their powers were more tailored to manipulating or confusing people.
When Nicole spotted the suit of armour by the doors, she dropped to it silently.
It was harder to rip the spear off the suit than expected, and while the first pull on the cold metal was near silent, it wouldn’t stay that way: the lance was heavy, and secure. So, using her new night-born swirls of magic, she thought of the ‘please don’t touch’ sign on one of the tables a floor below and imagined it being shoved off onto the stone flags. The corresponding clatter jolted through Nicole.
The Ban-Sìth’s head whipped towards the noise and she immediately drifted down to investigate.
As she did, Nicole yanked on the spear and the armour clashed like thunder.
The Ban-Sìth launched back upwards as Nicole’s Darksprite magic formed a spectral claw, cinching the creature’s throat and cutting off her scream before she could blindly attack. Smothered, the Ban-Sìth threw herself higher to dislodge Nicole’s phantom grip, suspended for a moment against the backdrop of the hell fresco.
Giving Nicole the perfect shot.
She ran forward and flung the spear limned in glittering magic.
It met its target with a crack, piercing the creature’s chest and throwing her back, up towards the mythological ceiling of painted monsters, and pinning her into the maw of the hell beast in the ceiling.
Nicole’s breath sawed out of her at the sight of the Ban-Sìth’s shocked eyes.
Before her new powers faded, Nicole’s logical mind broke through. She needed answers, and therefore she needed the body down from the ceiling.
Those night-made hands dragged the creature free as Nicole let her wings lift her up and over the rail of the double staircase and down onto the floor below. Blood streamed for a moment over the steps in a lurid slash of red, spattering Nicole’s shoulder, but she laid the dying Ban-Sìth on the cold stone, keeping her pinned just in case.
‘Why are you here?’ Nicole demanded. She’d wanted it to be forceful, but her voice in this form sounded more like a raspy whisper.
Still, the creature heard her.
‘Your mate … killed … my cousin.’
The Ban-Sìth Kyan had killed back in Estwood to protect her, the one that had planned to kill Nicole after being drawn to her newly-transformed scent … He’d taken care of it, and that night they’d spent their first evening together.
Though this Ban-Sìth had planned to kill her, it didn’t stop the guilt puncturing the memory.
‘I’m sorry,’ Nicole managed.
She glanced up as Bells rushed into the room, standing breathless in the dark doorway that looked, for a jarring moment, like a portal to the afterlife.
‘How did you find us?’ Nicole asked. ‘Did the Wake send you?’
‘The Wake.’ The Ban-Sìth laughed a broken sound, blood gurgling on her pale lips as if she wanted to spit at the thought. ‘No. I just – followed the scent of death.’
Nicole met her sister’s stricken eyes.
‘What does that mean?’
‘You all reek of it.’
‘Why?’ Nicole demanded.
Was it her Empyrean powers, and the fact that to protect she had to kill? Or the visions Bells had every night, the deaths of all kinds of creatures and humans?
‘It’s coming,’ the Ban-Sìth said. ‘The Hunt … is coming—’ Her white shift whipped about like a cursed gothic heroine’s as the creature sucked in her last breath.
And as it stilled, so did the Ban-Sìth.
With the creature’s death, Nicole’s Empyrean power was satisfied.It spooled back through her with such a rush the wicked paintings on the walls danced and jeered as her body unmade itself and returned her to her normal state, shedding the borrowed wings until they slid off her back to disintegrate and her limbs regained their strength.
But as her Darksprite magic leached into the air, fear bolted through Nicole. She braced for the pain to come next, feeling a short but intense rush of grief that Kyan wasn’t here to hold her through it like last time.
