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In my restless slumber, I flail and thrash. Sweat pools across my forehead and leaks down my back.
Then, amid the ravage and ruin, a voice calls to me.
Arluin’s voice.
I jolt from my sheets and fling them aside as though they are the source of my torment. My wrist throbs. With shuddering breaths, I glance down. The mark is still bound by the scraps of my skirts. I don’t loosen the knot to check.
For a moment I consider summoning a frozen blade and using it to gouge the shadows from my skin, but I don’t know how deeply the tendrils of dark magic sink into my flesh. And if I do, Arluin will know I am here. Alive.
I haul myself from the mattress, and my bare feet press into the icy floor. My slippers must have loosened during my sleep. I don’t search for them and continue through my room. My toes soon reach the plush rug, and I stop at the center.
Mr. Waddles watches me from the opposite cabinet. My fingers curl and my jaw hardens, and then I storm across the room and seize him. My nails claw into him and pierce his seams.
All I can see in its glossy black eyes is Arluin.
Arluin as he kills my father and raises him from the dead. Arluin as he murders Eliya and forever extinguishes her bright light.
My heart blazes with anguish and hatred. Magic, which has recovered from my rest, burns with it.
“Ignis,” I snarl. Flames burst from my fingers. The stuffed toy duck catches fire. I watch as it withers in my grasp and crumbles across the floor.
And then I fall with it.
My fingers rake through the heaps of ash. I clench my fists, melding the fragile specks together.
From the corner of my eye, I glimpse my reflection in the full-length mirror to the left. Stiffly I turn my head and stare at myself.
My tattered pearlescent gown hangs from me like a tapestry of cobwebs. Dirt and blood smears the delicate fabric. A crusty scarlet line stretches across my neck.
I shove myself onto my feet and stagger. Everything sways.
They are all gone. My father, Eliya, Koby, Archmage Gidston, Kaely, her father, Erma, Mrs. Baxter. Everyone I can think of is dead, or undead. There is no one left but me.
I drag my gaze over to the window. Darkness envelops the city. The streets are as still and silent as before I fell asleep.
The glittering of my father’s staff catches my eyes. I start over to it and lift it from where it lies discarded beside my bed. Zephyr’s jewel-like eyes watch me as I walk. Until now, I didn’t realize he was awake. Perhaps my flames woke him. I don’t turn to look at him.
Magic vibrates beneath my fingers as I clench the staff. Across the glimmering surface, I see my father’s limp head turning toward me. Shadows convulse in the empty sockets of his eyes. His mouth creases with a ravenous snarl.
I drop the weapon as though it has branded the soft flesh of my palm. It lands on the feathery mattress with a gentle thud.
Frozen in place, I gaze down at the staff, unable to shake away the nightmares which whisper across it.
My father now serves Arluin. His body will never be laid to rest. He will never slumber inside a crystal coffin. His flesh will rot upon his walking corpse until he is reduced to a putrid carcass.
No.
No, no, no.
Tears sting my eyes like acid. They hurt even more when they burst from my eyes in painfully swollen lumps.
I can’t allow my father to be defiled like this. I must save him from the shackles of undeath.
My mind numbs. I stop thinking.
I force my clammy feet inside a pair of leather boots and grab the staff. Then I leave the room. Zephyr follows me down the stairs and out the manor. I don’t stop him from following me. Though his wing is partially healed from the thick layers of Blood Balm, his flight remains significantly reduced. But he keeps up with me as I enter the darkness. My own pace is slow and heavy.
Shadows shroud the streets, and it’s hard to discern my path. I don’t summon an illumination orb, though. I let my legs lead me on and on, until they bring me to the Arcanium.
