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This mess could have been avoided if she’d accepted Chaos from the beginning.
Dark laughter echoed through the cavern. “Foolish shadowling. We already have you. And now we will have our war beast too.”
Chaos lashed out from her father’s expanding sphere of lightning, shattering gemstones that rained down like unfinished diamonds. Tenah didn’t have time to deflect the blow of magic. Lightning speared into her chest, bleeding an obscene amount of energy into her channels. Her screams sounded wrong in her ears, like they were coming from someone else. Her vision blurred, and her body swelled and swelled, on the brink of erupting.
Rama flared up in response, cascading through her channels to purge them of darkness. It seemed that healing magic had a mind of its own too, and it wasn’t prepared to let her fall.
Tenah stayed crouched as a thunderous boom discharged from the pit. She crawled to the edge of the stairs, perturbed by the sight of Gireth surrounded by monsters. The winged beast she’d cleansed leaped from the masses and scooped him out of harm’s way.
But that left the prisoners at her father’s mercy. The shadows on either side of Renton strained against their chains, hovering three feet above the cavern floor as dark magic poured into them from her father’s seemingly infinite well. It cut deep, spilling their tainted blood until a pool formed beneath their feet.
“Please,” Tenah cried out. “Please don’t do this. I know everything. I know that you sacrificed yourself to take this curse from me. If you’re in there, please fight against it. Ineedyou.”
Her father paused. His casting hand twitched. Bands of Chaos shot out from his sphere wildly as if straining to maintain hold.
“You don’t know a thing,” he said. “I didn’t sacrifice anything. I wanted this power.”
Flames coiled around her hands, tinted with gold and black streaks, a heaving mixture of all the emotions and power she could no longer contain.
“I know that you love me,” she said.
Her father shuddered, then he turned to look up at her from the pit, agony etched into his face.
“I do love you, Tenah. It was and always has been my greatest fault and my deepest fear.” His sphere of darkness expanded, snapping with volatile electricity. “But do not interfere with my plans again.”
Chapter46
Renton
Renton tilted his head up at the cavern ceiling, eyes closed as the other shard hosts burst into clouds of poisonous dust. Gods, what he wouldn’t give just to capture another blissful moment with Tenah before he went out. Just one more opportunity to dip his hands in her hair. To press his mouth against hers and steal her breath.
He knew a lifetime with her was too much to ask. If there were gods beyond the Greater Elementals, why would they heed his wishes? He’d done countless horrible deeds in his years on this planet. Burned a sacred temple in Hathrowyn to lay the blame at Boedworth’s feet. Cut the throats of countless shadows that had wronged Boedworth, convincing himself that the blood on his hands was justifiable because of their Corruption, even if they hadn’t progressed to physical mutations. Dragged Corrupt after Corrupt into Boedworth’s den because he’d been conditioned to believe they were nothing more than evil incarnate.
No holy gaze would cast upon him. He was right where he belonged, chained down like a demon.
“Gireth,” Renton grunted, faintly registering the presence of a winged beast at his side. His shackles jerked against his wrists as his friend jammed the pointed end of his glaive into the locks. “You need to leave.”
“You need to shut the fuck up and quit acting like you know what’s best,” Gireth raged. “You don’t, you hear me? You belong with us, not in a grave.”
Kherathi approached, unconcerned about Gireth’s presence. The lord had promised Renton that he would live as he’d shackled his wrists. But what were the promises of a madman, especially when he’d just killed the other two hosts?
Gireth whirled around to face the Chaos lord. He quickly found himself launched across the pit by a bolt of ruby flame. Feingrot closed in around him, forming a barrier of predators to cage him.
Kherathi stopped before Renton. “This will be excruciating. I will do my best to draw out the darkness. I don’t expect to walk out of Firesteep today. Do you understand?”
His inky black eyes gleamed with purpose, conveying his wishes for the protection of his daughter. Renton nodded, tensing as Kherathi eased a small blade into the puckered skin on his chest. One quick slice and warm blood spilled from the wound, stained black by the toxins of the shard.
His stomach churned. “How could I have been so close to Corruption?”
“The shard was satisfied to feed off your magic for some time,” Kherathi said. “It stands as evidence of your power.”
Renton had never thought of his magic as a gift, but now he was thankful for it. More than that, if he did survive, he was anxious to test that power. He held back a smile, knowing how infuriated Tenah would be in their next duel.
When Kherathi drew his blade back, tendrils of his searing magic wormed into Renton’s scar. Deeper and deeper into tissue, shocking his heart out of rhythm for a few beats. Renton’s mouth parted, but no sound came out as waves of pain split him apart. Chaos slithered through his body, seeking out weakness, eager to fester inside his channels. Then his vision went black.
Was this what his father had experienced when Chaos had robbed him of life? Renton had spent so many years striving to be different from his father. To be more obedient. More restrained. Less passionate. His father’s morality had been what had gotten him killed after all.
But now, Renton was grateful for the similarities. If he could speak to him one last time, it would be to thank him for teaching him how to love.
