Page 29 of Bright Soul

I dipped my chin, humiliated. The great Phaeron et Sudair could not save a housecat, let alone the innocents still trapped in this pocket dimension. The blood and gore, corruption and death… It blurred together into the Void’s giggling seams.

Until she arrived, days or moments or years later.

She screamed my name with a human accent. I knew the girl struggling in Garroway’s arms, and my eyes widened in recognition.

Some of the madness drained from my head, dimming the Void and muting the nonsense of time’s passing. I was truly returned the moment I whispered her name,Carly, an ordinary human with dirty ocean-blue hair and torn clothes.

My mate’s sister, here, being presented to Myuna. Panic turned my heart into a racing blur as Myuna’s white-glazed eyes danced toward me and a smile curved the morass of her mouth. “You know this girl, Phaeron. I seem to recall her likeness too, from your memories.”

“Leave her be.” My demand was weakened by the huff of effort it took for me to stand. Shadows lengthened in the room, bending to my command even though I’d long been obeying an order not to move from my spot.

Carly babbled, tears streaming down her face. She stared at my mouth all the while. The only thing I made out from her was my name, repeated like a plea…

My translation spell,I realized. She had to be begging me for help and it was not being translated in a way I understood. Myuna had broken the spell I relied on so heavily, probably with the sheer force of her own mind-turning voice.

Myuna gestured for Garroway to release the girl and caught her in a weave of light. Her usual trick had Carly clawing at the boundaries of the bubble she was trapped in, still staring at me, probably wondering when I would do something to help her. The presence of Myuna’s magic evaporated what few shadows I had the energy to call, rendering me useless for what was about to happen.

“What will you give me in exchange for her?” the goddess asked.

I could not give her anything.

I could not give in to her will.

But I also could not allow her to have Carly. I remembered a much more vibrant girl, who wished so desperately to be a supernatural like her adopted sister. She’d had me check and recheck her soul for any speck of magic in the hopes that proximity to the supernatural community would sprout something within her and spread flower petals toward the sun. She’d only seen the good side of magic; the Crystal Court with its friendly, honest fae folk and the tight-knit community of witches that lived with them.

Her soul flickered within her now, weak and ordinary, shrinking away from the monster that had her trapped in a cage of magic. Already, Myuna eyed her like she observed every other humanoid brought to her: like a full-course meal.

“Has bringing me low not already been sufficient payment?” I rasped.

In response, Myuna opened her mouth and sucked, tugging Carly’s soul loose within her body. The blue-haired girl screamed and clutched her chest. “Phaeron,” she begged. “Phaeron!”

What else did I even have to offer? My full will and body were the only things Myuna had not already taken from me. Falteringly, I offered the only other thing I could think of. “I will give you my knowledge. Several mortal lifetimes of information. Anything you would want to know about this world, here for the taking, if you would just let her go.”

Carly’s screams hit a feverish pitch as Myuna tugged her soul in a nearly playful way, untethering it from her body ever so slowly.

“Please. She is still so young,” I begged.

Another tug, and her soul left her body, which crumpled within the bubble of light, pristine except for the way her pupilsrapidly smudged out of her unseeing eyes. Myuna cycled Carly’s soul around her lips, tongue darting out to taste it.

I was seized by the inevitability of Myuna. The death of civilizations here to spread entropy, starting with Cerris City. In a couple days at most, I would be too overcome by my body’s mortality, and then she’d wring control of me to help her agenda along.

Through the fog in my brain, I recognized the truth. The real reason for the methods of her torture when she so obviously wanted my subservience. She couldn’t take full control of me unless I agreed or she corrupted my soul. Unlike Carly’s soul, weak enough to be twisted from one lick, mine made for a challenge Myuna was obviously not willing to undertake in her current state.

I’d watched too many of the women in my life die; Carly could still be saved. And if I worded my surrender correctly…with a larger ration of luck than I deserved, so could I.

I breathed out, “Spare her, and I will slumber.”

A deliberate word choice,slumber, the kind of blackout exhaustion she was pushing me toward. As long as I did not wake, she could puppet my body and powers as she willed.

It was a close second to the complete submission she desired from me.

The goddess paused with Carly’s essence poised to be sucked into her pit of a mouth. “Very well,” she agreed, far too readily.

She blew the soul away from her maw and manipulated it like she tied strands of light. It gained a new shape, and then it was shoved back into Carly’s body, jerking her awake with a jolt. White light poured from her irises, marking her as the first human servant Myuna had successfully claimed. Back on my planet, we would call her a torchbearer, capable of wielding the goddess’s white light.

I watched her sit up and breathed out with relief. If I saw Cress again, I could tell her that I’d done everything I could to protect her family.

“There. Spared,” Myuna mocked. “Rest up.”

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