Page 122 of Bright Soul

Souls emerged behind me, a gilded flood of them. One, darker than the rest, shadowed me. It was a relief to see Braza, even though it was strange that she and I were only tethered by the merest thread. She reached into Phaeron’s shadows while he stared at me in disbelief, retrieving the dragon scale and diving back into Myuna’s torn belly without him seeming to notice.

“How dare you. She was delicious,” the goddess grumbled. She probed at the slash across her midsection, pushing the flaps of skin together, but they did not sew into a seamless whole like the last time I’d wounded her. Souls held the wound open and thousands of them escaped by the second, flowing into me. I felt their presence like a pressure within, my form stretching to accommodate so many different pieces of others and the power they wished to lend me.

Finally, Phaeron gathered his wits. “Cress, are you all right?”

“I think so.” I had the voice echo now, the power of thousands or more coming through me. “You might want to step back.”

He hesitated, before turning to Roe and the others, herding them with shadows and gestures. I flexed my hand, willing my new power to give me a sword to match my new stature. A hundred souls surrendered part of their energy for me to have one form for me, the hilt perfectly matching my enlarged hand. The blade was made of pure celestial magic, glowing golden like the sun.

Myuna stumbled to her feet and gathered her own magic, creating the shaft of a white-glowing spear and flipping its blade up. “You have…stolen from me. It is no matter. We will still end it here, in these moments past the prophecy. You defeated me…” she coughed up a dribble of black tar, smearing it across her white cheek. “And now I will defeat you.”

All the while, the flood of souls from her stomach did not abate. As I grew, she diminished, my light dwarfing hers. “Big words. Let’s go,” I said, lunging at her. Our weapons caught and rebounded. She stumbled backward, wailing in earnest and stirring up the Void to scream with her.

I clenched my teeth, trying to block out the awful cacophony. I struck out at her again, opening a wound in her side that closed itself quickly. Now it was obvious she drew on the life force of those within her to mend so fast or to strike so hard. A dozen souls had to give up their power to help me heal just as swiftly when the next thrust of her spear jabbed its point through my thigh.

Our gazes met. We were of the same size now, meeting somewhere in the middle of her impossible stature and my ordinary human frame. There was a new emotion there, something I don’t think Myuna had felt for a long time.

Fear.

She attacked in a flurry of blows, all the while stoking burning rays of light from the holes of several mouths that formed on her torso and arms. Inspired by her changing it up,I summoned a ball of concentrated light and threw it at her, shaking the Void with the resulting explosion and knocking Myuna forward.

“Kabewm,” I whispered for my handbook, which was hopefully flying in distressed circles somewhere on Earth, awaiting my safe return.

I swung my sword downward, intending to lop off her head. But it was still me and I wasn’t borrowing anyone else’s sword skills. The blade dug into her back and shoulder blades, creating a cut that seared itself open with blackened edges. The dark matter that seemed to hold her together internally was exposed.

“No,” Myuna groaned, lifting up and grabbing a huge handful of glowing souls that’d escaped while she hit the ground. She ate them again, struggling to swallow with several painful gulps as their fists made round outlines against her throat.

I kicked her weapon out of her hand and it disappeared into wisps of light. Holding the tip of my sword to her neck, I echoed her with a smirk, “Do you see what it is to face a goddess?”

Her lips spread across her gaping mouth in a grimace. “You are no goddess,” she thundered in her loud, but diminished, voice.

“I’m starting to realize that you never were one to begin with,” I replied, lifting my weapon for one last strike to end this.

Myuna launched herself at me, her mouth stretching even wider and sucking hard. I felt an obscene tug on the souls within me as she knocked us both to the ground. We grappled, her punching, me trying to stab her, and rolled a couple times before something lassoed her around the neck.

It looked like shadows and vines braided into one massive rope. At the other end heaved Phaeron and Áine, plus Ben, Geo, Roe and Wren anchoring behind them. But further back, feeding shadows to make the rope as sturdy as possible, was a team of horned spirits.

I pushed Myuna and watched with a grin as the vines grew new tendrils to encircle her neck completely, with shadows following their path to reinforce them. She gripped the rope with both hands, gasping and thrashing, still leaking more and more spirits. For once, she was quiet, and my ears rang as I stood over her with sword in hand, wondering where to stab her to truly end her awful existence once and for all.

I opted for the heart, thrusting my sword downward clear through her chest. With one last jerk, she went limp, save for the flaps of her stomach where her victims continued to escape. I gazed down at her still face. “It’s over,” I said with the relief of a destroyed world’s worth of souls.

The rope around her neck faded, the vines withering away to brittle stalks in an instant. I was reaching down to tear her belly open further when her hands darted out, catching my wrists. “It is the turning of an eon. You are worthy where I no longer am,” she said, putting something in my palm.

It was massive and white, pulsing with power and a slimy feeling.Hunger.

“When I cut out Stalvos the White’s heart at the end of my own world’s destruction, he gave me this. A mature seed of power.” She coughed weakly, more tar smearing her lips. “It is yours now.Youare the goddess now, the one to own all the power in the universe. The souls you need are already within you. Consume them and rise.”

My stomach turned with disgust. “You saw a world’s destruction and chose to become just like the one who did it?”

“Power…so delicious. It is the way of things,” she whispered. The light rapidly left her eyes, dulling to a colorless shade. She collapsed in on herself, only a hollow husk remaining.

I stared at the seed for a moment, astonished that she thought I would ever think to consume it. How insane, that she willingly became a monster for the power it gave her. The deadclamored for me to destroy it, their terror filling my every pore. “No, it is not thefuckingway of things,” I muttered.

I filled my palm with light, pure and searing, crushing the seed in a white-hot bath of magic. It crumpled to dust, drifting into fine particles that the Void absorbed.

Then I looked down at myself and wondered,what now?Because I was full of unknown magic and half again as tall as I usually was. The internal glow hid my nakedness at least, as it did for the souls now climbing out of Myuna’s husk and standing in a clump whispering and looking around.

I walked over to my friends and mates, feeling like I was lumbering with my change in stature.

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