Page 42 of Bright Soul

I wanted to shout for him, but Braza suppressed me.“Focus. He gave us an advantage,”she said. Phaeron was off-balance when he turned his attention back to us and lunged.

Within a blink, he was slammed by a blur of crystal and obsidian. “Remember yourself,” Geo gritted out.

Phaeron’s momentum sent him crashing into a couple chairs and toppling in a boneless heap. This time, he recovered by turning into vapor and materializing again over my left shoulder. His shadowy claws cut through my back, forming several long lines of agony.

I screamed. Braza’s voice in my head became white noise, and my hold on our tether faltered, making the shadows over my body flicker before they covered me again.

“He’ll remember this,” snarked Bianca. She bought me a few seconds to catch my bearings as a glowing bolt hit him with a dull thud.

“We’re not out of this yet,”Braza encouraged.

My back ached, and it felt like most of my body was now slicked with hot blood. Yet I still felt that she was right. Her shadows held together most of the damage, and I had the feeling she’d keep me going through much worse wounds. Power leaked into me from her powercore side, slowly knitting together the rips, scratches, and abrasions I’d sustained.

Phaeron’s shadowy maw was open in a soundless snarl. He leapt at me and swung his free arm around my neck. The vertigo returned through multiple jumps, though I now knew the feel of his magic wrapping around me and how to fight it, my eyes closing at the right moments to stave off the worst of the dizziness.

We landed on stairs, carpeting, and tile, grappling for control all the while. He slammed me into the ground for most of our reappearances. At this rate, I would be tenderized into submission, fractured and bruised too badly to fight back.

For one of our landings, I recognized we were in a containment room and could’ve closed a stasis spell around him…but didn’t. Myuna was controlling him somehow, but I was going to shake her out of him, even if it killed me and half of Braza.

As the pain mounted over my body, I started to realize that the death option was closer at hand than expected. I gained the upper hand during one reappearance and dug the edge of my sword into the shadows over his neck.

“Phaeron,” I breathed out desperately. “It’s me, Cress. Stop, Phaeron. Stop fighting me.”

“Oh no, pretty thing. He’s taking you straight to me,”Myuna purred. Well, it was supposed to be a smooth sound, but she had a voice like a cheese grater to my senses.“I’ll only wake him up when he can watch me consume you.”Shadows grasped and moved us to another location, and his muscular weight pinned my hips.

Braza noted the wording as we struggled. This time, I dragged him into shadows, still trying to drag him back toward my allies. I could practically feel the lightbulb moment she had.

“Tell me you have a good idea,”I said, struggling to raise my sword to block another blow from Phaeron’s. It felt like my whole body had been pummeled—I gasped for a decent breath. Under her shadows, I had to be black and blue.

“Do you trust me?”she replied.

“Down to my soul,”I answered. I’dbeenher, seen her true character. There was no doubt in me as she told me her idea and I seized on it, letting her turn my body into purple and black mist and head several levels upward to throw off Phaeron and Myuna.

We were close enough to the surface to hear the screeches, barks, and shouts from our allies. Dust shook from the ceiling from a surge of guardian witch power, followed by either Aaron or Ajax shouting commands. The part of me that was tethered to the powercore marked Phaeron’s position as he realized what we’d done and turned into vapor. He approached our location rapidly.

I lifted and circled my sword over my head, casting the rune for the strongest light-based spell I knew just as Phaeron appeared before me. His sword and claws bit into my body as my skin heated. I’d once likened Luminare to a ground-level firework, but that was before I tapped into my celestial side.

Light erupted from my body and weapon, which I angled under his chin. Against the glare of my magic, I witnessed Phaeron’s shadows blow away completely and saw his face. He wasliterally asleep, but his eyelids flipped open as he took the brunt of my spell head-on. For a split second, I admired the way his irises sparkled like cut gemstones before every inch of his exposed skin torched.

Phaeron stumbled back, screaming in agony and covering his face with similarly burned and blistered hands. His sword clattered to the ground, followed by his knees as he heaved an eerily inhuman howl and rocked back and forth. The first sounds he’d made since he arrived.

I let the tip of my sword hit the ground, desperately hoping we were done fighting.

The sounds of battle above us faded…or maybe muted from the force of his cries. “Shit, I’m so sorry,” I said. Though Braza and I still spoke together, that was wholly my own reaction.

He quieted and stole a look at me through his fingers. Those remarkable eyes I loved so much had pupils slitted like a cat’s, similar to what I’d seen in my memories. They were narrowed to the thinnest of slivers and he blinked rapidly.

“Brazita?”he asked with a hush of disbelief. She translated his foreign words through her shadows and into my ears as English. “Have I finally joined you on the other side?”

A monster released a piercing cry above us on cue, and more dust showered from the ceiling. Phaeron’s hands dropped from his burned face, and he fumbled for the hilt of his sword blindly, shaking his head with a clear wince. “Clearly there is no such mercy, as paradise would not have Myuna’s servants.”

He slid onto his feet, tail and weapon scraping the ground as he limped a step. “Phaeron, wait. You’re hurt,” I protested.

He huffed and struggled on. “I cannot understand your human tongue.”Then, seeming to get frustrated with his body’s damage, he disappeared into shadowy vapor and headed straight for the combat above us.

Braza and I both rolled our eyes with exasperation.“That’s the prince I know,”she said before misting us up after him. She took care of telling my coven still rushing in our wake what’d happened and where to go.

In the meantime, I arrived to see our allies had been pushed back to the first floor stairwell. The sounds and spells were like arriving in the middle of a warzone, and disoriented, it took me longer than it should’ve to locate Phaeron slicing the nearest unnatural in half. He released a threatening roar and threw some of his own blood toward the monsters to gather their attention.

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