Page 24 of Bright Blinding Ruin

Dropping to my knees, I unscrew one of the vials from its lid on my necklace. Once it’s free, I lean over the edge of the stone platform and dip the vial into it, submerging it completely. My fingers get some of the aether on it, but it doesn’t sting or anything.

It… actually doesn’t really feel like anything. Not like water or something thicker. It is the weirdest thing—though that doesn’t really say much since everything is weird in Laconia.

Once all the air bubbles come out of the vial and it’s full of Pylos’s grayish aether, I remove it from the aether and reattach it to my necklace. That’s two down, technically. Only Acadia to go. Maybe Icando this.

But first I need to find a way out of here, and since the door kind of disappeared, it might prove to be a challenge.

I stand and turn around, and the moment I do, I find I’m not alone anymore. Standing at the far end of the wider, circular platform is a woman I never expected to see… because she’s dead. I killed her.

Gladus.

Chapter Ten

Gladus watches me with her blue eyes, not moving an inch as I approach. I don’t want to move fast; I don’t know what this is. All I know is that the last time I saw this bitch, she ranted and raved about how she was going to kill me—and then she tried to do just that.

The woman wears the same armor she did before, though its black hue looks bluer with the gray magical flames floating around her. Her thick black hair is braided and pinned to her head to keep it out of her way, jewels lining that braid around the crown of her head. Though she looks to be around forty, now I know that isn’t necessarily true.

Empresses live for a long time. I didn’t know that before. Who knows how long Gladus lived before falling to Invictis’s madness?

All that aside, she is a beautiful woman. Strong. The way she holds herself, even now, tells me just how confident she is in herself and her abilities. That, however, doesn’t change the fact that she shouldn’t be here.

“Gladus?” I speak her name once I’m within ten feet of her. I’m too nervous to get closer. Can’t forget I have no way of defending myself if this woman decides to attack.

“Hello, child.” Hearing her voice sends a chill down my spine—but not because she sounds like she wants to kill me. No. It’s the opposite. She sounds…normal, like this is who she really is, how she should’ve been. This calmness was what Invictis stole from her. “I have been waiting for you.”

I glance around us to see if this is some kind of trick, if I’m being surrounded by something while she talks. But there’s nothing. It’s just Gladus and me and the darkness that seems to stretch onward toward eternity.

Her voice seems to echo in the space between us as she says, “You have questions. Ask.”

“How are you here?” I cough. This next part is not something I’m proud of, but it’s the truth. “I killed you.”

The smile she gives me is the saddest one I think I’ve ever seen. “Who I was was long gone by the time you stepped foot in Pylos. For what it’s worth, I am sorry. If there’s one thing you should take to heart, it is that you did what you had to. Death can be a mercy for those trapped inside darkness.”

My mind is having the hardest time accepting the fact that this Gladus is what she should’ve always been and that the one I fought was too tainted by Invictis.

“And I am here, child, because as empresses, we never truly die.” Gladus turns her head, calling to my attention the aether around us. “What we are is born from the aether, and when we die, we return to it. It is how we pass along our powers to our next of kin. It is also why we do not age like most people.”

My brows crease. “I don’t understand. So when I killed you, you didn’t really die? You just… came here?”

Her blue gaze meets mine, and she steps forward, practically gliding on the stone platform as she closes the distance between us. “You are focusing on the wrong questions. I am here not to soothe your soul, but to show you truth. It is something you have wondered ever since you learned about Invictis.”

Yeah, I guess the whole dead-but-not-all-dead thing doesn’t mean much compared to that asshole.

“I thought you and the other empresses were supposed to be powerful,” I say. “Like gods or something. How could you all fall to Invictis? How could you let him do this to Laconia? Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Perhaps,” Gladus whispers, “it would be easier to show you.” As she speaks, something fizzles to life between us. A bright ballof energy, growing to the size of a softball, light pulsating out of it in a way that shouldn’t be possible.

“What’s…”

“A memory. Fight it as you wish, but you are connected to the aether, just as I am, therefore any memory of mine also belongs to you. All you have to do to unlock it is reach for it.”

Never heard of memories being floating balls of light, but okay. I lift a hand, hesitant at first, but a part of me trusts the woman before me even though I have no reason to. This is the real Gladus, untainted by Invictis’s madness, and she would never lead me to harm.

The moment my fingers touch the ball of light, the world around me changes. Gladus vanishes from my view and the undercroft fades away—but only for a few seconds. It’s like I’m thrown back in time.

Everything around me refocuses, and I stand again the undercroft, only instead of Gladus facing me, she has her back to me. Before her, Empress Morimento and a woman I’ve never seen before hover over the aether just beyond the platform, nothing more than magical projections.

Gladus speaks to them, “There are whispers amongst the people, whispers I cannot ignore. The crops failing in Acadia, the animals growing tainted in Magnysia… even the skies above Pylos are not as they should be. Nature itself is wrong.”

---