Page 35 of Bright Blinding Ruin

Once again I’m taken back in time, to a room in the castle I haven’t seen. A royal bedroom. Morimento sleeps soundly in her bed while a small shadow stalks closer, the only thing visible a glint of steel in the moonlight.

That small shadow is upon her soon enough, and it does not hesitate. It stabs her in the gut with the dagger it holds, and in a flash Morimento awakens with a scream. Her magic folds around her, vines snaking around the assailant and holding him in place in the moonlight.

Her son. Her little boy.

“Mother,” he whispers, dropping the bloodied dagger to the ground. “I’m—” He cannot say anything more because a vine grows over his mouth, stifling any other words he might’ve said.

Morimento’s eyes widen when she sees the markings on her son’s arms—the runes that indicate a part of Invictis is now inside him. He went to the vault, found the whispering soul gem, and unleashed the monster trapped inside.

And now she’s dying, bleeding out as she stares at her own flesh and blood, knowing she must do something. But what?

“You are my son no longer,” Morimento whispers in the darkness. “You are Invictis, and I will not let you leave this castle.” She holds out both hands toward her boy, summoning more vines that encase him until she can see nothing but herown magic. “You will remain here, trapped, until the end of time. That is my will as empress!”

She throws her hands aside, and the vines that encased her son vanish… and they take her son with them. Though we remain in her bedroom, I know where she banished him: the throne room.

She’sthe reason her son could not leave the throne, why Invictis was trapped there until he was whole.

If I never would’ve come to the castle, a part of him would still be there, sitting on the throne, waiting for some fool to come along.

It’s only because I’m privy to Morimento’s thoughts that I know what she’s thinking as she groans and falls to the floor: a spell like that takes everything out of you. Powerful as empresses are, there are some things that simply aren’t possible without the greatest sacrifice.

Morimento leans her back against the frame of her bed, not bothering to staunch the flow of blood out of her stomach. The pain she feels in her body is nothing compared to the agony taking over her mind.

She failed her kingdom, her city, and now her son. What sort of legacy is that? The last thought she has before she breathes her last breath is this.

Perhaps the sun is setting on Laconia after all.

In the blink of an eye, the castle fades around me, and I stand before Morimento’s morose expression. She speaks quietly, “I underestimated its desire to be free. I… thought emptying the castle of everyone other than my son and I would be enough. It was not. Invictis found the weakest and pried its way inside.”

She turns around and gives me her back as her shoulders slump. “The darkness took me in my final moments. I sentenced what was left of my son to die on Acadia’s throne because Invictis could not be set free upon the land.”

Fuck, this is depressing. It’s hard to be upset with Morimento for what happened; she was already half out of her mind when her son bonded with Invictis.

“Until me,” I whisper. “I set him free.”

Morimento turns around, a newfound fire in her eyes. “My sisters and I knew our solution to the enemy was only temporary. We thought… we believed wholeheartedly that by each taking a piece of it and locking ourselves in our castles, we would save Laconia from the woes. We were wrong.”

They did what they thought they had to. Understandable, I guess. When faced with an impossible task, you can only try your best. These ladies’ best was not enough to stop Invictis. All they succeeded in doing was slowing him down.

I must be too lost in my own thoughts, because I don’t see her reaching for me. The next thing I know, she’s caressing my cheek with the back of her hand and saying, “We knew you would be special. We simply could not have foreseen why.”

My brow furrows. It sounds like all of the empresses knew about me, but that’s impossible—unless they can see the future somehow. “What are you talking about? What do you mean by that?”

Her hand falls away the same moment her stare fixates on the necklace with the small vials full of aether. “You have each aether, but before you return to Laconia, you must go to Magnysia. There is still more you do not yet know.”

“Then tell me! Tell me what it is I don’t know. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“All I can give you is my truth, as my sister Gladus gave you hers. It is time you listened to Krotas… our sister that remains, in spite of it all.”

I can hardly breathe. “Are you saying… are you saying Empress Krotas is still alive?”

Morimento appears sad when she whispers, “Yes. The land of fables and forests awaits you, but before you go, there is one more thing I am to pass on to you.” She offers me her hands, and since this is basically a repeat of what happened in Pylos’s undercroft, I know what the outcome will be.

I’ll have her magic, too.

As I set my hands above hers, her gloved fingers curl around mine. A rush of invisible energy fills me to my core. Blues and greens come alive around our hands, the crackling of magic passing from the empress to me.

“May you triumph where we could not,” she whispers, “and may my magic serve you well.”

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