Page 56 of Tethered Thrones

Chapter 18

Bracken

My world collapsed into a blur of fangs, fur, and blood as I tumbled through the sky as if I’d been tossed by a catapult. It had happened so fast, my body moving independently, surging towards Daaku. Because down below, they couldn’t see it, butIcould.

A phantom rider, a puppet master clinging to Daaku’s hideous, malformed body, like thousands of crawlers fused into one twisted shape that screamed relentlessly. Screamed in many tongues, cried in the voices of nocs and humans, a demon of incomprehensive evil.

How exquisite! I had to admire the suffering one pathetic sorcerer could enact.

The surge of black magic had been overwhelming, so vile I had vomited as I closed in on Daaku in a flash. He was herding them, my bonded, Sun and Clem, my hearts, Hadi and Kair, towards a large magical circle painted in black ink that seemed to span most of the city, ending near the palace in the distance.

I had heard her, a faint dying whisper weaving its way from the abyss. Tsuki, that bitch was made of pure iron will, worthy of her title. And she had summoned me to my final task. OneI wouldn’t have avoided even if she told me back in the mirror realm, if she had given Clem visions he could understand.

“Stop the summoning. Fulfill your destiny. I am sorry, child of darkness, but you must,” she had said. So, I did, blindly, not understanding what it would cost me, but knowing without fully comprehending, I would meet my brutal end, no doubt.

My body thudded against Daaku, who screeched as my claws ripped through hundreds of faces frozen in horror, desperate to hang on. But I couldn’t grab hold, continuing to freefall. But I had taken what I needed from him, his master of shadows wailing and joining the infernal suffering, the chorus of the damned filling the air as I ripped a swirling, misty white jewel from his ghostly hand.

The surge of crawler nocs and all sorts of insect-like creatures I couldn’t recognize stopped. It was as though I’d closed a hellmouth when I barreled toward the crystal, crushing it in my sharp claws, and inhaled the magic within, only to lose… to lose…

I was fading fast, blood seeping into every part of my vision as, finally, I fell into a bloody, broken heap near the city gates. I couldn’t tell who reached me first. The tether was alive, and oh, it was so beautiful, glowing bright white. I could now see it when I could only imagine it before. The remaining black bugs surged skyward, blocking out the darkened sky, and the only light I could see was my soul tethered to four.

“Bracken!” the brokenness in Sun’s voice would’ve broken me if I could feel a thing. But I couldn’t. Maybe it was her magic; perhaps it was the fact that I’d lost too much blood and was too cold to feel much of anything.

Why? Why me?

I knew now what I had done; thousands upon thousands of insect-like creatures were devouring me from the inside out. That magic would die in me, the overwhelming force of creaturessummoned to slay my lovers and friends. Was it even worth asking why in the end? It was always meant to end like this. At least this time, I could comfort Clem.

Solemnity. Certainty. I was dying, but I was dying for them, for them to finish what we had started.

“Again,” I groaned, hacking blood and bile so dark it looked black instead of the bright crimson it should’ve been.

Inside were pockets of what could only be larvae, their white husks shedding, fearsome, deformed black creatures emerging with human faces of babes and noc bodies. They snapped, sizzled, and wailed like children, catching on fire and burning away.

I tried to warn the others that something more evil than Daaku controlled him, and that they could not save me. Whatever Tsuki had done when she brought me back, she had made me for this purpose, my body a grave for Gaulu’s demented ambition. I wanted to tell them that I had fulfilled my part in this story, and they need not cry for me. Rather than dying from a sneak attack, a warrior’s death was fitting. They had all the reason in the world to be proud.

“Ahaah!” I gagged on those words, insects and blood and hell, maybe even my guts spilling from my mouth.

It's a pity I won’t see that bastard Gaulu torn to shreds like I’d seen Kovit.

“Do not speak! Bracken, do not utter another word,” Kiar shouted, wrapping around me, winding and winding, applying pressure to a gaping wound that gushed more blood beside me.

But it was no use. My wing, my precious wing, had been ripped off and it had severed something deep within me when it was taken. I couldn’t lift a claw or twitch a toe on my left side. Even my eyelid was heavy.

I was paralyzed, and something sick and twisted was seeping into my flesh, fanning out through my veins—some sort of poison.

And the bleeding wouldn’t end.

A batbeast without their wings was more than useless, they were better off dead. I had not a single honorable bone in my destroyed body, but if I could reach for one, I’d impale my faintly beating heart on a sword.

Their pity was misplaced. I’d won, not failed this time. They needed to move, to kill.

“Live…” another wave of nausea followed by blood erupted from my gaped mouth.

Breathing was too hard now. Through the haze of my death, I could see Clem screaming, covered in my blood. But I couldn’t hear him. They all sounded so far away, and I sank deeper into the earth, water rushing through my ears.

“Wake up! Wake the hell up, Bracken! You will not die here. I will not allow it,” Hadi hissed, breaking through the sea surrounding me, pressing his body over top of Kiar’s.

Maybe he was trying to stop the blood, too, as Clem muttered useless spells.

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