Page 133 of An Inheritance of Monsters

“Let this covenant bind us, Earth and Void, the Lady and the Keepers.” I raised my hand, offering the key. Offering my blood. “Together we hold the line, together we keep the silence.”

The roar of the comet seemed to falter, the shields of shadow and sea growing stronger… almost blocking out the scarlet brilliance.

The Void itself seemed to sigh around me, the ground shaking under my feet. Voraal’s eyes flared white-hot, painful to look at.

The tension in the air was unbearable, as though it might tear me in half if I stopped now. My lungs felt compressed, squeezed by an invisible hand.

I heard the distant screaming of the meteoric thing overhead, and forced myself to shout. My throat burned like I had swallowed fire.

“I am beholden unto no man, but bound to the Void! I pledge my body for the gatekeepers, my life for the gates, and my soul for the eternity of the stars!”

My last words rang out, and time stood still.

Carson lunging for Sierra, frozen in mid-pose, face twisted.

Voraal supporting the weight of the shield on his shoulders.

The millions of droplets from the sea suspended in midair.

“THE COVENANT IS SEALED.” Voraal’s voice boomed out, echoing across the Void. I slammed my hands over my ears, trying in vain to block out the pain from the sheer volume of it. “THE SACRIFICE OF YOUR FLESH BINDS US.”

And then time resumed.

His fingers tightened around Carson, who had been inches from plunging the knife into Sierra’s chest, and plucked him from the sand. The knife went flying, disappearing into the crashing waves.

“AND THE SACRIFICE OF THIS MAN’S BLOOD BINDS THE GATES.”

I heard Carson’s distant screaming, begging and pleading, as Voraal held him up towards the Fuseli Comet.

I closed my eyes, unable to look at the thing high above us, the weight of the crimson light beating me down.

Carson’s screams fell silent, cut short.

The skeleton key heated in my palm, burning my skin, and suddenly went cool.

All around us, the red glare lessened. The waves no longer reflected like they were made of blood; I dared to raise my head.

Water crashed back down into the sea, sending tidal waves crashing toward the beach. With every inch of me aching and sore, I stumbled to Sierra, dragging her up the beach towards dry land.

The water fell for a long time.

But when it stopped, I looked up into the revolving circle of pure emptiness in the sky, the souls resuming their journey towards it.

The Fuseli Comet had moved on, nothing but a pinprick in that darkness that was soon swallowed.

Chapter39

Juno

“You did well.”

A warm hand landed on my shoulder. A human hand.

Elizabeth Marsh stood over me, but she was not the Elizabeth we’d come to know.

The years had fallen away. Green eyes sparkled in a twenty-year-old face, silvery-blonde hair falling down her back in thick waves.

“Congratulations on your inheritance.” She smiled, offering me a hand. I saw the imprint of the skeleton key on her palm, an ancient scar that had turned silvery-white long ago.

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