Page 96 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
Ediye hits Aglaope with another desperate attempt to bring her down, but Aglaope seems to pulse with magic. She stands right before me, starblades glistening in the sunlight as they pierce through her chest and abdomen. The stones hum in her raised hands. The wind snakes around her body. “Stand aside, sister. You cannot kill me. I do not want to hurt you to get to the gate, but if that is what I must do to keep you safe, I will. Trust that I will make it right when I get to the other side.”
Tears burn my skin. I shake my head, but this time it’s not a plea.
“You’re right, Aglaope. I can’t kill you.” I fold my free hand around the one that holds my husband’s sword. “But I’m the Queen of the Shadow Realm. I can take your soul.”
I plunge Ashen’s blade into my sister’s heart.
The stones fall, landing on the ground with heavy thuds. The wind fades away like fog in the sun.
We both look down at the silver that shivers with the beat of Aglaope’s heart. We meet one another’s eyes. Her hand slowly rises, her fingers shaking, and I think she’s going to try to grip the blade, but her hand comes to my face instead. Her touch ghosts across the tears staining my cheeks. “No, Leucosia,” she whispers.
My voice is caught in a tight cord. Flame erupts on the blade, but despite the scent of burning blood, Aglaope’s skin isn’t marked. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. When I say it again, I can’t contain the sob that wrenches from my heart. “I’m sorry, Aglaope.”
“Stop…please, sister…”
Her pulse still pounds against the sword, but I feel the first essence of her soul pull into the blade. My heart breaks with hers. Tears warp my vision. “I love you, Aglaope. I’m sorry.”
We fall to our knees. I grip the sword with both hands. I try to steady them, to not make her pain worse, but they shake no matter how hard I try to hold still. Aglaope’s soul strips away in tendrils, flowing through the blade like smoke. I can see the glow of it curling around the bloodied, shining silver that catches the sun. When it climbs to the hilt and touches my hand it burns unlike any flame. It’s a searing hiss of anguish and loss, of love and sadness. Of memory.
Part of my own soul is being carved away with her and I cry out with the pain of a deep, unmendable wound. I nearly release the blade, but Ashen’s palm slides up my forearm to fold around my hand and strengthen my grip.
“Steady, vampire. Hold it tightly.”
“I can’t.” Tears carve fresh paths down my cheeks when I shake my head. “I can’t do this.”
My name is a whisper as Ashen kneels beside me. His grip on my hand never falters. He lays an arm across my back to grip my elbow, quieting the tremor there. “You can. You must hold steady or you risk more pain to her soul. Keep her safe,” he says, and I tighten my fingers beneath his warm embrace. “Let a piece of yourself go. It will guide her way to the Shadow Realm.”
The tendrils of Aglaope’s soul flow into my palm. They sear my flesh. They climb my arm. They peel a strip away from the very core of me, that piece of me that was notched, marked by the justice delivered by my hand. Justice that does not feel merciful at all.
Aglaope’s dark eyes are draining of color, but still they hold mine with a plea, begging me to stop, the hurt in them deepened by the immense love she feels, even as I betray her. It’s there, within every wisp of her smoky essence that flows into my body. Every memory she has of us comes alive within me. I see my own face as a baby, cradled in her arms. I see us playing in a stone village nestled deep in a forest in another land. I watch through Aglaope’s eyes as she stands before a council in an ancient temple, volunteering to come to Anthemoessa and protect the gateway in the hopes I would be left safely behind. I’m crushed by her sorrow as she sails away, her eyes fused to the shore where I stand, still a young child, crying and inconsolable as she departs to fulfil her duty. Her fear fills me when she’s transformed on the journey into a creature capable of protecting the fates from the ships that might too close to the last of the gods. And I feel my sister’s joy and sorrow as she finds me on the shores of Anthemoessa, knowing I couldn’t remember a single moment of her love. But she had never forgotten. She remembered everything.
And now I am betraying her, to send her soul back to the Shadow Realm.
My heart feels like it’s tearing from my chest. I’m desperate to let go of just one hand so I can touch her, but I can’t. I won’t risk causing more suffering to her soul. “I am so sorry, Aglaope. I love you.”
“Sister…”
“I love you so much. But I cannot let you have this. The fates were never meant to be ours.”
Aglaope’s breath shudders. Every beat of her heart resonates through the blade. Her once black eyes are smoky grey. The tendrils of her soul snake into my chest, climbing beneath my mark and taking a strip of my own soul with them.
A sorrowful smile casts a faint shadow across Aglaope’s lips. “Love you…always…”
And then she is gone.
The flame dies on the blade as her essence disperses and fades from my chest, leaving behind a raw, invisible wound.
There are voices and movement and my eyes are pressed closed so tightly that I think I see my deafening pulse surging in the blackness left behind. My hands no longer hold the blade. My palms are pressed to the ground, my arms trembling, nails clawing into the wet earth. It sparks a memory of scratching my way back onto Anthemoessa to avenge my sister with a sword and a spell. There’s a terrible sound, like the wind wailing through a window in a vicious storm. As I’m pulled from the ground and the intense pressure lifts a little from my head, I realize the sound is coming from me.
“I’ve got you, vampire,” Ashen whispers. My body is bracketed by Ashen’s strong embrace and he turns us away, but I don’t open my eyes. I just cry. I cry until I feel like I’ll crack in half. I weep until the shock of the grief gives way, leaving only a bottomless anguish behind. If there’s a shore in this sea, I don’t think I’ll ever find it.
“I betrayed her,” I say. My voice grates like splintered wood against skin. “I sent her back.”
“Aglaope made her choice. You chose the realms. You protected those whose fate is not yours to decide, my love. The right decisions often come with the worst pain.” Ashen holds tighter. I don’t look up as Ediye whispers Ashen’s name. He places his palms over my ears but it only dulls the sound of the blade sliding free of Aglaope’s chest. I still hear it. I still sense the cadence of her beating, soulless heart.
Ashen resumes his embrace when it’s over, and I turn my blurry gaze to Ediye when the stones hum louder as she lifts them from the grass. “They speak to me,” she whispers, her eyes shifting between them before she looks to the gate. “I don’t understand the words, but I know what I have to do.”
Ediye moves toward the gate. She holds the stones toward it like an offering, their hum growing louder with every step she takes. A wind picks up, but it’s gentle this time, as though it’s guiding the rightful guardian to the place she’s supposed to be.
