The Night Everything Fell Apart (The Nephilim Book 1)(94)

“And die like Merlin did? I’m sure he’d be happy about that.” He passed his palm over the upper arc of the crystal, in its setting of oak, rowan, and yew. A spark, like static electricity on a cold day, jolted his thumb. He couldn’t be sure, though, if it was magic.

“Do you feel anything?” Cybele asked.

“I don’t know.” Balancing the lower half of the staff on the floor, he fitted the upper piece to it. The break was jagged, but no wood seemed to have been lost—the pieces matched perfectly. He wrapped both hands around the joining. Drawing focus from his mother’s touchstone, he called his magic.

“It’s got to be dead,” Luc muttered under his breath. “Michael never would have left it here otherwise.”

Arthur closed his eyes, concentrating. A current of electricity, faint but unmistakable, ran through his body. His arms went rigid. The moonstone, in contact with his chest, warmed.

“Wait,” Cybele whispered. “Luc, look.”

Arthur opened his eyes. Tendrils of flame, unfurling from his hands, licked up and down the staff. Magic caressed the ancient woods, weaving a pattern of light.

He tightened his grip. His breath became shallow, barely deep enough to keep him from passing out. Was this magic his own doing? He wasn’t quite sure. It almost seemed the staff was the initiator, calling Arthur’s magic into itself. But that was absurd.

A glow, emanating from deep within the wood, turned the staff translucent. First, in the vicinity of Arthur’s hands. Then spreading up and down along the staff’s length. The wood took on the appearance of clear glass. The light touched the crystal touchstone.

Sparks formed in the heart of the orb. Tiny pinpoints of white brilliance wafted to the crystal’s surface. Breaking through, they manifested in the air.

The sparks spun wildly, engulfing the touchstone in a sphere of evanescence. Arthur kept his gaze trained on it. His awareness of anything else—of Cybele, of Luc, of the dingy flat—faded to nothingness.

The vibration was slight at first—so slight he didn’t understand what it portended. He felt it in his hands, in his arms, in his chest. The moonstone heated and burned. The oscillations mounted. Still, he didn’t comprehend what was happening. Not until the disturbance invaded his skull and shook the very substance of his brain.

Memories—dark and light, violent and peaceful, vengeful and tender—exploded into Arthur’s awareness. All that his ancestors had been, all that was left of their brief existence, flashed to life inside their heir. From Alwen to Merlin and farther back still to the first step of his ancestors on Britannia’s shore. Years—centuries—flew past. Arthur remembered his ancestors’ first northern migration. Before that flight, their home had been in the ancient deserts. They had been cursed—tossed on the churning waters of the Flood—by Raphael’s vengeful sword.

It was too much. He couldn’t hold it all. Not within his finite flesh. Life, death, joy, and grief. Guilt and shame. Hopelessness. Experience, emotion, magic. The power of Arthur’s line and its eternal curse. No one person—even a Nephil—could hope to contain such a legacy.

“Luc! Watch out!”

Arthur was only dimly aware of Cybele’s shout. It was lost amid the ringing in his ears and the brilliance filling his vision. Power—power he hadn’t called and couldn’t hope to control—kindled in his core. It raced down his arms. It streamed into the staff.

Light exploded. A brilliant bolt of magic shot from the crystal. Luc cried out. Something crashed. Another surge of power wracked Arthur’s body. It entered the staff, raced upward to the crystal, and sprayed in every direction. A loud cracking sound. Bits of gritty debris, raining down on his head.

More curses. More shouting.

“What the hell is he doing?”

“I don’t know, but we gotta—”

“Cybele! Get down!”

A flash of green hellfire erupted. It wasn’t Arthur’s magic. Whose? Where the hell had it come from?

“Arthur!” Cybele’s desperate scream came to him as if from the other side of the globe. “Arthur, stop! Stop it now! You’ll kill us all!”

Stop. The word spun in his brain. Could he stop? Or would his magic destroy all? Would he come out of this to find Cybele dead on the floor?

The thought triggered a shock of panic. His magic deserted him. The suddenness of the loss sent Arthur staggering backward.

His hip impacted the floor. Pain shot through his body. He rolled, carrying the staff with him. He ended up with his face in the carpet, his mouth filled with plaster dust, his body curled protectively around Merlin’s crystal orb.

For several long moments, silence—complete and utter silence—reigned.

Then Luc’s low mutter intruded. “Son of a bitch. What the fuck just happened?”

Arthur turned his head toward the sound and opened his eyes. Luc and Cybele crouched under the dining table, their bodies shielded behind two overturned chairs. One had a round, burnt hole in the center of the seat.

Cybele started to push the chairs away. Luc caught her wrist. “Wait,” he said, his voice rough. “Might not be safe yet.”

“I don’t care. I—”

Arthur pushed up on all fours, head bowed. The staff lay on the carpet under him, amid a crumbling mosaic of plaster and dust. The transparency was gone. The twisted woods no longer looked like glass. But the shaft was whole again, the top melded to the bottom. He looked for a seam where he’d joined the broken pieces. There was none. It was as if it had never been damaged.