Give the Dark My Love(99)

Governor Adelaide screamed at me, but Grey lurched up, grabbing her around the knees and knocking her to the floor. They struggled, giving me time to inspect the crucible.

I could see the golden threads of souls woven into the iron. Now that I held the crucible, I could feel them. It reminded me of my first night as a necromancer, when I’d dipped into my own crucible searching for Nessie’s soul. I had pulled at the golden threads of light, and it had hurt my revenants. Their souls were linked to the iron.

I knew exactly what needed to be done.

“What are you doing?” Governor Adelaide screamed at me as she threw Grey off her.

I wrapped my shadow fingers around the golden threads of the souls in Wellebourne’s crucible. And I pulled.

Cold washed over me. Wisps of my black hair had fallen free from my braids, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw them turn white as I struggled to wrench the souls of the dead out of Wellebourne’s crucible. If it had been my crucible, I could have let the souls go with no effort at all. But I had not bound these souls to this iron, and breaking a connection I had not forged was far more difficult than I had imagined.

My shadow arm tensed. It felt stronger now, and I knew it was because I was letting my own life force drain in order to maintain a ghostly connection to souls that were not my own.

The souls swarmed inside the tiny crucible, reaching for me. They had not been given a choice. They wanted to be free. I strained harder.

The blood trickling down my back slowed. My heartbeat stilled. I was too weak even to shiver, despite the ice that seemed to engulf me.

My vision faded. The golden light disappeared. I still felt it, but all I could see was darkness.

The darkness moved like a living thing. It took a shape I almost recognized.

Deep, deep within me, I felt a hunger grow, a hunger I had almost been able to suppress. My mouth salivated, and something primal roared within my soul.

And something snapped.

My vision rushed back to me, blinding light forcing me to blink rapidly as I stepped back. Light filled the palm of my shadow hand, dripping threads of gold leaking between my impossible fingers.

Wellebourne’s crucible was empty. Without the souls holding it together, it cracked in two, the pieces falling to the floor.

Governor Adelaide wailed.

Ernesta and Master Ostrum stopped fighting. Master Ostrum turned, looking to me, his eyes hollow.

I plucked out the golden thread of light that was his soul, and I let it go. His body crumpled.

Free.

“No.” Governor Adelaide’s voice was low pitched and sorrowful.

Thuds echoed from the corridor as I let all the souls go. The guards’ bodies fell, empty, to the ground.

“It’s over,” Grey breathed, relief flooding his voice.

“No,” I said, looking at Governor Adelaide. “It isn’t.”

“You destroyed my crucible,” she snarled at me.

“But not the plague.” I could release the souls, I could break the iron. But the curse still existed.

Governor Adelaide’s eyes grew wide with horror. She tried to run away.

But she did not have her crucible to protect her anymore. And I had mine.

Power vibrated through me. I had never taken the soul from the body of someone living before.

I was shocked at how easily—how naturally—it came to me. My shadow hand pulled at the strings of golden light radiating around Governor Adelaide, and her soul squirmed, trying to wriggle free. I clenched my incorporeal hand.

Governor Adelaide’s body froze. Her pulse thrummed violently in her neck, and her eyes darted wildly, but there was no other movement.

“Kill the necromancer,” I said, bending down to pick up the sword Master Ostrum had carried. “Kill the necromancy.”





SIXTY-NINE


    Grey



Nedra struggled to raise the sword with one hand. I didn’t know how she forced Governor Adelaide to be so still as she pressed the tip of the blade against the governor’s chest.

“Ned?” I whispered.

“The plague still exists,” Nedra said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I cannot stop it any other way.”

I knew the rules. Nedra had been able to free the undead Governor Adelaide controlled, but she could not stop the plague.

Not while the governor was alive.

But I didn’t want to see my Nedra become a murderer. I crossed the room and reached for her. Her hair had come undone from its braids. It was paper-white, but still soft and supple.

Her shoulders trembled with the effort to hold the sword steady at the governor’s chest.

“There has to be some other way—” I started.

Before I finished the sentence, Nedra drove the sword into the governor’s heart. The light left her eyes. Her mouth grew slack, a rivulet of blood leaking from one corner. The governor’s knees crumpled, and her body fell forward, sliding along the blade of the sword until her chest slammed against the hilt.





SEVENTY


    Nedra



The plague was gone. The crucible was broken. The necromancer was dead.

“It’s over,” Grey said.

I looked down at the body of the governor.

Grey pulled me into a hug. He pressed my head into his shoulder, and all I could do was thank Oryous that we had both survived. But slowly, the rest of the world bled into our circle, like the blood staining the iron floor. Governor Adelaide’s eyes were still open, watching us. Ernesta stared straight ahead, emotionless. The Emperor woke up, whimpering and covering his face to hide from the gore.