Page 120 of Bright Soul

My pace faltered and I nearly tripped to fall into nothingness. Between the numbness brought on by the cold and the suction of magic and life force, I was fading faster than expected. Geo and Ben had to be faring similarly…but we would limp to Myunaif we had to. She could not have the considerable power of our mating circle, plus the half of Braza’s soul Cress carried.

Still, we slowed, and there was some relief between Ben, whowaslimping, and Wren, whose breath sawed as she clutched her side. I strode unerringly toward the glow of white light marking the first landmark in this place of nothing.

Myuna was thrashing around, occasionally screaming in her chorus of agony shriek. At first, I thought it was from a Void feeding frenzy, but her belly bulged and roiled, jerking her hollow body around as if she were a ragdoll.

It looked excruciating. I grinned, finally speeding ahead of the group when the rest of the way forward was obvious. My boot met her shoulder, knocking her prone on her back. “Indigestion?” I sneered.

My mating bond tugged straight downward, toward her stomach. Cress was in there, fighting back. Before Myuna could consume me next, I drew my swords down her middle, splitting open the gaping blackness within her.

From the nightmare of her guts, human fingers emerged. I grabbed my mate’s hand to lift her free, gasping in shock when I got a good look at the light blazing from her.

CRESS

Myuna’s guts were like a portal to another world. Braza and I fell and fell and fell like we were on our way to some kind of twisted Wonderland.

“Good going, getting us eaten,”I thought to her irritably. Without the crushing grip of the oversized goddess, I’d begun to breathe again and consider whether or not it’d be possible to condense into shadows to escape from between Myuna’s lips.

But Braza was not responsive, nor were her shadowy powers. I realized I was leaking a trail of black and purple and feared the worst. Was it Braza’s lifeblood? Were we both already dead and I hadn’t felt it?

Eventually, I landed face down on a soft heap and pain ricocheted through me.Fuck, definitely not dead yet.I hurt all over, especially in my burned shoulder. My clothes fell right off me when I moved my arms to lift up to my knees. That expensive robe, reinforced with magic, disintegrated into threads before my eyes.

My naked skin blistered and reddened, the pain quickly excruciating. I’d taken an acid bath somewhere on the way down—Myuna wasdigestingme. “Well,” I said from a raw throat. “Hell of a way to go.” I took heart in knowing Myuna would die eventually, starving to death on the planet she’d already destroyed. My sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain.

But mymen. When I died, so would they. I wished I knew how to sever the mating circle so I could do it here and now. If only they could keep going, to escape Cerris City and enjoy a blissful Myuna-free life.

Phaeron wouldn’t want that without me. I felt him like he was still with me, the mating mark on my shoulder pulsing with flashes of hot and cold prickles.

Maybe someday, someone would discover the dragon scale he carried, with the other half of Braza’s soul. She could live on…I mean, I didn’t know for sure about that. Could half a soul as big as a powercore’s continue to exist without the other half? It was an unheard of situation. She’d be the first and only one to attempt it.

Shadows sputtered around me, lacing into two thin wraps for my breasts and hips when I gestured.“Braza?”I projected hopefully.

“Cress,”she answered. Her voice was faint.“Touch the souls.”

What? There was nothing here but us. I looked up first, seeing the white-lined layer of Myuna’s stomach. Then down…ugh. What did I think I’d landed on? Those were…souls, I guess. Parts of them, sucked dry of everything except for a paper-thin layer.

There were heaps of souls everywhere I looked, mountains of the remains of the dead who’d passed the same way I was about to. My gorge rose and I gagged, swallowing down the taste of vomit before it could burn my throat any worse.

Fuck, that’s disgusting.Still, I did as Braza commanded, putting my palms down beside my knees. The ribbons of her leaking magic reversed course, flowing downward and out like a wave.

The nearest souls twitched. Each held a spark of magic from Braza and the colors quickly shifted from black and purple to skin tones. Souls inflated with new purpose, glowing from within and erasing major features with the joint shine of everyone.

These husks turned into souls once more.Ghosts. Hundreds, then thousands, and then more, all of the damned turning eyes limned with light toward me, the only one still alive amongst us. “Um, hi,” I said to the nearest person, a human man who must’ve died quite recently. He stared at me without any comprehension. Most of those around us were tall and horned, similarly blank.

“Make way,”said a female voice. She spoke in Soiluirian, but some vestige of Braza translated her words.“That is my daughter! Make way!”

The souls murmured, a sound like a distant crowd, but parted for the liveliest one. A glowing gray figure pushed her way to me, her red eyes like liquid rubies.“Brazita…no. You are not her.”

Keshora et Sudaira’s kindly face fell with disappointment. Something broke between Braza and I in that moment and she flowed free of me, standing beside me in shades of black and purple.“It’s me,”she answered. By some miracle, I understood, and tears pricked my eyes when both souls crashed together for a strong hug.

A third figure piled into their hug with a girlish laugh.“Braza!”Ravai exclaimed, her voice high, on the cusp of breaking to the deeper tones of adulthood. I was struck by how similarly she looked to Phaeron, an impeccable female version of him with her mother’s red eyes.

“Ravai! Wait, how are you here?”Braza asked. She looped an arm around her sister, holding both of her lost family members close.

For a moment, Ravai looked baffled by the question.“I…oh. Uncle took my soul and carried it to the goddess to eat.”She looked around at the silent audience of souls, blinking twice.“I guess I’ve been here ever since.”

My heart broke for her and everyone else who’d formed mountains of husks within Myuna’s stomach. There had to be millions here. The foundation under my feet was shifting as more and more souls stood back up, briefly reanimated to bear witness to this reunion and my eventual death.Think, Cress.There had to be a way to escape.

“She’s been using your power as her own,” I said, mostly to myself. Thousands of eyes blinked. Ah, shit, most of them were from Soiluire, and had never seen a human in their lives. I tested the thread of connection between Braza and me and tried to repeat myself in their language.

---