Page 67 of Bright Soul

“As I was saying.”Without physical lungs, the dry rasp of a voice in my head had to be the Hungering Darkness on its own.“Myuna desires your return. And she is practically salivating for the soul of the purple-haired witch.”

“She can have neither.” Phaeron bristled with power, more and more darkness answering to his will. Without the light of my weapon in the way, he beckoned a wave of shadows. A tide of darkness swarmed over the curl of white shadow and dragged it back to the ground. Upon impact, it became Garroway again, struggling against several loops of inky rope and more forcing its way into his mouth, nostrils, and eyes.

“Why must you struggle against the inevitable?”hissed the Hungering Darkness, independent of its host body’s choking and writhing. White light flared around Garroway, and Phaeron staggered, clutching his head.

Braza forced a steady stream of power into him through the invisible tether between them. Geo spread his wings to block me from going to him, rumbling dangerously when Phaeron turned. White flared over the yellow in his eyes, hunger reflecting there before Geo squared up, fully between us. “You shall not harm her,” he said.

“Just one taste.”

Phaeron whispered, “Just one taste.”

Garroway was getting to his feet, shaking off the choking shadows. White shadows made extra fangs around his victorious grin as Phaeron evaded around Geo’s wide stance, going straight for me.

I backed away, dropping my weapon. Geo grabbed Phaeron’s shoulder, stone fingers digging in hard as the dimensional struggled and snapped. “This isn’t you.” I was begging, fumbling for the mark of protection he’d left on my wrist. I touched it and breathed his name.

Phaeron froze. He drew on his shadows for a burst of strength and bared his fangs, ripping away from Geo.

I braced myself for impact, shadowy claws out. But he’d turned around and sunk his teeth deep in the white shadows over Garroway’s shoulder.

There was no mistaking how he jerked his head to the side, tearing at the Hungering Darkness like an animal. My mouth dropped open in shock. “Oh, fuck,” I whispered, fearing the worst for him.

A cloud of white curling shadows enveloped Phaeron. He was a horned shadow crouching within the heart of them, unmoving.

Garroway staggered to the side, clutching his head and his bloodstained sword. He looked around, mouth twisting into a sneer. “Well, then,” he muttered.

He turned and ran, a blur of speed.

PHAERON

I tore the Hungering Darkness down the middle, just like it’ddone to Braza’s soul so long ago. When I’d envisioned myself destroying it so utterly, I hadn’t dreamed of using my teeth or swallowing a mouthful of the vapors that spurted from the wound like blood.

With that taste, I was damned. So many of my people had started an addiction to the rush of energy and memory within soul energy with just one bite. It became a craving that couldn’t be slaked except by death. There was no coming back from it once one of us has destroyed the soul of another.

I gave thanks that instead of drinking in the spice and sunlight of Cress’s soul, it was what remained of my brother’s spirit tearing between my teeth. His memories suffusing my mind as the white magic keeping him stitched together failed.

I would’ve expected him to taste of blood and grave dirt, as painful deaths were the only thing he’d wrought ever since the Age of Decay, but Endaeron was not an ordinary soul, not even when it was only a portion of him left behind. A smooth alcoholic taste suffused my mouth; it was Endaeron’s favorite blend, something we’d left behind on Soiluire…akin to an aged whisky.

I felt my awareness fall deeper and deeper out of my body.

A jolt passed through my mind. I opened my eyes, finding myself in a distantly familiar room with that dimly memorable taste on my tongue. And next to me, a figure I’d forgotten yet never could. Endaeron, alive, taller than me. He was ivory-white horns to feet, broad with icy wings shot through with silver blood in his veins. Gold stain limned his forward-facing horns and the angles of his face.

He was in his prime, the First Prince in his suit of white fabric, with the golden symbol of a shadowborn on the breast. Though technically, it was “lightborn” in his case, with his white shadows.

I stilled, my breath caught. “Brother,” I said, like this memory would turn to speak with me.

To my shock, he did. His face tilted down, his white-lined eyes meeting mine. “Brother,” he echoed, deep and sure. “Our time is short and your needs great, so I have selected this memory for you to witness before I fade.”

I became aware of the scene around us in a blink, dropped into it as a bystander. Endaeron stood by Myuna’s right hand, with me inserted on his other side. In this memory, she was in her form of an Iorsio tribe female, seated on a massive throne in one of her many private rooms. A Vrassorm woman knelt before her, her skin nearly as pale as the goddess from what she witnessed within a globe of black Void energy.

“Well? What does the Void whisper of my future?” Myuna asked in her awful multi-layered voice.

The woman was a Vess, with one cloudy eye and the other quivering with fear. “I need to consult with it f-further, my lady. S-Sometimes the Void can be so cryptic…”

A tight smile twisted Myuna’s mouth. “I insist. Surely you do not doubt your goddess’s ability to understand a prophecy?”

“My lady, it is unwise to probe the future out of fear,” Endaeron said.

As a dimensional, her eyes glittered like diamonds as she swung her attention toward him. I tensed, but she didn’t notice me. Of course not. This had happened on another planet, in another age where my brother still lived.

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