Page 69 of Bright Soul

“You’re right. There is one problem I will have to preemptively consume,” she simpered.

The scene smudged into darkness. Endaeron and I hung in the Void together, surrounded by shadows. “I did not know, at first, that she thought the son of night was you. I would’ve done more, I swear,” he said.

“You could not speak of it,” I replied sharply. In a tunnel of endless black, there was nothing to look at besides him. Nowhere for my bottled-up rage to go except for straight at him. “You stood by a goddess of entropy as her champion and helped her fool our people. How do you like yourascensionnow?”

“I was as much a victim as you were. Maybe more, if we must measure our suffering.” He met my snarling with calm, his palms up. Though a human gesture, we observed it too.

I sensed that he was flimsy, just a memory of a memory. To scream and rail at him would be futile. He was a piece of himself, not able to do anything about Myuna now. And he had willfully armed me with a piece of knowledge I needed time to chew on.

I drew back my claws and fangs. “Say your piece, then,” I invited more quietly.

“Myuna groomed me from birth for something far worse than taking up a throne. She had two options, but she used to talk about how your darkness stung her when you were the babe she picked up first,” he said. “She never forgot that you slighted her when you were minutes old.”

My lips pulled back in a sneer.

“Your shadowborn soul was too pure for the seed she planted in mine instead. She made me…like her,” he sighed.

“That is quite apparent from what you did as the Hungering Darkness.”

“You don’t understand. I was her seedling. The only soul she would take with her once she wiped out Soiluire completely.” This vision of him was starting to fade around the edges, the sounds and colors of reality pressing in around us. He growled, baring a mouthful of teeth. “Stay with me a little longer.”

“I’m trying.” It was like straining to hold on to the edges of a dream. No matter what, my body wanted to wake up.

“As a nascent god of entropy, my remains will be built like hers. There is a hollow within my core. Search it. Maybe you can do some good with what remains.”

I swallowed past a lump in my throat, not trusting my voice. I simply nodded.

Sorrow filled his eyes, which gleamed like milky diamonds. “I’m sorry, brother. Even if I had years rather than moments to atone…”

“Endaeron, no.” I realized he was nearly gone, and my composure fell apart as I envisioned what would come next for him. What remained was too shredded and warped to find the next life, after all. This was my last chance to speak to him at all before he became dust. “I—I forgive you! I only wish you peace.”

“It would bring me great peace…to fix one thing I did wrong…” Fading in earnest, he extended to me a spark of bright white. “Take what is left, freely given.”

I let him place it in my palm and drew him into a one-armed hug. The ghost of his wings closed around me before I was suddenly in the shopping mall, surrounded by the stench of blood. I knelt on the ground, my mouth still tasting of Soiluirian whisky.

A spot of warmth was now clenched in my hand. I turned it over and gaped. It was a teeny piece of a white soul, bright with lightborn shadows. I only sensed Endaeron within it, with no lingering hint of Myuna. Grief tightened around my eyes. “Is this truly all that remains of you?” I whispered.

Freely given, I could do whatever I wanted with it. I could snuff it out, warp it so the last part of Endaeron felt pain before it faded away. It wasn’t large enough to exist on its own for long.

I waited to feel hunger, to salivate over consuming this soul energy. I’d bitten the Hungering Darkness, after all. The cravings were said to be immediate and life-altering. But there was nothing of the sort…

Only new mourning squeezing its way in with the old. That wasEndaeron, and he had given me tangible hope to dance on my fingertips. A patch for the hole in my soul. A way for a small portion of him to live on in me if I chose to accept it.

I pressed that piece of him to my chest. It attached to my soul like a magnet, flowing to the spot where it was needed to make me whole again. Tension bled out of my body on a wave of sheer relief.

The ghost of the best of my brother remained, and I felt it all: a hint of his confidence and savvy. His boisterous laugh, his optimism, his love for women and drink. There was even a bit of his strength, skill with a blade, and honor in knowing when to use it.

To turnhiminto a monster like her, Myuna had had to crush and destroy nearly everything about him. That was the true tragedy of Endaeron et Myudair, his only other remains the white residue scattered around my knees.

I rifled through it with my hands and senses alike, scattering husk-like pieces of souls sucked clean of their energy and color. The moment my claws touched them, they disintegrated. But one piece was larger than the rest, freshly torn away from its rightful home. Young, male, a hint of carefree emotion twined with blood witch magic.

I tucked it into a ball and held it protectively. Without a vessel to hold it, I needed to get it back to Lucas right away.

26

BEN

There was a particular look in Garroway’s face. One that said he was going to bolt before he actually did it, running full pelt away from the four of us.

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