Page 117 of In the Ravenous Dark
Once we’re standing in front of the doors, I have to crane my neck to see to the top. The black surface seems to rippleawayfrom me.
“Should we knock?”
Ivrilos smiles briefly, and mutters a few words of death magic under his breath. The doors don’t budge. “He’s holding them against us.”
Athanatos isn’t making the same mistake Kadreus did and arrogantly throwing them open.
“Let me try.”
I use the same words for opening that Ivrilos did, but also sigils, since at least some of them seem to work here. I also walk right into the door at the same time. My shield repels the magic holding it closed, and on top of that, the doors don’t seem to want to get near me—or at least my bloodline. They practically leap away, slamming open.
The floor rises to greet us. It ripples like a wave to lift and carry us out, but it breaks against my shield.
Then we feel the wind. Even though it parts around my shield somewhat, it creates a drag against us. Putting one foot in front of the other is difficult. I think of Lydea, Japha, my father, and my mother, and I keep moving forward, Ivrilos at my side.
Athanatos is inside, surrounded by darkness—the rotten heart of this place. His blue eyes flare in surprise and anger. He standsnext to his throne, which is exactly as I remember it: both spiking and liquidy, black as ink. It’s practically humming.
Lydea isn’t here. I’m both relieved and heartbroken all over again.
“If you insist upon entering,” Athanatos says coldly, “I suppose I’ll just have to kill you.” He takes a step toward my shield and then hisses away from it. “What is this? How have you brought this here?”
“Magic,” I say. “We’re here for your throne.”
“You will not approach,” Athanatos says though gritted teeth. Under his anger there’s a note of frustration, and it’s music to my ears.
Ivrilos must hear it, too. “You first brought me here to watch as you destroyed everything dear to me,” he says. “Now, no matter how powerful you are, you get to feel just as helpless. You don’t get to fight, not even to lose. You just get towatch.”
For a king who has been taking what he wants by force for hundreds of years, in life and in death, I can’t imagine anything more humiliating.
I take that as my cue and head for the throne, the glassy black floor rippling under my feet like I’m walking on water.
“Are you too cowardly to end this properly?” Athanatos snarls, waving at Ivrilos. “Don’t you want to try to best me, take my essence for your own?”
Ivrilos sticks close behind me. “I don’t want you to be any more a part of me than you already are. They can have you.” He nods at the walls, which are now quivering like jelly the closer we get to the throne. “They’re probably hungry, after so long.”
I realize, with some joy, that Athanatos can’t flee. We’re blocking the way out, and he has no bond of his own to follow to the living world, without Kadreus. There’s only the three of us and the throne.
Ithatesme; I can feel it. If its connection to the living worldis anything like a guardian’s bond to their ward, then only the destruction of what’s bound can break it. I pierced the skull with the stake, but the throne is made of pneuma, like a shade. How exactly does one break that? Its essence looks too concentrated, too dangerously unstable for Ivrilos to try to consume.
And then I remember that once-living substance can interrupt death, just like the skull or a revenant’s heart. And I’ve brought something like that with me: my bloodline. It’s the stake that I’m going to ram into the heart of the dark city—into Athanatos, his throne, and everything he has built with it.
I’mthe stake.
Athanatos howls as I reach the throne. The hum grows to a whine of straining tension—a stringed instrument plucked to the point of breaking. The noise pierces my brain, makes my ears want to bleed, but it’s nothing to the pain I’ve already felt.
I sit on the throne.
The screeching vibration abruptly stops. The throne falls still, though a shock wave blasts out from it, rippling through everything—the snapping tension of the link to the living world felt throughout the entire city. Then everything falls quiet.
Too quiet. Like a held breath.
I face Athanatos. His expression is scorched, empty. I merely cross my legs, as if getting more comfortable. “It’s done.”
As I say it, the walls begin to run. Down, not up, pooling on the floor like thick paint. It must have too much weight, the essence too condensed, to just float away.
“Rovan…,” Ivrilos says, eyeing it. “We should go.”
Athanatos has been too busy staring hatred and murder at me to notice it puddling at his feet. By the time he glances down, it’s too late. He tries to lift his leg, but it’s stuck fast to the floor, and the blackness only rises, beginning to crawl up his leg like shapeless fingers.
