Page 198 of Curse of Darkness
“No.” The Horned One bellows, hurling lightning at her.
“Amaya!” I scream, flinging a shield of pure Darkness between them.
Amaya staggers back, but his lightning is contained, flickering within the void of my power. Grimm hisses and then vanishes, and while I don’t dare tear my eyes off her, I suspect the Horned One is suddenly dealing with fifty pounds of pure fury and fur.
Andraste slides across the Hallow toward her, hauling her into her arms. She gives me a nod.
She’ll protect her.
“Get up,” Grimm says, appearing right beside me, his eyes locked on the Horned One. “Get up and take her offering.”
I crawl to my feet, reaching for that dark flame without hesitation.
It’s like finally coming home to myself.
The frost running through my veins no longer sets me on fire. The world darkens, but there’s clarity in the darkness. Strength.
I forge my sword again, but this time, there’s a sense of weight to it. An edge that wasn’t there before.
And then the Horned One pauses, his head jerking toward the south.
Where a shining beacon of light spears toward the heavens.
“Ceres,” Edain pants.
Another one joins it, this time further south. “The Briar King’s Hallow,” Andraste whispers, her arms wrapped around Amaya.
A punctuation of light obliterates the north.
“Charun,” says the goblin in a guttural voice.
One by one, light punctuates the north and south, as if the cataclysm has set off all the Hallows on Arcaedia.
“What are they doing?” Andraste’s face pales as she drags Amaya to safety.
I turn back to the Horned One. “Vi’s breaking the Hallows open. She’s setting the Old Ones free. Come on! We have to give her time! We have to distract him!”
It’s time to finish this.
43
ISKVIEN
Light races along the leylines, taking me with it. It burns through my veins, burns me whole until I can barely scream. The crown burned away to nothing, leaving a coronet of pure flame in my hands, and it emphasizes my power, leaving me limitless.
“Rise up, Vi.”
The Mother of Night’s voice.
I smash through the Hallow in the Briar King’s keep, and suddenly I’m in an ancient forest. An enormous craggy stranger turns to stare at me in surprise, deer antlers poking through his hair. Moss clings to them.
The Green Man.
“And thus I set you free,” I whisper, driving all that heat—all that light—through the heart of the Hallow that imprisons him. “Come to me and fight, for the Horned One has risen.”
He vanishes, and I’m nothing more than light again, hitting a nexus point in the leylines—a Hallow, though not one of the origin Hallows—and racing down each thread.
Right through another origin Hallow.
