Page 75 of Curse of Darkness
All the remaining torches have been lit along the shore as I arrive deep in the heart of her cavern and land upon the island in the middle of the underground lake. I’m getting better at this sidestep into another world. No more slamming into the lake with its creepy carnivorous ghostfish.
The torches flicker. There are fewer of them than I remember.
It gives the impression the island is slowly dying.
“It is,” the Mother of Night murmurs, cradling her arms across her chest as she steps out of the darkness. She looks weary today. As if she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. And the dark cloak she wears seems to cling to a skeletal frame.
“Are you all right?”
She waves a hand as if it doesn’t matter.
But it does.
I’ve seen her power, seen her strength. I’ve fought her with every inch of my soul. And yet here, now, with those fine lines around her eyes and the gauntness of her cheeks as if she’s using her own power to prevent this slow collapse, I can’t help feeling the bite of guilt.
I don’t understand her. I never have.
“Why is this Hallow dying?” Angharad resurrected the Hallow stones of Mistmark in the real world and made the appropriate sacrifices. This shouldn’t be happening.
“What do you know of the Hallows?” she murmurs.
“They’re ancient stone monoliths set in place to capture and wield the power of the leylines where they cross. They were places of worship for the otherkin, and places the Old Ones claimed as their own. This one—Mistmark—was yours. Then the… the fae used it to turn your magic back upon you and trapped you here.”
She smiles weakly. “The stones are merely stones, Iskvien. They’re sentinels meant to focus the power of the wells. The Hallow itself is a well of power, a means to channel the leylines. And the leylines themselves are merely conduits of power meant to connect each Hallow. It’s a network that circles the entire world. If one Hallow begins to ebb, then it may draw power from the others. It’s an infinite balance, and now that balance is off.” She sighs. “When Thiago’s death released the Horned One at the Black Keep, it sent shockwaves rippling through the network. The Horned One was weakened by his captivity, and he knows how to draw uponala—the energy that each well of power draws from the lands. To build his strength, he’s been siphoning power from other Hallows. But the cost of that….”
She staggers and I catch her by the arm, surprised by how thin she is.
I can’t say I understand it all, but… “You’ve been restoring the balance across the networks, haven’t you?”
“The balancemustbe restored, Iskvien. He’s already drained three Hallows dry in Unseelie. They’re dead now, and the impact of that will threaten the world. The energy that runs along those leylines will simply vanish into those empty wells, spilling through the core of the world. It will build and grow, making the earth volatile. Eventually they’ll erupt. You’ll feel the tremors in the lands as they tear themselves apart. Castles will fall. Houses will topple. It will kill thousands if he is allowed to continue.”
“How do we stop him?”
She looks at me. Just looks. “A queen will rise, Vi. I have always foreseen it.”
I am not that queen.“A queen may rise, but will she fall?”
Blankness smooths her face. “That is not set in stone.”
A bitter, breathless laugh escapes me. “I knew it. Iknewit. All along you’ve been leading me toward this. You want me to set you free. You want me to kill an ancient fucking god. But you haven’t said a word about how I’m to accomplish any of that—or even if I’ll survive.”
She captures my fingers as I turn away. “Because I do notknow. I don’t see the future, Iskvien. I seepossibilities. And with every choice made, ripples of consequences spread out, changing all those possibilities. There are a thousand futures where the Horned One kills us all. And dozens where we cast him down. But there is always a cost in those mere dozen.”
“Do I survive in any of them?”
She hesitates. “Yes.”
“And if I bring Thiago back, doeshesurvive?” Because I don’t think I can face that again.
A long silence brews. “There is only one future in which I see him survive.”
One future. One shot.
“You must both accept your destinies,” she says sadly. “It is your only hope.”
“I’m not ready.” There’s been too much to confront. Thiago’s death. The shock of Amaya’s appearance. My mother. Andraste. Edain. Lysander. All of it. I haven’t had a chance to unpack any of it, and it keeps coming at me.
“No,” she says quietly, “you’re not ready. But you are all we have, and we don’t have time to make you ready. He will not stop, Iskvien. The Horned One will not stop until he has wrought his vengeance upon those who locked him away. And your mother invites it because she thinks she can control him. She thinks she can stop him if she regains the Crown of Shadows.”
