Page 119 of The Court of Secrets
“It shall be amusing to watch you try.”
“To watch us try.” Morgana stepped out from the tree line, holding the Dagger of Ruin in her hands. Only she could resist its lures, a curse to turn mortals mad. I almost burst out crying when I saw her, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. She glanced down at Adius, then back at the necromancer. “You spread nothing but death.” Her voice resonated, and for a second, I swear I saw him wince. “You are a plague upon this world, and I will gladly be the one to take you out of it. Where you are going, there will be no coming back.”
“You think yourself stronger than me?”
She held her head high. “We will always be because we belong here, in the world of the living. We get to feel what it is to be alive.”
“I know how it feels to live.”
She shook her head. “You know nothing of life.” She gripped the Dagger in one hand and her staff in the other. Lifting her staff in the air, she closed her eyes. “Ancestors, help me destroy this wart on our world.”
My heart hammered when the spirit of my brother appeared, moving through the river with others. Their pained stares sent a sharp pain through my chest. They surrounded Morgana, and unity pulled them together. The twisted faces of the elders came to them too, helping Morgana power magic at the necromancer. The elders were keeping the other souls in line. I didn’t see my father’s spirit there, but he was surely watching. Why was she letting the elders, the villains of everything we believed, help her?
“You came here to use our spirit realm, our most sacred river, for your own again: to use our ancestor’s energy to power a ritual to bring back your dead lover.” Morgana spat on the ground, and the elders nodded along with her. Many of the elder’s expressions were filled with light when compared to the frustration in the other souls. “Now, we will show you true power.” Her staff swirled with blues and whites, moving around at dizzying speed.
The air began to vibrate energy, creating a force field around us. He pushed back with an energy blast of his own, knocking me back and slamming Neoma against the bars of her cage with a skull-scrunching thud. I winced, checking the rise and fall of her stomach for breathing as she lay unconscious. I sighed relief; she was breathing.
Branches from trees cracked as they fell to the ground, breaking their twigs into patches of flowers and stretches of mud. Soil swept into the river, muddying it, and leaves circled with gusts of winds. The necromancer placed his hands in front of him as if to stop the pulse of energy moving from Morgana’s staff. His dark eyes rounded. He let out a low growl, pushing a vibration from him. A tree trunk uprooted and flew through the air at Morgana.
She blocked it with a shielding spell as the ancestors and elders surrounded her, chanting, powering her further. André weakened, fading with the others until he was nothing. More souls joined them when the others’ powers had been drained. Sadness tugged my heart to go to him, but my brother was gone, replenishing his energy somewhere in the spirit realm. The elders never waned, with the rest of the dead taking the brunt of powering Morgana’s blasts of magic.
The necromancer closed his eyes, breathing steadily, then opened them again. A murder of crows darted from the trees toward Morgana, their beaks pointed, murderously intent. His ease of using animals unnerved me. The winds picked up speed until it was hard to take a step forward. Morgana screamed three words in a language I didn’t know, and the birds died midair and fell to the ground with a couple dozen thuds.
Morgana swept water from the river and knocked him back, slipping him into the rocks of the rapid waters. I turned away while she was in control. Her wealth of knowledge made her his strongest contender. She’d devoured every spell book allowed in Magaelor, and even those that weren’t. That, and channeling the ancestors through being in the veil, meant she was a force to be reckoned with.
A gust of wind knocked me to my knees. After crawling through dead snakes, crow carcasses, and mud, I made it to the lock on Neoma’s cage. Adius had done a good job at trying to pick it with a small knife. I squeezed my eyes shut as I moved his body out of the way. Using his small blade, I pushed it in as far as it would go, steadying my breathing. A rumbling thunder sounded behind me. I whipped my head back and saw the drenched necromancer pulling lightning down to the river.
I turned back and twisted the blade, then wiggled it for a good minute before I felt it click. I pulled open the cage and dragged her out. Blood had dried at the end of her brown curls—hers or Adius’s, I was unsure.
“Winter!”
Morgana’s scream turned me. I placed Neoma down. The energy of the ancestors was dwindling, and without enough souls, the elders themselves weakened. Their ghostly faces held tortured expressions, as parts of them faded. Her eyes widened when I approached her. The necromancer rushed at her as the staff in her hands splintered, then cracked down the middle. He tilted his head, and she looked at him intently, a knowing look in her eyes.
“The tether to the spirit realm is in the river,” she called to me. “You’ll know it when you feel it. The elder’s energy is weakened now. They won’t be able to stop you. End this all.” She threw me the Dagger and it landed in a puddle of sloshed mud in front of me.
“What are you doing?” I screamed. She couldn’t kill him without it.
The blade of the Sword word cut through the air at impossible speed. She closed her eyes, placing her hands against her chest. A knowing smile graced her lips when the blade landed a fatal blow, cutting through her shoulder and part of her neck.
I stared in disbelief for several seconds before a howl I didn’t recognize erupted from my throat. He smiled sadistically, stretching his thin, blood-spattered lips. It had to be a bad dream. This couldn’t be happening. Vomit climbed my throat and reached its destination, pouring from my lips. I wretched as her blood spilled over the bank. My heart broke, cracking with each beat. My tears fell thick and fast as all the fight withered from my body. The vision of suffering I’d told Morgana, it had come true. I felt as if I were going to die, like the heartache might kill me.
“No!” The necromancer’s scream rattled the trees. He curled his fingers as he appeared to suck inward, his skin taut against his bones. He struggled for breath, stumbling forward. “She bound us.”
My jaw hung open; my fingers still curled into the mud. That must have been why she had been looking through all those books. She was binding her life with the necromancer’s. He’d once possessed us, and I bet she used that connection to do it. She’d meant to die. She’d meant to drain the elders so I could destroy the spirit realm.
Morgana had sacrificed everything for Magaelor. Only that forced me to my feet. Tears falling, I walked to the necromancer as he dropped to the ground. I spat on him, and through gritted teeth, I sneered, “Rot in death, you vile beast. May you never find peace.” I snarled as he strangled his last breath, his eyes closing before he fell limp.
CHAPTER FORTY
The river crashed white against jagged rocks. The water no longer resembled clear waters to the pebbled bottom but instead mixed with mud and blood, clouding the area around me. I held my breath as my hands trembled to hold the hilt of the Sword of Impervius, which I’d torn from the necromancer’s cold fingers. The handle of the Dagger warmed against my skin in its sheath, ready to be used if the Sword didn’t work. I glanced to Neoma as she sat up. She glanced around, panicked, then scrambled into the woods after seeing the dead bodies.
“I will end this today. Your death won’t be in vain,” I whispered to Morgana, hoping she could hear me. I inhaled shakily, the water dropping a few degrees in minutes. The veil pulsated, as if it knew oblivion was close and I was to deliver it.
Ghostly faces of my ancestors, their faces shrouded with anger, wisped in an illusory dance around me. I felt their energy, piercing rage into me. I clamped my eyes shut, whispering for strength as the elder ancestors tried to weaken me. Morgana luring them to fuel her energy to fight the necromancer had made it harder for them. The Sword almost toppled from my fingers. If the water claimed it, it would be game over.
I shuddered, wondering what they’d have been able to do if they hadn’t been drained. Even in their weakened states, they still had some effect over me. Spirits didn’t talk in the realm, but they could here, in the veil. The ghostly figures turned into flesh and bone, appearing as André once had.
“You tempt to destroy your ancestors, young queen?” one of the elders taunted from behind me.
