Where one Spire had been fighting a particular Torgurian, her dead father snapped into her previous opponent’s place. Elsewhere, a Bedrock’s foes were replaced by his dead wife and teenaged son. As the dead supplanted the living, they immediately resumed the attack on their Acorilinian loved ones.
The shock of confusion and its impact upon the Acorilinians was catastrophic. Images of dead brothers, cousins, and spouses haunted the defenders, and for many, the mental violation proved too hard to overcome.
As they hesitated, mothers and sisters, sons and grandparents stabbed, sliced, and pierced the living to death. Those Acorilinians not caught off guard still felt their souls sink and hollow out as they had to fight their already-dead family. Through nausea and tears, Acorilinians across the field tore into their beloved dead, while the specters themselves screamed their confusion and despair—unaware as to how or why they had been ripped from the realm of death to attack their family, but unable to flee until they were killed once again.
***
While Morganon struggled against this new horror, Jularra, Vylas, and Leona raced up the final trail to the Vacant Grave.
Other than a few grunts or shouts at their horses to help direct them around the abrupt switchbacks, no one had spoken since the Voidwarden appeared to Jularra on the trail. As they finally crested the summit, Jularra felt her chest tighten as her hatred for the place clenched around her heart.
The hole down into the mountain came into view and the lone guard next to it fell to a knee. The riders swung off their horses.
Still kneeling, the guard looked up at them.
“Queen Jularra!” he exclaimed.
“Get back to Morganon,” she ordered. “The city’s under siege, and you’re more needed there.”
Confused, the guard stammered, “But I—”
“Get back to the city!”
She didn't spare him another glance as she walked by. Without a word, Vylas and Leona followed her. Jularra paused at the entrance just long enough to draw in a deep breath, then started cautiously down the stairs.
Jularra set the pace, with Vylas and Leona right behind her. As the three of them crept deeper and deeper into the mountain, the speed at which they descended began to slow.
“Jularra,” Vylas whispered.
She stopped without turning around. A single torch flickered flimsily nearby.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she whispered back. “I’ll try anything—fucking anything—but I don’t know where to start.”
“We need to somehow take its power,” came Leona's cool voice. “The pool? The other queens? There has to be a way.”
Jularra turned around slowly.
“If there's a way, I can't see it!” she hissed. Her whisper grew in volume as it scraped through the passage.
I calculate, think, plan, and consider all the fucking time.
And now I have no idea what to do.
“You may not know what to do right now,” Vylas soothed. “But remember, the Gift Gods said that your understanding of magic is complete.”
Vylas stepped closer to the weak torchlight and looked Jularra in the eye.
“Whatever needs to be done… you have the ability to do it.”
Regardless of whether that's true... I owe it toAcorilan to try.
Jularra dipped her chin in a quick nod and resumed her original speed through the tunnels. Apart from the few visitors and expected hints of filth earlier in the tunnels—just like the first time, and all the other times since—the way was clear. The passages eventually emptied altogether, allowing Jularra to speed through the tunnels until Vylas and Leona had trouble keeping up.
Jularra wasn’t intimidated as she had been when she was a child. She knew where she was going. She knew what she would find there. She was a grown woman, full of history, and magic, and power. She was eager to face the Voidwarden, and eager to try and destroy it. Her veins throbbed with adrenaline and the excitement of possibly freeing Acorilan for good.
But her thoughts overwhelmed her, and she felt herself losing focus in the dimly-lit corridor. She stumbled; her feet slid out from under her on the final set of steps approaching the Voidwarden’s chamber. Just like the first time. Her heart pounded as she went sliding down onto her palms.
Get up. Get up, damn it!
She bent her knees and used her scraped hands to push herself back to her feet. She crossed the threshold and started to run again, but only for a short burst. Perhaps it was coming upon the pool so quickly, or the weight of the task before her, but she almost stopped. She shuffled over to it as if approaching the edge of a cliff.
Inch by inch, she grew closer. After checking that Leona and Vylas had entered the chamber behind her, Jularra looked back into the depths of the room, letting her gaze sink to the pool before her. Her heart continued to knock relentlessly on the inside of her chest. She swallowed and stepped into the empty pool.
As she pulled her other foot in, she was immediately jolted by a sweeping dread. I don’t know what to do! It will find me any second. I’m going to die!
Anxiety circulated through her soul and her heart raced with panic. She was about to step backwards and out of the pool when the memory of seeing her mother slump to her knees flashed through her mind. Then came the sharp image of Korden’s mauled corpse. Keleah's blood-choked screams. Finally, sounds of a crying baby that she would never meet seemed to seep from her ears and reverberate throughout the chamber.
No. None of this should have happened. It has to stop. It can’t go any further.
Her mind drew thousands of pictures of similar events her country had endured. Her imagination stung her with images of what
