Though a part of me still shouted that this whole thing had been a terrible, terrible idea, it was easier to listen to Melakor’s reasoning. It always was. He was a god, after all. Of course he knew best. And so I allowed myself to be comforted by the weight of his conviction; allowed it to envelop me like a thick blanket, protecting me from uncomfortable feelings and unwanted thoughts.
But even as I lay there on the altar, the stone cold against my back, something niggled at me.
I sat bolt upright. A flash of annoyance emanated from Melakor’s gem as it tumbled from my chest and into my lap. I had the sudden urge to fling it as far away from me as possible.
“Wait!” I looked over at the high priest’s body, blood still dripping slowly from the wound in his neck and pooling thickly on the ground underneath.
But speaking aloud seemed difficult all of a sudden, as though my throat were filled with treacle, so I asked Melakor silently: You said we needed blood for the ritual, but the priest is dead, and the ritual hasn’t begun. We don’t have a sacrifice.
Oh, but we do.
Icy fingers seized my heart. What?
Melakor’s voice was smug as he replied, The priest’s sacrifice gave me the push I needed to Ascend; to regain the final ability I require for our little ritual.
His smugness was making me want to punch him in the face. Then I remembered he didn’t have a face. Yet.
What ability? I asked, no longer even pretending to be devout. And why Rylviari?
The high priest was a worthy sacrifice; a font of knowledge and experience. The man was a precious trinket belonging to my ancient enemy, and one which I delighted in taking the opportunity to smash.
I made to ask him again about his new ‘ability’, but he interrupted me. Enough words. Let us proceed.
His heavy, oily presence in my mind intensified, but far from soothing me, I found it suffocating. Melakor’s next words were as final as the grave.
Kill him.
Shock jolted through me, though I realized that somewhere, deep down, I’d known all along that this was coming.
To my horror, I found I could no longer move; no longer speak, nor even breathe freely.
His voice slipped inside me like a necrotic eel. I knew you would be too cowardly to proceed with the ritual once you knew the truth of what it entailed. My new ability is called ‘Dominate.’ Do you like it?
I tried again to move, but I was trapped in my own body, locked in as surely as I’d been locked into Melakor’s vault all those months ago. I cursed the day I’d found him—Khazla was right all along, I thought bitterly—and prayed my disciples would realize what was going on in time to save me from the God Core’s arcane tyranny.
Kill him, he said again, and I knew they all heard him. This is the final stage of the ritual, the treacherous Core added smoothly, and around me, the cowled figures relaxed.
All but two of them.
When Draykon looked at me, uncertain, I widened my eyes—the only part of me I seemed able to control—in an attempt to communicate that something was very, very wrong. Instead, my horror turned to despair as that heavy blanket of Melakor’s presence slid up my spine and forced my neck to bend in a nod of affirmation.
Draykon nodded in response, his expression clearing. As his own spine straightened with conviction and he raised his hands, the dagger they clutched a coldly gleaming curve above me, any hope I’d held of being saved finally fled. All I could do was watch the knife descend.
Distantly, I saw Khazla lunge toward Draykon, and felt a strange pang of joy at her unexpected gesture, futile though it was. She was tackled and restrained by the other disciples before Draykon was even aware she’d moved, and so, that curved black-metal blade slid between my ribs with no resistance.
Cold. It was so cold. It was like being impaled with a stalagmite from the bottom of the deepest ice-lakes in the Netherdark. Straight through my heart the dagger plunged, and with it came Melakor.
If the blade had been like ice, the god was liquid flame, flowing gleefully into my chest and out through my arteries like molten steel. His presence burned me from the inside out, but not for long; for as Melakor insinuated his way into my body, I myself was pushed out. And though I struggled, I was pulled apart, fragment by fragment, and drawn inexorably into the cool facets of the purple Core.
Fifty-Five
The Only Way is Up
Corey
I fell for what felt like forever, burning, burning. My mind whirled as I tried to roll away from the agonizing displacement, but my body was unresponsive. Some sort of paralysis, perhaps? Where was I?
By the time I regained my wits enough to look around, vague memories started to return to me. A gem. An altar. A knife in the dark. Already they were receding, pushed back by what I knew to be more recent recollections. A wriggling eel. A tiny girl riding a badger. A fluffy owl sitting atop a large furry spider.
Then I heard the voice.
Like a light against the crushing darkness, it pushed through the fog, a tendril of hope reaching for me, reaching.
“Corey…”
I followed it, clinging to all it offered—light, memory, life—until the faintest hint of a spark appeared. Hope surged inside me. I focused on the spark, willing myself to be pulled toward it, anchoring myself to it with all my remaining strength lest the void around me suck everything away again.
“Corey…”
The voice was closer. The light was brighter. With one final pull, I left the draining void behind and emerged into the light.
A tiny winged figure flitted anxiously from side to side.
“Ket?”
“Corey!” Pink and white sparks
