The Minax swirled inside me, reeling at the sight of the bare space where the throne had stood, its home for a thousand years. I felt its confusion, its brief sense of loss, but its feelings shifted to elation as it realized the freedom of living inside me instead. It settled into me, pushing at the edges of my consciousness.
There was a sound like shattering glass. Arcus was smashing through the protective ice that had kept him safe from my fire. He came to my side, and I dimly heard him calling my name, felt his hands on my shoulders. But my consciousness was disappearing like grains of sand being sucked into the sea.
The voice of a thousand bells spoke, each word resonating with excruciating triumph.
“My true vessel, you have freed me. We will always be one now.”
As the darkness expanded in my chest, I realized it hadn’t been using its full power on me before. It had let me destroy the throne because it wanted me to. I had been part of its plan. And now it was growing, consuming my identity, my very self.
I needed help, someone who had power greater than my understanding, someone with golden hair and eyes who had helped Arcus before, someone I had seen when I was lost in the blizzard-white woods. If that had really been the seer, the prophetess who had healed Cirrus, I needed her help now.
“Sage,” I said, some part of my spirit, some part that knew more than my mind, reaching out. “Help me.”
The voice from my visions spoke in my ear. “To be filled with light, you need only to make a choice. Choose to forgive yourself. Choose to love.”
Her words lent me strength to struggle harder against the shadows. I willed myself to focus on things that were from the light: love and hope and healing, new beginnings and forgiveness. The life I wanted to live, rather than the pain and guilt of my past. I pictured Mother, smiling and proud, Grandmother at her side as they beckoned and welcomed me into an embrace. Love was a purifying force, like fire. I embraced it.
Blinding golden light filled me. A scream pounded in my ears, an inhuman cry of agony, and then the darkness that had been inside me snapped free, like a clothesline that had been cut, sending all the sheets whipping into the wind. I would have fallen, but Arcus held me upright, pulling me against his chest.
The Minax hovered above us. It tried to seep back into me, but I filled myself with every loving thought, keeping the light steady and bright.
The shadow beast flickered from opaque to transparent, clearly struggling to keep its solid form. It shivered forward and retreated, as if wanting to come back to me but knowing it couldn’t.
Movement caught my eye. Rasmus had smashed through the ice and was crawling across the floor toward us. He was trembling, his face a sickly gray, his eyes pure blue and filled with pain. “Come back to me, Minax,” he said hoarsely.
He looked so weak I had no sense of fear of the once powerful king. “You can’t let it merge with you,” I said. “I’ve felt its full power. If you invite it in, it will erase who you are completely. You can’t survive.”
He shook his head. “I’m dying anyway.” He raised his arms. “Come, Minax, my only friend. Return to me.”
The shadow beast only hesitated for a moment before moving toward Rasmus. Arcus leaped toward him. “Raz, no!”
Even as Arcus reached for his brother, the darkness had filled Rasmus, turning his eyes black once again as he breathed a sigh of relief, his lips curving in a shaky smile. “Nothing matters but power,” he whispered.
Then his brows drew together, and he threw his head back in agony. Veins stood out against his light skin, the blue turning black, like oil. The veins spread out like tiny tributaries and streams, connecting and swelling. Rasmus screamed and clawed at himself, staring at the ceiling as if searching for some hope of rescue. He convulsed violently, then fell limp against the floor as the Minax flowed back into the air, hovering above us again. It looked stronger, more opaque and solid. It moved toward Arcus, and I threw myself in front of him, my hands out.
“Sage, protect us,” I said under my breath.
The Minax shook in a way that mimicked laughter. “I don’t need this one, the king who fought my influence when he took the throne. I have fed on another king. That will sustain me until I can find my next host. Though you are my true vessel, Daughter of Darkness. When despair fills you, when everyone you love is gone, we will be one again. Remember me with this.”
Something seared the skin near my left ear and then I felt the presence of the Minax leave.
The world spun and righted itself. I sucked in a painful breath. I was on all fours on the stone floor. I tried to speak, but my throat felt dry and shredded.
I opened my eyes and found myself staring into twin chips of ice, a myriad of colors from a warm summer lake to a cold winter morning.
“Is it you, Ruby?” Arcus said my name quietly, a caress of breath.
“Yes, the Minax is gone,” I said. “For now.”
“Thank Tempus you’re all right!” He gathered me into his arms. I tucked my head into the space between his neck and shoulder. After a few minutes, his head turned toward his brother’s still form. His breath shuddered against my neck. “He was my brother.”