Kahlia’s eyes lit up like a cougar leaping on an unsuspecting deer. “Liar.”
“How dare you call me a liar,” Emmery snapped. “I earned it from the Whispering Spring. It’smine.” She glanced at Vesper as he gasped like he couldn’t get enough air, yet he continued to stare blindly at the floor.
Thellonius strolled forward. “This magic has always belonged to Kahlia. Rightfully so.” He stopped at her side and continued,“Because Kahlia’s body lingered within the Blood Mire all those centuries ago, the spring reclaimed her magic. Deimos tried to steal it for himself, but he was a fool. He didn’t know the consequences of releasing Kahlia’s shadow into the spring. He thought her shadow would be a sponge for the magic, and when it came crawling back, he could use it to free himself. But the Whispering Spring has its wicked ways, and not only did it steal Kahlia’s shadow, but it kept the magic too.”
Kahlia laid her hand on Thellonius’s arm. “The spring put the magic into another vessel,” she said. “One that wholly recognized my form, similar enough to hold it.”
Emmery’s attention warred between the two, her head spinning. Because it couldn’t be true. This was—to echo Vesper’s sentiment—impossible.
But her trial flitted through her mind, and the shadow monster she’d fought lingered at the forefront. That monster had mimickedherface, until it shredded its exterior, and absorbedinto her. Become her.
At the time, she’d thought the trial was too easy, but when she’d nearly drowned, hands had shoved her out of the water. Had the spring aided her? Was it Deimos himself reaching? And to help or to steal her away?
And when she’d relit thekhaosflame, it’d awoken something in her. Had awoken the shadow. Melantha’s voice repeated in her mind,Kahlia of the Eternal Sky. She will wake now you have called upon her.
Oh, gods. It had to be true. And it was all her fault.
Kahlia tilted her head in pity and said, “When you fell from the sky, the spring knew what it was doing. It is smarter than it lets off. It knew this vessel would be strong enough to hold the magic since noKennahas ever contained thekhaosflame without burning alive. Every time it placed your soul inside aKennabody, once you passed your trial you would perish. Andwhat better place to put it than a fallen star, an angel at the beginning of its life as I once was. As you were.”
Emmery’s jaw fell slack. “What do you mean … angel? I’mKenna. I don’t know—”
“Haven’t you heard the old stories?” Kahlia blinked slowly. “The tale of Pellius’ angels.”
Emmery had heard bits of it beyond the gate. Pellius had two angels, two twin daughters to be exact, but only one was gifted with magic. At the end of their lives, the sister with the magic descended, and fell to the earth.
“You were one of them. Weren’t you?” Emmery whispered.
“As are you, my dear sister. Seems you were always obsessed with following me, even into another life.” Kahlia’s smile brightened, her sharp teeth ready to bite. “Life is a cycle. You and I were born a star, but we were destined to burn out. Since Pellius had grown fond of us, he moulded our forms into angels.”
How was that possible? How could a body be manipulated so? But Emmery supposed Pellius was a god and held all life at his fingertips.
Kahlia continued, “Our bodies remembered our celestial forms. Clung to it. But when we reached the end of our lives, I refused to become his star once more. I wanted freedom. So I fell. And you, dear sister, followed.”She tsked under her breath. “Such a shame what happened to you. Seems when your demise came, Father retrieved a part of you and trapped you in the sky, a husk of a star, while your soul remained here. I still do not know how you fell again. How you escaped.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “And while this body of yours is new, your soul has lived on for centuries, held within the spring and placed within others. Since the beginning of time. Your soul has been reborn over and over again and forever will be. We are eternal.”
“You’re insane!” Emmery snapped. “I—I would remember having another life. I would remember if I was Pellius’s daughter or any of the utternonsenseyou spewed!”
“Ah, it seems Deimos has been carefully plucking and manicuring each strand of memories from your soul,” Thellonius mused with the grin of a jackal. “I knew he warped that mind of yours when he brought you back, but I didn’t know it was so severe. That he left you a shell.”
She couldn’t breathe as that one key part repeated in her head. Those words a fist to the chest. A mallet to her head. A kick to her heart.
At Emmery’s distraught expression, Kahlia clasped her hands together and smiled. “Who do you think sent you back beyond the gate? And inevitably away from here and us. We all believed you were dead, dearest. And he threw you back into that sad, pathetic life, that stagnant pond where it seemed you withered away again. I suppose he merely needed to wait until you inevitably wandered your way back to him.”
The floor dropped out under Emmery, and she fell, plummeting to the ground. She couldn’t get words out. Couldn’t manage a single thought.
Kahlia saw this in her. “The Oracle did not tell you.”
Images of Deimos’s study flashed through Emmery’s mind. The cruelty and death and the utterly disgusting state of the Hollow. The sin and demons. The blood drained from her face, leaving her cold and trembling. “It’s not possible. Deimos is cruel,” she said.
Kahlia lowered her voice. “Nyssa,” she purred and skimmed a finger along Emmery’s cheek. “You remember nothing of Deimos’s cruelty.”
Nyssa. That name sliced through her and cut away everything she’d ever known. Everything she was. Because that was the name used inThe Nameless Book. Nyssa and Evryn.
“My darling sister, let me make this abundantly clear to you.” She licked her lips and hooded her eyes. “When night falls, I will take your body since your form is the only one that can hold thekhaosflame at its true force. I will reclaim my magic. And you will cease to exist. Your soul will be void, never to live again. And you will all pay for what you have done.”
The world spun and she couldn’t hold on.
Kahlia was her sister. She was an angel and Pellius’s daughter. She’d been trapped in the sky, her soul contained here, and each time she was brought back, her body burned away until she fell again and reclaimed her soul. And Kahlia's shadow now lived within her.
It was fuckinginsane.