Page 223 of Season Warriors & Wolves

White Pawn to F6

Visha

Nothingness surrounded us. An empty white pane stretching for miles ahead. Both above and below.

Vas was in his human form, staring back at me. “Your aunt underestimates you,” his voice was muffled in the wide expanse.

“No. She has appropriately estimated me. You, on the other hand, underestimate how afraid a man can be. Of simple things.” It was not difficult to draw the memory. Not from his thoughts. From the lingering spirits of people he once had loved that still hovered around our worlds. The unblessed had this curse, you see. To linger. To fester. To hate. Erna, Drystan’s Crafter, had a gift to call and heed. So, she had called on all those spirits and lingering souls who had known him. Drained them of every bit of memory of him and given them to me. It had taken me three storage units worth of vials and a whole month to go through them all.

“So,” he said, spinning round. “You’re going to keep me here all the way through? Locked up inside my own mind.”

“No. Only until I break you.”

“I can’t be broken.”

“Your soul can.”

His amusement faltered to bitter disgust. “You cannot break my soul, witch.”

“I’ve never seen Snow so perplexed trying to figure out something. However, as usual, she was right. Fader kept your body undying, eternal, void from sickness and disease, fortified it in a way no one could touch. But death is not death if both body and soul have not been taken. And life is not life if both body and soul are not alive. Though many have attempted to defy Celesteel, the order of life and death cannot be defied even by the greatest god there is. It is as simple as that.”

Snow had doubted it long ago, but only confirmed when she’d struck the deal with the Prince of Ustrina. Vas had no soul. She’d played her luck that day and won more than just a bargain.

Melanthe had used the seedling to control the other beasts, but he was the only one who had absolute control over his body.

Because there was no soul in it to be corrupted by the magic of the Caligo beast blood.

He clapped languidly, the sound echoing. “What a fantastic discovery. I. Am. Unbeatable. That much I thought you knew.”

“I found it. I found your soul.”

His hands dropped to the side, face twisting darkly. “What?”

“In order for a life to be unclaimable, both soul and body must be parted from one another. Usually impossible. A body cannot survive without a soul, but Fader fixed that. Part of you flowed in the Mid-world. Part of you walked Numen. That is how Fader could defy. Now, I can defy him.” At the click of my fingers, a cold shadow appeared beside me and it seemed to impress my guest, because his eyes grew wide. “Swimming in the Sea of the Dark, so alone and lost like no soul in this god blessed realm should ever be. You have Snow to thank for this reunion. For your…salvation. Welcome inside my mind, Vas,” I said, and the surroundings twirled into colourful patterns to slowly form a memory—a painful one. I could not plant it back in his mind, but I could plant it in mine. “Let’s break yours.”

Chapter forty-eight

Black Pawn takes F6

Kilian

Silas’s men and monsters crashed heavily against our front.

Like silk, darkness seeped from my fingertips, a cloud of onyx smoke enveloping dozens of lines.

At the click of my fingers, the cloud disappeared, leaving behind floating ash that blew in the northern wind, disappearing without leaving any trace of soul or flesh.

Just a splinter.

I’d bear a thousand more by the end.

Power leaked in the air, filling the cold winter wind with unnatural heat, almost synthetic in feel against my own. The snow below began melting away, the wind halted altogether, and the skies cleared when she rose again from under my control. Isjordian troops halted and took shield for what was hovering above them to reach the front lines.

The white-haired woman loomed above us, studying the ground below—expectant. She lifted a pale white hand towards us and white sparks began crackling out of nowhere, lighting the air itself in white flames.

No wind, nor ice or shadow resisted its spread no matter how many Aura called upon their blessing to shield from the burn.

Not until it crashed against darkness, dissipating and disappearing, letting wind blow again and the cold air pimple our skin.