Rachel Aaron - Spirit’s End

Overhead, forgotten and uninhibited, the enormous hands shot down from the sky to dig into the defenseless mountains, lifting them up one by one as the holes in the sky grew larger. As the first mountain left the shell, a chorus of screeches echoed down through the cracks, a great call of victory that drowned out even the panicked screaming of the spirits below.

Miranda rubbed her eyes as they ran, not quite believing that a place could be so white. She’d thought the Shaper Mountain’s heart was blinding, but it was dingy compared to the landscape they were now running through. The Lord of Storms led the way, though he was now so white himself that she kept losing him. So, instead, she followed Eli.

The thief’s posture was grim as he jogged just ahead of her, his dirty, torn shirt sitting tight across his tense shoulders. Miranda understood. Her own body felt like a spring pulled to breaking. Her spirits cowered in their rings, utterly silent. Even the Tower was still, hovering at the very edge of their connection. The only thing that felt truly alive was the Lord of Storms.

From the moment Eli had thrust the Hunter’s seed into his chest, the Lord of Storms’ presence in her body had grown from enormous to overwhelming. Even though he was no longer pulling strength from her, Miranda felt utterly drained just from being attached to so much power. She kept waiting for him to sever the connection. After all, what did the Hunter need with a wizard? But he didn’t. He just surged forward, a white fury in a white world, while she bobbed in his wake, drawn inexorably toward the Power at the center of everything.

As they ran, the world grew less white. Cracks were starting to appear, bits and pieces of the Between falling away to reveal glimpses of the world below. Miranda saw forests, mountains, even a snatch of Zarin’s skyline. The longer they ran, the more holes they passed and the more alarmed Miranda became. She had no idea what counted as normal in this place, but she was fairly certain this wasn’t it. Worse still, every time they ran by a gap, she could feel her spirits cringe.

“Are these more cracks in the shell?” she asked, wincing at the loudness of her own voice.

The shell is the wall between creation and the nothing outside, the Lord of Storms said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. So unless you’re seeing black, the answer is no.

Miranda was going to drop it there, but her next step changed things completely. She put her foot down as always, but instead of hitting the strange white floor, her foot hit nothing. She fell with a cry, her boot going straight through the white world as the floor crumbled.

She caught a glimpse of ocean below before Eli grabbed her hand. For a moment, she dangled between the white world and the endless sea, and then the Lord of Storms’ hand joined the thief’s and she was yanked up. The Lord of Storms tossed her down on mercifully stable ground, and Miranda clung to it, staring in horror at the now-gaping hole. “What is going on?”

“The veil is crumbling,” Eli said, pulling her to her feet. “Come on, we need to move.”

“What do you mean?” Miranda said, letting him yank her up. “I thought the Weaver maintained the veil.”

“He does,” Eli said, pulling her after him. “But I left him fighting the Shepherdess. Now the veil is crumbling, so what do you think is happening?”

Miranda swallowed and dropped his hand, moving into a jog beside him. Fortunately, the floor didn’t give out again before the Lord of Storms stopped them a minute later, his hand raised in warning. When Miranda peeked around his enormous shoulders, what she saw made her want to shrink to nothing.

Directly ahead, two blindingly white figures stood in tableaux. One was a woman, pure white and impossibly beautiful. She was as tall as the Lord of Storms, her glorious naked body clad only in her shining hair. She held a sharp, black object in her hand like a dagger, and her white eyes looked down with scorn at the man on the floor.

The Weaver lay before her, his breathing loud in the white silence. His hair lay spread out around him like a robe, but his chest was bare and slick with a glowing substance that was so beautiful it took Miranda several moments to realize the Weaver was bleeding from a stab wound in his stomach. He’d covered the wound with both hands, and she could see the skin knitting together under his touch, healing before her eyes, but even the miraculous speed was far too slow.

Above him, the White Lady wasn’t even panting. She watched the Weaver like a hawk, her white eyes clear and sharp with rage. Behind her, a crumpled sphere lay smashed on the floor like a discarded toy. Above that, another sphere floated. This one was little bigger than the white pearl of the Hunter’s seed, but unlike the seed or the dull, shattered orb on the ground, this sphere was filled with glorious color. It hung in round perfection, the only color in the whole, white world, and the White Lady stood before it like a guardian.

The Powers were wholly focused on the other, and neither seemed to have noticed the three strangers intruding on their private fight. Miranda glanced at the Lord of Storms, waiting for him to say something arrogant, or at least tell the Shepherdess to back away, but he did neither. Instead, he drew his sword with a whisper of steel and lunged straight for the White Lady’s throat.

Miranda covered her mouth, stifling the surprised yelp with her hands. The Lord of Storms moved faster than anything she’d ever seen, and for a split second she was sure it was already over. But then a great crash filled the silence, and she saw the Lord of Storms’ white sword grinding against the Lady’s long, black dagger inches from her face.

The Shepherdess stared at her former servant, her eyes round with shock. You.

The word was spoken like a curse. And though Miranda couldn’t see the Lord of Storms’ face, she could feel his grin in her gut. Me, he growled.

As he spoke, his white sword flashed down, flying toward the Lady’s thigh. But the black dagger moved just as fast, blocking him again. No longer caught off guard, the Shepherdess stepped back, keeping her dagger up. The weapon was hideous to look at, two feet long and grossly uneven, tapering to jagged points at both ends. As the Lady caught the Lord of Storms’ next blow, Miranda wondered briefly why the Shepherdess, the queen of all spirits, would use anything so ugly.

The Shepherdess flicked the black dagger, carelessly throwing off the Lord of Storms’ blow. The Lord of Storms growled and raised his sword again, but the Lady only laughed, holding her arms wide.

What? she cried, her beautiful voice mocking. You think that now that you have my brother’s seed you can cut me? Go on. She waved at her bare stomach. Try.

The Lord of Storms struck before she’d finished speaking, his white sword stabbing into her unguarded belly. The Lady didn’t even wince as the blow landed, her lovely face turned up in that hateful smile.

Though she knew what she would see, Miranda forced herself to look anyway. The Lord of Storms’ sword lay against the Shepherdess’s stomach, its cutting edge pressed into the unmarked white flesh. The Lord of Storms stared at the stopped blow, and Miranda could feel his rage burning under her skin, but before either of them could master it, the Shepherdess backhanded the new Hunter across the face.

He flew backward, landing on his back to Miranda’s left. The Lady was on him in a flash, straddling him as she brought the demonseed up. The Lord of Storms scrambled, barely raising his sword up in time to stop the black point from stabbing into his chest. The Lady was about to try again when, with a thundering roar, the Lord of Storms threw her off. She landed and rolled, her hair flying as she pulled herself into a crouch, panting as she clutched the demonseed in her hands.