Winds of Fate [Books I-III]

Chapter Sixty: The Admiral's Daughter

"You did not send me to the Abyss, little girl," the ancient feminine spirit hisses as she drips black ink down the muddy forest floor. Purple tendrils twist with her black smoke. Her ruby red eyes pin Eleanore with vicious malice. "But you did give me enough essence to make this likenesss! To taste your inner darknessss!"

"My soul..." Eleanore gasps. The icy vines clasp her tighter. She squirms. "When you touched my soul... No, no, no!" She writhes; boots kicking the wet leaves away. I have to get out! Have to pull myself out of this magic-

Far older than us.

Eleanore freezes. Her throat dries up. Luca and Atabeira are younger than this, and she would be a baby compared to these immortals. Desperation bogs her chest. She pants for another breath... and another-

Damn.

I need to study hard.

"They are searching for you," the dark ancient gloats, "treading closer and closer to my influence!"

My friends! Her heart quickens. Kill me, but not my friends!

"No! No more death!" Eleanore wriggles free from the cold embrace holding her back. Knowing her loyal shadows would refuse her, her instinct leads her to will fire into her hands. "Ah!"

The frost leaves her face, her arms. Cold trickles down drop by drop to her feet.

A prickly vine grasps her from behind in retaliation and ties her to the trunk. She writhes, letting the thorns dig into her skin. "Aah!"

The dark ancient one glares. Those red orbs a frightening companion in the still darkness of the forest. "You are mine!"

Cold bites up her legs again. Another icy sheet descends on her head, even to the strands of her hair. She gasps but the frosted thorns sink their sharp prongs deeper into both skin and soul, reaching for her heart.

The ancient spirit cackles.

Eleanore closes her eyes. She can't let it touch her magic or else risk this ancient spirit possessing her completely. Then use her body to deceive her friends. Oh no, no, no!

The icy thorns turn to purple shards, inching nearer and nearer.

I need more fire, more light!

She stops.

Light.

Yoka Hu's gift!

The golden warmth still runs in her veins, given by the god of her ancestress. Eleanore lets out a breath. She sifts through her heart. Despite her loneliness, her grief, and her failures, she reminds herself there is still a new morning after every dark night.

Another chance.

The slivers of a long-forgotten magic answer, alit by a newfound hope within her soul.

"You have guts to face me now," Eleanore spits, clenching her hands to fists. "But you don't know where I've been."

"Oh, please," the dark ancient one cackles, "all you can do is talk, little girl. You are far from able to use your gifts-"

Now my tendency to talk would be your detriment.

Eleanore breathes in, letting every fiber of her soul surrender to the forces of light in the universe. Magic weaves with the thread of her life, reconciling light and dark forces for the first time.