Seven Souls

Prelude

She was torn from the dream. Its once wistful flow was chaotically spiraling away, escaping her like a fading, distant lullaby.

Meri awoke soaked in her own sweat. Her flesh betrayed her as her cheeks flushed an anxious shade of red. Her delicate warm skin, plagued by rouged embarrassment, matched the busted blood vessels in his eyes so precisely that it made her shudder. It should have been the knife against her skin, its blade leaking more crimson out of her body, but it was his eyes that left her horrified.

“Not a spell?” she asked as she studied those bloody red eyes. “No enchantment?” she said, choking on the words as he teased his knife a little deeper into her flesh.

“What’s interesting about dark magic, Meri,” he replied as he danced the knife against her trickling blood, “is that it often steals the very thing its users crave the most. I could easily suffocate you from across the room, move my fingers ever so slightly and watch you die from that corner right over there, but then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of feeling your beating heart stop.”

“What about Amphoranella?” Meri’s body was finally lulling itself into a calm acceptance. She slid the back of her head gently against his lap as he stared down at her. Although it was several years ago, this feeling was familiar to Meri. She looked up toward her husband’s brother, stared into his disturbed eyes, and thought back to a time when he’d stare lovingly back at her.

“I haven’t decided,” he admitted, but when he heard her heart beat faster the small slice of humility within him gave way. “I probably won’t do anything,” he continued. “I won’t kill her.”

He listened to her heart slow again. Oh, how he loved her. He watched those golden eyes widen, not in fear but in curiosity, before she asked her next question.

“And him?” she begged.

“I wouldn’t be doing this to you if it had not been for him.”

“That’s a lie, Invidus. You just said you want to watch me die.”

“You just made a mistake, Meri,” he whispered. “And I’m truly sorry for your poor judgment. I know it was clouded by lust and greed. Still, for that amount of heartbreak you have to die.”

She nestled herself along his lap, comfort and horror colliding as she watched her former lover speak. “How many other people have to die?”

A pang of guilt twitched within him. “You don’t need to know my plans anymore, dear.”

Suddenly Meri’s broken body shuttered with a fierce anger; an emotion she often kept buried in the darkest corners of her soul. “You’re going to cause a bloodbath, magical and non-magical alike. You’re murdering for the sake of it; for the taste of it. You’re nothing but the disturbed louse of a man who was upstaged by his brother his entire life. I’m warning you, with my last final breaths, if you live by the sword you will die by the sword. Is power truly worth the price that you’re willing to pay? Do you love power more than you love me?”

“I do,” he admitted with deep regret. “I long for power far more than I’ve ever longed for you, Meri.”

Invidus wrapped her fingers in the mess of her dark ebony hair, her curls collecting under his strong grip as he lifted her to his lips. With a kiss he hoped she’d understand just how much she had meant to him. In their final moments, he stared at her lonesome golden eyes.

“It’s the same love that you have for power. The same love that you had when you decided to marry my brother for the sake of becoming queen.” Wrath fueled through his fingertips and in one swift, hatred filled motion he sliced the blade deeply through her neck, blood sputtering out of her as she heaved her dying breaths. “For that I can’t forgive you, Meri. For that you must die.”

For Meri, the dark room flooded with an icy white glow. A halo of gleaming sunshine surrounded Invidus, his pale skin decorated by her splattered blood, and she watched him mouth that he loved her. In these final moments, Meri’s lonesomeness was swept away and she was consumed by a joyous sense of relief. As she died, she had never felt happier. Not even when she gave birth to her only child, Amphoranella.

When her heart finally stopped he felt a shrill sense of isolation. Before the emotion could consume him, however, he muttered a spell under his breath, a devious one that left his throat red and burning. Still, he murmured on. Soon his lips were covered in blood, spitting it as he spoke. His body was warning him, in a desperate attempt to protect him from the evil he was spreading. Still, the pain of his scorching throat meant nothing to him, and he forced himself to slur the dark magic that he had become so accustomed to. Finally, as blood slipped down his chin, a cloud of darkness swallowed Meri, engulfing her body in a dusting of ebony smoke, and she was gone.

When Invidus finally glanced up, choking back a sob as he did, he saw his brother’s wide eyes peering back at him.

“Bring her back,” Aldine demanded with his grey eyes blurred by tears.

As Invidus lifted himself off the floor he smoothed the wrinkles of his cobalt robes, eyeing the crinkled creases to distract him from the sight of his brother. “She was dead long before you walked in, Al. I slit her throat. There is nothing to bring back. You’re too late.”

Aldine ran his fingers through his auburn beard before covering his eyes. “For what reason? To hurt me? To become King? You could have easily killed me before…” he sputtered before dropping down, doubled over in hysteria.

“It was personal,” Invidus admitted, the slightest essence of humility slipping through him yet again.

Rage swelled throughout the otherwise diplomatic King. To kill his baby brother with his own callused hands was something he yearned for so deeply right now that he could taste Invidus’ blood. And yet, his brother was no longer human. This would not be a fight between two men; rather it was a battle with a beast. A monster so engorged with evil that a victory against it seemed insurmountable. The dark powers that Invidus had possessed had only come through years upon years of damnable corruption. His brother had holed himself away for a decade, pouring potions, shedding blood, all for this very moment.

“What do you expect to happen, Invidus?!” Aldine hollered. “That the people will love you?!”

“That they will be horrified by me!” Invidus bellowed, spitting a mouthful of blood as he did. Then, as Aldine pounced toward him, Invidus lifted his hand and watched the veins beneath his pale skin grow purple.

From the neck down, the king had felt as though his organs had been gouged out. Although it was an unreal sensation he could still feel the numbing perception of his veins being peeled away from his soon to be lifeless body. His bleeding eyes glanced down to find his skin transforming into an ashy white, cracking a bleeding; the look of his flesh like a fragmenting, hatching egg.

Still, death did not quite come.

“Nel?” Aldine spoke, watching a haze of purplish smoke seep out of his parted lips.

“You can die knowing I’ve decided not to kill Amphoranella,” he replied with a twinge of sympathy in his cracking voice.

“Good,” said Aldine. “My Nel will destroy every wretched fiber within you.”

“Your daughter isn’t special, Al,” he hissed. “She has no powers, no mastery, no strength. What is she?”

“She is determined,” Aldine replied, his face now blurred by a wall of dense smoke.

Invidus’ hand pulsated with swollen veins as he trooped toward his brother. With his other hand he lifted the blade, still glistening with Meri’s fresh blood, to Aldine’s neck. “My niece is weak. She is helpless. She is her father’s daughter.” And with that he sliced through the clouding eggplant hued smoke and into the king’s jugular.

Sputtering spit and blood Amphoranella’s father uttered his final words. “You will die at the hands of my child.”

Chapter 1: Royal Blood

“I really think you’re ready this time,” he says and the wind surrounds me in what feels like a calming embrace.

“Ready as in I’m strong enough to defeat him? Or ready as in we can’t wait any longer?”

“I would hope you’d know that I would never send you to your demise for the sake of your parents’ memory, Amphoranella. We wouldn’t be here if your life wasn’t valuable,” he replies.

Sometimes, despite any measure of struggle to stay focused, I get lost in Marvin’s black eyes in a desperate attempt to see a mere glimmer of human life. Each time, however, I find a soulless shade of black hauntingly watching me; like tarnished ebony buttons that have lost their vibrant shine. Knowing Marvin’s soul is cramped up inside him somewhere, forced into the depths of his pinkie finger perhaps, often makes me cringe in pain. I can never understand his willingness to be possessed by Silva, yet day after day I watch him inhale in preparation before the forest spirit radiates through him. Even though I’ve spent six months watching Silva’s chilling voice slip past Marvin’s chapped lips, I believe I’ll never get used to the sight of possession.

“Amphoranella…” I hear Silva’s voice icily rattle through my ears. “Distraction is the enemy.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Sometimes I worry for Marvin though,” I say as I study the dark haired man slumped in his chair.

“I wouldn’t be able to possess him if he wasn’t willing, Amphoranella,” his haunting voice affirms before he continues. “I said that I think you’re ready.”

“Today?” I wrap my fingers tightly around my spear.

“If you had so desired,” Silva says, and a chill slips up my backbone. “But now that I see your reaction I’m uncertain that you’re confident enough to really do this.”

“No,” I sputter out quickly. “If you believe that I’m ready, physically ready, then I believe that I can kill him and anyone who dare try and protect him. Mentally though…” I’m disgusted with myself as I stammer out these words.

“Then I suggest that you spend some time wrapping your head around this, Amphoranella,” he explains. “He does not expect his niece, in all her royal glory and regal beauty, to be able to yield a sword the way you do now. If you need time, take it. Uncle Invidus is not going anywhere.”

The sun behind me shines down against my pale flesh, lighting up an otherwise gloomy, dejected complexion, and we both know the time has come for me to leave.

“Do you have your basket?” He asks me calmly and then watches as I take the weaved wicker from my bag.

Six month ago, my uncle’s prowess in dark magic could have convinced the kingdoms that the King and Queen had passed away in some horrid freak accident. He could have sputtered terrible lies, claiming that they could not handle their duties and that they ran. He could have said that they rushed off to hide from their heavy responsibilities. He had made their bodies vanish, turned them into dust, and not a soul on the planet could prove his connection with their murder. But Uncle Invidus reveled in his cruel immorality. He cherished the dark skills he obtained so greatly that he could smugly admit to being a killer.

It was the death of the King and Queen that rattled the kingdoms to their core. His viciousness wasn’t simply out of vindictive jealousy or for undeserved power. I’m convinced Invidus killed his brother and sister-in-law, the most authoritative people on the planet, to send a message.

There are three other royal families that rule over their appointed kingdoms. King Cevlez of the North has always had an issue with my father ever since the Willow war so it doesn’t surprise me that he hardly flinched at my parent’s murder. He even created a law that no one could discuss their deaths within his kingdoms. I know this was not out of respect but out of bitterness. He was not protecting them; he just didn’t want their memory to grow.

Yes, I could understand the deceit of King Cevelz. But I could never understand the actions of King Birnbaum of the South or King Edgerton, who ruled the East. King Birnbaum and his kingdoms thrived on peace, so perhaps this is why he never tried to right the wrong of my uncle’s doings. It still made me sick to my stomach though when all he could manage was a wrinkled letter of condolences. A faerie came to my window three days after their deaths with the letter. When I asked if he planned to fight Invidus, the faerie stared at me blankly with its huge black eyes. When I asked if it would deliver the King a message from me, it spread its bat-like wings and flew off.

As for King Edgerton, I had always felt that it was Lady Edgerton who was in control. It was also well known that she, being plain and hateful, had a bitter rivalry against my mother’s beauty. Perhaps this, something as simple as my mother’s beautiful eyes, kept the Edgerton family from helping us.

Or perhaps it was the result of the Willow war. Since the war had ended twenty six years ago there has been an arrangement of peace throughout the nine kingdoms. Each King could rule by his own accord, but each law created must go through the King of the Sole throne for approval. This King was my father, who was only a young man when our family won the Willow war. One nasty little rule about the Sole throne, however, is it can be taken away merely through murder. If King Cevelz killed my father, something I’m certain he craved to do, then the throne would become his. This means that when Invidus killed my parents, he also had seized the throne. Aside from their bitterness, passivity, and jealously, I believe this is the only possible reason why he was not attacked.

Things changed quickly after Invidus revealed his knowledge of the dark arts. King Birnbaum, so terrified by violence, fled the kingdoms along with his family. He left nothing behind for his people expect for a trail of his cowardice.

King Cevelz, who probably spent years planning a new war to overtake the Sole throne, decided it would be in his best interest to join Invidus. Of course this was a tactic to gain Invidus’ trust. I’m certain he planned on stabbing him in cold blood before seizing the coveted throne. However, as soon as my uncle proved the bloodshed he was capable of using his powers, I doubt King Cevelz felt up to the challenge.

Finally, I gained a certain respect for King and Lady Edgerton when they fought against Invidus. But fighting against someone so immersed in dark arts is futile when you come bearing swords and torches. At least I can say that their deaths were swift and painless.

Nobody dared to oppose him after that. Instead life had changed forever inside the Western castle that I had grown up in. Every day my uncle would demand that I go pick berries for him. He would send me, my emotions crumbling with each step, to pick the raspberries that grow beside my parents’ graves. Each time I would return with a basketful of plump berries and I’d watch him taste them, letting the blood red trickle past his revolting lips, and he would say, “They’ve grown from the same soil as your dead parents, Amphoranella. Don’t forget that.”

This additional torture, this extra slice of the blade, fulfills him with a disturbing sense of relief. When he laps up those raspberries, laughing at the empty sight in my eyes, he doesn’t believe I’d ever be able to tear the life from his undeserving body. This is where my atrociously clever relative is wrong. I’ve spent six months collecting berries conjured by a forest spirit, all to bide my time for my training. A training to teach me precisely how to end his life.

In an instant Marvin’s body flushes a shade brighter, his complexion suddenly far less deadly, and a small glimpse of human life awakens in his eyes. Although Silva still speaks for him, at least I can watch him lift himself from his seat and conjure a spell that leaves my basket overflowing with berries. Even though Silva can move Marvin, train me through his able body, he oftentimes needs to shock him to a near dead state, allow the possessed man to rest, and so yet again he blocks out Marvin’s soul and lets him slump back against the carved wooden chair.

“I will not judge you if you cannot bring yourself to do it today,” Silva’s voice is quiet against the gushing wind. “Whether it is today, tomorrow, or decades from now, they will be avenged.”

Then I watch Marvin’s body quake chaotically as Silva reenters the atmosphere around him, leaving his vessel disoriented and shaken. Marvin glances over to me, his delicate wrinkles highlighting his dark features, “Are you ready?” he asks me with a cough. “Did he say that you’re ready?” his dull, droning voice lulls out.

“He did,” I nod embarrassingly.

“Go on then,” he says simply before shooing me away.

The first time I met Marvin was two weeks after the death of my parents when the looming memory of their untimely demise was still slicing into my psyche. When Invidus urged that I use my mother’s wicker basket to pick the berries surrounding their graves I anticipated that my very soul would completely shatter. And it would have if it hadn’t been for Marvin and Silva.

My first visit to my parent’s graves left me in a pile of dirt. I sat atop their poorly adorned burial plots, my reddening face in my hands, and tiresomely vowed to them that I wouldn’t let their deaths go unnoticed. And then suddenly I remember my mind, so full of concern and horror, was wiped from all anxiety with just the brushing of a breeze. As the wind swirled past me, my hair tumbling auburn strands behind me, it beckoned me to stand up, leaving my parents and the basket of berries at my feet, and called me into the woods. No thoughts flowed through my mind. No questions or worry. Just the very raw need to follow whatever had been summoning me. I chased its call through the dankest part of the forest, with dead trees crumbled on top of themselves, but I smelt nothing but sweetness as my body lost all control and dashed after a nonexistent being. Then, at an opening in the decaying woods, I was faced with Marvin.

“That’s her?” he asked, but certainly not to me. His dark eyes were aimed above me as the wind whooshed against the trees.

“I didn’t think it would happen either,” he said and the leaves shook excitedly.

“Nel, sit down,” Marvin urged, though there had not been a place to sit, so within the long blades of grass I sat and watched him with wide eyed wonder.

The sound of my father’s nickname for me was the only utterance that could break through my dreamy disposition. “Did you know my father?

“I didn’t. But he did,” Marvin replied as he tiredly pointed to the windblown trees behind me.

It was only when the breeze finally settled that my heart began to pummel within my chest. Although I had remembered the vision, and although I could picture myself darting through the dank forest, I couldn’t understand how I had gotten there. The moment that euphoric calming breeze stopped, I sat horrified in the grass.

“Did my uncle send you?” I muttered pathetically, my voice cracking in terror. I remember my mind, so warped by what had happened, being completely convinced that I was about to die.

“We’re certainly not here on behalf of your uncle, Nel.”

“We’re?” I uttered in confusion.

“You can’t scream,” was all he had said before the atmosphere surrounding us felt as though it had collapsed within itself.

It had felt as though my very soul had been gripping at my insides, latching on as though some greater unknown force was driving it up and out of me. I watched birds flutter away in horror, their terrified call the only sounds I could recognize as the trees bowed ever so slightly down toward the man in the carved chair.

“Amphoranella,” an entirely new voice seeped from his lips. “I won’t call you princess because you’re no ruler of mine.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Absolutely not,” the icy voice insisted. “But I’d like to use you to kill.”

I let the shrill voice slip pass me. Something else felt far more interesting. It was the eyes gazing upon me, so lonesome and hungry, that left me curious.

“You’re not the same person that was just talking to me,” I said. “Did you just kill him?”

“He’s not dead. I can’t possess someone who is dead, Amphoranella. Also, if you’re growing concerned for him, and I see that you are, know that I cannot possess someone who is unwilling.”

“Possess?” I perked up as I spoke; my intrigue finally replacing my fear. “So you’re dead?”

“I suppose you could say so,” he replied, and the trees around us shook.

“That man said you knew my father,” I began hastily. “Can my father possess him? Can I talk to my dad?”

“Unfortunately I only knew your father in the waking world,” the cool voice admitted. “I’m afraid that because our deaths were of different circumstances, I’ll never see him again. Surprisingly enough, Amphoranella, I am as shattered by your father’s death as you are. This is why I’ve summoned you with a proposition. You’re going to have to murder your uncle, Amphoranella. Do you believe you have the strength to do that? I don’t mean physically. Physically is where we can help you. I’m asking if you’re mentally capable of murdering a person. Are you mentally capable of killing a person you once loved?”

“Absolutely,” I heard myself utter without hesitation. I searched for guilt within myself. I reached for some kind of emotion. When I came up empty I nodded again. “I can kill Invidus without a doubt,” Then I thought for a long discouraging moment. “I think you should be more worried about physically. I’m a princess.”

“So?”

“I’ve been brought up as a princess. I’ve been surrounded by guards my entire life. In twenty-three years I’ve never once learned how to defend myself.”

Even though he was speaking through the body of another, he seemed entirely sure of himself. “I can teach you. He can show you,” the voice said. “We’ve figured this out long before we had the opportunity to summon you.”

I glanced down at my pale weak arms, so entirely delicate and frail. “Why me though?”

“Because you’re the closest we’ll ever get to Invidus,” he hastily replied. It’s as though the desire to kill my uncle had been eating away at him since my parent’s deaths.

“How is this even going to happen?” I asked in heartbreak. “He won’t let me run off to the woods whenever I want. And he has plans to give me away as a prize to one of his followers,” I finally muttered.

Early after my parent’s murder horrible creatures came crawling out of the woodwork, all eager to please the most powerful man in the world. He had finally decided on six other men who seemed suitable enough to wreak havoc with. Invidus told me that if any of them truly impressed him, then I would be theirs to keep.

“You may not understand this, Amphoranella but I can see far more than you can. Not everything of course,” he said, “But I know that you’re uncle buried your parents beside those berry bushes so he could torture you. He’s going to try and break you with those berries. He’ll send you along a few times a week to collect them, but instead you will come here. As for selling you, he’s not going to give you away on a whim. You’re something special to him; a treat to dangle in front of the faces of the loathsome creatures who adore him. You have a great deal of time before you’re ever sold.”

“I can’t come back empty-handed though,” I quickly replied.

“No, you can’t” he said. Then he mumbled something beneath his breath and I watched my basket overflow with raspberries. “So you can bring these back to him.”

“If you can conjure things like this so quickly why not poison the berries?” I asked.

“He’s going to have them tested, Amphoranella. He’s going to have the berries tested every time. While I’m sure he certainly doesn’t believe you’re capable of killing him with your bare hands, I’m positive that deep down he knows you want him dead. He’s still a coward, that will never change, so poisoning the berries won’t work.”

After a long while the voice escaping the man’s mouth looked like his own. I had already forgotten the droning speech of the real man that had been overtaken. “Why do you want to kill Invidus? How did you know my father?”

“I have no interest in answering that, Amphoranella,” he sighed.

“Fine, then. Could you at least tell me your name? Tell me what you are?”

“You can call me Silva. I’m a forest spirit. I believe that’s all you’ll need to know. Oh, and the opportunity to kill your uncle is possible because of him,” the voice said as it lifted the man’s hand and had him wave toward me. “This is Marvin. He’s going to be the vessel that will teach you what it takes to murder Invidus. And again, this is all voluntary.”

“Now pay attention,” said Silva and he shook the leaves around me in a rush of wind that left me calm to my core. “You’re going to come back to us every single time your uncle insists that you endure berry picking beside your parent’s graves. For now, you’re free to go.”

Marvin’s body quaked for a moment, leaving a flush of red in his cheeks before he glanced back at me. The dull voice had returned, “Did he tell you?”

“Yeah. I said yes.”

“Alright, go on then,”

Within the last six months I’ve returned to the same grassy patch among the trees. They molded me, my empty soul, into something capable of doing an act the person I once was would never be able to complete. Princess Amphoranella could never yield a sword. The princess would never be capable of breaking a bone, busting a windpipe, or ending a person’s life. But my uncle had taken away everything that Princess Amphoranella ever was, which gave an old, lonely man and vengeful spirit the opportunity to train me into his assassin.

I let these memories fade as I approach the castle. A group of my uncle’s detestable guards glare at me upon my arrival.

“I’m just bringing him his berries,” I say awkwardly.

Invidus’ guards have been stripped of all genuine qualities. They stand there in absent coal colored robes that deny any access to the person within them. Not an inch of skin is revealed, and so I speak to the large, greyish mass that angrily watches me.

“He’s in there,” one grumbles and I recognize the voice. It’s the only voice that escapes from this cluster of monsters that sounds sincerely caring. I thank him before finding Invidus in an open chamber, his group of loathsome lackey’s groveling at his feet as he holds a decaying box within his hands.

“I have your –,” I begin before he cuts me off with a roar.

“Sit down and shut up, Amphoranella!” he hollers from the crowd. With not a seat in sight, I kneel with the basket on my lap.

They’re all revolting, I think as I eye the group of creatures he has grown accustomed to. However, to my surprise, the sixth man is missing. I study the remaining crowd — three unsavory men stand beside him and I hate them merely for the look in their eyes. They are so filled with unattainable lust, lust for me, lust for power, and it makes me sick. I try to think of their names and I come up short. My hatred for them outweighs any interest in who they are or where their parents had gone wrong. Next to them stand two creatures, nonhuman and yet so human in their greed for control. I’m still unable to tell what Rommel really is. Sure, his features are that of a human but as you follow the length of his long white hair you’ll notice long gashes that slice into his skin and then disappear. All across every inch bloodied cuts form on his icy white skin before they vanish and reappear someplace else on his wretched body. It’s intriguing and horrifying all at once, and while I could stare for hours, watch the cuts vanish and reappear with each breath, Rommel also leaves me horrified. I regret the fact that I wish his death merely because he’s unsettling.

I suppose the one beside Rommel, the one named Maledicam, is some kind of demon. He too is otherwise human, aside from the winding horns protruding out the top of his skull. He glances back at me and smiles, exposing his fangs, reminding me yet again how desperately he wants me for himself. Then there is Invidus in the center, his skin dry and riddled with veins. His dark eyes are so full of hate that I wonder if they’re void of all emotion. I listen to his raspy voice and shudder at the thought of every last spell he’s uttered that left his mouth full of blood. His body rejects his evil, punishes his spells with pain, but he’ll never stop.

When Invidus opens the box in his hands the room shakes and fills with dense blue smog. I glance down to find my berries in a heaving pile of blackened lumps and I slide them off my lap as I cough painfully. What rattles me though is the sound coming from the box; a cracked horrible voice that spills from the wood in angry, aggressive spurs.

“Seven!” the voice squeals.

My uncle, so arrogant, ignores the demonic voice’s demand. “I want to awaken it,” he says. “If we do this, you’ll awaken it now, right?”

“Now. But seven souls,” it replies simply.

“Is this everything it seems?” Invidus asks. In this moment he behaves all the more insanely. His eyes grow wild at the sight of the glowing box, as if all he’d ever hoped for in life has been awakened. “I’ve spend such a long time uncovering this. If I give you what you’re asking for will you awaken it?”

I cannot help but lift myself from the ground and walk closer. “Awaken what?” I ask.

Before my uncle, his insane eyes now glaring at me, has a chance to scold me, the voice obediently responds.

“Seven souls for Vermogendief. Just seven bloody souls. Vermogendief will tear the powers, great and small, from every last living man, woman, and child and restore them back to the one in control.”

“What about creatures that don’t possess powers?” I ask and this time Invidus listens, equally entranced.

“They die,” the shrill voice scraps through my ears.

I glance back at my uncle in horror, ignoring the cringe worthy grins of his mates, and I ask, “What’s the purpose of this?” He ignores me. I look back at his smiling lackeys. “And how does this benefit any of you? What will senselessly killing powerless creatures and tearing the souls away from the magical do for you?”

“We’ll be the closest ones to the most powerful man in the world,” says Rommel as a gash quickly slices past his eye before vanishing.

“So in your mind,” I spit toward Invidus, “you’re going to be the only person in all the kingdoms to have powers?”

“I will be,” he says in a rage. As he rounds on me, I’m convinced that I’m about to die, but the terrible voice of the box draws him back in.

“Seven souls. Only the seven souls create the spell, only the seven souls can destroy the spell.”

As Invidus glances around, I watch his heart sink.

“Do you need seven?,” he says as a hint of desperation slips through his words. “There are only six of us. Dellum has betrayed us. My seventh soul has decided not to come.”

“Seven souls,” the voice replies carelessly.

Invidus glances toward me, ignoring me at first, but his eyes jump back. “Amphoranella, come here.”

Before I can say no, before I can run, Maledicam and Rommel have me by my wrists. “She’s nothing,” he says to his mates. “We just need her blood. She couldn’t stop the spell if she tried.”

“Please don’t do this,” I hear myself beg. I look over at him, look to him not as my parents’ murder, not as a monster, but as my uncle, and I beg. “You can’t do this.” But my words go unnoticed and in one swift motion Invidus has each of the seven souls lay their wrists on top of one another and he slices in each arm with a blade, draining all of us into the mouth of the box.

As a foamy smoke spreads toward the ceiling, everyone drops their arms, all too consumed by the sight. I think of Marvin, his dull voice demanding that I go on. I picture the dwindling light in the eyes of the man who selflessly sacrifices his body for possession in honor of my vengeance. “Go on then.”

I use the body that Silva and Marvin have molded, twists my hands, and in an instant Rommel is motionless on the ground. The five men stare, their mouths gaping in horror as their minds wildly try to comprehend that the princess just killed their partner. Then, just as they begin to grasp what is happening, I crack open the skull of the man across from me. When my uncle looks at me, truly gazes into my empty dark eyes, he finally sees what I have been hiding from him all this time. I am not his innocent niece anymore. I am his slayer. And with this realization Invidus runs.