The Spirit Eater

CHAPTER 21

Nico raised her head. She could have sworn she’d heard someone calling her, but now, no matter how she strained her ears, all she heard was silence. She was alone, sitting on a cold floor of smooth black stone. It went on forever in all directions, an endless, endless darkness of the kind she’d seen only once before.

“Yes,” a deep, smooth voice whispered behind her. “When you were with me.”

Nico spun around, sliding back on the stone. A man was standing behind her where there had been no one a second before. He was tall and broad shouldered, dressed in a simple black shirt and dark trousers tucked into tall boots, just like Josef’s. He looked a lot like Josef too, and a little bit like Eli, but the cruel look in his golden eyes belonged to only one person.

“Master.” Her whisper was little more than a breath.

“At last you remember.” The man smiled.

Nico did remember. She remembered the slave pens. How she’d been taken from them. How the cult members had held her down, their dead white faces leering beneath their cowls. She remembered the hideous feeling of the seed, then barely larger than a grape pit, being shoved down her choking throat. But more than that, she remembered the unadulterated joy of the Master’s good opinion. The absolute pleasure that came from being a good child who pleased her father. The warmth, the understanding, the acceptance that no one outside could give her.

The Master opened his arms, and she ran to him, flinging herself against his chest with a sob. Joy and belonging like she’d never felt washed over her, but even as she savored the feelings, there was something wrong about them. Something alien, almost sticky in her mind. Slowly, painfully, she released her grip and stepped back.

“You’re making me feel this, aren’t you?” she whispered.

“Of course,” the Master said, stroking her hair. “You’re home now. It’s only right you should share in my happiness.” He ran his hand under her chin, tilting her head up until their eyes met. “You are mine again, every bit of you. My greatest weapon is back in my command, and she’ll never escape again. Is that not cause for joy?”

Nico ducked out of his grasp, or tried to, but her body would not move. The Master just smiled and kept petting her, stroking her hair like a huntsman petting his prize hound.

“Now, now,” he tsked. “You lost, Nico. You don’t get to play keep-away anymore. It’s over; take it gracefully. If this works out the way I expect, a new Dead Mountain will be born. I’ll be twice as powerful as I am now, and it’s all thanks to you. That’s why I’m being so generous, despite everything you’ve done. If you were any other seed, I would have crushed you and left you to die the moment you disobeyed me, but I didn’t. I stayed with you, despite your defiance. I never abandoned you.”

He slid his hand up to cup her cheek before stepping back.

“You should be grateful,” he said. “I have given you everything. Made you the ground for my greatest creation. Yet even now you stand there staring at me like you’re some kind of victim.” His smile grew impossibly cruel. “I have done nothing to you that you did not deserve. It is I who have suffered the most, suffered as you denied me over and over again, despite everything I’ve done for you. Have you nothing to say?”

“No, Master.” Nico lowered her head. “I am sorry, Master.”

The Master’s arms slid around her shoulders, pulling her against him as the sticky, alien joy flooded her mind. “There, there,” he said. “I forgive you. It’s over now. You’ve lost. You don’t have to think anymore. You don’t have to try. I’ll take care of everything. Just let it go. There’s a good girl.”

Nico let herself slump into his arms. She couldn’t even remember why she’d been fighting, only that she’d been trying so hard for so long. But the Master was here now, and he would take care of everything. All she had to do was be good, do as he said, and nothing would ever hurt again.

But as that thought circled round and round in her mind, a tiny, lingering doubt nagged at her. She felt like she was forgetting something terribly important.

“Wait,” she said. “Where’s Josef?”

“Gone,” the Master said. “Abandoned you, along with that no-account thief. Everyone has abandoned you, except me. They see you as a monster. They’re probably trying to kill you right now.”

“No!” Nico said, looking up at him. “Josef would never abandon me.”

The Master slapped her hard across the face. Nico stumbled and fell without a cry, landing hard on the cold stone floor.

“Never speak back to me,” he said, his voice colder than the stone. He walked to where she had fallen, his steps fading off into the endless nothing. Nico gasped as he grabbed her hair, yanking her up until her feet were a foot off the ground. He grabbed her chin with his other hand, pressing so hard she thought her jaw would break as he turned her face to his.

“Your body is my body now,” he said slowly. “Your soul, your power, everything. It is all mine. You are only here because I wish it.” He dropped her, and she crumpled. The moment she was down, he kicked her in the ribs, sending her tumbling across the floor. She slid to a stop several feet away, panting against the cold stone. When she looked up again, the Master was standing over her, looking down on her like she was a piece of trash in his way.

“Never defy me again,” he said. “I am your Master. You live by my generosity alone. Never, ever forget that.”

Nico pressed her head down onto the stone. Desperate, sobbing apologies and promises of obedience filled her mind. She wanted to shout that she would never disobey again, that she had no master but him, but for some reason her mouth would not open. She could not speak the words.

Pain exploded through her as the Master kicked her again, and she flew across the endless chamber, landing so hard she saw stars.

“Do you think you’re too good for this?” he shouted. “Or do you not understand the very simple words I am speaking? Has being a weak, pathetic, stupid creature for so long also made you mute?”

Nico began to hyperventilate. She moved her mouth desperately, but no sound came out. She could hear the Master coming toward her, and her body seized up in preparation for the kick she knew was coming. Why couldn’t she say it? Why couldn’t she swear that his will was the only will she knew?

Because it’s not true.

Nico stopped cold. The voice spoke in her head like the Master’s had so many times, but it was not his. It sounded like Nivel, like Eli, like Josef, like Miranda, like Tesset. Like everyone who’d ever said, in one way or another, what the voice said next.

The only human soul a wizard can control is their own.

At last, her lips parted, but the whispered word that slipped out was not what she had meant to say.

“Why?”

The answer came a heartbeat later. Because a wizard has no master but herself.

As the last word faded, Nico recognized the voice. It was her own. All at once, she understood. She understood everything, and she knew what she had to do.

She caught the Master’s kick right before it landed in her side. He stumbled and nearly fell. He caught his balance at once and stomped down as hard as he could on her fingers, but Nico did not let go.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said, turning her bruised face to stare at him. “You’re trying to intimidate me. To get me to surrender.”

“Get you to…” The Master thew back his head and laughed. “Why would I waste my time on someone so stupid? You need power to surrender. You have nothing.”

“No,” Nico said. “You forced me to awaken, but you didn’t beat me. I never surrendered my will. This is still my body.”

“So what?” the Master sneered. “You’re too far gone to go back now. You’ve eaten thousands of spirits. You nearly ate Josef and that horrible sword of his. Everyone’s seen what you are. There’s nothing for you out there. You belong here, with me. You’ve always belonged here. That life out there was a joke, a dream. Even if I’d done nothing, the end would have been the same.”

“No,” Nico said again. “Only if I’d let it. This is still my body, my soul.” Her crushed fingers tightened on the Master’s boot. “I am king here.”

She stood up in a fluid motion, throwing the Master back. He flickered in the air, landing perfectly several feet away, but the look on his face, the mix of rage and disbelief, was as good as if he’d stumbled. Nico pushed herself up, wincing as her muscles protested. She ran her hands over her body, wishing she had enough light to see the damage.

The moment she wished it, light appeared. A beautiful shaft of yellow sunlight shot down from the air above her head, creating a wide circle around her. Nico looked at herself in the sudden brightness, examining her broken fingers and the bruises on her ribs and knees. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the bruises were gone. Her fingers were straight again, and the pain had vanished. She realized with a shock that it had never really been there to begin with. This was her soul, her world; everything that happened here, including pain, only happened because she allowed it.

She looked up at the Master. No, she scowled. Not Master, not anymore. The demon was looking at her cautiously now, circling just on the edge of the sunlight. Now that she had light on her side, she could see the thing behind his human form. A great, black shape lurking in the dark with a mouthful of jagged, glistening teeth.

Fear began to creep in and Nico tore her eyes away from the demon’s true self, forcing herself to focus on his human face as she said the two words she’d wanted to say her whole life.

“Get out.”

“Ah.” The demon chuckled. “You think that now that you’ve had a little revelation about the nature of the soul you can do the impossible? Sorry, princess, it doesn’t go that way. This might be your soul, but you’re still a demonseed. So long as there’s a piece of me in your body, you can’t kick me out.”

Nico narrowed her eyes. “You always lie. Why should I trust you now?”

The demon crossed his arms and gave her a sly smile. “If it were that easy, Nivel would have been free of me her first year. She was much smarter than you, and more determined. She had something to go home to. What have you got? Eli? Josef? You think they’ll take you back after what you did?”

“I don’t know,” Nico said. “But I’m going to let them decide that. You don’t get to say anything anymore.”

“Don’t I?” the demon said with a smirk. “Just because you know the rules of the fight doesn’t mean it gets any easier. You’re still the Daughter of the Dead Mountain. My mountain, my daughter. Your powers are my powers, and the more you use them, the stronger my presence becomes. You may have retaken control today, but you will never, ever be free of me.”

“Then I’ll have to live with you in a way I can handle,” Nico said.

She closed her eyes and pictured what she wanted. When she opened them, everything was just as she’d imagined. She was standing in a wide-open field, like the ones around Home. Noon sunlight blasted down from the clear blue sky, banishing every shadow, except for one. In front of her, the demon stood in a pit. The pit alone was still black, shaded from the sun by the boulder balanced on its end above it.

The demon stood at the edge of the light, staring up at her with a smug smile. “You can’t lock me away forever, Nico. The moment you are weak, the moment your control wavers, I’ll be back. And you will be weak. The longer we fight, the stronger I’ll become, while your power will only diminish. No matter how hard you struggle or for how long, the end will be the same. After all, you’re just a human. I, on the other hand, have all the time in the world. Sooner or later, you’ll be just like Nivel, alone and helpless in the dark. When that happens, I’ll be there, and you will crawl on your knees begging for what you just threw away.”

“That may be,” Nico said. “But Nivel died with her soul intact.” She reached out and put her hand on the boulder. “And so will I.”

With that, she gave the boulder a push. It rolled sideways with a slow scrape and fell into the pit. The demon kept eye contact the entire time, smiling even as the boulder came down.

See you soon.

Then the boulder landed with a solid thunk, cutting him off completely.

Nico closed her eyes, feeling the warm sunlight on her skin, the wind against her bare shoulders, listening to the perfect silence of her world without the demon. She stood like that for a long moment, drinking it in. Then, with a deep breath, she turned her back on the boulder and began to walk across the plains, back toward the real world and the people who were waiting there for her, for good or ill.