Knife of Rebellion: Battles of Eyenwar, Book 1

Chapter 40- Disembodied

Minka scrambles to her feet, howling in pain. She holds the dead boy's body in her arms, rocking back and forth.

I couldn't even be bothered to remember the poor child's name.

"Now, I will do the same thing to your delightfully clever little friend here if you don't let me into that little mind sanctuary you have built up in that gullible head of yours." Nadra says calmly, gving me a toothy smile.

Monika doesn't move from her place on the ground. Nadra grabs her by the arm and drags Monika to her feet. The spymaster's eyes never leave the mutilated body of the boy.

Nadra removed the blade from the boy, and hovers it, still bloodied, over Monika's left eye.

"Now, let me see, or she never will again." Nadra growls.

"No."

Nadra place the tip of the knife into the corner of Monika's eye. Moika is shaking in fear, and crying. A trickle of blood seeps with the tears from her left.

Still, I shake my head. My stomach rolls, knowing what will happen next. Nadra digs in with the knife, Monika emits a sound far beyond what I thought was humanly possible. Bile rises in my throat, and soon what little I had for breakfast is spilled onto the floor.

Monika's left eye rolls onto the floor in the middle of my sickness. I gag again. I can't bear to look at Monika's face. I'm shaking, with disgust and shame and anger that I couldn't do anything.

I pull my knives from my sleeves, planning to throw them. To kill her no matter the cost.

I can't do it. Crippling pain slams into my consciousness.

Now, I thought it was understood through implication that the only weapons allowed are MINE. Nadra howls into my head.

I feel the knives pulled from my fingers, but I'm powerless to do anything about it. It's all I can do to remain standing.

Suddenly, another voice is in my head. One that is warm, one that is familiar and yet totally unknown.

Daughter, you must remember what you have that Nadra can never have. Remember the key to who you are.

An image of Cairo flashes before my eyes. Followed by Mirabel, and Monika and Branon. Garen, Diona, Ma, Da, My brother and sister. Aunt Prisa and the Yuvana. They all fly past my mind's eye, all of my loved ones, reminding me who I am. It rests again on an image of Cairo, a golden eagle resting on my shoulder.

Suddenly, I'm in no pain. I'm floating above Sandalone, the battle raging below me. A third force has joined the battle, a group of rag-tags dressed in furs and wielding weapons from every culture. They have cornered Nadra's forces, sandwiched them between garen's rebels and this new force. Suddenly, the Skevetic's are the ones that are surrounded.

It seems I underestimated you.

I look behind me and find a transparent vision of Nadra, as she truly was in life. Without the guise of poor Alaric.

Left your meat puppet, have you?" I mock.

Don't be so shallow. Nadra instructs.

What do you think this new attitude will accomplish?

Nadra laughs, Don't you think all this torture is so useless? All this war? This could all end. Just let me have what I want. Think about it, do you really want to spend your whole life subservient to those idiot triplets? They're too emotional, too selfish. You are the one with the training, you could do so much better. I'll make you Queen of Torrain. There would be no war, no pain. Not with us in charge. We'll bring back the good old days, when you could bind spirits of rivers to flow just how you needed them. Tree's would grow exactly where you wanted. Fruit would grow all year long. You could build paradise on earth. Just let me open the gate.

I freeze, pretending to consider it. She clearly is appealing to my resentment towards Mirabel. Or, my former resentment. It is true that last year I would have been tempted, I would finally be the most famous, everyone would be paying attention to me, and only me. But now I know that fame isn't all it's cracked up to be.

How do I know you won't betray me? I ask suspiciously.

Nadra shakes her head, Come now Adelina. You have been in my head as I have been in yours. We are the same you and I. Too powerful, and so they tried to oppress our talents, out of fear. Why do you think they sent you as an escort for your spoiled cousin? They wanted you out of Torrain while they figure out what to do with you. You were learning too much too fast. The other Spirit Bridges were threatened by our talent. They would have cast you aside as they did me.

Once I might have believed her. Once I might have thought that it made sense. Yet, I saw the dark jealousy that lead Nadra to hate her sister. To hate her whole family, her people. She was unable to take responsibility for her own mistakes.

Maybe we are alike. Cold, jealous for years. Arrogant. But I will die before I ever betray my family.

Something solid materializes in my spirit hands. My knives, taken by Nadra in the physical plane do not belong to her on the spirit plane.

Swear you will let me rule Torrain, on the spirits. I demand. Nadra laughs, but approaches me, a greedy gleam in her eyes. She stops, hovering only a foot away from me.

First, show me what you read in the journal.

I open my mind to her, draw her into the tempting pages of the Great Bendithio. Her eyes glaze over, victory taking over her mind. And then I lunge.

My knives, just as real on the spirit plane as the mortal one, rip through her spectral frame. Golden light bleeds from the whole in her abdomen, shooting across the sky like a ribbon sun.

She shrieks in anger and desperation. She attempts to call all of the energy back, but I stab her again, this time with the other knife. The light explodes over the whole horizon.

I will not be destroyed!

Nadra dives back into the castle, back into the war room where Alaric's boys lays limp on the table. My own body is slumped against the wall. Monika is standing over me, one hand clasped over her bleeding eye socket.

Nadra dives back into Alaric, but his living body is not enough to save her. The golden life force still leaks out of his mouth, eyes and ears. Nadra screams again, as she is pulled by some invisible force out of Alaric's body. Her ghostly hands grasp on tight to something, resisting the force of the Spirits. Inch by inch, she is pulled from the mortal world, dragging a crying ghost of a golden haired toddler along with her. I reach out and try to grasp his childlike form, and manage to catch a hand, but he is sucked into the sky along with Nadra's decaying soul, and I am left with only a few lifethreads of what should have been King Alaric of Skevet.

I reluctantly let the rest of him go. No one can inhabit a body with only part of a soul.

With that thought, I drift sadly back into my own mortal container. Settling into my body is as warm and familiar as jumping into my childhood bed. If only when I woke up, the nightmare will have been forgotten.