At the sound of her voice, my heart soars. More bolts of Umbra light the sky. E.J.'s eyes go wide then roll back into her head, back arching as her form begins to twist.

"Kill her again," my mother demands over the ongoing rumble of thunder. When Pollux doesn't budge, she stamps over to him, grabs and shakes his arm—but he's rigid as a statue. Baring her teeth in anger, she drops his arm and wrenches his blade from its scabbard.

The two remaining Premier Acolytes seem to come to their senses then, stumbling forward to help their mistress. Their sudden action snaps the rest out of it, too...save Pollux. They spread out in a circle around us, closing in. E.J.—her body still changing—snaps her inch-long fangs at them, growling.

Vines snake across E.J.'s feet, curling up her legs. Twisting, she slashes them apart with her still-growing claws. A few paces away, Culber shrieks in pain, the remains of his vines whipping about like tentacles growing from his forearms. Another acolyte, one of the Petrans, comes stumbling forward—crude armor of hardened stony skin blooming across his body and bulking up beneath his robes. But sweat breaks out across his brow and he slows, hesitates. He's too new at this, and doesn't have the benefit of high-intensity Umbra flares to fuel his abilities.

Against all odds I feel my lips curling into a smile. I envision E.J. and I getting out of here together safe with Beatrice. I imagine myself in E.J.'s arms as she brings her lips to mine. My power rages and more violet lightning sears the sky. I call upon every dead thing within reach to rise up, to come to me, to fight for me. I feel their response, their drive to obey. My energy flowing into them, striving to return to its source—to complete the circle.

More acolytes are attacking E.J. now—with armored fists and vines, mostly. I can only just see it from the periphery of my vision. They may as well be moths flitting against her face for all the damage they do. There are wet, ripping and crunching sounds from behind me. People screaming.

The Crimsons hang back, their abilities are more difficult to master, and more disorienting. The one Shifter among them has warped into something resembling a naked boar on hind legs. Squealing and shrieking in turns, they lose all control of themselves as the storm rages on. Falling on all-fours, they turn on the nearest person—a Crimson—ripping into him with knife-sharp tusks.

The other Crimsons scream and scatter. One of them steps forward, scarlet eyes fixed on mine. Their expression twists in concentration as they reach out a contorted hand. A haze of sudden indifference clouds my mind. The lightning flickers out as my flares of Umbral energy weaken.

But the things I called to us a moment before still carry my energy in their desiccated flesh, their bones and sinew and whatever else remains of them. And they still come to my call. The first one to arrive takes an acolyte by surprise, knocking them unconscious with a single swipe. As they fall to the side, I see it—the skeletal corpse of some huge, wolfish-thing—fangs permanently bared in a horrifying grin.

The remaining acolytes are shrieking now, turning from me and E.J. too as they struggle to defend themselves from my new friends. The apathetic haze in my mind subsides, but doesn't fully vanish. I realize that it's been a while since I've seen my mother. Turning to look back towards the monolithic stone of the gate, I find her. She watches everything play out with narrow eyes, one hand still gripping Pollux's blade. She's trembling visibly—in rage or fear or both.

Then she notices me watching her. My blood freezes as her eyes meet mine, and she smiles at me. Then she whirls about and dashes through the Umbra Gate.

I stare at the gate, listening for the rushing of odd, echoing whispers that precede emergence—but my ears are ringing. A heartbeat passes. Three. Nothing happens.

My mother is gone.

It takes me a long time to realize how quiet it is—there's no more screaming, the clash of struggle is gone. The wind still roars in my ears, but it's the only thing that does. I turn to find a motley ring of silent corpses standing just a few paces away from me, staring from their glazed, milky eyes and their empty sockets.

The sight fills me with terror, awe, gratitude...and pity. I allow myself to wallow in that mire of conflicted emotions. I look from one to the next of them as I project another silent directive. Go back into the forest, go back to rest. They turn and shamble away into the shadows, leaving me alone on the platform with only one other conscious companion. E.J. stands just a pace or so off to my side, chest heaving, eyes wide and fixed on me.

My mother's acolytes lay unconscious, injured and dead all around us, most of them still—but a single bulky form stirs among them. Our heads both snap around at the movement. As Pollux struggles to his knees, my hackles raise and I take a step back. But E.J. just watches calmly, not so much as baring her teeth.

"Don't kill me, please," he chokes out. "I'll take you to Beatrice."

~*~

It's a long journey back to the portal platform. Gradually, E.J. returns to a more a human-like form.

"Why aren't you explaining yourself?" She demands over my shoulder at the back of Pollux's head once she can speak again. "It would give Ashwyn some peace of mind."

He lurches to a stop, turns around to look up at her. "I didn't think either of you would believe me," he says.

"What?" I press, confused.

"He's been under Richelle's—your mother's—control. For I don't know how long, years?"

Pollux grunts, astonished. "Eleven years. How—"

"I could smell the internal struggle in your body chemistry. That, and was still working with Richelle when she first began to develop that sigil. It was part of why I broke with her. I recognize the signs. You finally broke through at the end, didn't you?"

He nods.

I look from one to the other of them. "Richelle?"

"Your mother's former name. She was my mentor first, then my colleague. But we had...philosophical differences. I ended up having to turn her in for human rights violations."

My mouth works silently, but no sound comes out.

"She committed suicide before the authorities could get to her. Well, she made it look like she did. She knew about this place, we were still close when I first found it—but I never trusted her with the location or the activation method for the Gate. That 'assassination attempt' back in my car?" She pauses, and there's a sudden exhalation of breath behind me, a bitter laugh. "She wasn't actually trying to kill me at all, but hoping I'd emergency port straight to the island. She didn't know about Stormhaven or the Empress then."

At first I don't know what to say. I don't feel like my head can contain any more horrible revelations. It's all too much. Then something occurs to me.

“If she’s got a sigil that can control people, why didn’t she just use it on us?”

There’s a sharp inhale of breath from behind me before she answers. “It’s not a one-and-done sort of sigil. It’s a process, and a painstaking one. She wasn’t patient enough for that, and maybe not willing to subject her own daughter to it.”

And yet, she was perfectly happy to shove me through that Gate.

A moment later I'm huddled on the stair with my arms wrapped around myself, not knowing how I got there.

Warm, strong arms cradle me, lifting me up. "It'll be alright. It'll be alright," E.J. whispers into my hair. Then we're moving again, downward to the arrival platform. Lacking a battery or any other source of contained power, I use my own Umbra to fuel our transport back to the compound.

Even stormstruck, though, there's apparently a limit to how much energy I can expend at a time without draining myself. I can barely keep my eyes open as Pollux leads us down a series of narrow, low-ceilinged halls to a heavy metal slab of a door. Everything is blurry. Producing a key from somewhere inside his robes, he removes the massive padlock holding it closed and drags the door open.

E.J. and I both breathe deep in sudden relief when we lay eyes, at last, on Beatrice—curled up and unconscious on a small palette in the corner.