that one purpose: to protect Gregorn’s control. Everything in this kingdom still serves her first king. Everything here exists so that this spirit who raised kingdoms and frightened nations, the spirit Gregorn gave up rebirth to gain, could never, ever escape him.
“That, Spiritualist,” Renaud said, grinning cruelly, “is the true power of the human spirit, which you, with your rings and your self-limitations, will never reach.”
Miranda trembled with rage, but before she could speak, Eli stepped forward.
“If you’re so impressed by all this,” he said casually, “why are you even here? If everything in Mellinor is in service to Gregorn, what are you doing to that pillar except undermining a greater wizard’s work?”
“Taking what is mine,” Renaud hissed. “I am Gregorn’s heir, the first wizard in the Allaze family since Gregorn himself.” He thrust his hands deeper into the pillar, which shuddered and ate. “It is time for a new wizard king in Mellinor. Time for me to receive at last what my ancestor has held in trust for me for all these years. Together, we shall finish what Gregorn started. We will crush the trembling world into submission until every spirit waits on my demands and every wizard depends on my whim.”
“Don’t fool yourself!” Miranda cried, her voice shaking with barely restrained anger. “Gregorn isn’t holding anything for you. A man who was willing to give up rebirth and sleep in a salt pillar for eternity just to keep a stranglehold on a spirit isn’t the type to quietly pass on his legacy to a new generation. Even if that pillar eats you whole, Gregorn will never give that spirit to you!”
“Any other time you would be right, Spiritualist,” Renaud said. “But what you don’t realize is that, at this point, he doesn’t have a choice.” The enslaver looked at the place where his arms met the pillar, and his haughty smile became a mad grin. “After four hundred years, his soul has degraded so far past human, he’s no better than the salt he’s trapped in.”
As he spoke, the black surface of the pillar began to bubble and hiss. Renaud laughed and plunged his hands in deeper. Then, with a sickening thrust, he threw open his spirit, and Miranda gasped as the black, sickening weight of his triumph-drunk will rolled over her.
The pillar groaned as Renaud’s spirit crashed against it, stabbing into the black wound where his arms were buried and pressing down, forcing the hole wider. The black taint on the pillar’s surface bubbled and hissed as Renaud forced himself in, using his spirit as a wedge. The harder he pressed, the faster the dark stain spread, eating what was left of the pillar’s knobby gray surface as rot from an infected wound devours a limb. With a final, triumphant stab of his spirit, Renaud’s arms disappeared into the sucking maw. His head followed, then his chest and his legs until, finally, he vanished completely. The pressure of his opened soul still pounded through the room, but the man himself was gone, eaten by the pillar, which was now entirely covered in the slick, black rot.
The second the last inch of his heel disappeared into the pillar, a wailing scream cut through the air. Miranda slapped her hands over her ears, but it was no use. The spirit scream cut straight to the well of her soul. It was worse than the sound the sandstorm had made, for that had been many small voices and the effect had been broken up. This scream was one enormous, anguished cry that set her teeth on edge and brought tears to her eyes, but worst of all, worse than anything, was the ghost of a human voice behind it.
Black sludge began to pour off the pillar’s surface, oozing from the hole Renaud left behind him and pouring onto the marble floor. It eroded the stone where it touched, hissing loudly as it washed down the dais steps, and the smell almost made Miranda vomit. The liquid stank of rotten meat, like open sewage on a hot day. The stench filled the room to bursting, until Miranda could feel it eating her skin.
“What is it?” she choked out, looking frantically at Eli.
“Gregorn,” Eli said, his voice muffled by the handkerchief he’d covered his nose and mouth with. “Or what’s left of him. Renaud’s forcing him out.”
The ooze from the pillar showed no sign of stopping. It flowed down the dais to pool on the floor. The stone floor hissed and cracked