by Eva Brandt
“Pierce, what in the name of the gods is going on?” I whispered in his ear. “What is his deal?”
I hadn’t realized how tense Pierce had been until I felt him relax. Perhaps he had believed I intended to blindly cooperate with my father. Like that was ever going to happen.
“He means well, but this is dangerous for you,” Pierce replied.
He couldn’t say more, because my father and Diane were staring at us and a group of Dames Blanches led by my aunt Delphine joined us. “We are ready, then?” she asked.
My father nodded. “Everything is prepared. Lucienne, there might be some discomfort. Just brace yourself.”
Somewhere in the room, Malachai let out a sharp groan. The coppery scent of his blood grew sharper and even more nauseating. My stomach roiled and I started shaking in Pierce’s arms.
“Don’t believe him,” a familiar male voice whispered in my mind. “He’ll destroy you. He’ll destroy us.”
Through the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Mathias Vandale trying to reach out to me. His eyes were glowing with the same light that now emanated from my palms. “Pierce...” I murmured, clutching his arms a little more tightly.
“Breathe, Lucienne,” my soulmate said. “It’ll be all right.”
“It won’t,” another voice said. “Nothing will ever be all right until we’re together, like we were supposed to be.”
A glint of purple drew my attention and I turned, facing Bjorn. The cuffs around his wrists were shining, a clear sign that they were fighting his use of his powers. He must’ve been in a lot of pain, but he didn’t look away from me for a moment.
This was wrong. This was so very wrong. I needed to stop this. I needed to do something, anything, to change my father’s mind about the ritual.
Since the incident at the wedding, I’d been determined to hunt these people down and make them burn. Now that they were actually here, though, I had trouble mustering the same degree of anger. Maybe it was just because they’d already been tortured enough, but I had no desire to hurt them further. My father had good reasons for his actions, but even so, I couldn’t accept his choice. No matter what intentions he might have, the price of this spell would be too high.
I intended to try to speak to him and dissuade him from his plan. I never got the chance to utter a single word.
My father retrieved a strange gem from his jacket. It looked familiar, although I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I’d seen it before.
“Goodbye,” he said as he plunged the pendant into the chest of the Alarian prince. Darius’s eyes widened and his breath caught, but he didn’t display his pain in any other way. Instead, he clutched the chains, met my gaze, and smiled.
The gemstone had cracked his sternum, but it had apparently not hit any vital organs, because he remained cognizant, if only for a few more seconds. “Not goodbye yet,” he whispered. “Not ever.”
“We’ll see,” my father said, lines of strain now appearing on his face.
The gem started glowing so brightly I almost had to look away. If I didn’t, it was because something in that pendant drew me in like a moth to the flame. I feared that if I closed my eyes, the light would disappear and Prince Darius would die.
No, wait. Was that even Prince Darius?
Who was he? Who was I? What was all this? What was going on? What was Louis de Hastingues doing and why wasn’t I trying to stop him?
Before that thought could fully process, Louis started to chant. “Through the power of Mother Magic, I summon the elements to my aid. Break these chains I’ve created and free the souls trapped in this curse.”
Chains? What chains? What curse had he cast that he was trying to break? He’d claimed this working was meant to neutralize the scavengers, not undo an enchantment he himself was responsible for.
I was too shocked by this whole development to immediately respond to it, and I paid the price for it. Louis continued his ritual and terror exploded through me as he invoked powers I’d never thought he would touch.
“Earth, answer my call. You are one with our flesh, and to that, you must return.”
Declan Whelan arched his back and cried out, his bones snapping under the pressure of the accumulating magic.
“Water, answer my call. You are one with our blood, and to that, you must return.”
Malachai let out a choked gurgle and more blood started to seep from his body.
“Air, answer my call. You are one with our breaths, and to that, you must return.”
Mathias started to convulse painfully on the floor, electricity crackling through every inch of his body.
“Spirit, answer my call. You are one with our souls, and to that you must return.”
Bjorn went rigid, his eyes now unseeing, consumed by a blinding light.
“Fire, answer my call. You are one with our magic, and to that you must return.”
Tongues of flame started dancing over Prince Darius’s skin. The metal of his shackles shone almost as fiercely as the gem still in my father’s hand. Pierce’s hold on me tightened, ever so slightly.
“I want you to know, Lucienne,” he said, “that no matter what happens today, you’ll always be the most important thing for me, for all of us.”
I ached to ask him what he meant, but also to tell him to shut up, because that sounded an awful lot like a goodbye. I wasn’t ready to lose him, to lose any of them. But my father didn’t care about my opinions and emotions.
“Everything I have stolen, let it return to where it belongs,” he bellowed. “Everything that was created, let it go back to The Source. May the powers I invoke mend the rifts of these broken souls. Let the Accursed exist no longer.”
With every word he spoke, his chanting grew louder. The whole room began to shake. The pentagram on the floor pulsed like it had a heartbeat of its own and the captive men screamed and writhed in their chains.
Pierce crushed his mouth to mine and, in the scorching, almost unbearable heat, our magic came together, just as perfectly as I’d known it would. Something inside me shattered, and all of a sudden, I remembered.
* * *
Dahud
When I’d been a child, a princess of Kerys, I hadn’t really understood what love was. I hadn’t understood the overwhelming power of emotions, not until my soulmates had arrived in my life and had given me the ability to feel.
In the end, it had been those feelings that had destroyed my homeland, after I’d thought I’d lost everything.
I didn’t regret what I’d done. The only thing I hated was that all the deaths I’d caused and all the blood I’d spilled had been in vain.
For over a millennium, I’d been unable to help my soulmates and my child. I was still as trapped in the vicious circle of life and death as I’d been back then. But I was no longer as powerless, and I still had a chance to mend everything that had been broken.
I didn’t recognize my father’s ritual, but I did recognize its purpose. It was meant to reverse what he’d done to me when I’d been a baby, when he’d destroyed my soulmate’s eternal existence to save my ephemeral life. I’d have been grateful for it, and for the fact that he was still trying to fix his mistake, after all this time, had said attempt not involved the utter elimination of the men I’d come to love.
Return to The Source indeed. Fuck that. They belonged to me. The Source couldn’t have them. I was their queen and their soulmate. Everyone else could just fuck off, because I refused to let them go.
“No,” I said simply. “I will not allow this. You’ve taken enough from me already. I won’t allow you to take more.”
The fire surrounding Pierce and me turned into a golden glow. Smooth, but relentless, my magic swept over the ritual room like a tidal wave. The pentagram on the floor changed colors, turning white. The crystal Louis was still holding onto lit up and a blast of power erupted from inside, sending him flying.
It was a little ironic, since in a different life, he’d been the one to create that jew
el. But it didn’t belong to him, not anymore. Its rightful owner was our son now, and Louis couldn’t turn it against us, not completely.
The gemstone slid away from Darius’s—or rather, Mathias’s—wound and fell to the floor with a clatter. I walked up to it and knelt, but didn’t touch the crystal. Instead, I reached for Mathias. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, “so sorry I didn’t come to you sooner.”
If I’d been stronger, Louis would’ve never managed to capture them, to begin with. It had been my outburst that had incapacitated them, my inability to control my magic that had landed them in this position.
But Mathias didn’t seem to blame me for my failure. “Not your fault, my queen. We’re in this together, remember? Always.”
Always. Yes, I remembered. We’d all made promises, so many of them, and we’d never been able to keep them, because one way or another, someone had always gotten in the way. Never again.
There was no part of him that had been left untouched and unscathed by the ritual, but that was something I could fix. I brushed my lips against his sweaty forehead and summoned my magic.
I’d never been much of a healer. My talents and interests lay in the realm of more destructive enchantments, things I could use to pursue my ambitions. Still, the curse had forced me to abandon that mindset. Once, I’d tried everything and anything in my power to heal Darius. It hadn’t worked and he’d died choking on his own blood. A form of the Ebola virus, I now knew, something that shouldn’t have existed on Kerys and that I’d had no hope of understanding.
In this life, Darius had been born in a stronger body. In fact, for the most part, they were all stronger than they’d been throughout our past lives, which was likely the only reason why they’d survived until now. But while the magic of the Accursed had kept them alive, it had also received a bad blow from my father’s ritual. I might have interrupted him before he’d completed his task, but he’d already done plenty of damage, which left me in a situation eerily familiar to the one I’d experienced back then.
I was determined, though, and I wouldn’t let anything stand in my way. As the magic that was both my curse and my blessing rushed through my veins, I focused on healing my soulmates, on undoing the damage they never should have received.
It was easier said than done. The moment my core connected to Mathias’s, I felt his pain, his grief, and his guilt. The burden he’d been carrying for centuries fell on my shoulders. I gritted my teeth and pressed on, knowing I couldn’t stop, that my other soulmates were waiting for my aid as well.
Declan was struggling so much with his new powers and with everything he’d had to do to acquire them. His wolf was badly hurt, hiding after what must’ve been a very painful mental battle with my father. Malachai had been almost bled dry, although I suspected he’d taken even more damage than that. I sensed the lingering touch of death on him and I surmised that my father must’ve temporarily killed him, maybe to buy himself enough time to go through with the ritual.
In Mathias’s body, Darius was physically better, but his mind was all over the place. When I tried to reach for him, his mental self kept escaping me, sliding out of my reach like an ephemeral ghost. I wasn’t sure I could help him much, since I wasn’t doing that great either.
Bjorn was... drifting. The ritual had hit him hard. It was very connected to his affinity, and he was close to fading away, to going where I couldn’t follow.
I didn’t have much time at my disposal. Alois’s pendant had knocked Louis out, but I had to go back and make sure he was no longer a threat. I couldn’t do that until I stabilized my soulmates’ condition, until I healed them of their injuries, at least a little. And the process was tough, the magic from Louis’s ritual fighting me, keeping me at bay.
All of a sudden, a strength that was both familiar and not surged through me and my mind cleared. I could see all of them so perfectly, as if they were standing right in front of me, within my reach. I could catch glimpses of The Source as well, but I had no desire to go in that direction. Instead, I used my power to drag them away from it, from the beautiful promise of a world with no pain, but with no soulmates either.
It was the most difficult thing I’d ever done, which was saying a lot, considering the fact that I’d sunk a whole island into the sea during my first life. But destruction was always easier than creation and killing was far simpler than saving a life. For their sake—for the sake of my soulmates and my son—I had to do both, to stain my hands with blood all over again and use that blood to heal.
“You can do it, my love,” Pierce whispered in my ear. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”
I should’ve been angry with him, or at least disappointed that he’d trusted my father and gone against Mathias, Darius and the others. In a way, I was. Maybe if he hadn’t joined Louis, my son would’ve never been forced to make such a sacrifice to save my soulmates.
But if Alois’s loss was anyone’s responsibility, it was mine. No matter what my father had done to me, I should’ve still remembered him. I hadn’t and that failure was something that would’ve truly shattered me had I not believed I could get him back.
I clung to that thought with all my might, knowing that if I allowed myself to focus on my son’s fate I might lose myself completely, just like I had countless times in the past. It worked, and together with Pierce, I managed to drag the others out of danger.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the ritual room, lying on the floor and leaning against Pierce’s chest. The magic around us was already dying down, the powers Louis had summoned suffocated by my own.
The shackles around Mathias’s wrists snapped open and he got up on his haunches, rubbing his chest. “Thank you, my queen. That was a close one.”
“You can say that again,” Declan mumbled. “0 out of 10, would not recommend.”
Pierce freed me from his hold, allowing me to stand and look around. The Dames Blanches who were my aunts in this life were staring at me, too terrified to even draw breath. Excellent. That was the appropriate reaction, since I was not happy with them at all. My father was still out cold. The blast from Alois’s pendant had hit him harder than expected. Who knew?
But Louis de Hastingues was nothing if not stubborn and as I watched, he cracked his eyes open. As soon as he saw me, he actually dared to smile.
“Ah,” he said as he struggled to his feet. “My little Dahud. What a pleasure to have the princess of Kerys here. Truly an honor. We haven’t spoken in a long time, you and I.”
I was more than a princess, but I didn’t bother explaining that. He’d slighted me in far worse ways than using the wrong title. I forced myself to leash my fury, knowing that if I succumbed to my temper, there would be no going back. “That depends on your point of view,” I said. “In my opinion, we’ve spoken plenty.”
“Well, yes, but that’s different,” he replied, waving a hand. “You’re not exactly Lucienne, are you?”
I was and I wasn’t. Lucienne was a part of me, just like I was a part of her. But at the end of the day, that didn’t really matter. “I’m afraid that such details are irrelevant to me right now. I don’t have time for your games. You are an obstacle in my path and you will be removed.”
It was as easy as that. I didn’t have the patience to stand here and engage in word play with the person who’d cursed me. I hated him for what he’d done to me and my soulmates, yes, but my son took precedence and he was waiting for me. That was why I couldn’t let my anger get to me, because if I lost myself in my insanity, I wouldn’t be able to save him.
Louis didn’t seem very worried about his future or his well-being. “By all means then, Dahud, kill me. We all know you can do it. But remember this. You’ll be killing your true soulmate in the process.” His lips twisted into a small, wicked smirk. “Then again, it’s a little too late to prevent that, isn’t it?” His gaze shot past me, zeroing in on Pierce. “You really shouldn’t have betrayed me, twice-blessed. What did you think awakening her would
accomplish? You’ve just wasted your life and everything you could’ve had with her.”
My breath caught as I remembered something very important. Pierce’s cooperation with Louis hadn’t been related solely to me. In this life, his whole bloodline was bound to Louis through a magical debt that dated from the time of his ancestor, Gilles Garnier.
Him helping me defeat Louis had involved breaking that vow. If we added that to the ritual we’d just participated in, it was easy to see that Pierce had forfeited his life for my sake.
I turned on my heel to look at Pierce. “It’s okay,” he said with a tiny, peaceful smile. “You don’t need me, Lucienne, not when you have them. I honestly don’t know why I came back in the first place. Maybe this was my purpose, to make sure Louis couldn’t hurt you.
“But Bjorn Lindberg was right. In the end, none of this was really about me. I hope one day, you’ll be able to think of me without—”
His words died in a sudden, choked scream. The pentagram on the floor flashed one more time, just as brightly as before. The golden light of my power turned bright hot, the raw magic of the elements pushing mine aside.
Pierce’s whole body burst into flames, and this time, the fire wasn’t harmless to him. I watched in helpless horror as the blaze consumed him, burning him alive.
Despite my own power over flame, I found myself unable to withstand the high temperature. It reminded me of one of my more unfortunate lives, or better said, of the way I’d died at that time. The humans in my village had decided I was a witch. It had been a false accusation, but they’d still burned me and my then-husband, Bjorn, at the stake.
I could still remember the excruciating pain I’d felt during my last moments, as the ruthless fire had been burning the flesh from my bones. It had been horrible, but I would’ve gladly relived it, if it had meant preventing this.
But there was nothing I could do, and when I tried, the fire blasted me back. The elemental energies that were destroying Pierce stemmed from the very core of our world, from magic itself. Even so, I refused to stop. I refused to give up.
