The Keeper's Vow: A Chosen Novel (The Keepers Book 3)

by Meg Anne

  Something that could have been amusement flashed in the other man’s eyes, but it was gone too quickly to know for sure. “You would risk her life on it?”

  “Aye,” Lucian bit out, hardly daring to breathe.

  The Councilman sighed. “I guess that tells me everything I need to know.”

  Finally.

  Lifting the book from the table, he started to flip through the pages. “It is not mere purification you seek. You mean to neutralize and expel. This one,”—he twisted the book around and tapped a finger on a page—“is the one I recommend.”

  Lucian reached for the book; Vance tugged it just out of range.

  “I feel I would be remiss not to remind you that this is a life you are playing with. While I do not doubt that the spell will work—or your considerable power—we’ve never had to worry about the potential consequences of accidentally removing something vital. And well, frankly, you’ve never done this at all.”

  Leaning forward so as to look him straight in the eye, Lucian unleashed the grief that had consumed him since discovering what had become of Effie. “Do you really think that given everything we’ve been through to get her here, I would fuck it up now?”

  Vance’s eyes went wide with shock. “You’re in love with her,” he whispered. “I didn’t realize.”

  “Love is for mortals. It is far too simplified an emotion for what happens when a Guardian finds the one who makes his soul sing.”

  Eyes cloudy with confusion, the Councilman asked, “A mating bond?”

  Lucian sighed, not about to debate the intricacies of the fuj d’âme with him. “If that helps you understand the depth of my devotion to her, then fine. Call it what you will. Can we get on with this now?”

  “Of course, Guardian. Let me gather what you will need.”

  His knees almost buckled with the force of his relief, but Lucian remained upright. If he’d known invoking the mating bond would have had the Councilman jump to aid him, Lucian would have claimed it as soon as they arrived in the Vale.

  Vance placed a few colorful jars on the table, speaking as he worked. “I will go with you and help set up—”

  “No.”

  “No?” Vance asked, hurried movements pausing as he risked a glance at Lucian. “But it’s the safest way. One thing out of place—”

  “I cannot allow you to set foot inside that cell, Councilman. You will tell me what I need to do.”

  Vance wanted to argue. It was obvious in the pursed set of his lips, but he must have seen the futility of it because he simply grabbed a piece of parchment and started sketching what appeared to be a map.

  “You will be amplifying your own power by invoking the elements. These items are physical representations of each of them. They need to be placed in precise locations throughout the cell before you begin.”

  Lucian peered at the jars more carefully, trying to discern what they contained, but the contents were unfamiliar.

  “The colors correspond with the elements. I’m assuming you are aware of the pairings.”

  Lucian gave a sharp nod, barely managing to keep from rolling his eyes.

  “Good.” Gesturing to the map again, Vance placed his finger beside one of four dots and started moving it in a circular fashion. “One by one, starting from the northern point, you are going to open the jars and do the following.” Vance mimed pouring something into his hand and pressed his closed fist first to his forehead, then to his lips, and finally to the center of his chest. “As you do so you will repeat the following words: apertum, roboro, incipere.”

  As he spoke, Vance performed the motions again, one word for each of the three gestures. Once he was done, he looked at Lucian expectantly.

  “Apertum, roboro, incipere. I got it.”

  “After you complete your circle, you will move to the center of the room where your girl should be placed before you begin. Then you will start the final invocation. It is imperative you enunciate these words exactly as I show you. I’ve written them here phonetically for you as well.”

  Lucian glanced at the paper and nodded to show that he understood. “Pour out the jars, say the words, then what?”

  The Councilman looked mildly aggrieved. “Then with any luck the force of the elements will be yours to command. While you speak the words, you will need to picture in your mind that which you wish to eliminate. You will repeat the invocation five times, each time imagining that the impurities are being pulled out of the source.”

  “I can do you one better,” Lucian said with the ghost of a grin. “I don’t need to imagine anything. I’ll be looking right at it.”

  Vance blinked. “Well, yes, I suppose that will be more effective.”

  “So that’s it; that’s everything? Sprinkle some dust, mumble some words, picture the corruption leaving her body and it’s done?”

  “Not quite. After the final repetition, hold the image of what remains in your mind. Focus wholly on it until you are certain that is all that remains. Then, only then, will you release the elements.”

  Lucian shrugged. “Sounds easy enough.”

  The Councilman shook his head. “The process may sound simple, Guardian, but you will be channeling incredibly powerful magic. One wrong uttering, and things will get away from you. You cannot lose focus for even a moment.”

  “I won’t.”

  Vance studied him, his eyes searching Lucian’s face before he finally said, “Alright then.” Packing away the map and the jars, he held them out to Lucian. “May the Mother aid your quest.”

  “The Mother allowed this to happen in the first place. So if you don’t mind, I’d rather leave Her out of it.”

  If he was scandalized, the Councilman did not show it. He merely dipped his head. “Then I shall see you when it’s done.”

  Lucian stood outside of Effie’s cage, hands braced on the bars. She was no longer lying where he’d left her. His eyes lifted from the scrap of red and shifted to the darkness at the back of her cell.

  “I know you’re awake.”

  A soft snarl sounded at his words, the clinking of chains overloud in the relative silence.

  Lucian braced himself. He wasn’t entirely sure what was waiting for him inside, but he knew it was going to haunt him long after he was done here.

  “I’m coming in.”

  Why he felt the need to announce his next move he couldn’t say, except that if he talked to her like she was still human, it made her seem like less of a monster.

  There was another clink before a slow continuous melody filled the cell. It took Lucian a heartbeat to catalogue the sound as chains running against stone. Closing his eyes, Lucian filled his lungs with air.

  Before he could save her, he was going to have to disable her. Again. Lucian had a feeling this time it wasn’t going to be a simple matter of knocking her unconscious. She was waiting for him. Perhaps he shouldn’t have made Ronan and Kael wait for him in the hallway. Three against one was certainly better odds, but he wanted privacy for what he was about to do.

  Dropping his hands, Lucian lifted his head. His eyes swirled with bronze fire. No one said he had to fight fair.

  Power surged through him and between one breath and the next, Lucian had walked through the bars as if they were no more substantial than smoke. If she somehow managed to take him out, he didn’t want her to be able to escape.

  There was a jostle of chains as she shifted, mirroring his steps in some macabre imitation of a dance. Barely any of her essence’s natural radiance was left. Instead of the intricate and blinding light he’d seen the first time he’d looked at her, there was only pulsing darkness filled with a dozen flickering golden beads. It was almost like staring at the night sky as the stars slowly faded from view.

  It was worse than he realized. Barely anything was left of her.

  He was out of time.

  The shuffling sound of footsteps echoed around them as she took the first step toward him. Lucian ran his fingers along one of the bars, pulling
a section the length of his forearm free and hurling it at her in one fluid motion. As the piece of metal flew through the air, Lucian continued to manipulate it. By the time it reached Effie, it was flattened and curved, its pointed ends sliding through the wall behind her as easily as if it were made of butter. The only thing stopping it from sliding straight through the rock was Effie’s throat—and Lucian’s power.

  There was a garbled shriek as she realized she was trapped, Lucian’s metal band kissing her neck and holding her in place. Howling with rage, she started squirming in earnest.

  Lucian ignored her and turned to pull the bag of ingredients through the bars. Checking the map a final time, he started setting things in place. That much handled, he glanced back at Effie. He needed to get her from the wall to the floor without getting close enough to allow her to take a chunk out of him.

  She bared her teeth at him as he crossed the cell to stand in front of her. Lifting his hand, he ran it along the cool surface of the metal, careful to stay out of range of her mouth. As his hand moved, so too did the metal. It stretched and thinned until it covered Effie from neck to nose, leaving just enough room that she could still draw in breath.

  It took only a finger running along the edges one at a time to sever the metal where it had sunk into the wall. As the band started to drop, it transformed once more, no longer metal, but cloth. Moving quickly, he pulled her head forward and snatched the ends of the thick fabric in his other hand before they could fall, tying them off in a knot.

  All of this happened in the span of a few heartbeats. The creature, realizing she’d been neutralized once more, started growling low in her throat.

  Lucian did his best to ignore the savage sounds even as the hair along his arms and neck stood on end. He couldn’t help but wonder what would be left of her even if the spell worked.

  Using his left hand, Lucian reached behind Effie’s back and found the thick length of chain that connected her wrists to her feet. With a sharp tug, he broke the chain in two and pulled her away from the wall. The force of his pull had her body spinning sideways as her arms followed the chain’s momentum. She tried to fight it, her feet tripping over themselves as she struggled against his hold. Bound as she was; she was no match for Lucian’s strength. She managed to regain her balance and stagger alongside of him instead of being dragged, her wet snarls beneath the gag a testament to her rage.

  Once they reached the center of the room, he turned to face her, releasing the chain and giving her shoulder a hard shove that sent her flying back. She hit the ground hard, her head cracking against the stone floor. Lucian dropped to his knees beside her, leaning over her prone body, his arms outstretched in anticipation of his next move when she snapped her head forward, slamming it into his nose.

  Lucian grunted in pain, hot blood spurting down into his mouth.

  “It’s going to take more than that to stop me,” he warned her, his voice garbled from the blood.

  She reared back to do it again, but Lucian caught her by the hair, pulling her head back far enough to bare her throat. She continued to writhe beneath him, attempting to use her legs to land several awkward kicks to his body. Bound as she was, he dodged easily. Using his free hand, Lucian manipulated the chain still connected to her wrists, severing it so that her arms could come out from under her.

  Lucian needed both hands for what he intended, so he released his hold on her hair. Effie knifed up, but Lucian was faster. Pressing his torso against her, he used the weight of his body to press her back down onto the floor. He could feel the heat of her damp breath puffing against his neck as she snapped at him behind her gag.

  Fingers curled around each of her wrists, Lucian pushed downward, using his power to sink the metal down until it fused with the earth on either side of her body. Rising to his knees, he shifted his attention to her ankles, repeating his actions, not bothering to sever the chain that connected her feet together.

  With a sigh, Lucian finally dropped the hold on his power and sat back on his heels. Effie wasn’t going anywhere. Not until he allowed it. She was bound to the floor, the rock and metal fused so completely there was no telling where one ended and the other began.

  She glared up at him, her brows dropping lower over milky eyes.

  Lucian’s heart thumped erratically in his chest.

  “Now,” he said, his own voice a savage rumble, “it’s time to take back what you stole from me.”

  Chapter 13

  “Incipere,” Lucian murmured, lowering his hand and placing the final item on the floor, briefly wondering how Vance had come across a phoenix and managed to steal one of its feathers.

  As with each time before, a surge of energy swept through the room. This one tasted of cinders and caused sweat to bead across his brow. His power answered the call, rushing to the surface in a frantic burst.

  It arced from his hands and flew up. Unused to it taking on a physical form, Lucian stared in wonder as it swirled along the ceiling, becoming one with the other magics he’d summoned.

  With no frame of reference for whether this normally happened or not, Lucian forced himself to refocus. While he’d been busy invoking the elements, Effie had not ceased in her efforts to escape, futile as they were. The fresh scent of blood and the putrid smell of corruption filled the air.

  He returned to his place beside her, the words Vance had painstakingly written down surfacing in his mind. Not sure what to do with his hands, Lucian held them flat, hovering over her forehead and the center of her chest as he zeroed in on the area within her that seemed absent of all light. “Et quod solum remanebit.”

  Lucian gasped, feeling as though he’d been struck by lightning. His back arched, his head flung back as the power that had gathered in the room plunged itself straight into his heart. He could barely breathe through the pain of it, let alone think.

  It felt as though he was being unmade, the power taking away his form and scattering what was left of him into the heavens.

  Chest heaving, Lucian somehow managed to open his eyes. Was it his imagination, or had some of the darkness ebbed?

  Encouraged, he placed his hands once more and said as clearly as he could manage, “Et quod solum remanebit.”

  This time he was expecting the surge of liquid lightning running through his veins. He bit off a cry, but not before the taste of blood filled his mouth. If possible, it hurt worse than the first time. Never in his millennia walking the worlds had Lucian experienced pain such as this.

  Gritting his teeth, his pulse pounding wildly in his neck, Lucian focused harder on the slithering darkness, willing it to separate itself from the dull strands of light that were starting to reappear where Effie lay.

  “Et quod solum remanebit.” The final word was barely formed before he was crying out in agony, the sound torn from his throat as if white hot blades were being shoved into every inch of his flesh.

  Lucian’s hands dropped to the floor, his body shaking so violently he feared he would not be able to push himself upright. Is this supposed to happen?

  Pink-tinged sweat poured down his face as Lucian struggled to clear his mind. He could do this. For her, he could bear anything. Nothing would be worse than the pain of losing her.

  Eyes fluttering back open, Lucian sucked in a ragged breath and held his trembling hands back over her body. There was still entirely too much darkness moving through her, although now it resembled smoke caught in a glass orb more than an inky stain.

  “Et quod solum remanebit.”

  Lucian fell to the floor, his body spasming like Effie during one of her visions. He had no control over his limbs, the muscles straining as the power filled him. It was too much for one body to contain, even an immortal one. If he did not release it soon, it would kill him.

  With a roar, Lucian pushed himself up once more. His limbs continued to quake, but when it came to a battle of wills, Lucian was unmatched. He would not fail her.

  This time he could not manage to lift his arms, so instead
he rested his palms against her forearm. Head hanging down, Lucian ignored the searing pain and followed Vance’s final instruction. He called an image of Effie to mind. His favorite one.

  It was one he had painted many times, although he would never tell her that. It was the night she’d first seen him, when the halus bane had held her in its grasp. She’d stared him down, her eyes all but glowing beneath their sooty lashes. Her chin was jutted up so that she could meet his gaze, allowing her to achieve the effect of looking down her nose at him while he still towered over her. The wind had picked up the heavy mass of her hair, flinging it around her like some kind of golden halo.

  She had been an avenging angel.

  Fierce.

  Fearless.

  Perfect.

  And she was his. He’d known it even as it terrified him. From that moment on she owned him. What started that night had only grown more potent as they’d gotten to know each other. Each layer she’d revealed after, intentionally or not, only bound him tighter.

  He’d gloried in her courageous spirit from the start, but he’d lost himself utterly when faced with her unwavering compassion. She was unmatched. Steel forged from pain and tempered with kindness.

  And she . . . was . . . his.

  Eyes snapping open, Lucian roared, “Et quod solum remanebit.”

  Lucian’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell to the ground in a graceless sprawl. Light was pouring from his body. He could feel wave after wave crashing against him as it filled the room.

  There was no telling how much time had passed when Lucian was finally able to reopen his eyes. The room was deathly silent, none of the overwhelming power remaining. Hardly daring to breathe, Lucian called his power up once more, a broken sob escaping when he saw the blinding brilliance that was Effie. The thin strands of onyx threaded throughout did nothing to dilute the radiance of her spirit.

  “Effie,” he croaked, barely able to speak. “Fledgling . . .”

  A pulse was fluttering in her throat, and her petal pink lips were parted slightly. Body still shaking, Lucian removed all trace of her bindings, pulling her up into his arms and clutching her against his chest.