This was the Dark Lady, and in this moment, she was the only one who could give him what his heart truly wanted.
“Promise me,” he whispered. “Promise me you’ll bring her back. Promise me she’ll be whole.”
“I promise, my child.” She reached out, stroked the side of his face. It felt like his mother’s hand, her warmth, that small tremble of love. “I will give you everything. All you need do is serve.”
“Then I’ll serve you,” he whispered. He felt something coil through his heart, binding as iron. “If it gets my mother back, I’ll do whatever you want.”
She smiled. Patted his cheek lightly.
“I know,” she replied.
Then, before he could ask what she meant, she—and the dream—were gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Aidan expected life to feel different.
He thought he would wake up to a sunny sky and birds in the trees and a cheerfulness in the streets. Instead, he woke up to Kianna barging in with a tray of tea and a scowl. “I have good news and bad news.”
“Good morning to you, too,” he muttered. He pulled through Fire and lit the one lantern in his room. Whatever he’d been dreaming faded in that movement, burning away with reality. All he knew was that it felt important. All he knew was that it made him feel like shit, and he was more than happy to forget it.
“Which do you want first?”
“Tea,” he responded.
She snorted and set the tray on his bed. “Who says that wasn’t the good news?”
“Tea is never good news,” he replied. “Because it means there isn’t coffee.”
“Americans,” she muttered. She flopped down on the bed beside the tea tray. There were biscuits on it, as well. Damn. Maybe this was the good news.
“Okay, shoot. What’s the good news?”
“Good news is, we’ve been stationed together.”
“You’re certain that’s not the bad news?” He tried to grin; he knew, however, that that was the type of joke she would usually make. The fact that she hadn’t put him on edge.
“The bad news is that they’re keeping us here.”
“What?”
“They say it’s because we’ve earned a break,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Truth is, I can tell they don’t trust us out there. Well, you. I don’t run the risk of immolating my troop mates.”
For a brief moment, he worried they had found out. That the Prophets in all their erratic wisdom had seen what he’d done to Trevor and the rest. But no. He reminded himself this was still about Vincent. He was still being punished for the lesser of his sins.
“I can’t just sit around while everyone else fights for us,” Aidan said. Even now, with Fire a low hum in his veins, he felt the pull. The draw to kill, to screw, to burn.
“I know,” she replied. “But I’ve put word in that we want to be deployed as soon as possible. Hopefully, in a few days, they’ll realize you aren’t going to burn down everything around you, and we’ll be free to go. Just...don’t burn down everything around you, okay?”
“I make no promises,” he muttered.
Honestly, he kind of meant it.
* * *
The next few days passed by in a blur. Without the thrill of battle to tell the time, Aidan’s life condensed to great swathes of gray. The empty black of morning in his windowless room. The dull tint of his tea. The endless rain while he and Kianna trained in the courtyard. She wouldn’t let him use magic in those training sessions. She never did. Said he needed to rely on more than the Spheres to survive. He hated it. Mostly because she kicked his ass every time.
At night, they would take their dinners in the corners of the mess hall, discussing all the boring drudgery Aidan was glad he got to skip. Kianna didn’t like anyone, which meant everyone tried to get on her good side with gossip and rumors. Of which there were plenty. Reports from up north of the smaller Guilds rallying. Reports of a small Guild in the Hebrides that had been overthrown and burned to the ground by the Church.
Reports of movement in the south. Of Churches attracting more followers.
After all, the Kin in Britain had been killed. A servant of the Dark Lady was dead. To the zealots, that meant the time was ripe to kill the rest of them, Hunters and Howls alike.
Once more, Aidan was smug in having had the foresight to kick them out of Glasgow before they could be a true threat. If he ever saw a Sept, he would feel no shame in burning it to the ground.
Hopefully, though, he would never have to.
It wasn’t the never-ending cold or rain or rumors that got to him, however. If he cared to admit it, it was the lack of Tomás. After all the promises of power, he hadn’t seen a hint of the incubus since that first night. He was starting to think it had all been in his head. The silence. The fact that nothing had changed. At least, not for the better.
He watched the Guild slowly expand. On the fourth day, when the surrounding countryside was definitively cleared of the Dark Lady’s forces, the gates of Glasgow were opened. At least during the day. People were allowed to return to their old lives, to find their old homes. What was left of them.
Perhaps to the surprise of no one, very few people actually left the city. There was still too much risk. From the wall that kept everyone safe, Aidan watched the drawbridge open and the dozen or so civilians walk cautiously out. Some carried bundles, as if they’d hoped to discover their old homes were intact, and settling back into their life would be easy.
No one had been let outside the walls since Glasgow had been barricaded. Not necessarily just for the protection of the civilians—unarmed humans meant easy prey, which meant a greater draw for wandering Howls or necromancers out to convert. Which meant no one truly knew the extent of the damage in the world beyond, save the Hunters who died to keep it safe. Soon they’d all learn the truth. There was nothing to go back to. Nothing to repair. They would need to start from the ground up, and it would be a long time before they managed to return to the world they’d left behind. If ever.
Anger churned in Aidan’s gut.
How fitting, that—after Calum’s death—the civilians were allowed to go free, and here he sat, barricaded, waiting for someone else to decide when he was allowed to go back into the world he alone had liberated.
“It’s not fair,” he muttered to himself.
Fire burned in his chest. Guiding him forward, ever forward. He stared out to the east, to where Edinburgh probably still smoked. To the throne that should have been his.
Kianna told him to wait. To bide his time. Patience wasn’t his virtue.
If it was true that someone had killed Leanna, he had to work harder to secure his place in history. He had to find that stupid shard Tomás had mentioned. Because as he waited here, that prick back in America was still making waves. And Aidan had no doubt that soon, he would land here.
Aidan refused to share his country with someone like that.
Aidan refused to let anyone else believe they were his equal.
“I have found it.”
Aidan jolted. Looked over to see Tomás standing beside him. The incubus radiated heat, and it made Aidan wonder which of his troop mates or civilians would be found frozen later that evening, but he didn’t have the heart to care who Tomás had fed on. Not really.
With Tomás at his side, it was hard to care about anything but power.
“Found what?” Aidan’s heart raced and his breath caught. He didn’t try to hide it, though—Tomás knew the effect he had on him. Aidan fully intended to use that observation to his advantage.
“The shard.”
It sounded so funny, the way Tomás said it, like this was some magical quest and not a fight for survival.
“Why do you need it?” Aidan asked. The last few days had made him doubt everything. Some mystical shard that could bring back the dead was top among them.
Aidan bristled with the statement. “I’m strong enough,” he said. “I killed Calum.”
“With my help,” Tomás reminded him. “But I may not always be at your side to assist.” He leaned in, whispered in to Aidan’s ear. “Besides, my king, I want you to grow in power. I want to see what you can do when you truly take control.”
“I have no problem taking control,” Aidan said.
Tomás purred in the back of his throat. A second later, he stood a few feet away, and Aidan’s hand clasped thin air.
“Perhaps not,” Tomás said, head cocked to the side. “But you still are not the man you could be. The shard holds more than power, my prince. It holds secrets. Secrets that could prove very useful for us in the months to come.”
“What sort of secrets?”
Tomás chuckled, burning away the hints of the dream that tried to surface in Aidan’s mind. “If I told you that, they wouldn’t be secrets, now, would they?”
Another second, and then Tomás was at Aidan’s back again. This time the Howl’s hand was around Aidan’s throat, the other pinning Aidan’s arms behind him. Pain lanced through Aidan’s shoulders.
“This is not a negotiation,” Tomás growled into his ear. “I handed you Calum, and now you will do as I wish. I could threaten those you love. I could promise to rip your whole world away. But I know what scares you most, Aidan Belmont. I know I need only promise you a lifetime of this, and you will bend to my will. And that is the future you will have without my blessing. Get. Me. The. Shard. Or I promise you, no one will ever remember your name.”
“I thought I was your king,” Aidan grunted, his lungs hot.
“Kings can be replaced. Tenn may not be my first choice, but he will do should you fail me.”
Aidan choked as Tomás’s grip tightened.
“Get me the shard.”
Then Tomás was once more a few feet away. Aidan tried not to stagger, not to collapse. The incubus was too strong. But he would find a way to make himself stronger.
“Where is it?”
“London,” Tomás said. He smiled wickedly. “Good luck.”
Then, with a flicker of Air, the Howl was gone.
Aidan let himself lean against the wall. Stared down at the peasants below. The ants. Tomás’s words rippled through his mind.
He would never be like one of them. He would never be common.
He would be remembered.
And if that meant getting a stupid crystal, so be it. London was the biggest Guild in the UK. All he had to do was walk in there and ask for it.
In a small corner of his mind, he wondered why Tomás hadn’t done something similar. Clearly, the man had no problem appearing wherever he pleased.
Whatever. He needed a reason to leave.
“I’m coming for you,” he whispered to the three remaining Kin. “For all of you.”
And Tomás? But that wasn’t a question he had an answer for. Not yet. Not until he knew whether he wanted to screw the incubus or rip him apart.
Then he thought of Leanna. Of Tenn. The boy who thought he could usurp Aidan’s place in history.
He wasn’t about to let that prick steal his thunder. He was the ruler. He was the one for whom the world would kneel.
And if Tenn decided to get in his way, well... Aidan would kill him, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
He didn’t see Kianna until after dinner.
She had been in meetings all day, apparently, and since he wasn’t being informed of what was going on, he couldn’t imagine the meetings were good. All he knew was that two thirds of the Guild had been deployed, some north, the rest south to alert the Guild in London of their success and help in the eradication of any remaining Howls.
He knew, because he’d watched the troops march while he had been stationed inside. He’d trained most of those warriors.
The hypocrisy made him sick.
He wandered down the hall that led to Kianna’s room. She lived in an aboveground room just like he once had. Though she had made sure to request one not by his; apparently he was too loud when he had boys over. Outside the hall windows, the sky was dark and flooded with rain, only the occasional flares of light from passing Hunters or civilians breaking the gloom. It was easy to imagine that the rest of humanity had just broken away and sunk into the abyss, leaving only this: the rain and the cold and the dark.
The very elements he felt he would spend his entire life fighting back against. Vainly.
He stared out, saw his reflection staring back. Blinked.
And he wasn’t alone in the hall. A woman stood behind him, her pale hair glowing in her own unearthly light, her lips dark red with spilt blood, her hand on his shoulder, claiming him...
Aidan turned, but there was no one there. Just the closed door to Kianna’s room and the frantic thud of his heart in his rib cage.
Just like that, his dreams spilled back into consciousness. Him and his mother in the field. The frantic cries of the sheep and her own mangled screams as the kravens tore her apart.
And then the Dark Lady. Promising him she would grant more than power. Swearing she could bring Aidan’s mother back from the dead.
The thought was a jagged shard to his chest.
He could have her back. He could right his wrongs.
But just as quickly as the hope flared, it burned to a crisp as Fire’s harsh embrace enveloped it. Even though he’d seen the Dark Lady resurrect Calum, even though he’d seen life after death, he couldn’t let himself believe it was possible. Couldn’t let himself believe anything the Dark Lady said was true. She was the shadow, the lie. If he let himself think she could help him, he’d be no better than the necromancers.
Besides, there wasn’t anything of his mother to bring back. Calum had been whole. Prepared.
The thought sickened him, and so did Fire’s anger. He had almost let himself be weak. Had almost let himself get tricked into following the Dark Lady. He wouldn’t be so stupid.
He was going to get the shard not for her, not for Tomás, but for himself. He would unlock its secrets, and he would keep every single one of them for himself. He would harness its power and more, until he had the whole world begging for forgiveness. Including the Dark Lady and all her minions. She had cost him everything. He would never let himself think that she could bring it back.
He knocked on Kianna’s door. It wasn’t latched, and opened slightly after the first knock. He peered through, wondering if she had left or...
“Are you a perv or did you just forget how doors work?” Kianna asked, her voice flat.
Aidan fought down the blush and pushed the door open.
Kianna sat at a desk inside, back facing him, the room lit by a few oil lamps and a fire roaring in the hearth. It was warm and comforting despite the wind and rain crashing against the large windows. But the heat didn’t stop his blood from going cold the moment he saw what she was doing.
“Shut the door, will ya?” Kianna said, not looking toward him. “I swear to Christ you were raised in a bloody barn.”
Aidan did so, but he didn’t look back at the door. His stare was transfixed on the great wooden desk before Kianna, on the rows and rows of bullets set up in perfect lines, glinting silver soldiers in the lamplight.
Silver, save for the ones dripping crimson.
“Kianna, what are you—”
But he knew perfectly well what she was doing. Her arm raised over the desk, slowly dripping blood from a fresh slit in her forearm. Imbuing the bullets with her blood. Ensuring no necromancer could turn them against her.
She was preparing for war.
Her eyes flickered to him before she looked back to her work. “Already did ’em once,” she muttered. “But I like a second coat for good luck.”
He stepped into the room. Tried to seem nonchalant as he plopped down on her unmade bed—a king. Nicer even than his old one.
Truth be told, even though he knew she had to imbue her weapons and bullets with blood—seeing as she didn’t use the Spheres to keep them bound to her—he’d never caught her in the act. She was highly secretive. About everything.
“Looks like spreading kindness requires a big sacrifice,” he said, nodding to her pistol.
“That was a stretch,” she said. “I hope you weren’t working on that one long.”
He grunted.
“Put the kettle on, would you?” she asked. “I’m always a bit woozy after this.”
He watched the blood drip down her arm, transfixed by the red as it glinted warmly in the lamplight. So transfixed that she had to ask him a second time. He shook his head and went to the hearth, then hung the filled copper kettle from a hook over the fire. He didn’t bother mentioning he could boil the water with magic. She had refused that offer a hundred times in the past. Said she could taste magic in the water. That it spoiled tea, just like it spoiled everything else.
“They say this is older than magic,” Kianna whispered, watching the blood drip down her forearm. Her voice filled his head like amber. Crimson blood. Honeyed words. “Blood magic. The power of sacrifice, of offering. They say that when we offer our flesh to the gods, the gods grant us immortality.” She scoffed. “Rubbish. I don’t offer anything. I just know it works.”
It was about as close to esoteric talk as she’d ever come, and when she reached over to grab a wet rag from a bucket steaming with the scent of herbs, he knew it was the last.
“Gaining immortality, though...” she continued. She looked back to him. “That’s something I think I’ve finally gotten sorted.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a problem,” she said. “But I think we can make it an opportunity.”
“What’s the problem?”
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