Lead Heart (Seraph Black Book 3)

by Washington, Jane

  “Frankly, I don’t care what she does,” Kingsling replied, sounding casual. “I don’t see why we need her, when we have the others. Can’t three of them be enough? We never expected any of them to survive, we hardly need four of them. Leave the girl to me, let me experiment on her.”

  “She was always the strongest of the four. I’ve had my eye on her for a long time, and you know it. She is my choice. She will be the one to save us.”

  “How…” I began, rolling the words around inside my head before I released them. “How… am I supposed to save you?”

  He burst into a short, astounded laugh, slapping his hand against his knee. “You’re something, Seraph Black. You really are. I always knew it, but sitting here and seeing it play out the way I always imagined…” he shook his head, a wry smile settling about his lips. “You’re going to save us because you won’t be able to help yourself. I’ll bet that nobody ever explained this to you, but as Atmás, our powers directly influence our personalities, our preferences, our future. My power is the ability to control people, so that’s who I am now: I’m a manipulator. I’m driven to control people and outcomes. Your power is very specific… it’s a weapon, as we intended it to be… but you can also use it to heal people, which was a surprise to me. That means that you’ll be an instinctive, and a fierce protector. I won’t even need to tell you to do anything, you’ll do it all yourself.”

  I scoffed a little bit. “I see what you’re saying; you really do think you’re some kind of master puppeteer.”

  “If the shoe fits.” Weston’s tone was bland, showing no outward reaction to my insult.

  I intentionally mirrored his pose, loosely crossing my arms low over my chest and parting my knees to better brace my feet against the floor of the limousine. I straightened out my shoulders and tilted up my chin, guarding my eyes and my nervous heart against his manipulation. Though in truth… some small part of me whispered that he was right. I only ever used the valcrick to protect or heal, and it had never even occurred to me that it could be used for any other purpose. I was capable of using it in other ways, but it wasn’t a natural thing for me; it was something that demanded a lot of concentration and delicacy. I had used it to hurt people, without a doubt… but that had only ever been to prevent harm from being done to myself, or to other people around me. It had never even occurred to me to use the valcrick for fun, or to get something that I wanted.

  And what about the forecasting? If Weston was right… how would that influence me?

  “Did anyone ever warn you about the perils of creation, Weston?” I asked solemnly, pushing away my private concerns.

  I was lucky that he hadn’t yet attempted to touch me and draw on my thoughts, but I wasn’t going to push that luck. I assumed that the best way to prevent him from trying to read my mind would be to keep openly speaking my mind.

  He rolled his eyes a little. “Are you going to revolt on me, little creation?”

  “I’ll tell you a story. Just a little story, so that you understand the consequences of what you’re doing and what you’ve already done, since you seem to think that you’re exempt from the natural order of things. There are many creators in the world: from those who tend to their gardens and bake in their kitchens, to those who build and paint and sing. There isn’t any doubt that these people create, but there is speculation about the quality, the rightness of their creations. The one thing a creator must always learn is that, while living things can be controlled, the outcome of those manipulations cannot be. You can bend people and force people and manipulate them as much as you want, but you can’t control the result; or the resulting person. That isn’t in your power. Maybe you think torturing your son is a good way to determine who is bonded to him, but by torturing him, you created a person who doesn’t care about consequences when it comes to himself.

  “Now, because of you, there isn’t much that Silas won’t do, to protect the people he cares about—especially from you. If he cares at all about his Atmá, you can be sure that he will die trying to keep her away from you: that’s on you, Weston. That’s your fault.”

  He pulled a deep breath into his lungs as I finished talking, his chest expanding and his eyes narrowing. For a moment, I was afraid that I had said too much, but eventually, he leaned forward, resting his forearms over his knees.

  “There isn’t anything that you can tell me about Silas that I don’t already know, Miss Black. But you… you’re a different story. Do you think I’m creating a monster out of you, hmm? Is that it?”

  I stopped to think about it, but found that it was almost impossible to be that objective about myself. I simply didn’t know. I didn’t know whether I had been changed beyond repair by all of Weston’s games, and I didn’t know if any of the changes were good or not. I also didn’t know what to attribute to Weston, and what to attribute to the messenger.

  “What do you expect me to do, Weston?” I was suddenly very tired. “I left your sons, they can’t keep me away from you anymore, I went to the Komnata, I’ve done everything you asked, and with a bomb around my neck no less. So, what do you want?”

  “What?” He made to shoot off the seat before remembering that he was in a car, resulting in him perching on the very edge, tension lining his limbs. “What bomb?”

  I sat back and ran my fingers over the collar, lighting up the word. “My stalker is back. He told me to get out of Maple Falls.”

  Weston frowned, sitting back in his seat. He was looking right at my collar, but I had a feeling that he had slipped into thoughts of something beyond us.

  “The Klovoda have had agents attempting to track this person down for months now,” he admitted, narrowing his eyes even more. “It’s almost as though he doesn’t actually exist.”

  “He does,” I insisted. “He’s…” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Weston that the messenger was my twin, but if there was one thing that I had learned in the last year, it was to keep my secrets to myself unless I was sure of their reception. “He’s… very real,” I said instead.

  Weston continued frowning, but eventually he pulled his phone out and dialed a number.

  “Jack? We need you for something…”

  I turned my head into my hands as Weston spoke, my headache returning with a vicious shove that almost knocked me back into the seat. I gathered from the conversation that Jack’s Atmá power could somehow help with preventing my head from going boom, but I was finding it hard to concentrate on eavesdropping properly. Weston must have understood that my headache was back, for he didn’t resume our conversation after his phone call. We drove the rest of the way in silence, pulling off the main roads into sprawling country lanes as the civilisation around us seemed to fade away once again. I was now convinced that the Klovoda or Weston bought up the plots of land surrounding their most important landmarks so that they could enjoy seclusion.

  We stopped at no less than six gates, looking as harmless as simple fences or property lines—though there just happened to be a man standing at each of the gates, ready to unlock it for us, and I knew that they were less than harmless. They wore simple clothing, and had a chair often tucked nearby, with a pack hung over the back. I wondered where they were hiding their weapons. After the sixth gate, I caught sight of something poking into the sky, and I shuffled over to the window, squinting at it in the darkness. It was dimly lit-up, a glow emanating from some kind of towering spire. A bulky silhouette separated itself from the dark horizon, forming great big stone walls and house-dotted streets winding up the hill to the tall structure in the middle.

  “Le Château de Duke Gabriel,” Weston informed me, his eyes on me instead of the shapes forming on the horizon. “Built by the original Materialist—though it was only what remains in the heart of what you see now, as many Materialists over the years have added to it. The original Materialist was French, and missed his home, so he decided to bring a little of France to America. He named it after the Voda—”

  “Duke Gabriel?”
/>
  “Of course… back then, there was no Klovoda, only the Voda and his people. They called him a Duke, after the first duke in a peerage of the British Isles was named in 1337. They liked that title, because it was derived from the Latin dux, meaning leader; and that’s what the Voda was: a leader. They changed it much later when a Bosnian Voda, who was also a Seer, predicted the decline of the British Aristocracy. He instated a council to help with his task of leading the Zevghéri people, and named them after the Bosnian word for ringleader, kolovoda. That was when he abandoned the title of Duke, and took on the title of Voda.”

  I finally turned my eyes from the castle to blink at Weston. It was strange to think that the Zevs had a history, though I had been made aware of it before. I wondered what the previous Vodas would think of Weston. Or… perhaps even what they would think of me. The secret heir to everything.

  “Are you the only one that lives there?” I asked, disbelief tinging my voice. The property could have encompassed an entire town.

  Weston laughed, but I thought I heard a tinge of sadness in the sound.

  “It’s just me, and close to thirty housekeepers and grounds-staff.”

  I pushed the feeling of pity from my heart, because Weston wasn’t actually cast off into solitude. Close to thirty housekeepers and grounds-staff was more than enough to keep any person company; if Weston ignored them out of some stupid idea of status, that was his fault.

  The limousine stopped at a gatehouse, where an inner courtyard housed another two limousines, and several more luxury vehicles. Perhaps I would drive a beat-up Nissan for the rest of my life just to spite the car-loving Zevghéri population. I followed Weston out of the car and caught sight of his driver for the first time, as the older man parked the limousine and got into a compact, black Audi. I came to the conclusion that the limousine wasn’t exactly suitable for climbing the steep, narrow streets of Le Château de Duke-Gabriel just as Weston opened the back door of the Audi and motioned for me to get in. I wasn’t comfortable sitting in such close quarters with him, so I ignored the offered seat and hurried around to the front passenger door, sitting beside the driver. The older man looked over at me, smiling slightly, and Weston climbed into the car with a sigh.

  “I’m Arnold, Miss,” the driver said. “Welcome to Le Château.”

  “Thanks Arnold, I’m Seraph.”

  “You don’t look like one, Miss.”

  I chuckled faintly. “No, I don’t,” I confirmed, pulling at a lock of my dark hair.

  Confidence. That was something that had changed within me. A year ago, I would have silently fretted if someone had made fun of my name, but not anymore.

  That seemed like a harmless enough change.

  Le Château was a ghost town as we climbed the pretty cobbled streets, past silent stone houses and boarded-up windows. If I had to guess, I would say that the greater part of the property had been uninhabited for more than just Weston’s generation. Paint was peeling in most places, and a few tiled roofs had cracked or cratered; one house seemed to be full of debris, and the front door was missing completely. Despite the fact that the houses were falling apart, the road was obviously well-maintained, with neat shrubbery sprinkling multicolored petals onto the edges of the cobblestones, and tall lampposts lighting the way. We passed through an arch with yet another guard standing by, and seemed to enter a different part of Le Château, where the houses were not so run-down, but still clearly unused. It seemed that there were several layers to the city, which made sense when I thought about Weston saying that Materialists over the years had added to the original structure. Each layer was wrapped by a strong, stone wall, cutting into what seemed to be a man-made hill—for the surrounding terrain was completely flat. A gate marked the spot on the winding road where another layer began, and I was hanging out my window by the time we finally arrived at the top, where only a single, multi-tiered mansion remained, with the giant spired tower right in the middle of it.

  Arnold parked in an open Romanesque gallery, which seemed to be reserved as a parking space, as it had only leaves upon the ground. Bordering colonnades supported a giant, vaulted ceiling with open circles cut into each point to allow the moonlight to spill in. The air blew right through, catching my hair as I stepped out of the car and walked alongside the columns to where I thought the entrance to the mansion was. Weston followed close behind and Arnold stayed with the Audi. I passed two heavy stone urns that were currently being strangled by tumbling vines boasting blood-red flowers, and then I was through a doorway and inside a hallway of some kind. I had to stop, then, because I simply couldn’t continue without acknowledging the miracle of architecture that sat before me. The hallway was so wide an army could have passed through it… but considering the other gothic defence fortifications that I had spotted on the drive up, that wasn’t entirely surprising.

  The ceiling captured me first, since the eye was naturally drawn up thanks to the pointed window skeletons lining the walls—it was almost as though they were demanding you to look up and acknowledge the masterpiece that hovered above you. I didn’t know what kind of material it was made of, but the patterns carved into the roof caused it to resemble the underside of a leaf; with intricate, spindly veins running between almost translucent, gold-painted tones. The delicate designs sat inside heavier impressions, which curved and pointed and arched with the ceiling until I was almost dizzy with it all. I turned away when Weston cleared his throat, and then I trailed slowly after the man as he chose the hallway leading to the left: it split off from us at a ninety-degree angle, probably walking around the entire outside of the place. The floor beneath me was smooth and ancient-looking, white marble interspersed with granite, polished to an impressive sheen. The windows boasted both stained glass and normal, rippled glass, but the windows were all in the same arched shape, with three large vertical panes of glass below several smaller, decorative panes.

  Weston’s dress shoes made a sound against the ground that was both sharp and muted at once, and my chameleon sneakers made no sound at all as the rubber soles brushed against the smooth stone. We walked for a long time, and I almost wished that there was some kind of medieval elevator to take us to where we needed to go, though I suspected that had more to do with my headache. Eventually, we stopped at one of the sliding, stained-glass doors that dotted the giant hallway, and Weston pulled them open, revealing an indoor courtyard.

  I gasped, spilling into the room before him and moving to touch each of the exotic plants. I ran my finger through the elaborate fountain, peered at the gargoyle currently spitting a slow stream of water, and tested out at least two of the white stone benches before Weston was on the move again. He started up a large marble staircase with balustrades polished to a blinding sheen, and I reluctantly followed him. The courtyard had been lit by dim lanterns, but as we passed up the staircase and back ‘inside,’ it grew darker. Weston fiddled for a moment in the dark and then light snapped into existence, too bright after the magic of below. He dimmed the lights after seeing my wince, which was oddly thoughtful. I followed him to the nearest wall, where he pressed a button to call… an elevator? Really?

  Sure enough, the wall slid aside to reveal an elevator car and I walked on auto-pilot, delivering myself into the space as Weston pressed the button for the fifth floor. When we exited, I had to wait for Weston to switch on more lights, and I found myself in a sitting room that actually managed to look lived-in.

  “Most of the livable wings are on this floor,” Weston explained to me, sounding tired himself. He kept sneaking glances at my collar, too. Probably wondering if it was going to make his pretty castle go boom. “I didn’t actually have time to ask the servants to ready any of the other wings, but three of the residences have been maintained in my sons’ absences. The closest is Cabe’s, it’s the first door in that corridor over there. Jack should be here soon, and we’ll get that… collar dealt with.”

  I nodded, twisting my hands awkwardly. “You never answered my question b
efore. I really don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here. You’ve managed to get to me before the Klovoda, you’ve managed to get me away from Gerald—where is he, by the way? He’s not going to appear while I’m staying here, is he?”

  “No,” Weston answered solemnly, “he’s dead.”

  I paused, confusion worsening my headache until I was forced to take a seat in one of the armchairs in lieu of collapsing. “He died once before.”

  “This time he’s really dead. He made the mistake of paying the dungeons a visit to taunt Silas, and Silas overpowered his guards and attacked. It served Gerald right.”

  I groaned, letting my head fall into my hands. “I’ve been through this before. It’s like history repeating itself.”

  “You can’t really be mourning that man. He was an idiot. If Silas hadn’t killed him, I was planning on having him convicted or killed myself.”

  “He’s my brother’s father. I care about Tariq—”

  “Tariq isn’t your brother—”

  “And, it’s not Gerald I’m mourning for. It’s Silas.”

  Weston shook his head, but this time there was a glimmer of hardness to his expression, a sliver of hatred in his eyes. “Another lost cause.”

  Not wanting to hear any more, I hastily stood. “Just tell me why I’m here. Tell me what you want from me, and we can move onto me accepting or refusing.”

  “You won’t refuse. I only want you to be yourself. You’ll be allowed to attend school as usual, but you’ll need to return here every night. You may treat this as your home. There’s no need to fret over my presence, as my permanent residence is in Seattle. I only stay here when it is needed… though I will have my staff reporting back to me, so that is in no way an invitation to renege on our deal. No more sleeping around with my sons, unless you decide to seriously date one of them. Any of them, except Silas. You need to drastically improve your reputation. I can’t have you championing our people if our people all think that you’re a dishonest slut.”