“You did not think we would make you do something as crude as a genocide?” he asked innocently—sarcastically. “You are the savior. Our savior.”
“You. Are. INSANE if you think I’m doing that!” I moved further behind the bed, but he caught me at the wrist. With lightning speed he placed both his arms on my shoulders, grasping them tightly.
“Cyfyngu.”
All of a sudden my body became taut, like a dozen snakes constricted themselves around me, even more powerful than his previous immobilization spell.
“We do not want you trying anything funny, now do we?” I couldn’t believe how strong his magic was. If I didn’t know better I would have thought him an Exalted Witch. What separated us was the fact that he had been doing this since he was seven, while I had only just been introduced to my power.
He pulled me out into the hallway where Badrick was waiting. “Take her.”
With one swift movement Badrick draped me over his shoulder. I tried kicking him in the chest, but every movement I made caused the snakes to pull tighter.
“You might want to relax before they strangle you to death,” Badrick cautioned.
“I would never let that happen,” Finch commented defensively, like just the thought was shocking in itself.
So I am just supposed to lay here?
As we walked through Lampeter’s fort, I noticed it was much smaller than Llansteffan. I didn’t hear any of the usual sounds of outside life, no bustling of people or neighing of horses. Nothing but the deafening echoes of Finch’s and Badrick’s footsteps on the cobbled ground.
We arrived at a wooden door and when Finch knocked, it opened, the smell of incense hitting me like a church on fire. The entryway must have been small because Badrick had to practically bend at the waist to fit us through. Once inside, he set me on my feet again.
“Is this her?”
When I finally looked up I wasn’t prepared to come face to face with the God-incarnate man that sat before me. His dark brown hair was swept back into his silver crown, while the rest collected at the nape of his neck in a minuscule ponytail. His blue eyes stared intently at me, making my breath catch in my throat. His clothes were pure black, as if Death itself had sewn them for him.
He stood and came towards me, the silver rings on his fingers clinking lightly together. I could see his body was just as powerful as his gaze.
“Yes, sire. This is Jade ferch Gruffydd.”
Morrison. I defensively wanted to correct, but thought otherwise. The way the prince looked intently at me made my skin crawl, every nerve ending screaming in fear.
“You were right,” the prince looked me dead in the eyes, “she is powerful.” He brushed my cheek and I remembered that it wasn’t a God that I had just met, but the Devil.
He went back to his chair but didn’t sit, just stood there with his back to us. “Take off her clothing.”
What!
Finch thought he also heard him wrong. “Sire?”
“Her clothing. Remove them.”
“But sire, the ritual does not call for her to be naked, if anything it might make it harder for me to–”
“Do not make me repeat myself again, Finch. I gave you an order,” the prince commanded calmly.
Finch hesitated, but ultimately followed through. Without releasing the spell, he was able to unclasp my belt and remove the dress, letting it fall from my shoulders. I tried to stand there with confidence, not wanting to show a hint of embarrassment to the monster in front of me.
He wasn’t buying it.
The prince moved to survey me closer. His eyes raked slowly from my face downwards, while his hand reached out and brushed my stomach. Revulsion vibrated through me, my magic straining unsuccessfully to beat down the threat. I saw Finch look away.
“Don’t touch me!” I snapped. He paid no attention and followed a trail from my stomach up to my breasts, stopping there momentarily. He then finally cupped my face in his cold palm, his eyes searching for something in mine. After a second he let me go and went to sit back on his throne.
“Îbris, help Finch with the ceremony. I believe Lady Jade will not comply easily.”
The man behind him bowed and moved to my side while Finch quickly clothed me again. “Where do you want her?”
It finally dawned on me where I had heard his name before. Owen had mentioned it when we had first gone to Llansteffan: Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince of Wales.
My eyes went wide with knowing horror. “You’re… you’re the Black Prince.”
Humor played in his eyes as a smile crept to his face.
“Well, I have never had the pleasure of being called that before, but I guess in a sense, yes.”
I tried to remember the conversation we had had with Owen. Shit. He only gains that title a century and a half later. I scolded myself for not holding my tongue.
“Take her out to the quadrangle. All preparations have been made.” The Black Prince’s guard towered over me, his dark skin and uniform damp from the humidity of the room. Instead of throwing me over his shoulder, Îbris princess-carried me. He had a surprisingly gentle touch.
I was helpless to do anything, even speak, as there really wasn’t anything to say to these delusional men.
When we entered the quadrangle it looked as if a coven had exploded all over the place, dark drapes circling us in. Pentagrams, hundreds of candles, bowls of blood, and the bones of small animals had been placed precariously around. To top it all off, there were Brotherhood soldiers surrounding the whole structure, wearing crow-like masks.
I had once read in a medical journal that during the Black Death (our version of it anyway) doctors wore these frightful masks to ward off evil, their beaks filled with herbs and the like to kill off the smell. But these were no doctors; these were men and women, killers, who instilled fear into the lives of the people around them. Now I knew why. They were terrifying. The masks’ mouths were shaped like a crow’s beak, jutting a foot out from the face while the eyes were covered with tinted glass so I couldn’t see who was behind them, only my own terrified reflection.
Îbris placed me in the center of the circle with Finch standing over me.
“Brothers! Sisters! At long last our savior has come,” Finch preached. All around me a chant started, the Brotherhood’s movements stationary as they said it over and over, each time alternating between languages, until the sounds mixed indecipherably together.
The wind picked up as Finch knelt down beside me, putting one of his hands to my head and the other to my heart. Bending further he whispered in my ear. “Thank you,” then started the spell.
A fydd o bwer,
Pwer ewyllys.
Cymerwch hwn enaid personau
ac yn rhwymo I fy llaw.
Gyda sillafu hwn,
Dwi ddim yn rhwymo.
All chanting stopped, the quadrangle gravely quiet as I felt something in my body release and float away. Finch undid his earlier spell, not worried now that I was under his full control. I could feel his magic flutter under my skin, wrapping every muscle in my body, but that didn’t mean I didn’t try to fight back. I screamed at the effort, my voice carrying well beyond the walls of the fort, only for another to get mixed in.
“No!”
I heard someone above me. At first I thought it was Finch, re-evaluating his actions, but then I saw Bowen’s blade cut through the air, slicing one of the drapes as it plunged into a Brotherhood member’s heart.
Bowen!
“You are too late, brother!” Finch moved to confront him, his body encased in a blackened glow, ready for the fight.
Finch was right. My flames crept from their slumber, their heat burning hot throughout my body. At first they burned their brilliant hues of red and green, until I saw as their colors darkened into deep slate and then onyx. I could feel Finch�
�s command taking me over.
Tristan rushed to my side while Bowen fended off the Brotherhood as best he could. He pulled me up and met my terrified gaze. “Jade! Jade! No! Stay with me.”
I was starting to lose myself.
“Tristan, I can’t–” I could barely get out the sentence.
“Jade, you have to fight it.” Panic rose. “Jade, stay with me!”
All color drained out of me, my conscious self now trapped inside my own body. Tristan sidestepped away from me long enough to smash his elbow into an oncoming attack. I looked down in shock to see my hands were fully encased in black flames and turned to find someone standing behind me.
“Jade,” it was the Black Prince, his hand held out in waiting, “come with me.”
“I command you to follow every and any order given to you by His Highness!” Finch screamed from afar. I could barely hear what he was saying, but my body responded automatically and I took the prince’s hand.
No! Stop! What are you doing? Why are you going with this bastard? Bowen! Tristan! Through the corner of my eye I could see them both trying to come to my rescue only to be intercepted by a hoard of Brotherhood men.
“Do not worry, my dear,” the Black Prince placed his hand low on the small of my back. “I will not keep you long, it will all be over shortly.” He led me back into his chambers, the clang of metal and spells being hurled behind us never interrupting our progress. The putrid incense had finally burned down, leaving the room covered in a thick, disgusting layer of its perfume.
Bringing me to its center, he commanded me to stand there.
“You are a magnificent creature.” He brushed his thumb against my lips. “I had doubted Finch’s intentions when he brought you to me, but this… You are wonderful.” Inside I wanted to throw up, but outside I was like a malleable sword in the hands of a skilled master, ready to use. Thankfully, before he could go any further, Îbris walked in.
“Edward, the knights are slowly making progress, you need to hurry.”
“I do believe you are more than capable of taking care of them if they happen to pass our way.” The Black Prince didn’t take his eyes off me for one second.
“Yes, sire.” His man bowed and took a position right inside the doorway.
“Now, where were we?” He brought his hand back to my waist and pulled me closer to him where I could feel the bulge in his trousers. “Ah yes, I was going to have you do something for me.” His eyes fell to my breast.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I had answered him. “Yes, sire?”
His face flushed and with me being so close I could practically feel his pulse jump.
“Say it again,” he purred.
“Yes, sire?”
“Ugh.” I could feel his hot breath on my face as my words turned him on.
“Jade, my sweet. Would you do me a favor?”
“Yes, sire.”
“You see, I do not consider the notion of magic to be fruitful in my life. Could you get rid of it?”
“Yes, sire. As you wish.”
XXXVII.
Bowen
Bowen saw Jade lying in the middle of the fort’s stone courtyard, Finch standing over her. He and Tristan had been able to finally make it, pushing their horses well past their limits. But they had not been fast enough. Bowen watched as Jade’s body went rigid under Finch’s touch.
“No!”
Both men jumped down from the balcony where they were hiding. They had planned to take out those surrounding the place one by one, but that was now out of the question.
“You are too late, brother!”
Bowen pulled his sword out of the dead man’s body and brought it across the air, swinging hard in Finch’s direction. Blind rage pumped through him as he positioned himself between Finch and Jade.
“What did you do?” he growled. Bowen swept his leg under Finch but missed.
“She is ours now. The rite of passage is complete!”
This revelation made matters worse. Bowen hit harder, stronger than ever before. His pent-up emotions came out like a faucet on full blast. The memories of his wife and children and the friends he had lost… Jade. “Release her!”
“Oh, it is not I who is in control.” Finch took the moment’s pause to look over his brother’s shoulder. “I command you to follow every and any order given to you by His Highness!”
Bowen turned around to find that Jade no longer emitted her gorgeous rays of green and red, instead they were black, and beside her was Edward of Woodstock. Tristan was amidst a battle with four of the Brotherhood’s men, his broadsword swinging wide as he smashed it into them. The rest had managed to circle around him and Finch, cutting off his route to Jade. Rage ran through his veins as he saw the Prince of Wales touch Jade’s lower back, a smile passing his lips.
He didn’t usually resort to magic, believed that if you needed to defend yourself, brute strength would always win out in the end, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use it.
Bowen whispered the spell under his breath, holding out for as long as possible to build up his magic. With a strike of his blade he plunged it deep into the earth and released a force so powerful it knocked the lesser warriors unconscious to the floor, leaving Finch by himself.
“You assume, Finch,” he glanced up to see the shock on his face, “that because I do not use magic, that I have none.”
Now without an opponent, Tristan came over to join him.
“Something is the matter with her.” Tristan didn’t know yet what had become of his friend.
“I know,” Bowen growled through gritted teeth. “She went through the rite of passage.”
Tristan glared directly at Finch with as much hatred as Bowen put into his strike. Walking up to the man, he grabbed him by the collar of his cloak. “This is your doing?” Before Finch could reply, Tristan brought his bear-sized fist into Finch’s face, the bones in his nose crushing under its weight. Bowen stood there watching. He had no reason to intervene and at that time, he didn’t need to. In a second Finch was out cold, but Tristan continued his assault, blood spraying everywhere until he was satisfied.
“Come, he will not be waking up any time soon and we must find Jade before anything worse occurs.”
Tristan let the bloodied-mess of a man fall through his fingers and followed Bowen in the direction they had seen Jade and the prince go. They didn’t have to venture far. As they made their way through the brightly lit hall, they peeked around the corner and spotted the prince’s shadow in the doorway at its end—and Jade just beyond with Edward at her side.
“I’ll handle him.” Tristan unsheathed his broad sword, his knuckles white against the hilt.
“If you think you will be getting past me, then you are mistaken.” Îbris was terrifying as he produced his sword, his form going hazy as his spell wove its way around him, hiding him in the shadows that crept along the hallway. “Just because you are far away does not mean I cannot hear you.”
Tristan cautiously lifted his sword, ready for an attack to hit from any direction. “Bowen,” he whispered, “I will hold him off, you–”
Before he could finish, a heavy strike whipped out from the shadows, Tristan bringing down his sword in time to defend. Îbris’s weapon retreated in an instant, like a snake preparing for his next attack. Hesitantly, both Bowen and Tristan crept their way further down the hallway, ready for another strike that came too quickly, grazing past Tristan’s arm. Blood dripped down to the floor, his other arm having to take the full weight of his sword.
Bowen could see he wouldn’t last much longer, especially not long enough to stop the prince from controlling Jade. Tristan had the same thought, both men looking to each other in confirmation. If they didn’t do something soon…
Tristan nodded and digging his heel into the ground, ran at full speed, a frontal attack on the guar
d hot in his mind. Getting into position near them, Bowen flattened himself against the wall in the hope of slipping past them.
He didn’t get far.
“Jade!”
Bowen!
“I see you have brought some friends with you.” The Black Prince looked over my shoulder at Tristan and Bowen. “No matter, they will not be alive for long. No one has bested Îbris since I obtained him. He knows what will happen if they do.” He took my hand and turned me around so I could see the fight unfold. Bowen was right there, an array of emotions playing on his face: rage, fear, loss.
“Jade! I’m right here! Can you hear me?”
Yes!
“How fitting would it be if I ordered you to kill them?” The prince whispered in my ear.
My body mistook this as a command and my hand rose.
No, stop! Please!
The prince stopped me, placing his hand on top of mine. “Let us wait and see if Îbris does his job properly. For the time being, why do we not start what is really needed?” The Black Prince led me back to facing his chair. “This, Milady, is why you are here today.” I could feel his hand brush along my neck. “You are the one who is going to rid the world of magic.”
No! No! This will not be my doing!
The prince’s face was so close to my own, his lips just barely brushing against mine. “Lady Jade,” he whispered into my mouth, “I command you to eradicate magic.”
Everything happened too quickly. I could feel myself building up an immense amount of power, power that I never fathomed possessing. There was no wall to stop the dam as magic flooded through and out my body.
Stop! Don’t do this! Fight it! I felt the shift go from flaming to electric, the buzz beneath my skin humming audibly against the stone walls of the room, the prince enticed at the display.
“Magnificent.”
All around him dust and stone fell as the world shook with my force. I could still hear the fighting going on behind me when I heard a cry of pain but couldn’t turn to see who it was.
Bowen or Tristan?
To Those Who Never Knew (A Monksblood Bible Novel Book 1) Page 26
