She still couldn’t use black magic very well. It was supposed to be an archaic art—an endless source of power. But she had little affinity with soul magic, as most people did, and wasted a ridiculous amount of souls to cast the simplest of spells. The Mother apparently didn’t mind that Marzia had to murder two true loves to waste most of it on their next plot. She wondered why the goddess made her go through all the trouble to stir a mess in Dragon Keep if she had to spend so much of their harvest on another murder.
A black portal formed in front of her. Her gut turned each time she looked at it. It swirled with dark magic, looking like it would eat her if she went too close. The Dragon Mother stepped out of the entrance, and two mishram followed. The goddess liked being surrounded by those creatures. The Mother wore them around like trophies. They were her dear creations, or so Marzia had guessed.
The whirring stopped, until only the crackling of the campfire filled the air.
“My souls?” the Mother said, reaching out.
The beauty of the woman left Marzia speechless for a moment. She snapped out of her stupor and quickly pulled herself together to carry out her task. She remembered that one time she’d displeased the goddess. It ended up with an hour of torture and an unforgettable memory. She dug out the soul beads as fast as she could and placed them into the goddess’s palm.
“Good little bird,” the Dragon Mother said. She appraised them then passed them back, still full. “It seems like you’ve carried out your duties splendidly well.”
Marzia swallowed nervously and kept her gaze on the Dragon Mother’s billowing dress. She couldn’t meet the goddess’s eyes. They shone with a rainbow of colors, but were filled with too many incomprehensible emotions that made them hard to look at. “What must I do next, goddess?”
“Constance is in my grasp, and Rayse is torn. You’ve done your part, little bird.”
She dared to let cautious hope slip into her. “And I will have Fraser back?”
“One more. An extra pair of souls, and he will be freed.”
“Thank you, goddess.” She bent into a bow, falling as low as she could. The Mother was pleased when she did that.
“Do not fail me, or you will meet the fate of the girl who served before you.”
Marzia recalled the companion who once shared her task. She was from Ayesrial, where the Dragon Mother ruled, and was sent here to do the goddess’s bidding.
The Mother had been displeased by her subject’s slight shift of tone, and the girl’s blood had been made to boil. She cooked in front of Marzia, screaming as she did, and died a torturous death, collapsing to the ground when it was over, merely because the Mother didn’t like her voice. Marzia remembered how she had to dispose the body from the very cave she was standing in right now, because the Mother couldn’t be bothered to clean it up.
“I’ll do it well,” Marzia said, her head still meeting the ground in a bow. She stayed in that position for a long time, until she dared look up. The Mother had left, leaving Marzia alone in the cold cavern. She breathed out a long sigh of relief and plucked her sparrow-vellum out from her bag again, eager to continue her conversation with Fraser.
Only he could stop the voices in her head from bothering her too much.
Constance found herself next to a hearth. A crackling fire burned next to her, sputtering and glowing with an ominous red. The tepid atmosphere stuck to her skin in a thick layer and made her want to cough. She was no longer on the glowing blue platform, the empty place with a cool ground and an endless stretch of isolation. Her gaze flitted around her unfamiliar surroundings. Was this another vision? Her body throbbed. An ache hammered through her, and a stinging started from her temple, traveling to her forearms.
A shuffling of feet on wood alerted Aesryn. “Answer me!”
Together with her host, Constance looked up and found the same beauty she’d seen in her last vision—Adriana. The unexplained disdain she felt for the blonde maiden returned. A headache pounded through her and jealousy simmered in her chest, waiting to come to a boil.
“Answer what?” Aesryn asked.
Adriana ground her teeth together. “What is wrong with you? Were you always this stupid?” Adriana was holding a sharp stick, an unassuming-looking weapon. But the wood wasn’t as innocent as it seemed—it could channel magic, making Aesryn’s torture unimaginably more painful.
Aesryn’s desire to hurt this woman blazed. But she was the weaker witch, and her sister easily overpowered her. She spat at her sister’s feet. A slap thwacked across her face, sending a thrumming through her cheek. She bit back the pain. It was a familiar companion. It sought her every day, never leaving.
She winced. Before she could do anything to fight back, Adriana stung her with a whip of the stick. Its glinting tip now seared with fire, flames made out of magic. Adriana carried a full pouch of souls, Aesryn she had none. Her sister had stolen her magic, as she did everything else.
Adriana didn’t have to speak the spell’s words to hurt Aesryn. They were witches of the old. No, older than them, even. They’d existed almost a million years ago, when the mountains hadn’t risen yet, and dragons didn’t exist.
Constance watched in Aesryn’s body, trying to take in the flood of information coming at her from Aesryn’s mind. Why was she being shown these visions? What did the relationship between these two sisters have to do with her?
“Stop it, please,” Aesryn begged. “What have I done to make you hate me so much?” Her sister’s unexplained outbursts always left her in disarray. They had been close before, sharing everything. She used to love the woman with all her heart.
But her heart grew smaller every day, and the room for love gradually shrank.
They were no longer the close friends they had been. Their childhood had grown and twisted into a new life—a shadow of what it once was. They were happy when younger. They had shared their closest secrets, their friends, their interests. Aesryn could look up to Adriana for support and guidance, and her sister had given it wholeheartedly.
It had changed after their mother died and left Aesryn with her grimoire and most of her assets. Adriana began plotting and scheming, vying for everything. Piece by piece, she snatched what rightfully belonged to Aesryn away. Greed was a disgusting thing. Jealousy could bend a person in the ugliest of ways. The worst part of it all was that Aesryn could see righteous indignity in Adriana’s eyes whenever she felt the torture running through her bones. Her sister believed that hurting her was right.
It didn’t help that they’d both wanted Edrienne ever since they were children. The charming man had stolen both their affections. He’d always preferred Adriana. Aesryn had been able to live with that. She had their mother’s love, but Adriana was the most beautiful woman in the village, and all the men adored her.
Aesryn might have stepped aside to let Adriana have Edrienne before. No longer did she care for her sister that much. She wanted the witch to burn in the hottest of flames, and to experience what Aesryn did every day a million-fold.
The favoritism of her mother might have pleased Aesryn before, but Mum was gone now, and she was left to fend for herself against the darkness of Adriana.
Aesryn had nothing, and she wanted it all.
“What have you done, you ask?” Adriana replied, sneering. “Simple: you exist. What has an ant done to deserve being torn apart by a curious boy?
“I’m not an insect. I’m your sister.” Aesryn’s wounds prickled on her skin. She was feeling nauseated. One day she might simply not recover, and then fall into a deep slumber. That didn’t sound too bad, actually. But she didn’t want to let go. She clung to life with hardheaded stubbornness. She couldn’t give up—not until she saw Adriana get what she deserved.
Adriana growled, “I don’t like the way you look at Edrienne. Haven’t I warned you to stay away?”
“He’s yours. He has no thoughts of me.”
“Which makes you look more pathetic whenever you try to get close to him.”
/> Aesryn lied through her teeth: “I only want to be his friend.” She stared daggers at her sister.
“You’re one friend he doesn’t need.” A ball of fire formed in Adriana’s hand. The flames glowed green and dark tendrils of smoke curled around it. Aesryn’s stomach tightened. She held her breath in dreaded anticipation. The pain was an enemy that wouldn’t go away, and it refused to stop haunting her dreams. It came back every day, sometimes less, often more, to tug away her sensibilities and make her life a living hell.
Adriana threw the flames toward her sister while wearing a vicious smirk.
Aesryn braced herself for the impact. She screamed. She always did when the fire singed her flesh.
She wanted to fight back. But Adriana had always been the better witch. Their mother had given Aesryn the grimoire because she thought Aesryn needed it more.
Her voice quivering, she said, “Not my face, please.” Adriana had burned every other part of her body, but had been merciful enough to leave Aesryn’s face unscathed before.
Edrienne hardly glanced at her anymore. If her face got burned—
Before she could call for her own fire to rise, Adriana’s flames scorched her cheek.
Agony burrowed into her. She released another strangled scream. She screamed until her voice went hoarse, and until her body went limp from the exhaustion of fighting the searing torment.
She was going to die. She wouldn’t live past this. The flames ate away at her face. Her vision was blurring. Adriana stood over her, cackling like the demon she was, reveling in Aesryn’s despair. What did Edrienne see in Adriana?
Going to die…
Aesryn braced for her final breath.
White light flashed again and the torture stopped.
Constance sat up and looked around her. The vision had sent her back to the concrete emptiness.
“Why are you showing me this!” she yelled into the darkness.
The mute surroundings answered her with nothing. The place was chilly. She scraped her hands over her shoulders and hugged herself tightly. Her flesh still prickled with the burning sensation, even if the wounds weren’t really there. She tried to blink away the horror of what she’d seen.
She rubbed her temples. The torment was cut short for Constance, but Aesryn likely didn’t escape those flames. She would have suffered every agonizing sting of that burn.
“Gods, wake me from this nightmare.” It only felt like it had been a day, but Constance missed her home. It had been the longest day she’d ever lived through. The dark expanse was hollow—lonely. Solitude did much to chip at the mind.
She missed her Rayse, and found it strange that she longed to have her daughter back, too. The child had never truly belonged to her, but her belly had lost the familiar feeling of a life there. She longed for the warm confines of her study. She wanted to go back to the clinic, to see Greta and her patients and the other nurses. She wished to speak to Marzia, and to have their daily morning conversations.
It hadn’t been long, but she felt trapped in these visions.
In this dream, she was entirely alone. She had felt lonely in Dragon Keep, but not this much. It wasn’t so empty… so foreign.
And most of all, she missed Rayse. Would he still want to talk to her? Had he forgiven her for her terrible lie? She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that fiery scent of his, and the way his touch could make her toes curl and her heart sing with tender joy.
Did he know she was stuck here? Or was he too busy doing dragon things and being mad at her? She wanted to be with him.
“You’ll wake up soon,” she whispered to herself. “It’s going to be all right.”
She sucked in a deep breath and tried to stop her teeth from chattering from fear and the coldness of the platform. Her mind concocted the feeling of Rayse’s soothing breath on her neck, telling her to stay strong.
Her imaginings only sent a throb through her chest. Thinking about him emphasized how horribly empty this place was.
“Dragons bless me,” she muttered. She started counting down from a thousand as she awaited her next vision, trying to free her mind from the agony of Aesryn’s memories.
Was the world always this dark?
Rayse had his head bowed as he strode back home. His despair had drained all color from his surroundings. The twilight sun used to send warm shades over the gray mountains. He couldn’t see those anymore. What did it matter what colors the cliffs were? He was too weary to care about small things like that.
He knew what would face him when he reached home. Nothing. Absolute emptiness. Drab walls in a messy home that he couldn’t even bring himself to order his servant to clean. Torn curtains and furniture tossed over during his outbursts.
Without his mate, his life had turned to shambles.
His clan members watched him with wary glances. A challenger had come up to him a week ago, trying to take his place, like Ranwynn had. He didn’t spare the poor bastard.
They could all burn and he wouldn’t care.
Marzia had simply vanished. Not a trace of her had been found. There was no word on Constance, either. He kept searching, and looking, questioning as many people as he could. Most of the houses in Dragon Keep had been investigated multiple times for clues of Constance’s disappearance.
Some of his dragons had abandoned their trade routes. Others had simply packed up and left with their wives. Rayse had summoned the strength to stop and punish the first few who dared defy him. But when they continued to try and leave, he stopped giving two shits about what they did.
What did it matter if his clan left? He couldn’t bring himself to care.
He was at his doorstep when Shen landed in front of him. Urgency flickered through Shen’s expression, and that brought a spark of hope to Rayse.
“What is it?” he asked, straightening.
“I was flying by when I saw something strange through Yoca’s window. He was about to kill his wife, and I had to go down and stop him.”
“Did you?”
Shen nodded. “Luckily, I did. He was beside himself when he realized what he’d almost done. His wife is safe. He said he saw the femriahl, milord.”
“Bring me there. Now.” Rayse summoned his wings.
They hurried forth. He heard the beating of his heart against his chest. Fuck, he didn’t care if it was really Constance who had tried to kill Yoca and his wife. He would worry about that later. For now, he just wanted to see her again, and to ask her where she had been. To hug and kiss her and shower her with the love and apologies she deserved. His wings beat against the winds as quickly as they could. He was still in human form as he flew. Yoca’s home was near enough that they didn’t need larger wings. He saw a crowd gathering in front of Yoca’s home.
“Disperse,” he barked at them while still in the air.
They scampered away without rebuttal.
“Where did she go?” he asked as soon as he entered Yoca’s house. The green dragon was sitting next to his wife, trying to console her. She wore a scared look and was hugging a young child against her breast. The boy looked stunned, his breathing shallow. There was a reddish mark around her neck. Rayse’s guess was that Yoca had done some damage before Shen stopped him.
He strode up to Yoca. “You saw Constance, didn’t you? Point me to where she is.”
“I don’t know,” Yoca responded, confusion pouring from him. “I blanked out, milord.”
Rayse cursed. Not wanting to waste any more time on a fruitless interrogation, he left, taking to the skies again. He shifted as he flew up, letting his dragon take control of his body. He could fly faster as a beast. He scanned his surroundings for Constance, praying to the Dragon Mother that he would be able to find her.
His blood was pounding in his veins. It seemed so long since he’d felt any emotion. He had let his feelings dull into a faint throb, for if he let himself feel, the ache would be too much for him to take.
There, in the far distance, he faintly spotted a womanly
figure. She was meandering through the forest, winding her way through the trees in a frock.
He sped toward her as quickly as his wings could take him. The sight of his mate became clearer as he got closer. He watched with bated breath. When he was close, he blew his fire into the air and released a loud roar to alert her to his presence. Finally. The wait had been agony, but he thanked the Mother that it hadn’t been as long as Greta’s, and that the goddess had rewarded him with the opportunity to be with his wife once again.
But her reaction wasn’t what he’d expected. Her gaze flicked toward him, and when she saw him, she picked up speed. She started sprinting as quickly as she could. She almost tripped over a branch. His heart faltered. He lowered himself closer to the ground and flew ahead. He crashed against the trees and blocked her path.
She stared up at him with her caramel eyes. Fear sputtered through her expression. Why was she afraid of him?
He started calling to his human form, so that they could talk. He had a torrent of questions, and he wanted answers.
But why did she look like she didn’t want to be anywhere near him?
She whispered something under her breath. A spell? Wisps of darkness emanated from her fingertips. She drew her hand over herself, still watching him with panic in her eyes.
And then she vanished.
He fell to the ground in human from. He whipped his head around, hoping to catch another glimpse of her. No! Despair shot through him and pulsed in waves. That couldn’t have happened—she was right in front of him. He summoned his wings and continued searching, shouting her name through the forest. He was met with a flock of birds flapping their wings, flying away to escape him, just as Constance had moments ago.
When hours had passed, he sat down on a log, empty-handed. A light snowfall had started. The snow fell on his skin and melted.
Thoughts raced through his mind.
He’d seen her running from a crime scene with his own eyes. The men hadn’t been lying when they said they saw the femriahl before committing their misdeeds. And the magic she was using was dark magic.
Shadowed Lies Page 14
