by Nadine Mutas
His soul fractured. No. No, no, no. She couldn’t be—there had to be more time.
Basil’s thoughts were a mess, his mind unwilling to comprehend, to process what just happened, when a violent gust of wind slammed him down, hurled him up the dais. He hauled in a breath, grabbed a hold of one the edges of the slabs, pain piercing his cut palms.
“Well,” Calâr sneered from the foot of the dais, “now your pretty fae is dead, it seems I’ve lost my leverage over you. Which means we’ll have to do things a different way. It will be a bit harder, but I’m sure you’ll be just as willing to cooperate with enough incentive.” His voice dropped low, barely audible amid the whooshing of the wind. “It’s all a matter of how much pain you can tolerate.”
A tornado-strength torrent of air lifted Basil off the dais, broke his grasp on the slab, and catapulted him against the wall. Pain exploded in every nerve, the breath knocked out of him. He was still gasping for air when another violent gust hurled him across the room again, slammed him against the opposite wall. More fierce agony pierced his battered mind and body.
He sank down to the ground, caught sight of Isa’s still form as he struggled to breathe.
She’s not dead. The thought surfaced in his mind, buoyed by an impossible hope. Maybe, maybe she wasn’t gone yet, and he just had to get to her. If he unlocked his powers, he might be able to help her—after killing Calâr, of course. He couldn’t risk triggering the true name revelation with that bastard still alive, but once he was gone…
“Are you going to be a good sport and cooperate?” Calâr strolled toward him.
“Yes,” Basil croaked. “I just need…a hand. Not sure I can make it up the dais.”
If only he could get close enough to the fucker—the weight of the dagger he’d kept hidden in a sheath strapped to his calf felt damn good right about now. One well-timed strike, and he could incapacitate the asshole, then kill him.
“Sure, I can help you with that.” Calâr’s smirk said he wasn’t fooled by Basil’s request for assistance.
With a flick of his hand, he called the wind again, hauled Basil up to his feet, and pushed him toward the slate slabs. Dammit. Against the force of the whipping wind, he managed to grab the dagger from his ankle sheath, twisted around and threw it at Calâr.
Its flight path changed by the wind, the blade rammed into the fae’s shoulder instead of his chest. Still, Calâr grunted from the impact, and his grip on the air slackened. Enough for Basil to charge down the dais and launch himself at him.
With a roar, he tackled the bastard, punched him in the jaw so hard, the fae’s head snapped back. Calâr retaliated with a strike to the side of Basil’s face, making stars burst in front of his eyes, and sharp pain shoot down his neck and spine. The next second, a line of fire slashed across his chest, followed by the cold kiss of a blade against his throat.
Calâr loomed over him, the dagger in his hand nicking the skin below Basil’s chin. Breath heavy, the fae snarled at him. “You leave me no choice, half-breed.”
A nasty, brutal force slammed into Basil’s mind. He wheezed from the impact, his weak mental shields assailed by Calâr’s powerful magic.
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this,” Calâr whispered, his face contorted as if struggling with lifting a heavy weight. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his eyelids twitched. “Cooperate with me, and I will refrain from causing you more pain.”
Whatever mind control Calâr was trying to achieve, it had to take one hell of a toll on him. Good.
Basil gritted his teeth. “Fuck…you.”
Trembling, he fought against the foreign force invading his mind. His vision flickered in and out, darkness closing in from the edges of his sight. He tried to pull up mental shields the way Lily and Hazel taught him, but each barrier he attempted to build shattered under the onslaught of Calâr’s growing power. The fae smashed through Basil’s fragile shields as if they were made of porcelain. Pain radiated through his limbs, flowed and ebbed in his blood. Calâr’s mental control was as cold as ice, penetrating Basil’s bones. He couldn’t shake him.
Crawl to the platform.
Calâr’s command echoed in the corners of Basil’s mind, hammering at him with an imperative that was so powerful, so overwhelming, his body moved without his conscious control. Screaming inside his head, he crawled up the dais toward the statue.
No. He struggled, gathered all of his force of will just to lock his muscles and remain still, disregarding Calâr’s booming command reverberating in his head.
Crawl to the top. Lay your hands at the statue’s feet.
Basil’s muscles trembled from the force it took to stay motionless, to disobey Calâr’s order. How much longer could he keep it up? The tenuous hold he had on his own body snapped when Calâr boomed another command in his head. With a gasp, Basil crawl-stumbled forward until he reached the top of the dais.
Sweat broke out all over his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard the pain of it zinged throughout his entire body. Have…to…resist.
Lay your hands at the statue’s feet.
Shaking as hard as Isa used to do when caught in one of her seizures, Basil laid his hands on the platform at the feet of the statue.
Close your eyes.
His face hurt from the struggle to resist Calâr’s command to close his eyes. To no avail. His lids fluttered closed.
Say out loud, Yar nîm cata’or.
Basil gritted his teeth even harder. And yet, his mouth opened of its own accord and he ground out, “Yar…nîm…”
A blast of white-hot magic lit up the dark of the temple like lightning. Calâr’s brutal grip on Basil’s mind snapped like a wire being cut.
“Don't you dare touch my son,” an unfamiliar male voice growled.
Jerking back, Basil withdrew his hands from the feet of the statue. Fae magic sparked in the air as a dark shape slammed Calâr to the ground and began a merciless butchery.
Behind the struggle between Calâr and his attacker, a witch rushed into the temple. Black hair swept up in a ponytail, clad from neck to toe in dark combat gear, Hazel scanned the room—and then her brown eyes locked onto Basil. “My baby…”
She scrambled up the dais, knelt beside him, her hands on his shoulders, his face, his chest, checking him for wounds. “Are you injured? Are you okay?”
Basil shook his head, struggled to get to his feet. “Isa. We need to help her.”
Hazel followed his gaze to the crumpled shape of the female who held his heart. Together they ran down the dais, crouched next to Isa’s body. Hazel spread her hands over Isa’s chest, and a glow emanated from her palms. Golden light flowed down into Isa. Hazel closed her eyes, frowned. Her lips parted. Her face fell.
The glow faded, she balled her hands to fists and let them fall at her sides.
“What are you doing?” Basil grabbed Hazel’s hands, pulled them back over Isa. “Heal her. Please.”
“Basil…”
“Mom, please.”
“Baz.” She cupped his face, shook her head, her eyes shimmering. “She’s gone.”
“No. Bring her back.”
“Sweetie, no one can bring back the dead. Not even witches.”
His breath burned in his lungs, heat prickled behind his eyes, and his stomach cramped. He heaved, but nothing came.
A crunch, a strangled scream, followed by sudden silence, and the sounds of struggle close to them abruptly ceased. The shadowy attacker who had launched himself at Calâr now rose from what remained of the male fae he had all but ripped to shreds. When he looked over his shoulder at them, the resemblance struck Basil like a blow to his guts. Uncanny, unsettling—undeniable in its implication.
Even if he hadn’t heard him yell something about my son earlier, Basil would have known. From the blond hair, its shade and nuance exactly like his own, to the facial features that were an eerie mirror image of Basil’s face, the family relation was indisputable.
Power poured off the demon like stea
m. His breath heavy, he stood there over the body of the slain fae and stared at Basil.
But Basil’s mind was too preoccupied with something else to even begin to acknowledge the emotional consequences of this. Calâr was dead. His threat to Basil eliminated.
I can unlock my powers.
His eyes flicked to Isa’s still form, then to the statue atop the dais.
He ran.
Breath coming in quick bursts, he scaled the slab stairs, slammed his hands at the feet of the statue. Eyes closed, he murmured, “Yar nîm cata’or.”
A blinding flash of light in his mind, a force that nearly made him stumble down the dais. His lungs seized, his muscles spasmed.
Sarômtanhâr.
The name whispered through his thoughts, burned itself into his soul—and unlocked a thousand seals within him. Magic blossomed in his cells, fused and merged and surged until it rolled into every last atom of his body, his mind. The hum he’d heard before grew to a deafening crescendo, in sync with the rising melody of the earth.
He gasped for air, half staggered, half slid down the dais, buzzing with a heady rush of power. With his eyes on Isa, he swayed forward.
Only to freeze in place, his muscles locking against his will.
Along the pathway forged by Calâr shortly before, a new presence sneaked into Basil’s mind. This one dark, much darker than the fae’s had been. It tasted familiar and yet strange, full of hot, age-old wrath.
Basil glanced toward the source of the new mind control, to that face which bore an uncanny resemblance to his own. His father’s eyes glowed amber in the dim of the room as he stared at Basil.
So much power, whispered his voice inside Basil’s mind. I’ve seen it in the fae’s thoughts. What you can do.
Basil grunted, struggled against the control.
I’ve seen what he planned. You could kill them all. They deserve it.
“No,” Basil ground out.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Hazel rise from her crouch, magic vibrating around her. “What’s going on?”
If you won’t do it, I will. A terrifying smile stole across the demon’s face. Sarômtanhâr.
Basil gasped, jerked as if hit with an electric charge. Shit. Somehow, his father had taken over Calâr’s mind mirror after he killed him, and now he knew Basil’s true name.
Basil struggled, pushed against the control to get to Isa.
Stop.
He froze as if paralyzed.
“Don’t do this,” Basil choked out. “Let me help her.”
His father tilted his head forward, his gaze never leaving Basil’s face. She’s dead. You can’t help her. He spit on the ground and added, She deserves her fate, after what she did to Roana. She deserves to die. His mental voice dropped to a tortured whisper. They all do.
“No!” Basil struggled against the invisible force holding him in place, against the insidious demand to use his powers to connect to, to find, to touch all living fae’s minds…
Witch magic rose in the air, its buzz like that of an enormous swarm of bees. “Basil? What is he doing?”
“He’s accessing my mind.” Basil panted. “He’s got a lock on me, on my powers. He’s trying to use them to slaughter every fae in Faerie.”
He’d barely finished his sentence when Hazel lashed out with her power, and slammed his father against the wall, holding him there in a magical vise grip. She advanced on the demon, stopped a few feet away from him. The air around her cracked and sparked with electricity, her face as harsh as Basil had never seen her before.
“Let. Go. Of. My. Son.” She bared her teeth at him. “If you want to have any kind of meaningful relationship with him—and I know you do—then release him. Do not use him this way. He will never forgive you.”
His father tensed, looking daggers at Hazel. Then, with a shuddering breath, he relaxed, closed his eyes.
Basil gasped as his father’s influence receded. With a start, he raced to Isa’s side and pulled her into his arms, cradling her lifeless body against his chest.
Maybe, just maybe, if there was a spark of life left for him to grasp, he could pull her back… On instinct, not really knowing what he was doing, and yet knowing, he closed his eyes, dove in, deep into his new powers, into the humming, swirling, iridescent darkness within him. It grew, stretched and rolled out, spread into a black field as far as his mind could reach.
Blips of light in the dark velvet surrounding him, blinking, sparking, moving… So many minds, so many thoughts and sensations, memories and images in a cacophony of light and darkness. And there…the fading ember of a flame that touched his soul. Isa.
He grasped at it with his mental fingers, and it almost, almost held—before her light slipped away, ran through his hands like softly glowing sand. He had to keep her. He knew he had to grab on to her to…what?
An idea brushed his mind, and on an impulse, he followed it.
Again, he reached for that elusive, fading light—and spoke into the darkness.
Isannarî.
Chapter 25
Slipping, slipping away.
Here to there, now to then, through velvet and darkness and time beyond time.
A voice, calling through the layers of all that was and will be. Calling her. Back?
Death’s arms cradled her with so much care. Infinite care.
Where was Back? And when?
She floated.
That voice again, piercing the darkness.
Isannarî.
She jerked, electrified, called forth by a power she could not resist. All the parts of herself that were eternal, the fabric of her soul, her mind, the tapestry of her being, were ripped open, apart, unraveled. A million threads of possibilities, unwoven, untangled…knitted together again, forming the pattern that was Isa.
Come back to me.
And, lovingly, Death let her go.
Chapter 26
Isa’s mind and soul slammed back into her body with enough force to make her convulse again.
Her back arched, her heart started—its rhythm a staccato beat—and her lungs contracted. She opened her mouth, hauled in air with a strangled wheeze. She flailed, flailed, her arms and legs twitching, every single nerve overloaded with too much sensation.
“Isa.”
Darkness still, this one harsher than the stygian velvet she’d just floated in. Colder, except…for the heat of the arms that held her.
“I’m here. Isa, baby. I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re okay.” His voice broke. “You’re okay.”
She opened her eyes, and the world was gold and light and sunshine, finely honed beauty, and myriad shades of brown, and love in the tears that ran down his cheeks.
Basil.
Her hand rose to touch his face, trembling fingers brushing his lips. “I was…”
“I know.” Hoarse, his voice was so hoarse.
“But you brought me back.” She frowned. “How?”
A jerky shake of his head. “I don’t know. I don’t care.”
She blinked, remembering, her frown deepening. “You…unmade me.” A tiny gasp. “And wove me back together…”
“Whatever I did,” he whispered, “whatever it was, I don’t care, as long as you’re here, you’re back…” His throat worked as he swallowed. “I couldn’t lose you. You’re my life. You’re everything. I need you here, with me. When I saw you die…” He shook, shook so hard he made her tremble as well.
“Shh.” She brought her other hand to his face, too, cupped his cheeks, stroked up into that hair of spun gold. “You came for me. You brought me back. I’m here now.”
He clutched her to him then, his embrace speaking of despair in the face of death, of an abyss of loss in his soul that gaped so devastatingly, it threatened to drag her down into the void of his excruciating pain. She inhaled on a shudder, grabbed onto him with all the force of her newly sparked life, to let him know, down to his bones and the marrow of his soul, that she was going to hold on to him as hard as he did to
her.
“I will always come for you.” A harsh whisper against her ear, a vow that was a balm to her battered heart. “I’ll never let you go, Isa. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and not even Death will take you from me.”
It broke out of her on a sob. All the fear and the anger, the guilt and the despair, the greedy, insatiable, selfishly selfless love, the hope for the impossible, the rush of disbelieving joy, it poured out of her with the waning of adrenaline in her veins, and she was left shaking in Basil’s arms, crying into his neck.
He held her, and rocked her, and together they cried, for what could have been minutes, or hours, or eternity.
Only when Basil eventually lifted his head and spoke to someone else did Isa realize they weren’t alone. With a start, she twisted in Basil’s arms, glanced around.
Calâr’s lifeless body—or what was left of it—lay several feet away, but two other people stood in the temple—a demon and a witch. The male she recognized immediately, her stomach dropping with acidic fear. The way he glared at her…he, too, remembered how they met before, and under what circumstances.
“It’s okay,” Basil said. “He won’t harm you. Aren’t I right…Father?”
Those amber eyes sparked in a face so similar to the male she loved, and yet so very, very different. Slowly, the demon inclined his head. “Since you…care for her.”
Basil gave him a sharp nod. “Isa,” he then said, “meet my mother, Hazel.”
A flash of warmest joy crossed the witch’s face when he introduced her—and Isa noticed, too, the fact he hadn’t said adoptive—before she stepped closer, smiled at Isa. “It’s good to meet you. Basil will have to tell me all about you.”
“Later,” he said. “First, we need to get Rose.”
Hazel’s expression tensed, the air around her darkened.
“Mom,” Basil rasped. “I know where she is. I’ve seen her.”
“How? Where?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure how to explain it. When I…went for Isa, I kind of…connected with all fae in Faerie. It’s like I had a direct link into their minds, their thoughts, their memories. There were so many of them, so much information, but I saw…Lily, just different. Someone who looks exactly like her, and—” He frowned. “Witch. I picked up on the word, and it was connected to her.”
