by Rye Brewer
Instead of giving her the assistance she begged for, I led Vance’s body from the cell and left him standing in the corridor while I bundled up a few blankets in the rough shape of a body and left them on the bunk. It would, I hoped, buy me a little time before anyone noticed he was missing. I closed and locked the cell before leaving the keys where I’d found them, too. Nothing could appear visibly out of place.
Vance’s body waited for me, still under my control. I led him up the stairs. I couldn’t portal until we got outside and knew it would be risky, walking him through the cathedral as I was, but we may as well have been the only two living beings in existence as we made our way through the great hall and out the tall double doors.
There was only one more thing to take care of before we left the area. His vampire aura would have to be hidden if I had any hope of transporting him through ShadesRealm undetected. It was nothing for me to place a ward on him, blocking his aura—even so, getting him into seclusion as soon as possible was a priority. I could only extend my abilities so far before suffering a breakdown as I had during the league meeting.
A portal took us from the grounds surrounding the cathedral into ShadesRealm. Though there was little solace for me there, it was still the closest thing to home I’d ever known, and my soul felt a sense of calm on entering. Be that as it may, there was no time to relax and enjoy the peace.
I took his arm and coursed to the tower where my mother had spent so many years. There wasn’t much time. I had to get him there before any of my brethren saw us.
He put up no fight, of course, though I felt Valerius fighting against the spiritwalker. His spirit was strong, powerful—regardless, it was a waste of effort.
We reached the tower, coursing up to the little room Tabitha had made her own, and only when the door was closed behind us did I feel a remote sense of satisfaction. I had already come this far. Only a little farther to go.
The cell was as I had left it before portalling to the high-rise. If Valerius was surprised to see it, there was no way of knowing.
I wondered what my mother would think if she knew I’d put a silver-lined cell into her former home? And if she knew what I intended to do with it?
For one, brief moment, I questioned myself. Had I gone too far? Keeping Valerius—or, Vance—shackled inside a cell?
It was the only way I could be sure to keep him safely locked up until I came into possession of Valerius’s body. There was no other way.
And at least at ShadesRealm, no one could start randomly looking for him here.
All that was left was convincing Philippa to release the body she’d been guarding. The real Valerius. His body. I needed him in order to place his soul back into his own body before…
Before taking his power.
Reminding myself of the ultimate goal braced me. I was taking the correct action. I would take my place where I belonged with the help of Valerius’s power.
I shackled Vance’s body inside the cell, knowing the silver in the bars would prevent him from escaping. He looked as slack-faced as expected, only aware in his mind. I wondered briefly if Valerius understood what was happening to him, what was really happening, before I turned my back on him.
The most dangerous part of my mission was done. I could breathe freely with that out of the way.
What next? My thoughts immediately went to Avellane and Felicity. She had been in the back of my mind ever since we’d parted ways.
Was this what it was like to fall in love? Being unable to get a person out of one’s thoughts even when there were much more pressing issues at hand? If so, how did anyone get anything accomplished?
I set off for the portal which led from the human world to Avellane. There had to be a way for me to get in to see her or to bring her out to see me.
I couldn’t rest until I was with her again.
33
Sara
“If you’re absolutely certain about this, I can introduce you to a powerful elemental witch.” Stark’s eyes searched my face, as though he were searching for some clue as to how serious I was. “She’s perhaps the most powerful one in existence.”
A thrill ran through me at the thought of meeting someone with that sort of power—and learning to develop my own powers with their help. “I’ve already told you how sincere I am about this.”
“I know… but you may decide at some point that you’ve made a mistake, or you’ve gone too far. There’s no going back once you get started. I need you to understand this. A witch of this much power won’t take lightly the impression that her time has been wasted in training someone who isn’t fully committed.”
I tilted my head to one side, studying him. “Is your opinion of me really so low? Do you think I would change my mind on a whim?”
He shook his head but smiled wryly. “Doesn’t this seem like sort of a whim to you? One moment, you told me you wanted to abandon your power and go back to being nothing more than a vampire. Now, you want to not only develop your power, but you want to be as strong as possible. Do you really blame me for my hesitation?”
He had me there. “I suppose not. You just have to believe me. I mean this with all my heart.”
“All right.” He said it with the conviction of a man on his way to the gallows. “I’ll take you to Elewyn, then.”
Even her name carried an air of mystery and magic. Much more so than plain Sara, at any rate. “Who is she? And where?”
“One thing at a time,” he reminded me, and now he sounded like a parent attempting to calm an excited child. “I met her when I was imprisoned on Shadowsbane Island. Her brother, Elazar, is imprisoned there. A necromancer with, I’d guess, another hundred years on his sentence.”
“What did he do?”
“Practiced dark magic, involving the summoning of souls and their transference to other bodies. Or something of that nature. Very nasty stuff, that. As his sister, she lives on the island to be near him. We’ll find her there.” I couldn’t imagine having that level of kinship with a creature as dark as Elazar sounded, enough to warrant living on a prison island just to be close to them. Then again, Anissa had done untold numbers of things on my behalf when I was imprisoned for breaking our laws.
“You’ll be there with me? You won’t leave me?” It was suddenly of the utmost importance he be by my side.
“You’re not afraid, are you?” There was a slightly teasing quality in his voice.
I didn’t take the bait. “I’m only afraid of losing you somehow. I can’t leave you behind. If that’s the price for learning from Elewyn, I’m not sure I can pay it.”
Stark’s eyes softened just before he took me in his arms, and I allowed myself to sink into his embrace even though my heart was heavy.
I hadn’t lied when I said I couldn’t leave him—but I couldn’t tell him how determined I was to dismantle his little group of murderous humans, either. That hidden truth would always be between us, no matter how close we were.
“When can we go?” I asked, my head nuzzled against his shoulder.
“You’re in a hurry.”
“I am,” I said, pulling back just enough to gaze into his eyes. He needed to see how determined I was. “This is important to me. I don’t see any reason to wait. Do you?”
“Not if you’re in a hurry, no.” He sounded almost resigned. “I suppose we can leave from here, and I could go back to Hallowthorn Landing to pick up your things once I know you’re settled at Shadowsbane.”
“Great. Let’s go.” Having a goal in mind energized me. There was a purpose to my powers. They weren’t a curse. They weren’t something to be ashamed of. They would bring an end to something terrible. I only wished I had known much sooner about the Starkers. I might have embraced my powers then, rather than spending so much time trying to suppress them.
Stark created a portal of swirling light, all red and purple, and took my hand before leading me through. I was still not quite used to traveling this way, though it wasn’t nearly as scary an
experience as I’d had the first time. I knew what to expect.
Though there was no anticipating what I saw when we first stepped through and I had my first look at Shadowsbane Island.
It was like something out of a nightmare—I even wondered vaguely, somewhere in the back of my mind, if this was the place where bad dreams were born. Hallowthorn Landing had frightened me when my mother and I first arrived. What I saw that first day was nothing compared to the prison island.
“People live here?” I called out over the ear-splitting crashing of the waves against jagged rocks which stretched along the coastline as far as the eye could see. They seemed to form a barrier between the island and the sea.
Stark nodded, pointing to the cottages which peppered the island. They were quite plain, with none being larger than what I guessed could house a family of four—even then, they would be cramped. In the daylight, without the wind and crashing waves, the little homes might have seemed charming with their thatched roofs and latticed windows which called back to a time long since passed. As lightning split the clouds and touched the surface of the churning water, however, the tiny houses appeared sad and desolate, uninviting even in the face of a storm.
“It must be nicer when the weather’s better,” I reasoned, tucking my hair behind my ears when the wind whipped it up in a cloud around my head. That was a waste of time, since the wind only picked it right back up again.
“It’s never better,” he replied with a grim look.
I should’ve known.
“Come on. Elewyn’s this way.”
We started toward the little village, if that was what it was. I let him lead the way while my gaze kept shifting up toward the castle sitting on the island’s far end, high above where we currently battled our way through the wind, perched on top of a mountain. For a moment, just the blink of an eye, I was sure it would tumble over and be swallowed up in the waves. Its stone walls seemed to climb up to the sky, turret after turret almost overlapping one another.
A tall, thick stone wall ran around the outside, one I could imagine soldiers patrolling along the top of, watching out for threats from below. A winding road wound its way up from the village, over a narrow shelf of solid rock, then through an iron gate in the wall. I could visualize the castle once being the center of all activity on the island, and the villagers living around it, paying rents and celebrating whenever the bells rang out with good news.
The bells wouldn’t ring with good news then, would they? No, there wouldn’t be good news on an island such as this. I shivered, rubbing my arms as I followed Stark. Once we reached the outlying buildings, the force of the wind died down as we were no longer unprotected against it. There were candles burning in a few of the cottages, making me wonder who lived there—and who they were waiting for inside the prison.
“How did we manage to portal straight onto the island?” I asked the back of Stark’s head. “Aren’t there any enchantments to prevent people from jumping on or off?”
“You mean, to keep them from escaping?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Yes, but not the way you think. It’s the cells which are enchanted, and the enchantments wear off as the sentence comes to a close. They prevent the prisoners from leaving, prevent visitors from entering prisoners’ cells. They even prevent the passing through of any items a prisoner didn’t bring with them on their sentencing—and they’re not allowed to bring much, believe me.” He shuddered at the memory.
I could hardly imagine him living in that castle. It was probably cold and damp, dreary, sad. How could anybody leave and live even a semblance of a normal life?
“The family, friends, loved ones—whatever you want to call them—are allowed to live in these cottages for as long as they want,” he explained.
The sidewalk, or what there was of it, widened and allowed us to walk side by side. I was able to catch a glimpse of his brooding expression. He didn’t enjoy being here. I could hardly blame him. But he’d promised to stay with me, which meant I couldn’t be the only one who felt the way I did.
I quickly realized we weren’t heading to one of the cottages. We were walking along the road leading up to the castle. A feeling of cold dread settled over me. “We’re going up there?”
“Of course. What did you think?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think.”
“I don’t know where Elewyn lives,” he explained. “But I know she’ll be visiting her brother. She did every day. This is the surest way to find her.”
“I see.” I squared my shoulders and decided to brave it out. I had asked for this, after all. I’d practically demanded it.
The stones comprising the wide pathway were slippery with the misty rain which fell in sheets, soaking into my robes. What a miserable place. And we were going to stay here during my training.
It was actually a relief to pass through the raised iron gate—who raised it, I didn’t know. Maybe it raised itself when two outsiders who meant no harm approached.
I was so unfamiliar with what witches were capable of. The sensation of eyes following us made my skin crawl, but the sensation faded once we were inside the wall. A quick walk through the stone courtyard lined by lit torches which somehow survived against the wind and rain, and we were inside an entry which reminded me of the fortress back on Hallowthorn Landing with its lack of light and the feeling of almost oppressive bleakness.
“Come on.” Stark must have sensed my hesitation.
He took my hand in his and led me straight up a wide set of stairs and through a narrow corridor. He had been here before, then, to the cell of this prisoner. Unless his cell and the one we were about to visit were near each other...
“Are you all right? Being here, I mean?” I shuddered when my arm brushed against a thick web. The corners and doorways were full of them.
He snorted. “Ironically, I feel safer here than I do anywhere else. There are no vampires to threaten me here.”
We came to a stop at a particular cell, the first one we’d passed which wasn’t empty. I felt a sort of tingle running through me when I stood too close to the metal bars, as if the enchantment wouldn’t let me come too close. I took a step back.
The man inside the cell let out a humorless chuckle. “You’ll learn.” These were the only two words he offered in greeting.
He was tall, lanky, dressed in black. A foreboding figure. He made me uneasy, though he didn’t make a move or speak a threatening word. Perhaps that was why. I couldn’t understand why he looked at me the way he did. Like he was examining me. His dark, probing eyes crackled with intelligence as he stood at attention, hands folded in front of him.
“Sara, this is Elazar.”
Oh. That explained it. The necromancer. No wonder he was so unsettling.
I nodded in greeting, not knowing what to say. What did a person say to someone like him? He was handsome enough—not nearly as handsome as Stark, but not ugly or deformed. It was those eyes. And the way his face didn’t move as he observed me.
Footsteps approached from the direction opposite the one we’d come in.
Two female figures glided down the corridor—at least, the long robes they wore made it appear as though they were gliding over the dirty, stone floor. The one who led the way was small, with sharp, narrowed eyes and long brown hair which trailed down her back in lustrous waves.
“Samara,” Stark said, greeting her with familiarity. She barely made eye contact with him before going to the bars of Elazar’s cell, staring longingly at the prisoner. So, she was in love with him. It was written on her face.
“It’s the same every day.” The other woman had spoken.
I turned, as did Stark, toward the other woman.
She was tall, willowy, with nearly black hair, and deep, dark eyes. Like those of Elazar. And it hit me that this must be his sister.
She smiled at Stark—a little too warmly, I thought.
“Sara, this is Elewyn,” Stark said.
>
She hardly noticed me. She was too busy sliding her hands over his shoulders before winding her arms around his neck and hugging him for far too long.
Who the hell did she think she was?
Who was she, anyway?
For all I knew, they had a past. It was clear from the way she held him it wasn’t in the past for her. It was very much a present thing.
When she finally let him up for air, her hands lingered on his arms for absolutely no reason as she stared deep into his eyes.
My palms began to tingle. Oh, no, not this again.
I focused the way Stark had taught me, envisioning the light in my core and begging the impulses to concentrate themselves there instead of shooting from my fingertips.
I could barely keep myself under control. It was like I had never trained at all.
“Are you all right?” Stark asked, finally noticing when I tucked my hands under my arms.
I nodded. “Just a little chilly.”
“Sara.” Elewyn pronounced my name as though she were examining a brand-new species. I hated the sound of her voice.
“I’ve brought Sara here because she needs your help,” Stark explained.
“You know I would do anything to help you, Stark.” Just like that, she became a doting lover.
For all I knew, that was what they used to be. How could he do this to me? Didn’t he know it would be painful, forcing me to spend time with someone who used to mean so much to him?
When he clearly still meant so much to her?
She drank him in with her eyes as he explained in a murmur the nature of my situation. Samara and Elazar might as well have been in their own world, miles away from mine.
I stood alone, hands still tucked under my arms, wishing more than anything I had never told Stark to bring me. Being trained wasn’t worth it if I had to face humiliation every day. And it was humiliating, no question. Sparks threatened to shoot from my fingers at any second.
Elewyn managed to pry her eyes from Stark long enough to take me in again. “You’re in need of training, then,” she decided.
