by Rye Brewer
It was only a matter of minutes after that. I crouched behind a wide tree with her crushed between the trunk and my unforgiving body, giving the impression to anyone who might see us that we were nothing more than lovers looking for a thrill.
She’d long since gone limp, her blood no longer pumping. I made sure I was alone before giving her the space to fall to the ground, folding in on herself.
It wasn’t safe. I shouldn’t have done it out in the open, much less to a girl somebody might miss.
She wasn’t one of the nameless, faceless, lonely souls I normally preyed upon. But I couldn’t help it. She reminded me so much of Cari, even in death. If I couldn’t have her, I would take the next best thing.
I coursed away from there, cutting through the darkness along the bank of the Seine until I was a sufficient distance from the scene of my crime.
That was a stupid, undisciplined move. I couldn’t go around draining every blonde who crossed my path. I had to do something about the Gage problem, and fast, before I made a deadly mistake.
I wouldn’t share Cari with him any longer.
30
Anissa
“What do you want from Fane?” How I managed to sound strong was a mystery, since all I could do was quake inside.
Beings like Elazar didn’t make empty promises or threats. That much I knew. And they didn’t make bargains in which they expected to be anything less than the one to benefit most.
“That is for me to decide, little half-breed,” Elazar murmured with a wicked smile.
Everything about him was wicked. I could understand all too well how he’d managed to get himself locked up for as long as he had. I could just imagine the sorts of crimes he must’ve committed, how many lives he must have destroyed.
“We deserve to know!” Scott snarled as his fangs descended. He was about to get us all killed.
Stark made a move in his direction, like he wanted to stop him from doing anything as monumentally stupid as he’d tried in the courtyard.
“The details of our agreement are between Fane and me,” he informed us, just as calm as anything.
It didn’t matter how Scott threatened or whether or not he was outnumbered. He was as placid as a still lake.
“That’s nothing but a filthy excuse,” Scott growled.
“Yes, well, it’s the truth. Whether you believe it’s an excuse or not is up to you. You don’t deserve to know, nor do you need to.”
I moved in close, murmured in Scott’s ear. “He’s been locked up all this time. He’s spent it fantasizing about how he’d make those who’d put him in his cell suffer for it and how he would twist others to his will. He wants to lord his power over you. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Scott, he’ll kill you.” I looked him in the eye. “He will kill you for the fun of it. This isn’t a game. There’s nothing you can do now to change the way things have unfolded. Think about what you’re doing. Think about who you’re challenging here.”
He looked over my shoulder to where Elazar and Fane stood. Some of the light left his eyes. The fire. He was starting to listen to reason, and I nearly went weak with relief.
Then, his eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open. “Mother?”
“What?” I spun on my heel and saw what he’d seen. A woman entering through the tall double doors, so tall they dwarfed her.
Her red hair was brilliant, like that of her daughter’s.
For the first time since his change, Fane showed genuine emotion. “Elena?” he whispered, taking a tentative step toward her with his arms open. “Elena, is it you?”
I could understand why he swayed on his feet as he did. His long-lost love, the woman he’d given his human life to be with. The mother of his children. It was one thing to see her in Sorrowswatch, but another to watch her walk into the entry hall. A living, breathing woman.
A tear trickled down my cheek.
Her gaze landed on Fane, then on his outstretched arms. I was sure she would run to him, throw herself at him. How could she not?
Easily.
She froze in place before understanding touched her face.
“Oh. You think I’m her.” Her voice nearly froze the blood in my veins. So cold, so dismissive.
Fane let out a long, deep breath before letting his arms drop to his sides. “Nivia.” All the emotion was gone from his voice.
She tilted her head to the side. “That’s correct. So sorry.”
“What are you doing here?” Stark asked.
The long, green cape she wore swept along the stone floor as she came our way. “I came as soon as I heard Elazar was free. I see I heard correctly. Congratulations.”
Oh, when she spoke, when her face moved, and her eyes lit up, she reminded me so much of Philippa. I could see that same recognition in Fane, too. What would it be like to have every memory come flooding back all at once?
Elazar raised an eyebrow. “Nivia. What warrants a visit? You must’ve come a long way.”
“Terribly long,” she agreed. “But I give you enough credit to know why I’m here without needing my explanation. Unless the passage of time has dulled your faculties.”
“You want me to place you back in your own body.”
“Ahh.” She smiled. “I knew you could put it together.”
He made a big show of cringing, though I knew he didn’t mean it.
I was fairly sure that he’d never experienced a genuine emotion in his life.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of tragic news, but Samara is no longer with us.”
“What?” she hissed.
I exchanged a worried look with Sara. Something told me we needed to get away from here, and fast. There was no telling how bad things could get.
“I lost her this very evening, just before being freed.” His face showed nothing of the storm of grief he’d suffered when he’d found her, and I amended my assessment. He could experience deep, genuine emotion. I had witnessed it. No matter how cavalier he pretended to be, he had loved her.
Rather than offering condolences, Nivia was incensed. “What do you mean, you lost her this evening? She’s dead? You couldn’t have saved her?”
“She was gone when I reached her—and you should know very well that once a person is dead, there’s no bringing them back unless the one bringing them back is willing to accept the difference in them. I… I wouldn’t do that to her. No matter how much I wished to keep her with me. She wouldn’t want to continue living that way, either.”
Nivia waved her hands. “I don’t care about your personal reasons, Elazar. I didn’t ask about your feelings or your sense of right and wrong. I asked why you didn’t save her when you knew I would need her.”
“You needed her? What do I care about what you need? I’m searching my memory for one more single occurrence of you visiting me here at the prison, and I can’t think of one.”
“You know very well I was unable to go anywhere. I was trapped.”
“I don’t care about your personal reasons,” he sneered, and the way he turned her words around on her made her cheeks burn deep red.
“We’ll find another caster then,” she decided. “Samara was talented, but she wasn’t the only caster in existence. We’ll find someone else.”
“We?” He pointed to himself. “You mean you and I?”
“Who else would I mean?”
“I don’t recall ever offering my assistance,” he explained. “And I never will. I have no intention of offering aid to anyone, ever again. I’m finished with that sort of thing. I would like to live what’s left of my life without the pressure of performing like some trained animal.”
“You can’t be serious!” she shrieked.
I took a step toward the doors, then another, pulling Sara with me. We had waited around long enough. Perhaps too long.
“I am,” Elazar affirmed. “You’ll have to find someone else.”
Her chest puffed out. He
r nostrils flared. Her face went as red as her hair just before she flew at him, claws out and fangs gleaming.
Sara screamed, and Stark threw himself in front of the both of us just before Nivia and Elazar clashed.
“I’ll kill you!” she shrieked, her voice doubling and tripling as it echoed off the walls and floor until there was nothing in the world but the sound of it.
I cringed, hands over my ears.
But Elazar didn’t flinch. In fact, he was smiling.
He smiled straight up until the moment when he took Nivia’s head in his hands and twisted it, sharp and fast. The sound of her neck snapping took my breath away. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, she stopped moving. She stopped everything.
When he let go, she dropped to the floor and never moved again.
31
Anissa
“No!” Fane’s tortured scream was nearly enough to tear my heart from my chest.
He threw himself over her as he’d done with Samara, then picked her up as Elazar had lifted his own mate in his arms. “No, no, Elena! No!”
Scott reeled back, his face as white as a sheet, shaking his head over and over as though that would change anything. Like a little boy who refused to believe what was happening in front of him. He’d already lost his mother once. He’d just watched her die again. Even if it wasn’t her inside that body, the eyes and the heart didn’t care about things like that.
“I don’t believe this,” Sara whispered, turning her face away and pressing it against Stark’s shoulder.
Even he looked shaken, and I had the feeling it took quite a lot to bring him to that point.
“Why?” Fane bellowed, glaring up at Elazar with Elena’s body in his arms.
She was Elena again, her beautiful face peaceful and serene, and reminding me of how humans described their angels. Soft, wavy red hair framed her peaches-and-cream complexion.
“Why what?” Elazar wasn’t even breathing heavy, but then, why would he? It hadn’t taken more than a quick twist to silence his foe.
“Why did you have to do that?” Fane cried out, crushing Elena to his chest. I felt guilty for even watching him at that moment. It was too intimate a moment.
Scott sank to the floor, utterly defeated.
“Because she was trying to kill me—did you not see that?”
“But you killed her! You can’t bring Elena back if you killed Nivia! She was in there, and now she’s gone, too!” His tears soaked into the green hood still fastened at Elena’s throat. He looked down at her and stroked her face, her hair.
“Wait.” Elazar’s head tipped to the side, and his eyes narrowed. “You believe Elena was still present in that body? Is that what you were working toward—freeing her, somehow?”
When Fane didn’t reply—which was all the reply necessary—the necromancer laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a good laugh. Thank you.” He didn’t look happy when he sneered down at Fane, however. “Elena was no longer present in that body, you fool. Do you know nothing about such matters?”
“She—she wasn’t—”
“She wasn’t,” Elazar repeated. “Yes, it’s possible for two souls to inhabit the same body. But only when the first soul was fully alive when the second entered.”
“Elena was already dead, then.” Fane looked down at his wife.
“No—actually, she was dying. But when Nivia entered, the strain finally finished her off.”
I covered my mouth with my hand.
Sara pressed herself closer to Stark, whose arms closed tight around her.
I didn’t know about either of them, but I’d never heard such cold cruelty. Not even from Marcus. He’d never lorded the death of a loved one over someone’s head—at least, not in my presence.
Fane shook, but not with grief.
I felt the rage boiling up in him, threatening to spill over.
Elazar merely let out another half-hearted laugh.
I wanted to kill him for it. For all of it. His trickery and evil. He deserved it. It seemed unfair that he had escaped his full sentence.
“Elazar!”
We all turned as one at the sound of Elewyn’s voice. She stood at the top of the stairs, surveying the scene with a deep frown. “What’s happened here?”
“Nivia,” he said.
She sighed.
I was ready for her to flay him alive, to cut him down with a handful of choice words. She seemed like the sort of witch who could do that. I’d enjoy watching.
“Why did you have to do it in here?” she asked.
I should’ve known better.
She instructed one of the guards to take the body away, as he had with the others.
“No,” Fane said, standing. “She was my wife. The mother of my children. I wish to place her body in a crypt reserved for my family.”
“Good enough. I truly don’t care one way or another.” She shot Elazar a sharp look. “I would like to see you, brother. In my chambers.”
She had made herself at home right away, hadn’t she?
I moved back to give him ample room to pass through without accidentally coming into contact with him. I didn’t want to so much as brush against him in passing.
Where were we supposed to go from there? Scott and Fane wore almost identical expressions of grief, yet they didn’t try to comfort each other. It pained me to see it. They were so far apart, I had to wonder if anything could ever bring them back together.
“I feel like we shouldn’t be here right now,” Sara whispered.
“I know,” I replied with a shrug. “But somebody needs to say something.” I went to Fane, who was on his knees by Elena’s body.
Part of me was glad for her, as twisted as the sentiment seemed from a distance. Her body was no longer being used by an evil force. She could rest in peace. It had taken long enough, after all.
I crouched by him. “I’m so sorry for all of this.” It was pathetic, and I knew it, but what did a person say in a situation such as this? I had no experience with it.
“As am I,” he murmured. At least his voice was the same, even if his face wasn’t entirely. What did Elazar have to do with it, exactly, to change him that way? And what did it have to do with bringing him back from the brink of death? I had no understanding of things like that and was glad I didn’t, considering the sort of people Elewyn and Elazar were. I’d rather know Jonah and Felicity, Sirene and Allonic.
“I feel as though I have something to do with all of this,” I admitted. “If I hadn’t insisted on coming along with you, we wouldn’t have ended up here. There would never have been a battle.”
“There would have been a battle at some point, even if it hadn’t happened today. Opportunists such as Elewyn will always find a reason to battle.”
I couldn’t argue that, even if I couldn’t help thinking that it would’ve been better for somebody else to be involved in her battle. Anybody outside the circle of people I cared about.
He rocked back on his heels with a defeated sigh. “You know, for the first time in as long as I can remember, there’s no mission. There’s nothing for me to focus my energy on. The worst part is, it was all for nothing. Elena was never there. I’m the one who put us all through this, and for what? And now, what is there to continue for?”
“I can think of at least two things,” I reminded him as gently as I could. “Sirene and the baby.”
Instead of remembering them and admitting I was right, he scoffed. “Yes, Sirene. Who may very well die as a result of giving birth to my child. I’m no use to anyone now. Though, if it brings you any comfort, I’m sure Jonah is taking care of her, as I asked him to. The last thing I could do for her.”
I gaped at him, wordless. There was no getting through to someone despairing that deeply. I could only rest my hand on his shoulder and offer him whatever solidarity I could while he stared at his dead wife.
Then, he raised his head. “There’s one m
ore thing I can do. I had forgotten.”
“What?” I stood when he did.
There was a feverish glow in his eyes that I wasn’t sure I liked. He had already been through so much. Did he have a breaking point? Had he reached it?
“Philippa.” He looked down at me. “I can help Philippa.”
“How?” Talk about a lifelong mission. There was no helping her, as far as I was concerned.
“I can bring Vance back to her,” he said, sounding more like the Fane I knew. “She loves him, and knowing Valerius is in possession of his body must be terrible for her. I know that feeling.”
“What would you do?” Especially with Samara dead, I wanted to add, but I held my tongue. It would be tantamount to rubbing salt in his wounds.
Besides, he knew Samara was dead. He needed no reminding.
“I’m not sure. I only know that it would make her happy, and I would do anything to ensure my children’s happiness.” A soft smile touched the corners of his mouth. “I know Jonah is already taken care of.”
As nice as it was to hear that, it didn’t ease my concerns over his idea. Hadn’t he had enough of battling these beings? I could almost look back at the times when I thought Marcus was the vilest creature in the world with fondness. I was so naïve then. Sometimes ignorance truly was bliss.
“Elazar already said he was out of the. business,” I reminded him, hoping he would change his mind.
I wasn’t overly-fond of the idea of meeting another necromancer. One was enough.
“I’m sure he could be persuaded.” Fane was halfway up the stairs to the second level before I even registered what he was going to do.
I followed him at a run, determined to keep whatever damage he was about to cause to a minimum.
“Elazar!” he called out as he hurried down the hall, his voice carrying and echoing.
It would’ve been pointless to ask him to stop, so I didn’t bother wasting my breath. I only followed and hoped he wouldn’t get himself any further into Elazar’s debt.
We found him with his sister in a cavernous room, with a ceiling twice as high as the one in the corridor.
