Fortune Favors the Cruel

by Kel Carpenter

  Lazarus stood tense, his muscled back and shoulders tight as long spindly shadows crawled over his skin, the ends curling back around to sink large razored teeth into his taut flesh. He didn’t grunt or groan or moan, and he certainly didn’t scream or cry. He didn’t fight as they took their pound of flesh, biting him again and again. Blood ran in rivulets down his bare chest. He held his head in his hands as if he couldn’t stop them even if he wanted.

  Quinn froze a few paces away as she took in the markings that covered almost every inch of his skin from the neck down to the waistband of his trousers. The feeding frenzy of darkness that encircled him didn’t pause as he jerked his head up and their eyes met—crystalline to charcoal.

  Lazarus panted, the blood from his open wounds flowing freely with no sign of stopping. Quinn blinked, looking between him and the gashes on his body. She didn’t understand why he just sat there and took it; why he didn’t try to stop it. She took a small step forward, and he took one back.

  “What are you doing here?” His voice was gruffer than usual, filled with pain and an edge of panic. Quinn studied him, not speaking as her gaze dropped to the blood pouring from his chest, shoulders, and abs. Those tendrils of darkness were savage and unforgiving.

  “What did you do to deserve this…” She trailed off as she lifted a hand, fingers itching to touch his bloodied skin. There were shadows there—moving beneath the skin just as the murky tendrils came out of it. The darkness seemed so alive within him, but something about it made her pause. Made her think. She knew the shadowy magic that clung to him, but it was not the same as hers. Simply like.

  Like calls to like, he’d said. Then again, this was only a dream … or was it?

  Quinn reached for him again, feeling more emboldened than when she was awake. She reached for one of the inky tendrils. “Don’t,” Lazarus warned roughly as she took a step towards him.

  “Why are you bleeding?” she asked.

  A coil of dark energy slipped away from him, inching down and away—almost inquisitively as it pursued Quinn. She lifted her hand and beckoned it forward, locking it in her grasp when it came close enough. Lazarus’ eyes widened for a brief second and he jerked himself back even as she held onto the creature that had been feeding off him. The thing—whatever it was—didn’t detach itself from Lazarus as he moved away, but instead, twisted around her fingers. Quinn’s eyebrows furrowed as the little sliver of darkness rubbed between her fingers, curling in her palm as though it were a curious animal that relished in the feel of her hand against its own nonexistent flesh.

  “What is this?” she asked, lifting her eyes to meet Lazarus’ once more.

  A stygian gaze returned her stare. “Let go,” he demanded—he trembled. She’d never seen Lazarus like this, so troubled. So … vulnerable.

  Quinn opened her fingers and let the thing fall from her grasp. It slunk away and back under Lazarus’ flesh, disappearing from view. She wondered what it was that it could feel so similar to her own power and yet she knew it wasn’t the same.

  “Lazarus,” she said softly, an unspoken question.

  He looked away as he answered. “It appears that I’m not as immune to you as I’d thought I would be.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  He sighed, turning his face back to her. “Fear, Quinn.”

  “This is what you fear?” she concluded, moving closer, and this time he didn’t move away—though he did stiffen. “This is your nightmare?”

  Lazarus glared down at her, and this was the first time she felt that he was truly well and angry with her. Not just frustrated or irritated as he often was, but defensive … like an animal backed into a corner. His own fear of vulnerability made him cold. Cruel. But Quinn knew a thing or two about cruelty and wasn’t dissuaded when he said, “You need to leave.”

  “Why?” she asked. “It’s only a dream, after all.”

  Quinn gasped and she could feel herself slipping. The clouds darkened and lightning flashed through them. Her bare toes sank, and she reached for him. Her fingers closing around his arm, keeping herself steady as the dream took another turn.

  “No!” she snapped—at him or it, she wasn’t certain—but lightning flashed again. The seas below became wild and vicious as the cyclones broke free of their watery prison.

  Lazarus jolted at her touch and she realized something in that brief flash of a second.

  That he was warm. His proximity burning.

  His already charcoal eyes darkened even further as he leaned forward and growled, “You do not command me, Quinn. I am your master.”

  “Not here, you’re not,” she shot back, clinging to him. “Here, you’re just like me. Lost and wandering. Conflicted. Confined.” Her fingers curled as she dug her nails in hard enough to break skin.

  “You think you understand me, little she-wolf?” Lazarus’ question was spoken in a dangerous tone, drawing Quinn back to her circumstances.

  He rose to his full height, his hand snaking out, wicked fast, as he wrapped it around her free hand and yanked her closer—pulling her into his chest until her breasts pressed against him.

  “Like calls to like,” she whispered. Something heavy and foreign raced through her veins, straight to the heated place between her thighs. Lazarus inhaled deeply, and she could swear that he knew it—the way her body responded to him.

  “You still have no idea,” he said, his voice low and burning.

  He released her almost as abruptly as he had grabbed her, sudden enough that her grip on his forearm had loosened and when her hands dropped away, bloody fingerprints smeared against his skin. Lazarus scowled, his gaze dropping to her chest where his blood had smudged onto her crisp cotton shirt.

  “Are you sure about that?” she asked in a challenge.

  He didn’t stop as she stared at him—her cerulean eyes haunting. “Wake up now, Quinn, and do not make me regret this.”

  She blinked, a slight pucker forming between her brows. “Regret what?” she began to ask, but almost as soon as the question escaped from between her lips, the clouds beneath her feet gave way and she fell.

  Lightning struck. The world dispersed. The water whirlpools. The clouds. The staircase.

  All of it vanished and left her falling back into nothingness.

  Quinn woke with a start, her hands coming up to defend herself.

  There was blood on her fingertips. She stared, waiting for it to fade like it never happened, just like the dream, but it never did. Sitting on her cot, the light of the early morning creeping through, a weight settled on her chest.

  And deep down she knew it then … these weren’t dreams or nightmares.

  They were real.

  The Servalis Stone

  “If something survives long enough to be considered ancient, it undoubtedly has a secret that let it become that way.”

  — Lazarus Fierté, dark Maji, heir to Norcasta, royally pissed

  A cool breeze drifted over his heated skin. Lazarus felt the flame of his burning rage far too close to the surface today as the voices he usually kept at bay crawled through him restlessly. Their incorporeal bodies burrowed beneath his flesh, searching for the dark power that evaded them. They’d only gotten a taste of it last night and were feral in their search for her.

  Quinn’s essence still lingered in his mind from her walk through his dream—his continued nightmare. Lazarus had lost himself in the voices last night; in those demons that he never showed anyone, and in the depths of his sleep they came upon him with a vengeance in which they were owed but would never truly have. They ate at him from the inside out, just as he had once eaten them … and then she appeared. In a blaze of dark glory her silver head walked straight into his nightmares without caution or abandon. She disrupted their meal, striding up to him without a clue as to what she’d walked in on and they saw her, sensed her darkness, and went to her.

  But unlike him, the man whom they raged at, they wanted her. Almost as much as his own magic did.
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  He’d have convinced himself it were a dream, if not for the bloody fingerprints on his arm when he woke. There was no other explanation for it. No other reason the voices would be so reckless in pursuit of her. She’d come to him at his darkest and he’d let her fall.

  They were both better off for it.

  Lazarus brushed off the calling of the voices and strode quickly through Cisea. It was calm in the mid-morning, people striding to and from their next assignments. The Cisean people were as hardworking as they were paranoid of outsiders. Eyes followed him everywhere he went, if it wasn’t the guards that Thorne had trailing him far enough back so he wouldn’t see, it was the women and children keeping tabs on his whereabouts and reporting to their men. They watched him because he was an outsider and a man, despite being a friend. He was also the one who held the leash of a certain young dark Maji that had half the warriors entranced. Draeven had already had to turn away three men who came forward with gifts of courtship. Not that Quinn knew. He liked it better that way.

  Lazarus headed towards Thorne’s hut with steady, sure strides. The people watched him, some more curious than others. He heard the whispers of children asking their mothers about his aura, of noting how it looked like a certain woman from his party. They knew what he was, but not what he was truly capable of if pushed. Only one even suspected and that was, perhaps, why Lazarus respected the man so much.

  Thorne stood holding several sheaves of parchment as he spoke with two nearly identical red-haired warriors in hushed voices when Lazarus entered his throne room after climbing up the rope ladder. Red eyes glanced up, and Thorne nodded in his direction before he handed the papers back to his warriors and told them to leave.

  “Something I should be concerned with?” Lazarus asked, nodding back to the exit the two warriors had taken.

  Thorne shook his head. “No. Just some reports from our outer scouts. Likely nothing important, but our men are always vigilant. It’s how we’ve maintained our hold on the mountains.”

  Lazarus jerked his chin down in acknowledgement. “I came to speak with you about the spring.”

  “I assumed as much.” Thorne turned towards his seat. In another room, under another man, the throne might have appeared ostentatious, but Thorne made it work. It suited him well, not the other way around.

  “I will need the Servalis stone before I take Quinn up there. I was hoping to leave this afternoon.”

  Thorne frowned and looked over Lazarus, noting the dark circles under his eyes. “Shouldn’t you rest a bit first?” he asked. “You’ve been on the road for quite a while, my friend. Another night’s sleep won’t hurt either of you. The ceremony will be difficult on her body if her power is as strong as I expect it to be.”

  Lazarus shook his head, turning his chin as he moved closer to Throne’s seated position. “We don’t have the time. I doubt those following us have inexperienced riders. It is also unlikely that they would take the same breaks as we have.”

  Thorne considered that for a moment, his brows drawing down low over his eyes as he scanned Lazarus’ face. Finally, he closed his eyes with a sigh and gestured for Lazarus to follow him as he rose from his throne. “The process will begin as soon as she enters the water,” Thorne began as he led him out on a deck overlooking the whole of Cisea.

  Lazarus looked down, watching its people as they milled about. In the hundreds of years since these people had entered and conquered the mountains, their technology hadn’t grown, but their knowledge had. The Cisean people knew more about Maji and their abilities more than anyone else in the vast lands of the continent—except perhaps the N’skari.

  “When you enter the cavern, you must do so when the sun falls over the horizon. Leviathan will preside only when Leviticus has descended into sleep.”

  “Under the God of the Moon and Shadows.” Lazarus nodded. “I can do that.”

  Thorne’s hands wrapped around the railing of the deck, his eyes far away as he continued. “There will be light, of course. Have her strip down. No clothes are to enter the water, as they are impure.”

  “That will not be a problem.” Lazarus forced the thought of a naked Quinn from his mind. The time for it to drive him into insanity was not now. Not when the whispers liked that idea so very much.

  “Hand her the Servalis stone and have her enter the waters alone. She will need to climb to the highest point of the pool where Leviathan’s eye may see her.”

  “Where the moon can see her?” Lazarus moved closer to the other man, turning and resting his lower back against the railing that appeared weak at a moment’s glance, but seemed to handle Thorne’s grip quite well.

  Thorne nodded. “There is an opening at the top of the cavern’s ceiling for him to observe. Once she is in the spring, the water will activate the stone’s magic. It will drain her of her own magic completely and then return it to her. This is how it measures all that she is and what she will be.” Lazarus nodded. “But be warned, she will be weak when she leaves. Try to get her back here as quickly as possible. She will need to sleep for a while to recover.”

  Lazarus darted a glance at the man before shifting his eyes away. “How long is a while?”

  Thorne’s lips quirked and he released a dry chuckle. “A day or so. It all depends. Why? Nervous, are we?” Lazarus grunted a nonresponse. He wasn’t keen to waste time getting there, particularly if Quinn was going to need rest after. Some things were unavoidable.

  Thorne shook his head and his expression sobered once again. “How will I be able to determine the strength of her abilities?” Lazarus asked. “She hasn’t yet hit her ascension. I expect it will be soon. She shows signs of overcharge and manifesting more rapidly.”

  Thorne’s frown deepened. “It should have happened by now, Lazarus.” Dark hair slid against a tan cheek as Lazarus turned his face towards the giant of a man. Their gazes connected and locked. “What aren’t you telling me, my friend?”

  Lazarus’ lips pressed together before he took a breath, parting them as he imparted a sliver of Quinn’s past she would not be happy he was sharing, though he knew she’d refuse to feel embarrassed about it. No, that was not like her. She was far too honest, too abrupt—and so very unapologetic for it.

  “Quinn was a slave of the Norcastan state for several years. A decade or more, I cannot be sure,” he replied. “I think it might have impeded her ascension.”

  Thorne sucked in a breath and scowled. “I do not approve of the slave trade, much less the trading of females, Lazarus.”

  Lazarus nodded. “I know. Nor do I. She is no longer one, obviously. She is under my employment of her own volition. I assure you.”

  Red eyes narrowed for a moment, his thick brows furrowed in disapproval. Lazarus said nothing more as he waited for the Cisean leader to respond.

  Finally, Thorne nodded and answered his question. “Several things will happen at once that should help you. First, if the water darkens or begins to churn on its own, it means her power is above average. I have no doubts this will happen, but actual strength is often measured by the stone.”

  “How?” Lazarus prompted.

  “The Servalis stone is clear. When the water darkens the stone will absorb it. The darker the stone, the stronger the Maji,” Thorne explained. Lazarus nodded. He’d heard rumors of it but wasn’t sure how exactly it worked.

  “Anything else?” he asked, already drained and the process hadn’t even begun.

  Thorne turned his gaze away, once again looking out to his kin and countrymen. “There will be pain.”

  Lazarus frowned. “Explain,” he commanded.

  Thorne shot him a dark look, but Lazarus did not back down. He stared back, daring Thorne to test him. Thorne’s lips curled, and he turned fully to face the other man.

  “It is clear that your vassal”—he lifted a brow as he spoke the last word before continuing—“is more than an average Maji. First, she is dark. Second, she is a fear twister. Regardless of the spring, she’s survived into adu
lthood and still hasn’t reached the ascension. That’s unprecedented and should give you great pause in handling her.”

  The judgement in his expression had Lazarus gritting his teeth, but he refused to respond to Thorne’s quips about how he was with her. “Her aura leads me to believe she is second to none that reside in this village when it comes to power—even I. Despite what she is, that isn’t why she would feel pain. It’s because the sheer amount of magic she holds inside of her. When the stone leeches her of her power, it will be crippling. She will feel as though she is dying, as if all her life force is being sucked right out of her. In a few instances…” Thorne’s words trailed away as his eyes grew unfocused and his throat tightened.

  “In a few instances, in the distant past,” he continued after a moment, “there have been recordings of the stone and the ceremony actually doing so. But if you are careful, that shouldn’t be the case. However, the stronger a Maji is, the more reliant they are on their magic. They often don’t realize it until the ascension, but the stone has a similar effect. Just as the ascension kills half of those that undergo it, not all Maji make it through the waters. Both of these drain the holder of their magic entirely, and only those who are strong enough to survive see it returned. The more powerful the Maji that enters the water, the more pain they will feel when it is gone.”

  Lazarus turned his face away from Thorne, frowning as he considered his options. He did not want to cause her pain, but the Cisean spring was one of the easiest ways to do this, and at the moment, the most accessible way of getting what he wanted. She had handled the removal of her brands rather easily, though. Perhaps, it would not be so bad.

  And if she could survive this, he would have no doubts about her surviving the ascension.

  “Alright,” Lazarus said finally. “Thank you for this. We will leave this afternoon. I came to retrieve the stone, and then I’ll inform my second of my departure.”