Chapter 10
Aldor had failed. Again. She’d escaped him. Again. Snatched by the vampire. Again.
He sat on a stool in the darkness, staring into his magick mirror; as he had for who knew how long. Days had passed. Weeks. Possibly months. He’d barely eaten or showered or anything besides stare into the mirror.
Aldor’s cursed mirrored eyes reflected back at him in the dim light. They were sunken and dark; his skin sallow; a dark beard with flecks of blond had begun to grow from neglect; and his hair was so long it obscured his vision. The clothes that were once tight on his broad body hung loose.
He’d always thought himself mad. Driven by a singular purpose to reunite with the soul stolen from him as a babe. That madness had fueled him. Now it threatened to pull him beneath the surface once and drown him.
Nestra thought he was away, hunting tirelessly for her prize and the vampire’s heart. She knew not that he wallowed in his failure on temple grounds. Near enough for her to storm in and strike him through the heart for his incompetence and for failing her. Again.
The vampire’s dried blood lingered on the black blade in his hand. He didn’t know how they’d escaped, nor how they’d managed to destroy the magick mirror they’d passed through, but at least Aldor had a taste of satisfaction knowing the vampire was dead. Even if it was bitter.
Gwendolyn Moore was shielded by magick. The mirrors had given him no clue as to where she hid, and though he’d lost scope of how much time had passed during his wallowing, Aldor felt the weight of it growing heavier and heavier. What time he did have was running out. He couldn’t hide forever, and if his mistress discovered his failure—he was as good as dead.
He’d considered running. A bag sat by his small bed, full of his few belongings. Aldor had stood with it in hand many times over the last week, his skeleton key lying over his chest as he debated where to go. There was nowhere.
If he ran, he would be exactly what he was at the start: an outcast with no hope of salvation—scraping to survive. There was no place for creatures like him in this world. For the cursed. There was no place for him to run. So he sat staring into the mirror. Debating.
The shadow fae trapped within the dark mirror would give him guidance, but Aldor feared the cost.
The last price he’d paid Xel’voth had been steep.
How he’d managed to get the book Xel desired from the king’s library, Aldor still didn’t know. Luck and the grace of the Light had kept him from being discovered.
Breaking into the tomb of the Dawn King had been easier than expected, but Aldor felt the weight of what he’d done even still. He’d prayed for forgiveness in the tomb for taking one of the King’s bones. He only hoped it would be granted.
The blade—the D?kk blade that had met flesh. His grip around it tightened until his knuckles ached.
Aldor still didn’t know how Xel’voth could have such knowledge when the mirrors themselves did not, but the imprisoned creature had kept his word at their last meeting and had guided Aldor to seek the woman out through a particular mirror. He’d sworn then that he would never ask the dark imprisoned fae’s help again.
Desperation clawed at him once more, taking him apart piece by piece, until he finally stood from his stool. Aldor swallowed his anxieties—he would not drown yet—and entered the mirror.
When he came before the inky surface of the vile creature’s gilded frame, the black mirror splintered. “I was wondering when you would come,” Xel’voth mused, his silken voice cutting the silence. A pair of silver eyes glowed through the shadows within.
The shadow fae’s long raven hair hung around his shoulders, split only by his snowy-pale pointed ears, shrouding the overlapping symbols that cascaded down the fae’s forehead and mouth until the skin of his neck and chest were nearly solid black. He shifted forward, his elaborately embroidered deep purple robe lay loosely on his tall frame.
“Where is she?” Aldor asked, not demanding but pathetic.
Xel grasped his hands together beneath his robes, the muscles up his neck tightening as he smiled. The expression made Aldor’s stomach turn over.
“It’s been some years since I’ve seen a vampire,” Xel noted with casual amusement. “They’ve evolved from the blood-soaked dogs I knew in my time. Adapted to the world in a most interesting way. It was quite something to see it hand in hand with your prize.”
Aldor said nothing. The shame was too suffocating to allow him air to speak.
“Gwendolyn Moore,” Xel purred, undeterred by his visitor’s discomfort. “What a curious creature. And those eyes.” The words were like those of a tiger speaking of a delicious treat. They nearly dripped with saliva. It made Aldor’s spine shudder. “I would not have suspected?—”
“Where is she?” The request was raspy, but he could not hear him speak of her any longer.
Xel’s smile fell slowly away, until it was only a slight smirk. “I believe you still owe me a blade.”
Aldor reached behind him, pulling the D?kk blade from where he’d tucked it into the back of his trousers. The closer he came to the mirror, the more his resolve began to fracture. His hands shook, and there was no way Xel did not notice.
“Wait,” the vile creature ordered just before Aldor pushed the knife into the inky black. “Keep it—for now.”
Aldor backed away from the mirror, happy to put distance between them. Even if he was confused as to why Xel did not want it now.
Xel’voth held up his hand; with a flick of his wrist, the small, red-and-gold-bound book Aldor had stolen from the king’s library appeared within it.
“You’ve been such a good little puppet,” Xel observed, looking over the book. “Obeying your mistress’s whims. Eating from her hand like a dog. You’ve been reluctant to seek my help but eager to grovel at her skirts.” He tutted his displeasure. “All I’ve done for you, and you still don’t trust me.”
Aldor’s blood began to burn in his ears. Only an utter fool would ever trust Xel’voth, but, to Aldor’s disgust, the dark creature was not wrong. It was Xel’s guidance that had led Aldor to find the woman in the first place. It was only by his direction that he’d managed to get this far at all. Without it, he’d probably already be dead, his corpse buried beneath one of his mistress’s vile plants to feed from, his soul lost forever.
Xel opened the book and motioned his finger over it so that the pages flipped with magick. “This lesson I offer for free, Aldor,” he said, his tone more serious. “The desperate may seek a way to survive, but only the most cunning see opportunity at the apex of destruction.”
Riddles. Lessons. Aldor turned to leave in frustration. “If you won’t help me, I have no business here,” he snarled.
“I know where she is.”
Aldor stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn back. A cold chill fell over him. He was afraid to ask what followed but knew he must. “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” Xel replied.
Aldor turned to face the mirror again. “Nothing?” he repeated in disbelief.
“The dagger, when I am ready for it, but nothing else. To prove I am not as vile as you think me to be.”
Aldor sensed a trap but couldn’t pinpoint how it would be possible for the dark thing to trap him, exactly. Maybe Xel’voth was merely bored and had nothing else to do but toy with him.
Xel closed his hand, and the book disappeared into the shadowy abyss. “The mirror led to his home.”
Aldor scowled. He knew many of the mirrors but not all of them. “It was the vampire’s mirror?” he seethed, furious that he’d not thought of it before.
“If you want her, you will likely find her wherever he lays his head.”
Aldor hesitated. No. It couldn’t be. “The vampire is dead,” he declared. “Why would she be there still?”
The dark creature merely smirked. Aldor narrowed his eyes. Xel’s guidance had been spot on thus far, but he felt a sharp unease. “How do I know you aren’t lying?”
Xel rose a haughty brow. “Have I led you astray before?”
No, but Aldor could tell the vile creature was hiding something. Or at least, he assumed he was. The truth was, Xel’voth always seemed to be hiding something. His silver eyes brimmed constantly with secrets.
“When you go to your mistress,” Xel’voth went on, “you will confess that you were unable to retrieve her Star because the vampire has the woman locked away in his castle. You will then beg like a groveling dog for her mercy.”
It was lunacy. “She will kill me.”
“Perhaps,” Xel admitted, not at all bothered by the idea. “Though it is doubtful. Your mistress craves loyalty because only the most loyal will do her bidding without question. She may wield power, Aldor, but not even she can achieve her ends alone. Why do you think we created the vampires?”
Aldor’s scowl deepened. “To fight your battles for you,” he snapped.
Xel replied with a dark smile. “Why spill our own blood when we could spill another’s?” Bile rose in Aldor’s throat and burned. “Your mistress does not wield an army, though she’s waging a war. She needs all her groveling soldiers if she is to win.”
Aldor was as good as dead if he came to Nestra with nothing more than another story of how he’d failed her. She’d warned him as much the last they’d spoken.
“If you return to grovel, she will know you are hers,” Xel explained. “Otherwise, you would have simply taken the coward’s path and ran.”
“No,” Aldor declared, not entirely sure where he’d gotten the nerve to do so. “I won’t do it.”
Xel looked at him as if he were a pitiful little worm. “Then you are a fool.”
Aldor bristled at the slight. There was no false flattery or devilish charm, just biting, bitter truth. “And you are trapped in a fucking mirror,” he snarled in return.
Xel’voth cocked a brow at his audacity and smirked; his catlike expression returned once again. “You have never wondered why your mistress sent you to do this work on her behalf? She could have sent any of her paladins. When the Star that she so desperately seeks to achieve all her ends floats just beyond her grasp…you’ve not wondered why she hasn’t left her tower to do it herself?”
Aldor narrowed his eyes on the dark creature. He had wondered those things, but he’d always assumed the answers were beyond his right to know. Plus, Aldor had prided himself that he was her champion. The one she’d chosen above everyone else for such a precious task, even though he was only half-blood and cursed.
Xel tutted. “If you were my servant, I would have cut you open from cock to collar the first time you let the Star slip through your fingers.”
A cold sweat spread over Aldor’s skin, and he trembled. Xel’voth was not wrong. He’d failed his mistress many times. Too many. Yet he still breathed. “Why me then?” he asked, trying to force his voice steady.
Xel tilted his head ever so slightly to the left, as if Aldor were a sad puppy. “Perception is not always reality. Oftentimes, those who appear to wield the most power wield the least, and those who appear to wield none hold the cosmos at their fingertips. Your mistress needs you.”
Aldor struggled to believe that. He’d felt her power. How it’d grown over the last several decades. How much darker it’d become. It was why he had no wish to go to her with nothing but more failure. She might not cut him down the middle, but she might plunge a dagger into his heart.
“You’re wrong,” Aldor told him.
Xel took a step closer to the invisible surface of the mirror that held him at bay. “We are all born with finite abilities in magick,” he went on, unbothered by Aldor’s declaration. “Even the most studied of fae can only accomplish what the limits of their own bodies will allow. The path to true power is not to fight these limits, but to know them. Only then can you break them.
“To harness raw power,” the vile creature continued, “is a skill few possess. You cannot merely bend it to your will; you must bend to it. You must give yourself over fully… ” Xel ran his finger over the barrier between them, and a dark tear formed along the path, sending sprays of silver dust onto the floor. From that tear, a tendril of shadow slipped out like a tentacle. Then another.
Aldor’s blood chilled with horror. He stumbled back as the shadows seeped out of the hole and into the room.
It was impossible.
Xel spoke a word, and the tear slowly closed, chopping off the tentacles and sending the remains of their shadowy forms to dissipate in the air. With heavy breaths, Aldor looked up to Xel’voth, who was glaring down at him, his silver eyes set and dark. Even from his prison he had the power to twist the darkness. Aldor felt the grip of that knowledge like a claw around his throat.
“You are a rarity,” Xel told him. “A creature cursed from childhood. The magick of the Pool took your soul to grant your mother’s wish, but it gave you many things in return. Your mistress knows what you are. You are only good to her as you are. She will never give you what you desire.”
Aldor shuddered, unable to speak lest he be sick.
“Watch her,” Xel added. “And when she fails to possess the power she is so desperate to control, remember all I have done for you.”
The fragrance of blooms and earth filled the solarium. Since he’d come to live in the acropolis of the Temple, the mere scent of flowers had begun to make Aldor feel sick to his stomach. He stood, fighting the urge to be ill and willing himself to stop shaking in his boots. He prayed silently to the Goddess, to anyone, that this would work.
Tendrils of the High Priestess’s magick seeped into the room before she entered. His heart stuttered as he felt it coil around him.
“You return empty-handed,” she observed from the doorway. A chill ran down his spine.
“I tracked the woman,” Aldor replied, trying to keep his voice as smooth as possible. “The vampire has taken her to his hold.”
She approached, her shoes clicking against the marble floors. Aldor lowered his eyes as her magicks rippled around him.
“Where?” she demanded.
“He’s taken her to the Castle of Wolves,” he replied. “Volkov, it is called.” Aldor waited for her to call him out, to drive a blade through his heart, to bury him in agony and pain. No such thing came.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes,” he replied, swallowing a lump of nerves. Volkov was an ancient faerie castle enchanted with spells to keep it hidden amongst the deep Austrian wilderness. It’d taken Aldor some time to uncover the identity of his enemy, but he’d done it. It gave him some pride knowing he’d killed the leader of the Clan of Wolves. The Hound of Hell himself.
He could feel her eyes on him. “Vampires rarely allow outsiders into their halls,” she pointed out. “The Wolves are known to have ancient magicks that shield their castle for that purpose.”
Aldor forced himself to breathe as he knelt before her. “Forgive me,” he pleaded, pulling the knife from his belt and holding it up to her. “I wasn’t able to bring you his heart.”
Nestra plucked the knife from his grasp. “He survived?” she snapped.
“Only long enough to flee,” he bit out. “I beg your forgiveness.”
The hem of her flowing, cream-colored dress shifted past his knees. “And you know for certain he took her to his castle?”
Aldor was shocked. He’d thought she would plunge the blade into him the moment he admitted his failure. Instead, she’d moved past it as if it were nothing. Xel’s words of warning screeched in his head. “Yes. I’m certain,” he assured her again. “Without question.”
His mistress was silent for several moments, lost in thought, he assumed. “This works in our favor,” she said at last. “If he died after bringing her to the Castle of Wolves, the servants or whoever remains would not be so quick to cast her out, which gives us time.”
Aldor made no mention that they’d escaped him weeks ago. He had to trust Xel’voth’s guidance that Gwendolyn Moore still remained at the vampire’s keep.
Nestra moved to the center of the room, dagger in hand. Her long blonde hair was woven up into the silver gem-encrusted diadem she wore. Her cream dress cascaded down her tall slender form, exposing her bare back.
Tendrils of her magick slipped away from him, and Aldor let out a breath of silent relief. It had worked. Xel’voth’s plan had actually worked.
“It is good you’ve returned,” she told Aldor as she placed the knife back into the box she’d first retrieved it from. “The king is plotting to remove me. We must act swiftly.”
His chest tightened at the news, a thrum of dread coursing through his blood. If Thurin was planning to remove Nestra as High Priestess, the delicate situation in Court had escalated quickly in the time he’d kept himself locked away.
“I will do whatever you require,” he offered.
“You will kill Marcus,” she told him. “Then I will take care of the king. When it is done, we will find the Star. Once we have the Star, the Court will fall in line, and the people will finally have their true queen.”
Nestra slid toward Aldor, and his eyes fell to the floor. She brushed his cheek with her palm. “Can you not feel how my powers have grown?” she asked him in that sweet voice of hers that made his skin shudder.
He could, and it frightened him. “Yes,” he breathed.
Aldor had noticed the paladins were more timid than usual. That none lingered in the halls as they usually would. Even her most devout followers seemed to cower under her growing power. Xel’voth may have been right in his guidance, but Aldor believed him wrong in underestimating his mistress. She was power. He felt it in his bones.
“Thurin is a fool, like his father,” she said, her voice growing dark but staying sweet. “The Light chose me. It is only by my grace that his tainted line has held the throne this long, but they will soon see. With the Star, no one will ever question me again. No one will question Strye or the Temple again. All who dare to will wither under what I am to become.”
She brushed his cheek with her fingers. “Only the most loyal will be allowed by my side.” Aldor swallowed, his eyes still locked on the marble floor. He was too afraid to look into her face. “Are you my most loyal servant, Aldor?”
“Yes, Mistress,” he stammered.
He heard her take in a breath and let it out. “We shall see,” she replied coldly.
The shift was sudden. Aldor knew he was as good as dead the moment it happened. He fell to his hands and knees, blinded by the pain. As if claws had buried themselves into his mind. He struggled to breathe.
“You’re strong, Aldor. Stronger than most. It’s why I chose you over one of my own paladins, but I fear you forget your place.”
The black grip dug deeper into his skull. He slumped to the ground, his face mere inches from the cold floor. “Please.” He pleaded for her mercy through the pain. “I am?—”
“Yes,” she agreed. “You are mine.”
Aldor dragged himself closer until his fingers touched the edge of her skirts. “I am yours,” he repeated.
The bitter truth was that until he could win back his soul, Aldor would fear death above all things. That fear was his true mistress. At that moment, he would’ve said or done anything not to die.
The High Mother stepped away from him. “I will confirm that the Star is being held in the Castle of Wolves,” she said.
The blinding pain became so much he could feel nothing, could see nothing but black. “It is,” he gasped. “I swear.” Xel was never wrong.
“Stand,” she ordered. The claws in his mind vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. His vision returned. Shaking, Aldor hauled himself up off the ground and stood, the echoes of pain cascading through his body as he panted before her.
“I am chosen,” she declared, her voice laced with darkness. “The Star will soon be mine, and they will all regret ever standing in my way. Now come.” She stepped toward the door, her skirts rustling as she went. “There’s work to be done.”
Xel’s words lingered as Nestra walked ahead. Your mistress knows what you are. You are only good to her as you are. She will never give you what you desire.
For years, he’d followed her blindly. Grateful that a creature as blessed as she had found him, chosen him, helped him. He’d believed Nestra to be chosen by the Goddess herself. He’d believed that only with the Star could she reunite him with his soul.
As Aldor followed her, watching the edge of her dress sway along the floor, he felt the suffocating grip of fear and disappointment. The Light within her had long been dimming, but his desperation had blinded him.
Watch her.
Aldor lifted his eyes and watched the back of her blonde head. His heart hardened as he did. For the first time in decades, he saw her clearly. Saw the shadow that shrouded her essence.
He’d sensed a similar darkness in only one other creature before—and it was trapped within a mirror.
Perhaps he was a puppet and a dog, but Aldor was also now aware.
The desperate may seek a way to survive, but only the most cunning see opportunity at the apex of destruction.
Now he was watching. And he would do what he must to protect himself.