Chapter 43 #2
Isera and Orion, who are currently glamoured to look like the Icehearts, remain where they are while Alistair and I close the final distance to them.
While the rest of us were scouting out taverns and threatening people, Orion and Isera went off on their own to visit Nysara, Orion’s spy here in Frostfell.
Thankfully, they managed not to kill each other long enough for Nysara to use her magic to glamour them.
“All the guards left the moment we showed up and commanded them to fly out to defend the city,” Orion says in Bane’s voice.
“All except one,” Isera adds, and annoyance flits across her, or rather Jessina’s, face. “He must have been ordered not to let anyone inside.”
Following her gaze, I look towards the doors to the white stone library. A single dragon shifter, dressed in silver armor, is standing resolutely in front of the doors. No, not standing. I narrow my eyes as I study his left wrist. He has handcuffed himself to the left door handle.
“We’ve tried to break the door down,” Isera continues.
“And break him,” Orion adds.
“But we can’t get it open, and he isn’t budging,” she finishes.
Alarm shoots up my spine as I stare between the two of them. “He won’t open the door? Even for you, glamoured as the Icehearts?”
“No.”
“Shit,” I curse. Ice washes through my veins as realization hits.
“They must have anticipated this. Of course they wouldn’t leave her unprotected.
They’re way too smart for that. There must be some kind of special code word or passphrase that they use to make sure that only they can get him to open the door.
” I snap my gaze to Orion. “Can’t you find it in his head? ”
“I can’t read people’s minds,” he replies. “I can only see bad memories, remember?”
Tension crackles through me as that sudden stress returns with a vengeance.
If we can’t get Lavendera soon, Draven, Lyra, and Galen are going to be forced to fight the entire might of the Silver Clan.
If we wait too long to leave, the Silver Clan is going to realize that no dragon clans are coming and return to the city, and then Draven and the others will be forced to shift in order to buy us time to get out. They will get swarmed.
Panic pulses through me.
I can’t let that happen.
“He has a lot of memories of being tortured,” Orion continues.
“And I mean a lot. Too many for me to even sift through.” He shifts his gaze to me, holding it with serious eyes.
“It’s all done by the Icehearts, though.
So he has obviously been thoroughly trained to withstand torture. We won’t be able to break him in time.”
A snarl of rage and panic rips from my chest. I am so fucking tired of being outplayed by the Icehearts! Why do they always have to think five steps ahead?
“We are getting through that door,” I declare. That endless rage burns through me as I stalk forward, my furious eyes locked on the guard who is putting Draven’s life at risk. “He is opening that fucking door right now.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Orion says as he and the others scramble after me. “He has been trained to withstand torture.”
“It won’t matter,” Alistair replies, a knowing smile suddenly sliding across his lips. “I don’t call her Soulstealer for nothing.”
I come to a halt in front of the stubborn guard, my friends flanking me on both sides. He raises his chin and glares back at us all defiantly. Impatience crackles inside me like bolts of lightning. Every second we waste is another second that brings Draven closer to danger.
Those awful memories of when he was swarmed by dragons in the sky above Rin’s floating islands flash through my mind.
Memories of dragons who tore at his wings and clamped their jaws through his side.
I am not letting that happen again. Draven has protected me for so long.
It’s time that I start protecting him. I don’t care what kind of villain I need to become. I will protect him.
Summoning my magic, I visualize a massive bone white flame of fear before me.
“Open the door,” I order the guard.
He just stares back at me, his chin raised stubbornly.
I slam the flame of fear into his chest.
His eyes widen, and a shuddering breath rips from his lungs.
Pleasure floods my entire body as I increase that flame into a wildfire. That wonderful warm and sparkly feeling drowns out the panic and the stress and the anger about yet again being two steps behind the Icehearts. It soothes all of my fears, all of my insecurities, and all of my sorrows.
I keep increasing the strength of my magic until the guard’s knees start shaking.
“Open the door,” I demand.
His face is white with fear as he stares back at me, but he still doesn’t open the door.
More, more, more, my soul urges.
Leaving the wildfire of fear in his chest, I cut off the flow of my magic. Harsh coldness, full of panic and fury and regret, crashes over me. The sudden change is so violent that I almost stumble back a step.
While blinking to clear my head, I summon a black flame of despair and shove it straight into the guard’s chest.
That wonderful pleasure floods me again, and I draw in a breath of relief.
Fear alone apparently isn’t working. Probably because he has been trained so well in withstanding torture.
Part of that training must involve the ability to ignore fear, after all.
But one thing he can’t protect himself from is hopelessness.
It doesn’t matter how strong-willed he really is.
If I change the entire core of his personality into someone who feels that everything is hopeless, there will be no reason for him to keep resisting.
Increasing the strength of my magic, I shove it down the connection and straight into his chest until that black flame of despair is so massive that he breaks down in hopeless sobs on the ground.
His hand is still handcuffed to the left door handle, so it juts up at an awkward angle, but he doesn’t even seem to notice it. All hope, all light, all the defiance and resistance bleed from his eyes as he kneels there on the ground before me and stares up at me, his gaze full of fear and despair.
Power thrums inside me.
I am a fucking god.
With this power, I could lay the world at my feet.
Part of me wants to. Desperately. I have to be careful of that. I refuse to become a new Jessina Iceheart. I don’t want to rule the world. I just want freedom. And revenge.
“Open the door,” I command.
His head slumps forward in defeat as the endless despair drowns his entire soul and breaks all resistance.
There is no protection against my magic.
He would rather have died in pain than open this door.
He would never have lost hope on his own.
But none of that matters in the face of my power.
I can simply change him until he becomes who I need him to be.
Someone who is overwhelmed by despair and who considers all resistance pointless.
Hopelessness clings to his entire body as I pour my magic into him until I break his will completely. A cry of despair rips from his lungs.
Twisting on his knees, he places his palm against the door and murmurs something under his breath.
A pulse shoots through the air.
I stagger back from the force of it as the shockwave hits me straight in the chest.
It stuns me enough that I lose the grip on my magic.
Cold regret and burning rage rush in to fill the void.
Again, my mind urges me. Do it again.
Gritting my teeth, I drag in a controlled breath while forcing myself to ignore the urge. The more I use my power to create emotions from nothing, the more I want to keep using it.
On the ground, the guard lets out a long whimper of despair. “No. No. No. He’s going to kill me.”
I flick a glance down at him, but before I can put him out of his misery, Isera grabs the side of the door that the guard isn’t currently handcuffed to.
Then she yanks it open.