51. Chapter 51
Chapter fifty-one
“Well, I must say,” a snide voice crooned from the doorway. “That was quite entertaining.”
I looked up from where I knelt at my father’s corpse.
A stocky male on the tail end of middle age with close-cropped black hair emerged from the dark of the stairwell. His sneer oozed arrogance, and I would have dismissed him as nothing more than a courtier who wondered upstairs if it wasn’t for his eyes.
Pale blue with gold-ringed irises.
My father’s eyes.
My eyes.
“And you are?” I asked warily. He didn’t seem to be the slightest bit bothered that my father’s blood coated my hand and flames covered the rest of me.
“Do you not recognize me, Raynella?” he asked, taking a step closer. His eyes scanned my body, taking in my flaming dress then dismissing my power as if it was no concern to him.
There was something about him that felt so familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “I’ve never seen you before.” As I spoke the words, it dawned on me that the male in front of me was speaking English.
The confidence with which he sauntered toward us set me on edge. The king was dead at my feet, and this male seemed completely unbothered or even surprised.
The stranger halted two steps shy of me, and I rose to my feet with Sin by my side, my anger with him temporarily delayed while I assessed the potential new threat.
“Belarius,” the male said simply. “My name is Belarius. And you do know me, Raynella.”
I scoffed. “That’s not possible. My grandfather is a sweet older male. I met him a few days ago.”
Had it really only been a few days? It felt like a lifetime ago.
The sneer on his face grew wider, the dreadful smile stretching ear to ear.
“Tell me, Raynella,” he said smugly. “What exactly do you recall about your conversation with your dear old grandpa?”
I thought back to the day I followed a random yummy smell into a small study. I pictured my grandfather: frail, gray hair, a face full of wrinkles.
“He was older, very old. And kind,” I said defiantly.
“No, Raynella. Tell me what you spoke about.”
I hesitated, racking my brain. “We had a nice chat. It was nice.”
“Specifics, Raynella,” he pressed. “What specifically did you talk about? Name one thing. Just one.”
Sweat began to bead on my forehead, and I struggled to maintain my grip on the flames that coated my naked body. “I… we…. It was nice.” I searched for snippets of our interaction, but the details were fuzzy, slipping from my mental fingers before they could solidify. “There was… food, I think. He gave me his meal, and he was… nice. So nice.” My knees shook under the strain, and I unconsciously placed a hand on Sin’s shoulder for support.
“Stop it,” Sin pleaded with Belarius. “Just let us go. We can leave, and you’ll never see us again. We won’t tell anyone.”
Why was Sin begging? Sin didn’t beg. And why did my head hurt so bad?
“I am afraid that was never an option, Dreisin. For her anyway.” He took another step closer to me, secured my gaze with his piercing blue eyes and said, “Remember.”
My head exploded as the memory of our first meeting came rushing back in, false memories overlapping real ones, and I struggled to separate them.
“Hello?” I called out, pushing the door open.
“Come in, Raynella,” a smooth male voice answered in English.
I stepped into the small room, and my eyes scanned the furnishings before I noticed a male seated in a large cushy chair with a plate of food near him. He appeared to be pushing fifty based on the creases around his eyes, but his short hair was still a strong shade of black. What caught my attention the most, though, were his eyes. I would recognize that pale blue color anywhere, and the golden sunburst around the pupil just confirmed it—whoever this guy was, we were definitely related.
He gestured to the chair beside him, and I sat, eyeing his plate of food with thinly-veiled desire.
“I am sure the kitchen will make you something should you wish, Raynella, but please do refrain from ogling my lunch.” He took a bite and chewed it deliberately as he evaluated me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, embarrassed. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I smelled this from the next hallway over.”
The male frowned and settled back into the chair, watching me with disappointment in his eyes. “You are Vitaean, Raynella. Our senses are somewhat heightened when compared to those of humans. Have you learned nothing in your time here?”
I sank into myself a little. He wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t learned anything. If I was half-Vitaean, then I really needed to figure out exactly what that meant. I would ask Dey the next time I saw him. Whatever it took, I would get a straight answer about who and what I was exactly.
“So how do you know English?” I asked, wiping a slight bit of drool from the corner of my mouth. I was so hungry, it was killing me.
I saw him cringe slightly at the action, so I quickly folded my hands in my lap.
“The same way the others do, Corym gave me the knowledge,” he replied, dismissively.
“Oh,” I said, my face wrinkling in confusion. “I was told I already met everyone who could speak English. ”
“Ah, yes, well, I took it upon myself to make the request of Corym shortly after you arrived,” he said, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Naturally, I wanted to be able to understand everything you said. You are very important to my plans, Raynella. I would not allow something so simple as a language barrier to derail them. ”
“Oh, um, what plans, exactly? Are you talking about the ley lines?”
“Something like that. Not that you need to know. ”
Okay, this conversation wasn’t going the way I would have hoped.
I leaned back in my chair. “So, I’m guessing you’re like my grandpa then? The eyes kind of gave it away.”
“So observant you are, Raynella,” he replied, sarcasm dripping from his words. “And yes, I am your father’s sire. I have actually been looking forward to meeting you.”
“Uh, yeah. Likewise,” I said, a bit subdued. “So what do I call you? Grandpa? Grandfather? Gramps?”
“You may call me Belarius,” he replied harshly, as if the idea of me calling him Gramps was highly insulting.
“Belarius it is then. So how come I haven’t seen you before now?” I asked, changing the subject.
“It is necessary that I remain in the shadows. For now anyways.”
“Oh,” I said, unsure how else to respond. “So if you’re Verren’s father, and he's over a hundred does that mean you're like two hundred or… ?”
He laughed condescendingly. “Oh my, you really do know nothing of Vitaeans.”
I frowned. “You know, you don’t have to be so rude. This is all kind of new to me.”
So much for having a nice old grandfather. I stood and moved toward the door. “I’ll leave you to your meal, I guess.”
He rose from his own chair, and when I turned back around he was only a foot away, his eyes searching mine.
“Well, this was enlightening. I was beginning to worry that you might become a problem like your mother was, but you really are little more than an ignorant human. How sad for you. To know so little. You are the perfect puppet, Raynella. You will do everything I need you to, and you will believe the entire time that you are making your own decisions.”
I opened my mouth to ask who the hell he thought he was to speak to me like that, but he cut me off.
Capturing my eyes with his intense gaze, he commanded, “Be quiet, Raynella. When you think back on this conversation you will only remember that you had a nice chat with a doddering old fool. Nothing more. Now go. I do not wish to look at you any longer.”
I gave him a wide smile then left, feeling lighter than I had in a while. It was nice to have a grandfather, someone who liked me for me. I wasn’t the savior with him, I was just his granddaughter.
It was all so… nice.
I gaped at the male standing before me. Belarius, my grandfather. The man behind the curtain.
Oh, God. Sin had tried to warn me as best he could, but I never saw it. I was so convinced it was all my father.
“You’re the one compelling everyone,” I said slowly as everything clicked into place—why my father was so hot and cold, one minute loving and caring and the next manipulative and vindictive.
“Oh, look. Perhaps you are not as feebleminded as I thought,” Belarius sneered.
My mind fought with the knowledge, turning it over and over like a rubix cube, trying to understand it all. “But why not just compel me to do whatever you wanted?” I asked. “Why did you have to hurt everyone else?”
“Compulsion on humans is tricky,” Belarius admitted. “Too much and they, well, they crack under the pressure. Being half-human I assumed you could handle one or two instances, but I could not risk anything more. I have no use for a vegetable. I must confess, though, I have also enjoyed the game—nudging people in just the right direction to get you where I wanted without too much suspicion.” Belarius smoothed his hair back in an arrogant gesture. “It is an artform, truly.”
At the mention of other people, I briefly glanced over at Sin, noting the drops of water that flecked up from the rooftop to coalesce around his wrist. I snapped my focus back to Belarius, but it was too late.
His eyes tracked mine, catching Sin's planned attack.
In a flash, Sin thrust his arm out, and the water formed into a noose that he whipped toward Belarius’ neck.
Not even the greatest aquiservian in Rivella could be faster than the sound of words, though.
His entire body froze in place when Belarius barked, “Halt.”
Sin halted, the water whip hanging limply by his side.
“Drop the water.”
The water sloughed off Sin’s hand and pooled at his feet.
“Now be a good lad, and go stand by the back wall until I say otherwise. I am having a conversation with my granddaughter and could do without these interruptions.”
Sin marched robotically across the roof to stand as still as a statue by the castle parapet—all of his passion and intensity stuffed deep inside behind the obedient facade.
“How are you doing all of this?” I demanded once I was able to tear my eyes away from my ensnared lover. “I thought compulsion was forbidden?”
Belarius’ lip curled up in a nasty grin. “Of course it is, but I was blessed with a weak father who could not bring himself to kill his only son. It was quite easy to hide, you know. Nobody questions the king's powers, after all. Look how easily my son managed to fool you.”
I clenched my fists at my side. “That’s not fair. How could I even tell his magic was an illusion?”
The laugh Belarius let out made my skin crawl.
“That is not all he fooled you with. Look again, Raynella.”
I studied the bloody, blackened body at my feet. Most of his chest was little more than ash and burnt tissue but there… on the edges. The ramentum that had covered his chest were gone and that which remained barely reached his shoulders.
“Secunnario,” I said quietly. Even his tattoos were an illusion.
“And a weak one at that,” Belarius sneered, disgust lacing his voice. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was when he never manifested his third power? And his healing magic? Pitiful. Since his only real skill was illusion, I decided that I would use it to my advantage. Clearly he would never carry on my powerful legacy, so when my time came to abdicate the throne… well, let us say I took measures to sustain my good works. I have always been around, Raynella, hidden from sight by the veil of Verren’s illusions. Whispering instructions in my son’s ear. He was so weak-willed that controlling him took next to no effort at all.”
He knelt in front of my father’s body, shaking his head. “Did you know he allowed the plague to spread? Allowed his own family to succumb to it when all he needed to do was kill every human. A simple solution really.”
Belarius plucked a garish ring with the Diamond Court crest from Verren’s hand, slid it onto his finger, and stood up. “He would not do it, though. It was the only compulsion he ever managed to successfully fight off. I thought perhaps I could break him down over time, but then Leeara came along.”
The disdain in Belarius’ voice when he spoke of his son was nothing compared to the venom for my mother. It was all I could do to reel in my anger and not blast him off the roof. The flames of my dress flickered, and I could feel my fire begging to be unleashed, but if Sin was no match for his compulsion, what could I do?
“I spent decades searching for the silver-haired female to fulfill the prophecy,” Belarius continued casually as if all this was merely a mild disruption to his evening. “I had so hoped you would be my daughter so I could mold you from birth to do exactly what I needed. Imagine my surprise when it was my son who found her. And imagine my horror when he fell in love with her. A human.” He spat the word as if he were talking about something truly vile and disgusting.
“Your father begged me to abandon the prophecy because he could not stand to let his precious baby girl die for my agenda. Pathetic, really. To place an infant above the future of his kingdom. Annoyingly, I did not realize until too late that your mother had been listening at the door. Nasty trait, eavesdropping. So very human.”
Talons sprouted from my fingers, curling into sharp spikes of white hot flame. “That was the conversation that made her flee,” I growled. “You ordered Sin to chase her into the woods. You're the reason she’s dead.”
“When I learned she had disappeared with you, of course I immediately sent my best assassin to retrieve her. Surely Sin has told you about all he has done for me over the years?” He smiled maliciously, absently picking at a bit of dirt under his fingernail as if he hadn’t just dropped a huge bomb. “Did you know your father tried to stop me from compelling Sin that night? He failed, naturally, but oh how he fought, his love for you and your mother was so great. Such a shame you murdered him in cold blood.”
His accusation hit me so hard I barely registered anything else.
I murdered him.
I murdered my father.
Every hint of the fire I had so painstakingly summoned vanished in an instant, his words like ice water crashing over my soul. I dropped to my knees, ignoring the pain as they smashed into the hard stone.
I focused on my father’s body then, really seeing what I had done. The blood congealing around the pin I had stabbed into his neck. The bits of his chest that flaked and blew away on the wind. The charred bit of sternum that showed through the burnt mess of blood and gore.
I had done that. I had plunged my flaming hands into his chest because I had wanted him to suffer like my mother suffered. And his last words to me were that he loved me.
He was innocent, and I tortured him to death.
I was the real monster.
My fire tried to flare to life around me once more, but my anger was smothered under the torment of what I’d done. I was an empty vessel, lacking fuel for my rage. The only thing that poured into me now was despair.
My mother sacrificed herself for nothing.
My father was dead at my hand.
I viciously attacked Sin, the only male I might have ever loved because I wasn’t smart enough to see that he was being compelled.
I had nothing and no one left. Nobody was coming to save me. Not this time.
I collapsed forward, lying naked on the cold stone. Deeper and deeper, I sank into the abyss of my pain. It surrounded me. Burrowed into my very soul, and I didn’t even try to fight back because I deserved it.
I deserved all of it.
The poverty growing up. The abuse, physical and emotional. The anxiety attacks that prevented me from ever becoming anything more than a fast food cashier.
It slammed into me—this knowledge that I was a complete waste of space in this universe or any other. I was born for the sole purpose of dying to fulfill a prophecy. My death was all I had to offer.
When I felt like I could sink no lower, when the depths of my suffering could go no further, something caressed my mind.
It was gentle at first—a light questioning touch, asking for permission to enter. I had nothing left to lose so I opened myself up and let it flood into me.
Power. Magic.
It didn’t burn this time—the manifestation. Didn’t consume me the way the fire had. It just coated my mind and body in a soothing harmony, nestling under my skin like a sleeping cat’s soft purr.
My mental power.
I instantly knew what it did, as if it had always been a part of me waiting to be awoken. I knew now what I was capable of.
I would not be controlled and compelled like a puppet. I was Rain Motherfucking Solis. I survived more in my twenty-five years than any person should have to endure in a lifetime, and I was still here.
I rose to my feet, summoning back all the rage and fury I thought I had lost. My flames exploded across my skin in a flash of brilliant red-gold light. A slight prickling on my arms drew my attention, and I watched as elegant new black and purple swirls weaved themselves into the edges of my ramentum then spread across my skin from my elbows up to my shoulders.
I faced the male responsible for nearly every bad thing that happened to me.
And I smiled.
He scoffed in response. “Oh, Raynella, what exactly do you think you can do against me?”
“You’re about to find out,” I growled as my flaming talons burst out once more, demanding that I rake and claw his flesh. I would tear him apart for what he did to my family.
“You do not understand, do you?” he said smugly, then focused on my eyes. His voice rich and full of bravado, he commanded, “Drop your fire.”
The flames flared brighter, and my smile morphed into something that felt almost evil.
His eyes flicked around, confused, before he focused on me once more. “Stop where you are.”
I took a step closer.
He backed up, fear finally sparking to life on his once smug face. He furrowed his brow and said, louder this time, “Raynella, you will release your fire and stand quietly without moving.”
“What was it you said?” I asked mockingly, “Oh right. You do not understand, do you?” I lifted one flaming hand to my face and made a show of inspecting my fiery talons, letting him see in my eyes exactly what I was going to do to him. “You don’t control me anymore, Gramps.”
“You're a vitiate,” he breathed out with equal parts horror and awe.
“If that means that I’m immune to mental powers, then yes, I do believe I am a vitiate. Looks like this ignorant human is more than you expected.”
His fear morphed into anger before sliding into something worse—arrogance. “You are forgetting one thing, Raynella. You may be a vitiate, but Dreisin is not.”
My eyes widened and shot over to Sin still standing by the wall, completely unmoving, fully entrapped by Belarius’ compulsion.
“Dreisin,” Belarius called out. “Climb up onto the parapet.”
To my horror, Sin obeyed. I gasped and lunged forward as he teetered slightly before catching his balance.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “You have no reason to hurt him.”
“I have every reason to hurt him!” Belarius snarled. “Do you have any idea how much effort I put into constructing my perfect plan for you? How many compulsions I put into place? Dey seducing you so love would make you compliant to anything I had him ask. Camden and Ramset taking you into Civi Adasa with that damn shroud on to an area where I knew some of the more fanatical court members would be. Your father holding off saving you until the brink of death as I assumed that a vicious beating would keep you inside the castle. Corym witholding the language so you would never learn anything I didn’t want you to learn. And Josira, well, she was the lynchpin.”
A sickening feeling settled into the pit of my stomach.
“I compelled her to become your friend and report to me everything she observed. So you see, Raynella, I have been moving the pieces around the board since before you were even born. The only thing I never saw coming was your love for him.” He jerked his chin at Sin. “He ruined everything. Every one of my carefully laid out plans was destroyed because he did everything in his power to fight my compulsion and help you.”
As he spoke, he moved leisurely over toward Sin. “Remove your jacket and vest,” he ordered.
Sin complied, robotically removing his clothing, and it killed me to see him so helpless.
Belarius twirled his finger. “Now turn around.” Sin did, giving us a perfect view of his scarred back and the faintest hints of black ramentum beginning to reappear.
“I always suspected, you know,” Belarius said, turning back to me. “...that my abilities didn’t work on him quite as well as they should. I only just realized that it was his concealed illusion power mucking things up. Two mental casters with the same ability tend to cancel each other out, so he saw right through the veil of Verren’s illusion. Every time I gave him an order, I compelled him to forget about me, but then he would see me, whispering in Verren’s ear, and I imagine he realized things were more than they seemed. If he had been a little stronger he might have been able to break my compulsion all together.” Belarius glanced back to Sin, an evil smile spreading across his face. “But I don’t think he entirely wanted to, did you, Dreisin? You didn’t want her to know about all the awful things you’ve done.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” I said, the love I felt for Sin flooding back into my heart. “You forced him to do all of it.”
Belarius let out a sinister chuckle. “You know nothing, Raynella. You have no idea what he is capable of. His powerful magic isn’t the only reason I’ve kept him around this long, but I find myself in need of a new plan. My son served his final purpose well enough. He got the other kings alone in a room with me, so I don’t even mind that you killed him. Saves me the effort. You, however, are still very much pivotal to my end goal.”
I struggled to wrap my brain around Belarius' words. “Why do you even want me to restore the ley lines? I can’t imagine you actually want to see the people of Rivella have access to their magic again.”
He chuckled, and the hideous sound sent a cold, ominous feeling creeping down my spine. “Now when did I ever say that I wanted you to restore the ley lines?”
I blinked. “What else could you possibly need from me?”
“You didn’t think I was going to tell you everything, did you? I have plans for the Onyx Palace, but you don’t don’t need to worry about that. Right now, all I want is for you to do exactly as I say.” He swept his hand toward Sin, and a gust of air magic lifted him from the edge of the wall to hold him out over the thousand-foot drop.
“No!” I screamed, rushing toward him.
“Stop, Raynella, or I will let Dreisin fall.”
Fear locked my feet in place. “Don’t hurt him,” I begged, staring into Sin’s sorrow-filled eyes. There was such resignation in them, as if he knew he wouldn’t survive this.
All he ever did was love me and try to help me as best he could despite the compulsion. Telling me to visit the Laneum at night which led to finding Corym and receiving the language. Taking me to Yanda to learn the truth about my mother. Telling me to look for the man behind the curtain. He did it all to prevent this from happening, and I had treated him like he was no better than the monster in front of me.
I couldn’t let him die.
“I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt him.”
“Now there’s a good girl. Let us start by dropping your flames.”
It killed me inside, but I let nearly every ounce of fire slip back inside me, save for thin strips around my breasts and waist. I would not stand naked in front of him. I didn’t have much left, but I had my dignity.
He frowned slightly at the remaining flames as if judging whether or not they might be a threat. Ultimately, he let it go. “Now I would like you to go over to the stairwell and scream for help. Loudly, please. Let the guards at the base of the stairs know the king has been murdered. That should bring them running.”
I grit my teeth and, for a brief second, wondered if I was strong enough to save Sin.
“Do not bother, Raynella,” Belarius chided as if reading my mind. “Should you attack me, my concentration might lapse. I would hate for Dreisin here to meet an untimely end. Now do as I say.”
Seeing no other option, I walked over to the stairwell, took a few steps down and shouted loudly in Rivellan, “HELP! PLEASE HELP! THE KING IS DEAD!” I kept up the litany until I heard the clomping of boots echoing up the stairs.
My throat raw from screaming, I walked back over to Belarius. “I did what you asked. Now let him go.”
Belarius gave me a wicked smile, and my heart ceased beating.
“Whatever the princess desires.”
He flicked his wrist.
It was just the slightest little motion. Inconsequential really. Barely noticeable. And yet it was all he needed to rip my universe apart.
My eyes connected with Sin’s as the cage of air holding him vanished.
“I love you,” he mouthed.
I lunged forward, but there was nothing I could do.
Sin didn’t even scream as he plummeted a thousand feet to his death at the hands of jagged rocks and an unforgiving sea.