Chapter 38 The Ruin of House Black
Down came the dusk on the great house’s bones,
No mourners, no tomb, no gilded headstones.
Only silence, and water, and ruin below—
Where traitors lie, and none dare go.
— Anonymous engraving on the archway to Helgate’s Underworld
Another day passes—I think. I don’t know.
It’s relentlessly dark and cold. My head pounds from where Lorn hit me, and I’m half delirious from pain and thirst. Neither Harlow nor Rowan come to see me again.
Good. I don’t think I could stomach it, Harlow’s gloating, Rowan’s tears and weak apologies.
It would be better to die here, alone, but at some measure of peace with it all.
Drip. Drip. Nothing but darkness and falling water. My head lulls; I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last. My lids are heavy again. I sleep.
And then there’s shouts, a barren creaking sound above, that grinding metal.
How long had I been gone for?
Lamplight ravages my vision and the studded echo of boot falls on ladder rungs follow.
Harlow lands hard on the ground before clambering to his feet to light the sconces.
The cave fills with flickering orange, illuminating his ghostly scarred face.
Rowan and Cyprian and two others who drop close behind.
“Fuck!” Harlow snarls, kicking a crate so that it smashes into the stone; wood scatters across the damp lichen slick floor. “You said his powers were bound, Cyprian! What the fuck was that?”
A pounding, a roaring, beats overhead. The groan of the metal door. The fury of a god.
Rowan whimpers softly.
“I didn’t fucking know! The runes on his arms are supposed to bind him! That’s what he told us.” Cyprian steps into the light, face bruised, bloody, beaten, almost unrecognizable. “He knew I betrayed him, Harlow.”
“And you led him straight to us, you simple fuck.”
My satisfaction runs marrow deep. I’m surprised Cyprian can speak with his face so swollen and beaten.
I manage a chuckle, though every part of me aches. I can’t believe I have the will, but it feels so good. “You’re all thoroughly fucked.” Unfortunately, it’s still agony to speak.
Harlow turns sharply, expression drawn and wolfish.
He grabs Rowan’s arm, gives her what looks like a painful shake.
“You know the ancient way of the gods, you’ve studied it.
Shut her up and start warding the room. Cyprian, help her.
Once he gets in he’ll be powerless. And he won’t risk her life—” he gestures at me, “by doing anything stupid. You said yourself he’s delirious about her. Transfixed.”
My heart stutters. Transfixed?
Despite it all, Harlow catches the surprise before I can mask it and sneers. “Should have stayed where you were, Little Fury. Cyprian here tells me this pirate god is ready to risk it all for you, even after you ran out on him.”
Can I really go on trying to deny it? That Rhyland…cares enough to find me.
Or to find his stolen crown piece. The dark thought is a plague I cannot shake. How can I accept it, even after everything? He stole parts of my magick from me. He knew about my deal with Harial all along. How can truth be picked from the lies when it’s all woven together so entirely?
Before I can say a single word, Rowan is behind me. Something slips into my mouth—a cloth, a gag—and she binds it tight.
“I’m sorry.” She says it so softly I can hardly hear the words at all, and then scurries away to begin the wards.
Why does it all make sense now? I remember the accusation one of the Mother’s Three had ladled her with, the night she saved me from the magistrate.
She’d called Rowan’s mother a volva. A witch.
I’d never given it much thought at all. Never considered the things she might’ve taught Rowan before she died.
Harlow’s hand rises to pinch the bridge of his nose like there’s a pounding headache behind his eyes before he turns toward the traitors. “We’ll have to kill him. It’s our best bet. Only matter is how. How much godsbane do you have on you?”
Cyprian’s busy drawing runes on the wall with a stick of charcoal under Rowan’s careful instruction. She catches my eyes, briefly, and looks away just as quick.
“I swiped a handful on that isle. It’s potent. I stabbed him in the harbor but missed his heart and lost my blade. Need to lace a new one. Not sure how we’ll manage to get him again— was a lucky shot.” Every word looks painful out of his swollen lips.
Good. But my heart seizes that Rhyland has already been stabbed, felt the godsbane.
Harlow unsheathes a short blade and hands it to him.
“Just leave that to me. I'll distract him. You lace this dagger then attack when he’s vulnerable.” Harlow jerks a torch off the wall and trudges over to me.
The chains I dangle from are linked around a pulley system mounted to the side of the cave.
One he can tug to lower or raise me. With his free hand he pulls.
I let out a groan as my shoulder sockets strain under the weight of gravity, lifted higher and higher off the floor. When I’m at the height he wants me, he secures the chain and I’m left swinging and aching anew.
More pounding comes from above. There’s a sharp crash as the metal door is ripped from its hinges.
Rhyland doesn’t climb down but rather jumps, and the air flows in a torrent around him.
When his boots slam into the cave floor the ground quakes.
Power bleeds off of him, brilliant golden sunlight shining out from his bared arms, his eyes, every inch of his skin.
Land razer, war bringer. His dark hair shifts over his forehead.
The sword caught in his hand glints, already coated in deep crimson from whoever stood in his way in the warehouse above.
He’s beautiful and terrifying all at once.
“BLACK,” he roars.
I’ve never seen him so angry, even during the storm when he bayed at his father. He’s a man possessed.
“Rhyland, wait!” I try to choke the words out around the gag, but not soon enough. He takes one step forward as Rowan finishes the rune on the wall. They all glow a sharp scarlet and at once Rhyland’s light is extinguished.
A trap, sloppily laid, but effective nonetheless.
Harlow makes a noise of relief. “Don’t you fucking move, pirate scum.” His murky eyes flit between Rhyland and me. “Drop your blade, now.”
Rhyland doesn’t. “You will return my wife or you will pray for the oblivion of the deepest trench in Eld?heim.
I will unmake every stone of this city to bury you with, and when I do, you will know what true fear tastes like.
How slowly, beautifully, a mortal body can be crushed until nothing but dust remains. "
With or without his power, he only appears more angry. A coiled storm set across the horizon. He takes another step, then another, gaze fixed on Harlow. The air crackles with a challenge.
Harlow pales, but when he doesn’t comply with the demand, Rhyland lurches forward again. One of the two guards moves to stop him, but he drives his cutlass straight through their chest and twists, speckling blood over his sharp cheeks and the cave floor.
There’s a sickening, wet sound when he draws it back out. The guard falls; his dying gurgles fill the cavern. And for a short lived moment I feel hope—hope that there’s a way through this that ends in Harlow bloodless and cold once and for all.
I should have killed him. Why? Why didn't I kill him?
But then a pain like nothing I’ve ever known licks the bottom of my feet. I scream and stare down to see Harlow holding the torch beneath them. Not close enough to catch my skin on fire but enough to sear the flesh.
I scream and scream again, trying to pull my legs up. To curl into myself away from the angry tendrils of flame. But my legs are so weak it’s near impossible to hold them up for more than a minute.
The sound stops Rhyland in his tracks, though he looks murderous. Our second guard friend dares to step in front of him, despite the fate of his skewered counterpart, holding a shaking blade out between them.
“Enough,” Rhyland roars.
“Drop. Your. Sword,” Harlow hisses.
“Don’t!” I try to cry out around the gag.
Rhyland takes another menacing step, not one to give in, and though the pain is mind bending I’m glad for it. He will not be intimidated. Not be stopped.
“Black,” the second guard gives a pathetic cry of surprise, shaking so hard I’m surprised his blade hasn’t slipped from his fingers. Rhyland moves so that the point presses into his chest, but it doesn’t cut the flesh. It can’t pierce him.
The flame licks my feet in earnest, but Harlow must realize that it isn’t enough. The pirate can fix ruined flesh easily enough.
Rhyland grabs hold of the sword blade, clenching tight before twisting it so the guard is forced to let go. He throws it aside and the man cowers back immediately, leaving the path clear for the pirate to advance.
Harlow panics, and to my relief, drops the torch but withdraws a pistol from his belt and aims it straight at my chest.
“One more step and I blow a hole through her.” There’s no bluff in his voice. In fact, I know he’ll do it. Harlow is a spiteful creature. If he can’t have me, no one will. “You and I both know you cannot bring back the dead. Drop your blade.”
There is a seething rage in Rhyland’s midnight gaze but, his eyes cut to me, calculating, assessing every injury. The burn of fury flickers to concern. A heartbeat later his weapon clatters onto the cave floor.
My vision, which had gone dark and murky, starts to clear, and I pant, trying to hold back tears.
Gods, it hurts. A raw, searing agony that rakes from the soles of my feet up my calves and back down.
The nerves are shot, frayed and quivering.
I’d hate to see what the ruined flesh looks like—red and blistered?
Blackened char? My stomach lurches, though there’s nothing in it to bring up.
Every limb shakes. The chains clink together with the movement and I’m surprised I’m still conscious.