Chapter 34 Lena
THIRTY-FOUR
LENA
Finaen and the general had been gone for too long.
Lena stood outside the temple door, her fingers drumming against her leg as she forced her magic to stay on the three sets of threads on the other side of the stone.
The first two, belonging to Finaen and General Alraen, felt the same as most others did: a steady hum of energy beneath her skin that called out to the Fateweaver’s magic like a beacon.
But trying to focus on the third set, the one she’d sensed when they’d arrived at the temple, was as difficult as it had been when she’d first picked up on them.
What she could tell, however, was that there was still some distance between Finaen and the general and whoever those fading threads belonged to, but it was growing smaller by the second.
Soon they’d be on top of it, and if Lena’s instincts were right—if whatever had injured the person was still in the temple—then they’d be facing that danger alone.
“We should go after them,” Lena said, her fingers itching for the familiar curve of her mother’s dagger. Sisters damn Casimir for insisting on keeping it until her end of the deal was done. Her control over her magic might have been questionable, but her skills with a blade certainly weren’t.
“They’ll be fine.” Dimas’s smile was tight, and when Lena let the wall she’d carefully constructed between them drop for just a moment, she felt the rush of his anxiety, as fierce and all-consuming as her own.
Yana stepped toward her emperor. “Come away from the door, Your Majesty.” Her dark eyes shifted toward Lena. “You too, Your Worship.”
Dimas moved back a step, but Lena stayed where she was.
Ioseph pushed off from where he’d been leaning against the temple wall, his jaw tight as he approached Lena. “This is their job, Lady Lenora. Let them do what they do best. Besides, until we know what we’re facing, it’s best we—”
A shout pierced the air, followed by a spine-tingling, stomach-churning screech. The sound was like nothing Lena had ever heard. It settled in her bones like ice. Made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t human.
Her magic searched wildly for Finaen’s threads. They were still there, still whole, but the hum of them had changed, switching from a steady pulse to an erratic beating beneath her skin.
Just as she’d done that night in Forvyrg, Lena started to run. She had no weapon. No plan. All she knew was that despite everything that had happened between them, she’d do whatever it took to keep Finaen safe.
She was through the small gap in the temple door before Ioseph had the chance to stop her, her boots smacking against the stone as she raced through the small entrance chamber and toward a set of double doors that had been cracked open.
It was dark inside the temple. Darker than it should have been at this time of day; most of the wall sconces had been extinguished, and it was only thanks to the dim light of the remaining flames that she noticed the body slumped at the threshold.
She skidded to a stop, her heart in her throat. The stone beneath her feet was wet with blood.
Lena’s boots slid through a trail of it, leading to the body.
She forced herself to look at the bloodied figure lying before her.
Whoever it was had the same cropped brown hair as Finaen.
The same broad shoulders. But his skin was pale and wrinkled, his unseeing eyes a dark shade of blue. A shaky breath left her lungs.
It wasn’t Finaen, but a man was still dead. And by the looks of the shredded ribbons of flesh on his chest, so deep Lena could just make out the ivory glint of his rib cage, it hadn’t been quick. Whatever had done this had taken its time.
And it was still here.
Three sets of footsteps echoed in the hall behind her, signaling the arrival of Ioseph, Dimas, and Yana. They came to a dead stop when they rounded the corner, their gazes landing on the same corpse that had stopped Lena in her tracks.
“What … what happened to him?” Yana asked.
Lena didn’t know, but she was going to find out.
There was a dagger at his feet, small and blood-covered, but better than nothing.
Lena knelt beside the body and brushed her hands over his eyes.
“Rest well,” she whispered, her other hand swiftly sliding the dagger up her sleeve as she rose to her feet.
She stepped around the body and was a foot away from the crack in the door when Dimas hissed her name. “Lenora, wait.”
Lena knew it was stupid to ignore him after all she’d done to earn his trust. Stupid to go through those doors and toward whatever creature had torn this man apart.
But she did it anyway.
The inner chamber of the temple was littered with bodies. Over a dozen men and women lay on the stone floor, torn open in shreds. And in the center of it all, back-to-back and swords raised, stood General Alraen and Finaen.
Finaen’s gaze locked onto her the moment she entered the room.
The alarmed flare of his threads was the only warning she got before something lunged out of the shadows, knocking into Mirena with enough force to send her sword clattering to the ground.
Finaen whirled, lunging toward the bony figure atop the general’s chest, but before his sword could find its mark, the being sprang aside, an awful, piercing screech emitting from its lipless mouth.
Lena’s blood ran cold at the sight of it.
Limbs that were slightly too long, the pale flesh so thin you could still see bone.
A face half covered by a translucent membrane, dirt-matted strands of hair, and a waist so thin Lena could see each bone of its rib cage.
Worst of all, though, were the bloodstained fingernails, each one curved into a point as sharp as the blade in Finaen’s hands.
The perfect weapon for tearing into flesh.
Wrecen.
Another creature from her mother’s stories.
The vengeful souls of a human left to die a long, agonizing death, wrecen were fated to wander the earth, stealing the life force from other living beings to survive.
Fear wrapped a cold fist around Lena’s heart, freezing her in place.
Like the wylfen and the byrnen, the wrecen shouldn’t have been real.
But it was. And it had appeared here, in the imperial city, its fingers coated with the blood of over a dozen pilgrims.
The wrecen shifted again, head tilting at an unnatural angle as its coal-black gaze locked onto Finaen.
The creature let out another ear-piercing screech, its long, sharp teeth flashing like bones in the firelight of the temple. It lunged toward Finaen, claws bared, its movements too fast to intervene.
She was distantly aware of people entering the temple hall behind her. Of a familiar voice yelling Finaen’s name.
I’m going to watch him die. I’m going to watch him die and there’s nothing I can do about it. Her power flared, flooding through her like liquid fire, burning away the ice-cold grip of her fear. Yes, it said, you can.
Lena’s magic surged toward the creature, and this time, she made no attempt to stop it. She had commanded a korupted once before. She could do it again.
“Stop!”
The word ripped from her in a scream, her power flaring at the sudden rush of emotions. But the creature didn’t so much as lift its head.
It isn’t working. Panic seized Lena’s lungs. Cut off her air. She willed her magic to wrap around the creature’s threads, as it had done Mirek’s, but every time it got close, her body would flood with a dark, ice-like numbness that caused her power to shrink back.
Think. She had to think. If she couldn’t control the creature, then maybe she could control Finaen.
Change his fate to ensure he stayed alive.
Her magic shifted focus, moving from the creature to the web of threads surrounding Finaen.
She didn’t know what she was doing, but the Fateweaver’s magic did.
Like it had done in the forest the night she realized she was becoming the next Fateweaver, time seemed to slow, and then there was nothing but the hum of Finaen in her veins, his past and present and future all woven into one.
If she could just find the right thread, she could—
Another wave of ice-cold darkness flared through her veins.
She stumbled, her magic losing its grip on Finaen’s threads.
Lena scrambled to get it back, to do something, but she was frozen, forced to watch as the creature from her mother’s stories crashed into her former lover, knocking him to the ground with a sickening crack.
As it raised its clawed fingers and moved in for the kill.
“That’s enough.”
The voice came from the shadows, quiet and commanding all at once. And just like that, just as the wylfen had in Forvyrg, the wrecen … stopped.
The command hadn’t come from her, yet the wrecen stood frozen in wait, its black gaze shifting from Finaen to the figure stepping out of the darkness. Lena caught a flash of crimson fabric. Of threads shrouded in shadow.
The Haesta.
She’d seen someone dressed just like him in her vision. Had felt the same suffocating darkness in the air. Whatever magic the cultist was using was … wrong, somehow. Corrupted in a way she couldn’t explain.
And he was using it to control the creature. To control her.
Lena gritted her teeth, fighting against his compulsion with everything she had. A sharp throb pressed against the back of her eyes, so severe it stole the breath from her lungs.
“It is pointless to struggle. The control I have over my power far exceeds yours. Ah, ah,” the cultist said when Ioseph took a small step forward.
The guard’s sword was clutched tightly in his hand, his face a mask of cold fury as he took in the dozens of bodies littering the temple floor.
“If you do not wish to have your friend’s heart ripped from his chest right before you, I’d suggest you stay put. ”