Chapter 80 Bastardization
BASTARDIZATION
THE TENEbrAE
Break her.
The two words swirled through the Tenebrae’s mind, converging with terrified roars from his vessel.
Let me out!
The Tenebrae clenched his hands into fists, feeling his shadows slip through his fingers. He would not, could not, show weakness here, before his bride.
He sent his vessel deep below, imagining his hands around his throat, squeezing until blood dribbled from the burst blood vessels in his eye. It made his head pound. But it grew quiet.
It had worked.
Luella was still, quiet. Truly broken. Her right wing was halfway under her body, crushed against the floor as she lay on her side, like she couldn’t stand the thought of not having it trapped, unable to be touched and tampered with.
His fingers itched to graze the pure feathers, if only to let her know he could take whatever he wanted.
Her white gown was soiled with blood and sweat.
She’d need another before their journey.
The thin straps had slipped off her shoulder long ago, the front of the gown drooping across her small breasts. The collar was stark against her pale skin, a mark of his power on her. His eyes traveled to her back.
He found he couldn’t look away from the stump where her left wing once was.
It was a gruesome sight. The skin around the wing’s root was inflamed, red tendrils of infection beginning to seep into the tissue. That wouldn’t do.
His fingers skimmed over the line of her shoulder, and she gasped, trembling and cold beneath his touch.
She would need a healer. She could not die. He wouldn’t let her, no matter how desperately he saw she wanted to.
The Tenebrae needed her, after all.
"After we’re wed, we will return here for a grand celebration.
I will ensure I have healers here for you.
" He bent low, breathing her in, eyes tracing her withering shape.
"They won’t speak to you. I will never let anyone talk to you again.
You will speak only to me, learn to obey only me.
In time, I might even let you hurt those who try to make you bend to their will. You will bend only to mine."
The Binding mark on her chest was a damning three-circled sign of his half-brother’s claim on her.
If he must, he would peel the skin of her chest off to rid her of obeying anyone but him; though, he knew that wouldn’t work. The ink was in her blood, in her marrow. It bound her will to his half-brother’s.
So, the Tenebrae would have to kill his half-brother to remove his claim on his bride.
Luella shifted to meet his eyes fully, and he saw the way her face twisted up in pain.
"I hope you have had time to consider the consequences of your actions," the Tenebrae said lowly.
She was quiet for so long he wondered if she had fallen asleep, but her eyes were open, searching his with a growing, dangerous intent. He almost smiled as he stared at the collar around her throat. He wondered if it had taken effect yet, but the longer he watched her, the more he realized it had.
With a wild look in her eye and loose lips, she was succumbing to the mark that he had forced upon her.
One that he hoped would make her finally see reason. If insanity was the only way she’d ever let herself have him, then he would force her to be mad.
Luella drew in a long breath, as if to steel herself, then said, "I would say I wish you were dead after what you’ve done to me, but I don’t.
I pity you, because even as a god, you still have wants that drive you.
You are dissatisfied. Being a god wasn’t enough for you, so you wished to become a male. "
A laugh filled him. Not aloud, but in his head, in his soul. It was faint with pain and strain.
She knows you. She will undo you, his vessel whispered.
"Mind your tongue, or I will cut mine out to keep you from talking," the Tenebrae hissed. His eyes were unfocused, staring at the gilded bars and the blue glimmers stuck to the walls of the throne room, and not on his captive bride.
It won’t work, his vessel said, voice growing fainter as if the strength he’d mustered to taunt him had fled.
It wouldn’t.
The Tenebrae had tried before to silence his vessel. He’d tried to cut out his tongue, but it had only grown back. He’d tried sewing his lips shut in those first months. But the voice of his vessel had filled his mind, regardless.
Luella thought his threat was for her, evidenced by how she cowered.
"I don’t want your pity," the Tenebrae seethed. "I am not dissatisfied. Why I’ve done what I have… Do not begin to conceptualize the thoughts of a god, because you will fail."
He willed his shadows to form a portal, once more, to take him from her treacherous tongue. Maybe he would cut hers out, because his vessel was always loudest when she was around, as if he felt some strange, fraternal protection for her.
Done with her, he turned to slip through the portal, but her voice stopped him.
"What about your sister?"
He stilled.
Staring into the darkness of his portal, where it clung to the gilded bars, he kept his back to her as she spoke.
"She is a god, and she understands. I-I’ve seen it. I know she loves in a way you never could. Are you jealous of her?"
Rage consumed him. His vessel hid deep below, nestled beneath his organs, retreating in his mind, knowing what followed such rage.
He found himself before her face, so close he saw the way her pupils widened in fear. One hand was by her head, his fingers curling around nothing, knowing he couldn’t push her body any further into pain, lest she succumb to it fully and go beyond where he could reach.
Even gods had limits.
And trapped in a cage of flesh, he was forced to bend to the limits of this form.
The rage he had nearly made up for the fact that he couldn’t be everywhere, see everything, have unlimited, unbridled power.
Even a god bowed to death, but he swore to make death bow to him.
He must, if he were to ensure the prophecy be upheld.
The pieces of the prophecy she didn’t know… the pieces he’d stolen from the Compendium, ripped out from the book itself.
Power over all, purest wings, of a winter’s snowfall. There will be one reigning king, and four aligned hearts, with the blooming rose, who will be within death’s throes.
One day, she would be cradled by death, and he must tear her away from the edge.
"I know something you do not. I know many, many things. Tell me, have you ever stopped to wonder why the mages are spawn of demons and fae, yet only have control of the four elements?" The Tenebrae’s voice was a hiss. The words slipped from his shadowed lips, unable to be stopped in his rage.
He wanted her to understand, to know she knew nothing, was nothing, and he was everything; one day, she’d even think him to be her everything.
"Have you wondered why the fae worship a bastardization of the gods that the shifters and other creatures bow to? Have you wondered which are the true gods?" His pale finger brushed over the line of her shoulder, toying with the fallen strap of her silken gown.
"Why does the power of the sun and moon—Solis and Luna—light and darkness—not pass down. What makes them so different?"
As he spoke, he felt his vessel surge to the surface, their will mingling, as well as their thoughts, until the Tenebrae found himself wanting her to know, if only it meant he could be saved.
Luella’s lips parted as she looked up at him. "What do—what do you mean?"
His vessel surged to the surface until the Tenebrae felt his eyes shift, shadows retreating. Help me!
And their wants were so entwined, the Tenebrae himself yearned to be helped, to escape from this prison of his own making—from this cage of flesh and bone he had forced his way into all those centuries ago, as the one called Caliban had stumbled into the forest. He had sensed him, sensed his suffering and weak will, and he had known:
A perfect vessel awaited him.
As the Tenebrae had called out, luring Caliban closer, he had struck, shadows twining around his flesh to pull him down into the cave in which he slumbered. But not just any cave, an ancient one tucked in the Silva Noctis—a perfect trap, laid by his sister, where he had been condemned.
For so long, time lost its meaning. He had languished, waiting…
Now he waited for an entirely different reason.
For her to bend, to break, and to be molded by his hand.
And she would be. It would happen. The sooner they got to the Lunar Temples, the sooner he could force her to be his. After he bedded her, drove between her thighs, and claimed her, no matter if she screamed or begged or cried, their union would be consummated, unbreakable.
The Lunar Temples awaited. He would take her right now, but the enchantments around the Lunar Temples, situated deep within the heart of the Lunaria Mountains, kept him from portaling there.
"My bride," the Tenebrae said, voice strained as he shoved his vessel deep below once again.
He reached for her, wanting to touch. Something inside her called to him. He didn’t know what to do with it—these feelings—so he found himself wanting to snuff it out, wreck it, ruin it, so he wouldn’t have to be faced with it ever again.
Shadows curled around his neck.
Please, his vessel whispered, meek and soft.
"Do not plead with me," the Tenebrae spat.
When his attention snapped, drawn back to Luella, he found she stared at him with a small furrow between her brows. A part of him wanted to soothe her, comfort her. He curled his hand into a fist and slammed it on the floor of the cage, feeling the whole structure rattle.
When the violent movements stilled, and she still did not move, he found her throat working.
Blood slipped down the line of her delicate throat, and he so wanted to crush it under his hand, feel the breath in her lungs still from his will, feel her chest hitch and seize as she struggled to take in air.
He released a tight breath, the end like a growl.
And she lay there—one wing, chained, covered in her own blood, and entirely at his mercy—and said:
"I pity you."
He laughed, and the cage trembled around them. "Do not pity me. I want for nothing. I know things. I have things that you would willingly cut off your littlest finger to have. I have an army, and you will be my bride."
"I will be your nothing. I grieve the male whose life you have stolen."
Thank you, his vessel murmured in reply, that strange affection welling once more—and it was too storge, reminding him of how the Lux had once treated him. The Tenebrae was too angry to shove him down any longer.
The shadows of his portal swirled at his back, and he turned and slipped through the darkness, purposefully banging his shoulder against the gilded bars as he fell through them, leaving the cage swinging wildly.