Chapter 23
I rested next to Adeuto on the bed, listening to his sleepy chatter. This hideout was tiny, and nowhere near as well-stocked, but a few trips back and forth would solve that. I couldn’t take Adeuto back to the old shack until Athira dealt with Grandfather.
I swallowed back guilt and stroked my son’s forehead before pressing a kiss there.
“Is Neti still here?” he asked sleepily.
He was exhausted, and once again, I let myself hate that this was his life. “She’s outside.”
Adeuto smiled. “That’s good. She looks after me.”
My throat squeezed. My son was putting his trust in animals at this point.
Adeuto felt for my face and rested his hand on my cheek. “And you, Mama. Don’t be sad.”
I kissed his palm and didn’t offer any lies. I was only good at lying to him when his life was on the line, apparently.
“We’ll get this place set up tomorrow, darling. Your grandmother will stay with you now.”
“While you deal with Father?”
“Yes.”
Adeuto paused. “Where’s Grandfather?”
My heart sank. “He will go, my love. And he goes knowing that you are safe and that I can continue on with my work against your father.”
He was quiet for a time. “He will be dead.”
“He will.” What kind of mother was I? I’d sacrificed a family member. Where did I draw the line in this? I couldn’t even kill him myself, or Carmine would sense my magic.
I would speak with my grandfather once more, if he was in any state to hear me. I owed him that.
Adeuto exhaled. “I wish he wasn’t going, Mama.”
“Me too, my love,” I whispered.
He curled into my side, and soon his breaths evened out. When his hand slipped off my cheek, I tucked it under the blankets and eased out of the small nook.
Athira was sitting in the dark. “Does he sleep deeply?”
“Yes, though he has not had a day like today. He may have nightmares. We should go now.”
“With no one to protect him?”
“Neti is outside.” That might be the oddest thing I’d ever said, but the white-scaled demon animal was here to protect Adeuto. After today, I had no doubts on that front.
She shook her head, then opened a portal. “Follow me.”
The portal led directly into the dungeon, and after stepping through, my gut immediately flared at the presence of the barrier three feet in front. I gasped against the strength of the warning. Nice to know it still worked—though not when Carmine’s mother was attacking my son. I scowled.
Though… Athira hadn’t attacked in the end. In fact, I was now potentially in a far stronger position. Perhaps feeling betrayed that my gut hadn’t warned me was premature.
Athira took my hand and pushed her magic up my arm and over my body. “You should be fine to walk through.”
“Should be?” I asked.
“Your mating is incomplete. But I believe from the way your smoke doesn’t hurt my son, that his will not hurt you either.”
I looked at the barrier, a few feet in front. “Will he feel me going through?”
“He will not know until he next visits the dungeons, and Carmine does not like to do that, as you might imagine. Right now he is otherwise occupied at the demon gates.”
I glanced at her in the dark. “What’s happening?”
“He’s attacking the coven tonight.”
I released an exhale. “Shit.”
“His focus will be elsewhere, and so will the focus of his army. This is the best time for your sister to escape.”
It really could be. If Athira wasn’t lying her ass off.
I stepped through the barrier and didn’t evaporate to dust. I glanced back. “Phew. You coming?”
“If he does come here, he will sense that we passed together.”
“How convenient for you.”
She smirked.
“Do you know that with my divination magic, I can summon echoes of the past?” I said to her. “That means I can show Carmine this entire exchange. Which I would do, if my life was ever on the line from your… blurred loyalties.”
Athira dipped her head. “Noted. And my interest will not blur. Go now. The next set of guards will be here in ten minutes.”
I hurried down the passage. Tempest hadn’t been far away from the barrier. I careened around the corner, then slowed my steps as the space opened into a circular room. Ten iron doors branched off the circle. Dungeon cells, I assumed.
“Tempest,” I hissed.
A clanking of chains. I didn’t have time to wait for her to trust who I was and answer. I cast out small tendrils of magic to each door.
Empty, empty. Empty—
My eyes rounded, and I blurred to the door opposite. Some unbidden forethought warned me not to rip the door from the hinges, but it was a near thing.
I squinted into the dungeon cell from the doorway. “You’re in here. I feel you.”
Chains clanked, and a form rolled over on the ground. “Fostbwyke.” She sobbed.
Trapped.
“Curlaupa,” she hissed. Run.
“You’re trapped in a small space,” I said in a soft voice. “And you need to run.”
Carmine had ripped this part of Tempest out of her and killed the rest. My fear of what I’d find left of my twin mounted as I inched forward.
She shook in a ball. I would never have imagined I’d see Tempest in that position, and the urge to flee the dungeons filled me.
I should have questioned Athira about her state.
“Tempest,” I hushed, my own throat filled with unshed tears. I rested a hand on her shoulder.
She whirled to a crouch, hissing. For the first time, Tempest seemed to realize that I was really here.
I kept my voice soft and calm. “I’m here, sister. I got through the barrier. We need to get you to safety.”
She had black scales like me, but the scales only dotted her here and there. I could feel that she had nothing of my demon strength, as I had nothing of Tempest’s magus strength.
I closed my eyes and pulled her into me. “Sister.” Tears finally escaped me. “Please believe that I only learned you were here two months ago.” There was so much she had to know. “I don’t know where to start, but we don’t have long.”
Tempest drew back, then pressed a hand to her chest. “Adeuto.”
I gripped her arms. “You feel him? How is that possible? You’re a demon.”
“She feels him.”
I peered over my shoulder. “What do you mean? Who else feels him?”
Tempest shook her head. “She does. The rest of me.”
A distant humming filled my mind. “What?”
“The rest of me. Magus side.”
I pressed a hand to my temple as the floor felt like it slanted beneath me. “The rest of you is dead, Tempest. Carmine killed your magus side. He reached in and—”
“And dragged me out. I was the part that could challenge his rule. He had no need for the rest.”
My knees gave way, and I sagged against the wall. “You’re whole?”
I pressed shaking hands to my mouth. Tempest was whole? This had to be a cruel lie.
My twin’s demon side said, “She lived on, but… life has not been easy for her. She does not know that you live. Without me being fully within her, she cannot understand our language. She has only recently discovered that she is part demon at all, but she has felt the emptiness of my absence all these years without knowing the cause.”
Fuck. I couldn’t imagine what Tempest was going through. I mean, yes, I’d found out that I was a demon at sixteen, but I’d had other demons around during the process. And Carmine, too, for a while. Tempest had gone through this alone.
“She is in a mating ritual,” said Tempest’s demon. “If I do not reach her soon, then she and her mate will die.”
I stared as that washed over me. “Magus don’t mate.”
“We are not just magus.”
Mother be. This was more than I could process. “We need to get you to her. Tonight. Carmine has sent his army to the coven.”
Panic flared in Tempest’s gaze, and she immediately drew inward. I felt her energy gather and then explode.
She sagged in a heap against the wall to join me.
“What just happened?” I whispered. “What did you do?”
“Warned her and her friends to run.”
“You would have more luck telling rain not to be wet.”
The demon snorted. “She would do well to listen.”
“Luckily she’ll soon have her smarter demon side back.” I hesitated. “I need you to carry a message to her. She needs to warn the other supernaturals that Carmine is coming for them all, through gates that grow closer to their territories via the games they’d been playing.”
The demon gripped my hand. “She knows, Syera. She is already working against the demon king. When the demon gates near the coven opened for the first time after Adeuto’s birth, the tether between our magus side and Adeuto was finally free to form.
That drove her to seek out the coven and find the person on the other end.
She discovered the truth of what we are eventually, then uncovered the truth about the gates and the games too. ”
Pride and hope exploded in my chest. “That’s my badass twin. Of course she’s figured it out. I’d wondered why Adeuto suddenly gained the tether after so long. We need to get you back to her, and you need to tell her that I’m alive. That she’s not alone.”
Tempest exhaled. “I do not think it wise to reveal your presence to the rest of me yet. We have had issues with chaos, and Tempest would drop everything to save you. I believe the truth must be concealed until our enemy is dealt with. The truth of your Adeuto too.”
I stared into her black demon gaze that was nothing like her blue magus gaze. “She’s believed herself alone for so long. I hate to conceal anything from her.”
“She is not alone now. And she is focused. She needs everything she has to understand our connection and the consequences that may come with it. She could be in danger from the coven because of what she is. If they learn the truth.”
Demons had been derisive of my dual nature, and still considered me more like a human sometimes, but magus would be far less accepting of demon power in their midst. “You’re right. Hiding it a while longer is for the best. You must get back to her. And Tempest?”
She peered at me in the dark, and in her I saw the fierce instincts and cunning that I had always loved in my twin. How strange to see her two sides apart like this—to be able to see which qualities arose from where.
I wanted more time with her. I wanted to hold her for hours and just talk all of our problems away like when we were kids.
“I am so sorry that I didn’t get here sooner,” I choked out.
She trembled but pulled me close. “I knew that you would come. Tygrio told me that you had no idea of the truth, and that you’d escaped the fortress and no one knew where you were. When you returned, I told him to get close to you and reveal the truth when you were alone.”
That solved a mystery. He’d gone about that as stupidly and rashly as possible. “Did he mean anything to you?”
“Nothing more than as the sole person who wished to help. He was not very cunning, and I knew he would eventually die.”
Yep, this was definitely the demon part of my twin. I rested a hand on her scaled hand. “Carmine killed him.”
My twin absorbed with a blink. “We will kill Carmine in the end.”
I squeezed her hand. “We will. Now follow me. Help is waiting.”
Though I wasn’t sure if Athira was a great definition of “help.”
We returned to the barrier.
Shit. Tempest wouldn’t have clearance.
“Now what?” I asked Athira.
She tilted her head, considering the barrier. Beside me, Tempest hissed. She knew Carmine’s mother all right.
“You’ll need to wrap her in your magic,” said Athira. “That’s the only way this might work.”
I had to trick the demon king’s magic. No biggie.
I turned to Tempest and started to layer my magic over her. Actually… I’d accidentally prepared for this moment by learning how to make a copy of myself. I pressed the layers together with my magus magic, and I kept going until Tempest looked—and magically looked—exactly like me.
“That trick came in handy sooner than I thought,” I murmured.
“You’re not through yet,” Athira snapped. “Hurry up. The guards are on the way down.”
Athira reached through and covered Tempest in her magic, then she stood back as we passed through.
“I didn’t think that would work,” she admitted, then peered at Tempest. “That disguise will make it easier to get to the gate, but she can’t go in dungeon rags.”
I stripped, and Tempest donned the boots and pants I’d worn into the Crave Arena, plus the hooded scarf and long-sleeved top that I’d put on before leaving the hideout. Which was an oversight. I should have washed and changed on the way here.
This day had been never-ending.
When I was naked but for my bindings and underwear, and Tempest was dressed, I asked, “What’s your plan?”
Athira held a finger to her lips. Grabbing Tempest’s arm, she then portaled away.
I paused only to magically scrub away our physical presence as much as possible. Some presence of mind had me cast magic back through the barrier to draw the dungeon door of Tempest’s cell closed too.
The rushed efforts wouldn’t pass a magical scan, but Tempest and Athira would only need an hour or two.
Hopefully less.
I portaled to my rooms and took care to drag the sulfurous scent of our presence through with me too.
I stared into the mirror on the opposite wall and took in my wide eyes and the pallor to my usual golden skin.
All the secrets of me were visible in my eyes.
That I was a mother. That I was a killer.
That I’d betrayed my grandfather. That I loved someone more than myself, and that somehow that little someone was still alive after my worst fears had nearly come true today.
I’d seen my own ghost today—my twin.
And she was alive. Whole.
My twin was whole, and she already knew about the demon gates. She was fighting back. If there was anyone on Earth that I had faith in to win a war, it was Tempest.
Carmine had no clue what was coming for him.