Chapter 24
The breath left me as I landed on my back. Again.
Steth was having the time of her life. Hadn’t she heard that Athira and I were best friends these days? Athira’s lapdog wasn’t hiding any of her enjoyment over kicking my ass.
“You’re distracted. Not trying,” she sneered.
Accurate. Not the trying part. I was trying. But my distraction was undeniable. “I raised an arena full of the dead yesterday.”
“You have enough power to fight.”
Also accurate, but she hadn’t factored in a sleepless night where I had showered and dressed after freeing Tempest from the dungeon, then left to check on Adeuto, and then portaled to speak with my grandfather for the last time.
He’d sank in and out of consciousness, but I hoped he’d heard my assurances of Carmine’s death and of Adeuto’s safety. When I’d left him, he’d been mumbling incoherently about my father.
Athira must have killed him by now.
Added to that, I didn’t know whether Tempest had escaped. So I was counting down the hours until I could portal to Athira and be put out of my misery.
So yes, I was distracted.
Her boot connected with the underside of my chin. Oof.
I landed on my stomach this time, a nice change. Though I wasn’t a big fan of blood pooling in my fractured jaw.
“Enough,” called a cold voice.
Steth whirled and bowed low. “My king. We are just training.”
“So I see. I also see that my mate-intended is exhausted. Take care that your loyalties lie with me and what is best for the realm, demon.”
Steth bowed again and remained in the position. “I will, my king. I assure you.”
I rolled over and forced myself to stand. Which was more like staggering on the spot. But still. “I’m ready.”
Steth didn’t respond.
“Syera, you are required in council,” Carmine said.
His tone was off, and my heart stuttered in my chest. Shit. Athira had stabbed me in the back. I should have gone with Tempest to make sure she escaped.
Or had Carmine discovered both of them? Shit!
If Athira had double-crossed me, then Adeuto would already be in the fortress.
I wiped my sleeve over the blood dripping over my chin to cover the whirling panic that threatened to consume me.
I weaved a line out of the training rooms. Carmine was waiting down the hall.
“Why are you exhausted?” he demanded.
I glanced up. What do you know? “I was up all night.”
His jaw clenched. His lips were white from how firmly he pushed them together. “What were you doing?”
He knew something. What should I say? Was Adeuto in the fortress?
I was keeping so many secrets from Carmine that his jealousy didn’t register for a few seconds.
Really? He thought I’d been up all night satiating my craving in the Pinnacle?
Or elsewhere. I’d consider tormenting him if I wasn’t so damned relieved that he appeared to be in the dark about everything else.
I struggled against the urge to release a shaking breath.
“I was up all night listening to other demons fuck, Carmine.”
I walked on, and he gripped my arm to spin me back.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
I considered exposing my knowledge about the craving magic. But keeping that lie alive suited me better. “That’s what most of the other demons do after the fight.”
He frowned. “Why?”
Wow, I had to hand it to him. I almost believed his innocent act. “Outlet for adrenaline. I don’t know.”
Carmine’s brows rose. “I would use the opportunity to eliminate other strong contestants while they were weak. I have wondered how their numbers stay so constant between rounds.”
Surely he knew… but feigning ignorance wasn’t the demon king’s style. He was more of a “lie through radical omission” type of guy.
I wiped my mouth again. The bleeding had stopped, and my body was nearly done healing the fractures.
Carmine wasn’t looking so flash himself. “Did you sleep?”
“Not much. Come, they are waiting.”
We really were attending a council. “I thought that was an excuse to get me out of Steth’s beating.”
He grunted. “That too.”
If Athira had sold me out, or if she and Tempest had been caught, then I’d be dealing with ice Carmine. But he was off. “How long will this take?”
“As long as it needs to.”
“Gratia is expecting me for queen training.”
He cast a glance at me. “She won’t meet you today. She has started the mating ritual with the purple.”
The Purple. “That was quick.”
“My sister is swept away with the force of the mating ritual.”
I could easily understand that. But the words of the mated red in the Pinnacle rang in my mind. He’d spoken of how easy the start had been between him and his yellow mate. Only later had the prejudices of others threatened to divide them. “The further they get, as quickly as possible, the better.”
We were nearly at the war rooms.
Carmine’s gaze was on me. “I had advised the opposite. For her to wait.”
“Gratia’s the smarter sibling.”
“Gratia is cunning enough… She did not appreciate my advice. But your cunning exceeds most, and certainly her own. What is your reasoning?”
“My reasoning is borrowed. The further they get before the opinions of others encroach, the better they’ll survive with their unique circumstances.”
“Is this why you won’t complete the ritual with me? Have the opinions of others encroached too much upon your feelings?”
“That has more to do with your murdering my family and locking my twin in the dungeon,” I said pleasantly.
“I wished for our mating with everything I had, Carmine, until I did not. The moment you confessed what you’d done, everything I’d felt for you was gone in a second, dead, and it will remain dead. ”
Carmine studied my face. Looking for an entry point? I hoped my expression was as unfathomable as his.
He gestured for me to enter the war room first. I walked in and took the seat opposite his.
“Mate-Intended,” the four other occupants murmured.
I looked expectedly at the others. “Is there an emergency?”
Carmine did not sit; instead, he started to circle the rectangular table. “We sent several hundred demons to attack the coven last night. They were forced to retreat.”
My brows shot up. “Unexpected. What happened?”
The blank looks of four crimsons snapped to me, and I felt the sudden weight of Carmine’s focus too.
I laughed without humor. “You think it was me?” Their expressions didn’t change, and I laughed again.
“This is gonna be good. Go on then. How did I single-handedly beat back a demon army? From here, no less.”
The eldest crimson, a male by the name of Tsee, replied, “By sending a warning with your magus power.”
I tilted my head. “That’s not as far-fetched a theory as I’d hoped. Magus can send messages any number of ways.”
“Did you warn them?” asked the councillor that Carmine valued the most. A woman named Deuk.
“I did not. There are limits on what you suppose.”
Carmine had not accused me directly, but he wasn’t about to extract me from this either. “How so?”
“I cannot banish a letter somewhere I have never been. I have never been to the coven you attacked, assuming you attacked my mother’s coven.”
“What about the tethers that magus have?” asked Tsee.
I answered, “I lost all my tethers when the mating was triggered with Carmine. From this realm, I cannot scry—and scrying would not allow me to speak with anyone on the other side anyway. I couldn’t send a message through my ancestors or other dead, because it takes power to move between this realm and the next that they do not have.
I would need to move through a demon gate to do that.
But then there is the same problem of sending them somewhere I have never seen. ”
“Dreams?” Carmine asked. He cast me a furtive look.
A furtive look from the demon king was weird enough, but coupled with that specific word… was he beginning to suspect our dreams were real?
I said, “The dreams of past, present, and future are not in a magus’s control. If they are given, then those visions are controlled by the mother. I could not drive her gifted dreams.”
The youngest councillor, Gnuz, who was two hundred years old, asked, “Is there any other way of contacting magus from here? Or any other supernatural?”
“From here, no. I don’t believe so. I have never tested it, however, as I had no one to contact. Would you like me to investigate the matter?”
I smirked inwardly. I’m sure they’d love that idea.
“Unnecessary,” Carmine said smoothly. “The matter remains that our intel suggested that the force we sent would be ample to subdue the magus, but she was able to fight us back nearly single-handedly.”
I lifted my head. “She?”
A silence gripped the others. I narrowed my gaze. “Who is ‘she’?”
“The coven’s new leader,” Carmine said, a beat too late.
Mother be, Tempest was the coven’s leader? But whoa, I’d just sent her demon in the mail. Shit, no wonder her demon had wanted to conceal me and Adeuto for now. How would that reunion go down? How would the coven react when they found out?
“The new leader was able to fight the demons off by herself?” I whistled. “That is serious power.”
I couldn’t have done that. But then I’d never doubted that my twin was a born leader and queen.
The last of the councillors, Dris, said, “They arranged themselves into small groups, and their barriers were impassable for all but our strongest. We had been able to break through all their previous barriers. What do you know of that?”
I leaned back. “How many in the groups?”
“Four or five. Four worked together at a time.”
“The number four is significant,” I thought aloud. “Magus often place gems to the north, south, east, and west. It’s the number of levels within the coven: novice, proven, esteemed, and council. It’s also the number of affinities.”
My brow cleared. “Ah, that’s it. Shit, that’s brilliant. I wonder who thought of that.”
Tempest.
“What?” Carmine asked, and he hated asking.
I answered, “A barrier woven by a magus with multiple affinities will always be stronger. A three-affinity barrier would be impossible for me to get through, for instance, in that I only possess one affinity. I think that they’re combining the magic of four magus across the four different affinities to create a barrier of battle, divination, apothecary, and grimoire.
Of course it would work in a similar fashion, but coming up with that defense was fucking brilliant. So simple. I bet it’s never been done.”
The councillors exchanged long looks.
Dris shook her head. “How would we get past that barrier?”
I hummed. “I wouldn’t. Only a very powerful magus could get beyond that, or four magus holding all four affinities whose power exceeds the power of those who created the barrier in the first place.
But how could a demon get past?” I pursed my lips.
“Use their feelings against them. Magus will drop any defense to protect their own. You won’t outpower a four-affinity barrier. ”
The councillors looked to Carmine.
He sat in his throne at last. “That is what happened. Sota threatened the life of a magus she found spying on them at the gates. The coven leader then challenged Sota and won the challenge. The coven leader appeared to come into more power. Lightning struck her, and four objects appeared to clad her after. Once that happened, she was able to force back the remainder of our forces.”
“Lightning,” I murmured, frowning.
“Does that mean something to you?” Gnuz demanded.
I lifted a shoulder. “Lightning is significant. My family’s name means storm, and that is the essence of our characters and ancestors. What was the name of this leader?”
“No one caught her name,” Carmine said. “Do you know what the four objects were and why lightning struck her?”
“The mother clearly struck her with lightning to give the coven leader the power necessary to win. I imagine that the four objects were to do with that as well.”
Quiet filled the rooms after my words. The tension had dissipated. My answers had assuaged their suspicions. They were all contemplating the concept of “Mother.” Demons were not spiritual, so an unseen force striking a magus with lightning to grant her more power was very far-fetched to them.
“What now?” I asked.
Carmine tapped a finger on the heavy stone table.
“We send a greater force. And quickly. You were right about their creativity and resilience. I should have struck with great force early on. I have given them time to learn, and I will not repeat that mistake. Next time the majority of our army will go. And I will go too.”
Fuck. There was no one else like Tempest, but Carmine held mind-boggling power. I’d felt more of his power than most, and I still hadn’t felt the full extent.
He would win a battle between them. Carmine was going to kill my sister.
“A leader for a leader,” he said, then met my gaze before glancing away.
He knew exactly who the coven leader was.
The councillors fell into gleeful plans of our attack, and I wondered that they did not perceive Carmine’s sudden retreat from the discussion.
He had never released my twin’s demon from the dungeon because he’d known that Tempest lived on as a magus. While she’d lived without her demon side, she hadn’t posed a threat.
The only assumption I could make from all that was that Carmine hadn’t wanted to kill her five years ago.
From his leaden expression right now, bizarrely, that want hadn’t altered. So how would he feel after learning Tempest was free?
And whole again.