Chapter 54 Tessa
TESSA
Tessa hit the ground hard, rolling several times across a marble floor. Scrambling onto her hands and knees, she saw Theon several feet away doing the same. But Luka? He couldn’t be too far from her or—
A furious roar echoed, the floor beneath her shuddering, and she looked up to find a domed ceiling of glass.
The sky was spitting rain, drops streaming along the panes, and perched atop it was Luka, fully shifted and sapphire eyes glowing with wrath as black flames hit the glass.
The water evaporated into nothing, but the glass didn’t even crack.
Light was suddenly hitting the dome from the inside, the glass seeming to absorb it and letting it pass through, jolting through the dragon. Luka back-flapped, another furious roar sounding from him as he hovered outside…wherever they were.
She took in the space. Pure white and gold, the walls were the same glass as the ceiling.
The entire room was circular, the marble floor beneath her boasting streaks of red and brown from her rolling across it.
Theon was on his knees, that same godsdamn seraph who never spoke standing behind him while five… Hunters closed in.
Fuck.
She looked down, seeing the gashes along her arms that were steadily dripping to the floor.
“They won’t hurt him yet.”
Theon was watching her, lips pressed into a thin line and eyes blazing with the same wrath as Luka’s.
Stick to the plan, Theon said down the bond.
Tessa turned away from him to the source of the voice.
Rordan was across the room, bent over what appeared to be raised garden beds.
His crisp navy suit was in place, his back to her.
As if she wasn’t a threat. “I find gardening rather soothing,” Rordan went on.
“I think it’s in the blood. Light and beginnings.
Creating something new and bringing it to life. ”
She didn’t reply, instead trying to take in everything else. The glass walls overlooking a city where a battle raged beyond. The Faven Palace. They were in a room in the palace. A room he’d never brought her to, and now she knew why.
In the center stood a mirror. The stone frame was etched with symbols, and in the back of her mind, she wondered how in the fuck he’d gotten a mirror gate into this room.
She wasn’t surprised that the mirror was in his palace.
She should have known. He’d never risk it being found by anyone else, especially not with who stood next to it.
One of the most beautiful females she’d ever seen was watching her.
Golden hair a few shades lighter than her own.
Golden skin. Pristine wings. High cheekbones.
Eyes the color of a clear sky. Ethereal and radiating with power, her floor-length white gown was sleeveless with metal clasps at her shoulders.
A gold belt was slung around her waist with gold sandals on her feet.
Dagian’s mother.
She watched Tessa with apathetic features, wings rustling at her back. The bargain with Dagian was that they left her out of this, but Tessa wasn’t sure how they were going to do that when she was standing in this room.
Then again, that bargain was with Theon, not her.
Tearing her gaze from the seraph, her magic yanked at her restraint. There was so much power in this room. Rordan. Theon. The seraphs. The mirror.
She shook her arms out, still taking in everything until her focus landed on another heap across the room. A broken body, she realized. A body that looked like…Elowyn?
“She failed in her duties,” Rordan said, and her gaze snapped back to him, finding him watching her now.
His hands behind his back, his head tilted towards the heap.
“She was useful for a time. Creating the tonic to keep your power hidden, and then altering your tea so we could…enhance your visions.”
She arched a brow at that.
He smiled, chuckling to himself. “The one of Ms. Davers carrying Theon’s child was a particularly brutal one. Pushed you right into our arms.” The mirth fell. “Then you had to ruin everything.”
She had… That hadn’t been a real vision? Which ones had been real? Any of them? Had she been running around these last months trying to change visions that weren’t even real?
No.
Yes.
They couldn’t affect her from so far away, right?
She suddenly understood on a whole new level why Cienna insisted on not focusing on the visions. How trying to change a potential future could bring about that very future.
“Once we lost control of you, her usefulness had run its course,” Rordan continued, coming closer. “But we couldn’t just let that power go to waste, could we?”
“You took her magic,” Tessa murmured to herself, staring at Elowyn’s broken form. Is that what happened when your magic was forcibly taken from you?
Another roar sounded, followed by claws dragging on the glass. Rordan snarled in annoyance, lifting a hand and sending another wave of light to the ceiling. Luka roared in defiance as he was forced back yet again.
“Dragons and their godsdamn tantrums,” Rordan muttered. “They’ll be taken care of soon enough.” He was before her now, reaching out to finger her hair.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Theon growled, his darkness snapping out, but a Hunter stepped in front of the attack, absorbing the magic with a sickening grin of too pale lips. Another Hunter drifted closer, inhaling deeply.
“Blood of death,” he hissed, that ethereal voice grating on her bones, and her magic writhed, dragging her down a little further.
“Don’t worry, Arius blood,” Rordan gritted out. “We’re preparing for you too.”
He nodded at the beautiful seraph, and her gaze flicked to Tessa. “You know my son?”
“We do,” Tessa answered cautiously.
“He spoke of you. Uncontrollable.”
Her words were jilted and selective, as if she wasn’t sure she was using the right ones. This clearly wasn’t her native tongue.
Tessa flashed her a sharp smile. “Some call it uncontrollable. I simply call it madness.”
“We are not here to speak of my traitorous son,” Rordan barked. “Begin.”
“Here?” the female questioned, gesturing around them. “With a child of Achaz?”
“It isn’t for her. It’s for him,” Rordan snapped. “Draw the Marks.”
Her clear blue eyes flicked across the room to Theon, the other seraph, and the Hunters before coming back to Tessa. “He is a reflection of Arius.”
Tessa’s brow furrowed as the female dropped to a crouch and began drawing a Mark.
“But first, what am I to do with you?” Rordan asked now that the female was doing as she was told.
Tessa’s fingers curled at her sides, her magic claiming her a little more, while she watched the female move and draw another again a few feet away.
“There is nothing you can do with us,” Tessa answered, lifting her chin. “I am still more powerful than you.”
“Is that what you believe?” he sneered.
“It does not matter what I believe. Truth is truth,” she said, following the path of the seraph. “But more than that, you are not valued as much as I am.”
Rordan scoffed, light flickering in his eyes at the snub.
“You think I’m wrong?” she asked, tracking the female as she continued to move, disappearing behind the mirror now.
Rordan couldn’t see her, but Tessa could, and she paused, studying the floor.
Those piercing blue eyes flicked up to her again.
Then she turned as if assessing the Marks she’d started drawing in a circle off to the right.
“A reflection of madness,” the seraph murmured. She gestured to the Marks. “It flows the wrong way.”
“I know I’m not,” Tessa said with a shrug, returning her attention to Rordan. “I’m his grandchild, and you? You’re so far removed from him, it’s laughable to even call you an Achaz Legacy.”
“And yet I am the one serving Achaz with steadfast loyalty while you betray him at every turn,” Rordan ground out.
“Do I?”
“You’re married to an Arius Legacy and a dragon. He will find those betrayals unforgivable.”
“Perhaps I am like him,” Tessa said simply, wandering over to the mirror and staring at her reflection.
Understanding settling in as she watched the female move in her periphery.
“Perhaps I find betrayals just as unforgivable. I think it runs in the family.” She paused, glancing at Rordan. “Not that you would know.”
Rordan’s face was flushed, and his words were forced as he ground out, “Achaz will deal with the dragon in time. As for the Arius Lord, I will deal with him myself. Achaz can deal with you.”
She hummed, dragging her fingers along the stone around the mirror.
“He will still choose me. I am his blood, and I have something he craves.” She lifted a hand, chaos spinning in her palm.
“You are just someone who has taken too long to please him.” She closed her fist, the power snuffing out. “But I can help you with that.”
“You’re going to help me?” he scoffed. “You cannot possibly expect me to believe that?”
She shrugged again. “Fine. Then I will present the Arius blood to him.” Looking over her shoulder, she caught the gaze of a Hunter. “Bring me a dagger.”
The Hunter went unnaturally still, his white eyes moving from her to Rordan.
“You’re playing games, Tessa,” Rordan barked.
“I told you I was bringing them to Achaz. I was simply offering you a way to gain favor with him. I’m sure Achaz would love to watch you take power from an Arius Legacy before he meets his death. Maybe then he would find you a little more…worthy of him.”
Tessa… This is not the plan, Theon said down the bond.
He was right. This wasn’t the plan they’d discussed, but she wasn’t very good at following others’ plans for her anyway.
So she shoved him out. Shoved them both out. Because she needed to focus, and her magic was already loud enough. She couldn’t handle them in her head too.
She saw Theon’s eyes widen at the action. Luka roared again, tail smashing into a wall of windows now as he tried to find a weakness. But there was none. The Faven Palace didn’t have a weakness.