Chapter 50
DANTE
Iheaved myself over the lip of the boat, flopped onto the deck like a fish.
The Basin was gone.
We stole a boat tied up to a rotting wooden piling, drove to the middle of the lagoon in the hours before sunset, and located the spot—off an unnamed island—where my marker, a small, weighted buoy, was gone.
We circled the same spot three times, my stomach sinking further and further until I’d dove off the boat to search for myself.
Nothing.
Nothing but clumps of algae and a few curious fish.
Nothing except a deep divot in the silty bottom that had yet to fill in, which meant we’d just missed our chance to move the relic to a safer location.
“So, they have the Basin. The real Basin.” Gabriel stared over the water, the city lights reflected in his eyes.
I’d never seen him look so defeated before.
Not broken—Gabriel would never allow himself to break—but stripped bare.
A king without a kingdom, standing within sight of the throne he’d been born to inherit.
His last advantage stripped away because of my fucking mistake.
My little brother was exhausted, I realized. Worn down, not from the mantle of power he’d been forced to accept, but by a war he hadn’t been prepared for. For the ugly side—the death and the blood and the innocents in the way.
He was clever and strong enough to rule this Dynasty, the way a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires should be ruled. I was trained to fight and bleed in the trenches of the Fossa… my entire existence once pain and violence.
But Gabriel wasn’t built like that.
And all of this—the dead Dynasty members he was grieving, the threat of our people’s enslavement, the dark magic turning one of us into a monster—those were horrors my brother couldn’t rationalize his way out of.
Those stained your soul.
“It was here four days ago… now it’s fucking gone.” I was pissed at myself. Pissed I hadn’t moved the fucking thing somewhere more secure when I’d had the chance. Pissed I’d been arrogant and proud and, most of all, complacent.
“No wonder Giovanni’s meeting with the lesser houses to sort out territories. He thinks this war is over and he holds all the cards,” Gabriel mused quietly.
“He thinks he does,” I reiterated, using my shirt to dry off, then yanked on my pants, stuffed my feet back into my boots.
“We have to tell the others.” I started up the boat, hit the throttle, and we shot across the water. “We need to move,” I shouted over the engine’s roar. “Tonight. Once Giovanni uses the Basin against us, it will be too late for us to strike back because we’ll be fucking mindless slaves.”
How could I have been so fucking stupid? Gods, if I were my brother, I’d be kicking my ass right about now.
“We’re running out of options, Dante,” was all Gabriel said, in that calm, even tone that served him so godsdamned well at council. “The Basin is what they’ve been after. Now that they have it, we might be a little more than an annoyance to them.”
“I plan on being a fucking lot more than an annoyance, brother. Mark my words on that.”
We dumped the boat off in Murano, then dematerialized back to the villa, neither of us ready to continue that conversation any further when we both sensed some shift in the air, something wrong.
Gabriel was three steps ahead of me, and I followed him through the villa doors. We’d barely reached the entry hall when Valeria intercepted us. One look at her face and my rage dissolved to dread.
“What’s happened?” I looked past her down the hall. Silence.
Not so much as the murmur of voices.
Her lips trembled. “Luca’s worse. Much, much worse.” Valeria’s tearful expression crumbled as she took in my still-dripping hair and Gabriel’s barely restrained temper. Then she jerked her head toward the infirmary.
“You should go. Emberline is with him now.”
The smell hit me before I reached the door, the pungent reek of rotting flesh overlaid with something sharply medicinal and plenty of ozone—an indicator of recently spent magic.
Pagan magic. Old and patient, reminding me of the Druid in the prison.
Emilia stood at the foot of the bed, her back to us, her dark hair pinned back with glittering diamonds today, deep red dress better suited for a formal ball than an infirmary. She stood over Luca, hands held flat, magic spilling from her palms, drifting down over his body in slow, heavy waves.
Luca’s arm was wrapped in fresh bandages, but the black had migrated.
The branching lines were far past his collarbone, up the right side of his jaw, one stubborn vein reaching nearly to the outer corner of one eye. Against his pallor, they looked like cracks. Like he was broken, and some foul darkness was leaking out through the fractures.
I swallowed hard. Like an Ashbound in reverse.
His eyes were closed, chest heaving erratically, as if his lungs had forgotten how to draw air.
Where was Emberline?
There… standing in the corner behind us, completely focused on her brother’s face with a lost expression that cracked my chest straight down the middle.
Forgetting all about the Basin and our war, I crossed the room, pulled her against me, and buried my face in her hair, breathing her in, citrus and lavender momentarily drowning out the medicinal smell.
“Gods, Em.” My voice came out quieter than I intended. “I’m sorry.”
She burrowed into me, hands clutching my shirt. “I have to believe he’s still fighting.” Her lips moved against my chest. “That he hasn’t given up. Neither will I.”
Emilia turned toward me, her somber expression saying everything she couldn’t speak out loud.
He’s lost. I cannot bring him back.
“Emilia.” Gabriel’s tone was gentle but edged with authority, the heir taking control of an impossible situation, and I thanked him for it. “Tell us what we’re looking at.”
“Blackwood didn’t intend to kill Luca,” Emilia explained, every word measured and sure.
“This dark magic… was only meant to create a connection between them. One Blackwood could exploit. Which he has for the past week, at least.” She paused.
“I’m sure of it now. Luca’s mind opened up, along with every memory, ripe for plunder. ”
“So, close it,” Emberline hissed, looking only at her brother. “Break the connection. You’re powerful, aren’t you? Fucking help him.”
“Blackwood is already inside. I have tried every spell, every scrap of old magic I know,” Emilia said, with exasperated frustration. “The infection has spread to his blood. His bones. It’s everywhere. I cannot kill the disease without killing your brother.”
Luca’s erratic breathing rasped in the silence, the wheezing slowly becoming words.
“Ooold witch.” His voice sounded hollow, like sound traveling down a long, empty hallway. “Older than these bloodlines, yet weaker than me.”
“I know what you are,” Emilia purred, more and more magic spilling down from her hands, a flood of power that nearly consumed Luca. “You are the muck at the bottom of a pigsty. The residue in the bottom of a commode. You are nothing.”
Luca’s eyes opened, and the monster wearing his face smiled.
Emberline tore away from me before I could stop her—closing her fingers around her brother’s hand. That devouring smile on Luca’s face vanished, replaced by pure fear. His eyes went wide, the pupils contracting to show the dark brown, and his voice thickened into a plea.
“Em. Help me.”
Then his ruined body arched up off the bed, and the sound he made was not at all human.
I dragged my wife away and shoved her toward Gabriel. He caught her in his arms, not letting her go, even as she fought, all elbows and claws, her attention locked on her brother with a desperation bordering on hysteria.
“Let go of me…” I stepped between her and Luca.
“He’s not safe to be around right now.” I kept my voice flat as my heart broke into a thousand pieces. “Emberline, you have to stay back.”
“He knew me, knew who I was. You all saw it. Let me go.”
“And Blackwood knows you, too.” I caught her by the chin, forcing her to look at me. “That’s not Luca on that bed. That’s a trap. Blackwood owns your brother now, and there is nothing we can do for him.”
She went very still, sagging against Gabriel, as if her legs couldn’t hold her up any longer.
Luca opened his mouth and laughed, a screeching rasp that sent fear racing down my spine, the dark lines on his jaw pulsing like living veins, then expanding a little more, spreading across his face.
“There is nothing more I can do.” Emilia dropped her hands, her complexion pale against her deep red dress, her expression flat as a stone.
“I truly wish I could heal him, Emberline, but the infection is too deep, and the damage has been done. You should… consider Severin’s offer.
He would be safer in the fortress. And once he’s cut off from Blackwood, this change could slow. Even stop.”
“I agree.” Gabriel kept his arms around her. “Luca needs to be restrained, and nobody—especially you—should be alone with him.”
“You can’t lock him down. Restrain him. He’s my brother.” Emberline’s fingers dug into my arms, and she turned her tear-filled eyes up to mine. For the first time since we’d walked in, I saw her face properly—dark circles, deep lines around her mouth, paper-dry skin.
When had she fed last?
When had she slept?
“Listen to them, Emberline. They’re telling the truth.” Nico appeared in the doorway, and something in his quiet tone had us all going still. “I need you to come outside with me. Please.”
“I’m not leaving my brother. Not when you’re all convinced he’s some kind of threat. Luca needs care, not prison.”
Nico’s shoulders sagged. “Give me five minutes,” he pleaded. “And then, if you don’t believe me, you can come right back, and I won’t say another word. But I need you to hear something first.” He offered her his hand, palm up, waiting.
For a long moment she hesitated. Then finally huffed, taking it with the exhausted surrender of someone who’d run out of the energy to fight. Nico drew her through the doorway and out into the corridor. I followed, leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, waiting.
“Do you remember me telling you about the Summoners? How my father chose his strongest guards and made them his chosen warriors?”
Emberline went still, as if she’d expected this line of questioning, and a creeping dread filled my gut.
“What’s happening to your brother is what happens to them,” he explained, stroking the back of her hand. “When they transform.”
She ripped out of his grasp and backed away, shaking her head. “No. This is something else. It has to be something else.”
“When my father’s dark magic enters a vampire, his power corrupts the body.
Turns the flesh black, spreading through healthy tissue like poison.
But there is another side effect. If that vampire possesses any form of magic, my father is able to find that gift and harness it to his own use.
And your brother possesses a powerful magic, Emberline. A rare magic.”
I pushed off the wall, suddenly alert, my mind spinning in all directions.
“Luca’s ability to read minds would be invaluable to my father. Imagine what he could do with that.” He paused, searching my face long enough for me to fully absorb his meaning. “Imagine what he’s already done.”
Gods. We did have a spy.
All this time, Luca had been feeding everything right back to Blackwood. Not just the conversations he overheard, but every single secret he’d plucked out of our heads without us even knowing.
My mind raced, going back over this past week, every conversation and meeting, every fucking thought that had floated through my head.
“There’s a chance he won’t survive this change, but if he does, if Luca becomes one of my father’s chosen ones, he will…”
“Don’t.” The word ripped out of her lips, her hands held out in front of her as if she could somehow stave off the truth. “Don’t you dare tell me there’s no hope because I won’t give up on him.” She spun wildly between us, tears spilling down her face. “I’ll never give up on my brother.”
She stared at Nico for a long moment. Her jaw worked.
“Now move. I’m going back in there.”
Then she turned and walked back into the infirmary, and I stepped aside to let her.