Chapter 19 #2
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken fears. I could feel their love for me through our bonds, but also their terror at the thought of losing me to Taveth's darkness. It made my chest tight with guilt and determination in equal measure.
"Then we protect her," Marcus said finally, his voice carrying the weight of absolute decision. "All of us. We don't leave her alone with him again until we find answers."
"I'm not a child," I protested. "I don't need—"
"You do," Tarshi interrupted, and the exhaustion in his voice made me pause.
"Livia, I felt what was in his mind tonight.
The things he wanted to do..." He shuddered.
"If you hadn't reached him when you did, he would have destroyed you.
Not just hurt you—destroyed you. And enjoyed every moment of it. "
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken arguments.
I could see it in their faces—the fear, the frustration, the protective instincts warring with their understanding of what I meant to them all.
But I didn't care. I couldn't care about their concerns when Taveth was lying in the next room, fighting a battle against his own soul.
But they didn't understand. They couldn't feel what I felt through the bond with Taveth.
Maybe Tarshi felt it too, but not the others.
Yes, there was darkness there. Yes, there was something consuming him piece by piece.
But underneath all of that, buried beneath layers of shadow and madness, the man I loved was still fighting.
Still holding on. I'd felt it in those brief moments when he'd surfaced, when his true self had broken through the rage to whisper apologies with tears in his eyes.
"Then what do you propose we do?" Jalend asked quietly. "Because watching him deteriorate isn't helping anyone."
"We find the elders," I said, my voice steady despite the chaos in my chest. "We demand they tell us everything they know about shadow madness. Every research note, every failed experiment, every theory they've dismissed as impossible."
"And if they refuse?" Antonius crossed his arms, his expression sceptical.
I felt something cold and determined settle in my bones. "Then I make them understand that refusing isn't an option."
Marcus's grip on my hand tightened. "Livia, you can't threaten the temple leadership. They could throw us all out, or worse—"
"Let them try. I've lost enough.”
"Livia—" Antonius started.
"No." I slipped out of Marcus’ arms and stood up, turning to face them all, and I could feel my own anger building—not the destructive, consuming rage that ate at Taveth, but something cleaner and more focused.
"I'm tired of being kept in the dark. I'm tired of watching him suffer while people who might have answers keep secrets.
I'm his mate. I have a right to know. I’m going to see Aytara now.
I'm done waiting. I'm done being patient and respectful while the man I love loses his mind.
She's going to give me answers, or I'm going to tear this place apart looking for them myself. "
I was already moving toward the door when Marcus called after me. "What do you want us to do about Taveth?"
I paused, looking back at my mates—these men who had risked their lives to protect me from the person they cared about, who were struggling to balance their love for me with their respect for our mating bond.
Tarshi’s face was grim and worried, but my worry for him eased a little as Septimus slipped his arm around Tarshi’s waist. He wasn’t alone.
"Stay with him," I said. "Don't leave him alone. And if the darkness comes back..." I swallowed hard. "Do whatever you have to do to keep him from hurting himself."
The corridors of the temple had never felt so long.
With each step, my anger grew, fed by weeks of frustration and fear.
Aytara had answers—I was sure of it. The way she looked at Taveth, the way she avoided my questions, the cold distance she maintained.
She knew something, and I was done being polite about it.
I found her up in the garden, sitting on the bench beside the pool, her gaze seemingly focused on the bright coloured fish that frolicked in the water, but her mind was far from there.
I didn't announce myself. I simply walked up and sat beside her on the stone bench, close enough that she couldn't ignore my presence but far enough that I wasn't crowding her. The silence stretched between us, broken only by the gentle splash of the fish moving through the water.
"He's getting worse," I said finally, my voice carefully controlled despite the rage building in my chest.
Aytara didn't look at me, but I saw her shoulders tense slightly. "I know."
"Do you?" I turned to face her fully, studying her profile in the moonlight. "Do you really know what it's like for him? The voices in his head, the constant battle against something that wants to turn him into a monster?"
"I raised him," she said quietly. "I've watched this consume every shadow mage I've ever known. I know exactly what it's like."
"Then you know he's running out of time."
Her hands tightened in her lap, and I caught the slight tremor in her voice when she spoke. "Yes."
The simple admission hit me harder than I'd expected. Part of me had been hoping she'd deny it, tell me I was wrong, that there was still time. But hearing the resignation in her voice confirmed my worst fears.
She glanced at me with those calculating eyes, taking in my dishevelled appearance, the bruises forming on my wrists, the barely contained fury radiating from every line of my body.
She was silent for a long moment, her gaze returning to the fish in the pool. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. "How bad?"
"Bad enough that if my mates hadn't arrived when they did, I would have been brutalized by the man I love. Bad enough that there was nothing human left in his eyes. Bad enough that I could feel him planning exactly how he was going to hurt me and enjoying every second of it."
"Livia, I—"
"No," I cut her off, slamming the door behind me. "No more excuses. No more deflection. I want answers, and I want them now."
Her composure slipped for just a moment, revealing something that might have been fear. "I don't know what you—"
"Bullshit," I snarled, and she actually flinched at the venom in my voice.
"Taveth almost lost himself completely tonight.
He almost..." I took a shaking breath. "He almost became the monster that's been eating him alive.
And you've been studying this curse for years, so don't you dare tell me you don't know anything. "
"It's not that simple—"
"Then make it simple!" I screamed, all pretence of respect finally cracking. "Tell me why you haven't found a cure! Tell me why the man I love is disappearing piece by piece while you sit here reading the same books over and over again!"
The silence that followed was deafening. Aytara stared at me, her composed mask finally slipping to reveal the pain underneath. And suddenly, she looked less like the intimidating Matron and more like a woman carrying an impossible burden.
"Because I'm afraid," she whispered, the words barely audible.
I blinked, taken aback by the admission. "Afraid of what?"
She laughed, but there was no humour in it—only bitter self-recrimination. "Afraid of losing him. Afraid of watching him die trying to save everyone else with the cure."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "What cure?"
Aytara's hands were shaking as she set down the book she'd been holding.
"There might be a way to break the curse.
To free all of them from the darkness. But it would require.
.." She took a shuddering breath. "It would require a sacrifice.
Someone powerful enough to channel all of their darkness into themselves and then destroy it. "
The implications hit me like a physical blow. "Taveth."
She nodded, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. "He's the only one strong enough. But even if it worked, even if he could save all the others..." She met my eyes, and I saw the truth there. "He wouldn't survive it."
"You love him," I said, the realization hitting me suddenly. "That's why you've been so cold to me. That's why you resented our bond."
"He wasn't born of my body," she said quietly, "but I've loved him as my son since the day he arrived here. Broken, traumatized, carrying more power than any child should have to bear. I watched him grow up, watched him struggle with the darkness, watched him become the man he is today."
"Then why didn't you tell him?" I demanded. "Why didn't you give him the choice?"
"Because I'm selfish," she admitted, her voice breaking. "Because I couldn't bear the thought of losing him. I told myself we'd find another way, that there had to be another solution."
Understanding crashed over me like a cold wave. "That's why you encouraged him to keep me at a distance. Why you wanted him to treat me as just a physical outlet."
She nodded miserably. "Strong emotions accelerate the process. The deeper he loves, the faster the darkness consumes him. I thought if he could maintain emotional distance, if he could treat the bond as purely physical, it might slow the progression."
"But it didn't work," I said.
"No," she whispered. "If anything, fighting his feelings for you made it worse. And now..." She looked at me with desperate eyes. "I can see how much he loves you. How completely you've captured his heart. It's beautiful and terrible, because it's killing him faster than anything else could."
The weight of it all—the curse, the cure, the impossible choice—settled on my shoulders like lead. "You have to tell him."
"I can't ask him to die for us," she said frantically. "I won't be the one to send him to his death."
"You're losing him anyway," I said harshly. "Tonight proved that. The darkness is winning, and soon there won't be anything left of the man we love. At least this way, he'd have a choice. He'd go out fighting instead of just... fading away."
Aytara stared at me for a long moment, and I could see the war playing out behind her eyes—love versus duty, hope versus fear.
"The last time we tried something like this," she said quietly, "it failed. The man we asked to attempt it... the darkness consumed him completely before he could channel it out of the others. He became something monstrous, and we had to..." She swallowed hard.
“Sayven,” I murmured.
Her eyes widened. “How do you… yes, yes Sayven. Taveth was showing signs of being one of the strongest mages we’d had in generations.
He was already stronger than Sayven as a child.
Sayven couldn’t bear the thought of watching his son spiral into madness, so he took the risk and tried to save them all. And now…”
“Now he’s kept chained to the floor of his cell,” I said tightly, picturing Taveth in the same situation.
"Yes," Aytara confirmed, her voice hollow.
"The similarities are... disturbing. Sayven was brilliant, powerful, convinced he could bear the burden for all of them.
But the darkness was too much. It twisted him into something unrecognizable.
And that's the fate that awaits Taveth if he follows the same path.
Even if he's stronger, even if he has a better chance of success—if he fails, if the darkness overwhelms him during the attempt. .."
I closed my eyes, trying to process what she was telling me.
The image of Taveth chained in those depths, reduced to nothing but rage and madness, made my stomach turn.
But the alternative—watching him slowly disappear, piece by piece, until nothing remained but the monster I'd seen tonight—wasn't any better.
"But Taveth is stronger," I pressed, though the words felt hollow even as I spoke them. "You said so yourself—he's more powerful than Sayven ever was."
"Power isn't the issue," she said bitterly.
"It's the nature of the darkness itself.
It doesn't just consume—it corrupts. It takes everything good and noble about a person and perverts it into something monstrous.
Sayven wanted to save his people. The darkness used that desire against him, showed him that the only way to truly protect them was to eliminate all threats. Permanently."
I thought of the way Taveth had looked at me earlier, the calculating coldness in his pale eyes as he'd planned exactly how to break me. Was that his future? Would love itself become a weapon the darkness could wield against him?
"There has to be another way," I said desperately. "Some other solution—"
"Don't you think I've looked?" Aytara's composure finally cracked completely, years of suppressed anguish pouring out.
"Don't you think I've spent every waking moment for the past decade searching for alternatives?
I've read every text, consulted every expert, pursued every lead no matter how impossible?”
"What exactly would he have to do?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"The ritual requires him to open himself completely to the shadow realm," she explained, her words careful and measured.
"To become a conduit for all the darkness that plagues our people.
He would have to draw it into himself—not just his own curse, but that of every shadow mage still alive.
All of it—every whisper, every fragment of madness, every piece of corruption.
He becomes a vessel for centuries of accumulated shadow magic. "
The scope of it was staggering. "All of them?"
"Every single one. Dozens of men and women, all carrying the same burden he does.
All that concentrated darkness would flow through him, and then he'd have to find a way to destroy it from within.
" Her voice broke slightly. "The power required... it would burn him out completely. How can I ask him to do that? How can I tell the man I raised as my own son that our only hope is a ritual that might drive him mad or kill him? I don’t want to lose my son, Livia. "
I thought back to the man in my room, the bruises on my arms, the sheer look of hate and glee in his eyes as he came towards me.
That alien feeling of something polluting our sacred bond.
Taveth had been forced out, replaced by something evil, and the pain that had followed, when he’d realised what he’d done, it had torn me apart.
"He's already lost," I said quietly.