Chapter 31 #2
In his absence, the air of the room shifts. Tension fizzles out into something stale. He took the undercurrent of power, the buzz of dark energy, the violence he exhaled—he took all of it with him.
The sudden parting of it triggers my feet to move. Back one step. Then another.
The Countess glares at the door he disappeared behind, and I turn my back on every stunned dinner guest, heart racing as I hurry back to the kitchen.
Stumbling through the door, the Umbra is there instantly. She rushes into my path, yelling some insult or reprimand that I’m too preoccupied to listen to.
“I don’t feel good,” I force out, uncaring of the way her pupils thin to slits and her face twists in fury.
“Alesi,” she warns, “if you leave this kitchen, so help me, I will send you back to Onyile.”
It’s a threat. One I should be fearful of. Even in the midst of my steep, steep spiral, I know I should be afraid of Onyile, but right now, I fear other things more.
“Sorry,” I mutter, not sure why I even bother with an apology as I scramble past her and to the door.
The Umbra lets out a barrage of curses, her voice spilling out into the hall as I stumble into it, slamming the door shut behind me.
I move quickly, no real direction in mind, and only when I can’t hear the clamor of the kitchens anymore do I slow, drawing in deep breaths as I turn down barren halls.
The curtains have been opened, night having fully settled, and relief rolls off my shoulders knowing I’ll be able to talk to Callan soon. It will take hours of manipulating stars to fully get out everything I need to say—
“There you are.”
There’s someone at the end of the hall I’ve just turned down.
When I freeze, he creeps forward, stumbling into a stream of moonlight.
It’s the man I served dinner to. Older, thin white hair slicked back, deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He’s clearly drunk, white teeth stained red, yellow eyes more glazed over than they were in the dining room, but there’s recognition on his face.
He knows Alesi.
At his next shaky step forward, I take a step back. It doesn’t deter him.
His lips twitch, his strides towards me becoming more confident. Purposeful. “When did you get back?” he slurs.
I steel myself, remembering the part I have to play. “Not…not long ago.”
Alesi’s accent must have come out perfectly, because a slimy grin spreads across his face. “And you didn’t come to see me?” he drawls, coming close enough that I can smell the alcohol on his breath.
It hits me then, like a bucket of ice water to the face.
The Baron.
It takes everything I have to keep my expression blank as I pour all of my focus into the illusion. I have to. He’s drinking in every square inch of my face. I’m willing to be that through half-hooded eyes, and in a dark hall, his vision isn’t the best, but I can’t assume anything.
I’ve never wanted to not be Alesi more.
The Baron leans in, the wiry, unkempt hair of his mustache scraping my cheekbone. “Why?” he grunts out.
I take a bold step backwards, planting my feet in the carpet. “Because I didn’t want to.”
The Baron sits with my answer for all of one second before deciding that he loathes it. He rushes forward, catching me a bit off guard as he forces me back against a nearby pillar. My hands come up between us, pushing at his chest.
“Excuse me?” he growls, teeth gritted in my face.
I hold in my instinct to burst into flames, grinding my jaw tight as I search the hall for anyone who might be around to catch whatever he’s planning on trying.
But there are too many shadows, too many dark corners, and the Baron has just pushed me into one.
No witnesses in sight, I strengthen my illusion, magic spilling into my veins. “I said,” I repeat, dragging in a deep breath, “because I didn’t want to.”
“Oh?” The Baron rears back, but keeps his body pressed into mine. “You didn’t want to?” His tone is condescending, and I watch as his hand raises, deciding that if his fingertips meet my skin, it will be the last thing he ever touches. The fury roaring through me insists on it.
“Darling,” he tsks, pale fingers inches from my cheek, “when have I ever cared whether or not you want to—”
I drop the illusion, break free from its limitations on my magic, and snatch his wrist, twisting until I hear it crack.
At first, the Baron is too stunned by my sudden change in appearance to fight back. It takes only a second for him to inhale, preparing to yell or scream, and I slam my palm over his mouth before he can make a sound. Bringing my knee up between his legs in the same second.
It’s the oldest trick in the book, but it works like a charm. Always does. And the Baron is drunk enough that his knees buckle, and he folds to the floor.
I’m too far in to stop now. He’s already seen my face.
Magic pours out of me, and I can’t tell if it’s Solian or Rogue. It’s some new vicious mix of both. The beast and the saint finally decided to work together.
Heat saturates my palm, melting the wrinkled skin around his mouth, and gathering shadows creep up his chest, thick black tendrils circling his neck.
The Baron screams against my hand, shoulders thrashing, and I yank tight on the shadows, shocked when they adhere to my command.
His golden eyes bulge, black veins splintering over his throat, blood vessels popping around his eyes from the pressure. I grimace at the smell of burning flesh and push my hand tighter against his mouth. Heat dances with the bitter cold in my veins—burning and soothing. Steaming through my pores.
It feels good to use it in tandem. It feels great, actually. I think the wicked thing my father passed down enjoys wreaking havoc with my mother’s fury.
“Hopefully,” I grit out, eyes watering at the stench, “Prya will teach you what no means.”
His eyes widen impossibly further, and with one final twist on his noose of shadows, his bones crack, and the Baron falls lifeless to the ground.
I rip my hand away and take a fast step back, chest heaving as I stare down at his body. Magic slithers back into place, leaving a static buzz in its wake. The prickling sensation pushes up from beneath my skin, raising the hair on my arms.
“Now what are you going to do?”
Flinching at the sound of his voice, I whirl around in time to see a tall figure emerge, stepping out from a shadowed corner. That current of power that he’d taken when he fled the dining room sweeps over the carpeted floor as he leisurely crosses the hall, hands stuffed into his pockets.
The glint of blue crystal eyes shines through the dark even before the moonlight hits him, and he stops a few feet away, attention shifting from me to the dead body between us.
There’s a lot of pity on his sculpted face as he takes in the Baron’s injuries, but if I’m not mistaken, there’s a little amusement there too.
It’s his casual perusal of my crime that shakes me from my stunned silence, triggering some frustration instead. “You were there the whole time?”
At my question, his eyes meet mine.
I remain defiant, chin lifted, insistent on an answer. What kind of person sits back and watches a man force himself on a girl who clearly wanted nothing to do with him? Lingering in a dark corner as a bystander witnessing that interaction? It’s sick.
“You told me not to interfere.”
I snort, pushing up my sleeves as I step over the Baron’s body.
“Something’s funny about that?” He tracks me as I pass him, the weight of his attention heavy. “It was your request.”
“Yeah,” twisting my hair back and over my shoulder, I drop to a crouch, reaching for the Baron’s ankles, “and I’m surprised you listened.”
“Why’s that?” he wonders.
Why’s that?
I take advantage of the lingering adrenaline and blurt out, “Because you’re the Hound.”
An ivory hand darts out, blocking my reach and halting my motion.
I stay there for a moment, attention locked on long, steady fingers, a barricade I don’t dare push past as all the air rushes out of my lungs.
It had been a hunch—one I felt more stupid than scared to believe in—but I think I was right. And as the seconds tick past, the silence swelling, the truth of it sinks like a rock in my stomach.
It’s the only thing that makes sense. I knew he wasn’t human the first time I saw him, and his magic isn’t Solian or Rogue. But it was what he’d said at dinner that shifted enough pieces in my brain for it to click:
And when you die, the land will still belong to her, but all of you will belong to me.
And it was how he said them, with centuries of vengeance in an old-world accent that I’m sure would’ve sliced even deeper if he had spoken it in his native tongue. The revelation all but hit me in the face—he’s the Hound. Pyra’s Hound. The rumors had been true.
The story Pa told a few Selumira’s ago is the extent of my knowledge—how Etis had made a deal with him, long ago, her soul in exchange for his help in breaking the curse on their Disciples.
She left Streatham with him, and when she came back, years later, she was alone and without a cure.
Etis had gone entirely mad with the curse she’d been infected with.
Nobody knows what happened in the year she searched with the Hound—most of what she spoke about after was gibberish.
Etis and the other four Disciples were locked away in that state.
Condemned to suffer through their immortal lives in a tomb somewhere.
Stuck with a disease that would slowly drive them closer and closer to insanity.
And that was fifty years ago.
Cautiously lifting my gaze, I follow the length of the arm stretched out before me, all the way up to a depthless cerulean stare. He pins me in place with it, and I know I should be afraid, but I’m not. I should want to shrink away, but I don’t.
It’s grown so eerily quiet that when he finally speaks, the low rumble of his voice is jarring. “Now, when did you piece that together?”
I swallow, still frozen in place. “I don’t know. Somewhere between “all I care about is retribution,” “Torture is the business,” and “when you die, all of you will belong to me.”