Chapter 21 Svenn #2
Give me time, he continues. I am unravelling the hold she has on me.
Bas is still on my side. Lilith has bent his body to her will, but she has not taken him from us completely. Not yet.
My gaze shifts to Ruth.
For all these years, I have stood between Bas and my brother. Even after Ruth helped cause Gwyn’s death, I would not allow Bas to kill him. I protected Ruth long after he had ceased deserving it.
Not anymore.
If you escape her control, I tell Bas, I will not stop you this time. Ruth is yours.
Something changes behind Bas’s eyes. I can almost hear another chain inside his mind snapping open.
Do you remember what I taught you, how to layer the barriers? he asks. Lilith may have difficulty controlling two fortified Strigon minds at once.
My mental barriers are stronger now, I answer. Strong enough to resist her for a time. Though they are still nothing compared to my wife’s.
Bas’s eyebrow lifts.
Your wife? Despite everything, the faintest smile touches his mouth.
The throne room doors open before I can answer.
A wooden carriage rolls through them without a horse or driver, its wheels formed from twisted roots. Black thorns cover the bars, and pale symbols glow across every branch. Cedwyn walks beside it, though the ancient power burning in his eyes belongs to Thormein.
My gaze finds Rhianelle immediately.
She is inside with the others, pale with exhaustion but still kneeling beside Landon. Rainer is barely conscious, the black veins of Nevrin poison visible beneath his skin. Garrett stands near the bars, fury written across his face, while Shade and the wolf remain close to the wounded.
They are alive.
For now, that must be enough.
The carriage settles in the center of the throne room.
Lilith rests one hand possessively on my shoulder. “I knew Arescaine would come to his senses eventually.”
Rhianelle keeps one hand pressed over Landon’s chest as the last of her magic bleeds into him. Her gaze never lifts to Lilith. Never to me.
I tell myself that is better. If she looks at me now, if I see hatred in her eyes, this performance may end before it has properly begun.
Lilith pauses mid-taunt.
It is a small thing, Rhianelle’s refusal to acknowledge her. But my brother is quick to notice the wounded pride, especially when it belongs to the woman he worships.
Ruth turns his head toward Thormein. “Open it.”
The Aeonian hesitates.
Only for a heartbeat, but I see it. His eyes flick toward Rhianelle, and something like regret passes through them before Lilith’s silence forces his hand.
The branches part, and Ruth reaches inside, seizing Rhianelle before anyone can stop him.
Garrett shouts from behind the bars, his hands closing around the thorns until they draw blood. I feel his hatred when he looks at me. He believes I have betrayed them.
Good.
If Garrett believes it, perhaps Lilith does too.
Ruth drags Rhianelle against him and forces her into the steps of a dance. She does not cooperate. Her body is too exhausted, and her attention keeps returning to Landon inside the cage.
Wooden chains slide through the carriage, binding Garrett, Shade, Rainer, and the wolf against the bars. Landon is barely conscious, too broken to need restraints.
Lilith lowers herself into my lap. One arm curls around my shoulders while she presses herself against me, using the gesture as another weapon against Rhianelle.
I allow it.
Every beast inside me recoils. Coinneach seethes beneath my skin, waiting for my command, while Cyntefin burns hot enough that I feel fire gathering behind my ribs.
Rhianelle glances at us once.
Only once.
There is no rage in her face. Only a sadness so quiet it breaks something inside me.
Ruth sees it too.
He sees Lilith in my lap and Rhianelle refusing to break for him. His expression twists, and his grip tightens until she winces.
“You are not following the rhythm,” he tells her.
“I have never cared for dancing,” she says.
His gaze cuts toward me again. Envy has always made Ruth crueler.
He releases Rhianelle and crosses to a black casket beside the throne.
The sight of what’s inside is familiar in the worst possible way.
I know these instruments and I know what they’re for.
Ruth always had a gift for cruelty. He chooses a pair of iron shoes with long tongs and holds them over the green flames.
“These should improve your steps,” he says. “You will dance beautifully once you are wearing them.”
Rhianelle draws one careful breath.
Around her, everyone fights their restraints.
Garrett pulls against the living chains.
Shade attempts to summon a blade, but the circle dies beneath the suppressing enchantments.
The wolf claws at the branches while Rainer struggles to rise.
Even Landon tries to move, though he can barely lift himself from the floor.
I watch Ruth lower the shoes closer to the fire and know the moment has come.
“Let me put them on her.”
The room falls silent.
Ruth turns toward me. “What?”
I ease Lilith from my lap and rise. “You want to break her. Let me be the one to do it. Let me show her that she was always a fool who trusted the wrong monster.”
“Arescaine,” Rhianelle whispers.
Garrett looks at me as though he wants to tear out my heart.
Lilith claps her hands together. “Yes! Oh, yes. Let him do it.”
Ruth does not want to surrender the pleasure to me, but he cannot deny her. He hands me the tongs with obvious reluctance. “Don’t disappoint me, brother.”
I take them from him and stand before the green flames.
For a moment, I only stare at the shoes burning inside them. I watch them as though I am waiting for the iron to grow hot enough to hurt her.
In truth, I am waiting for anything else.
“The shoes, Andras,” Ruth snaps. “Do not keep our queen waiting.”
I reach into the flames and lift the white-hot shoes with my bare hands.
The iron sears my palms instantly, but the pain cannot rival the ache inside my chest.
Lilith leans forward upon the throne. “Shall we begin? I believe we have a queen to break.”
She looks at me expectantly.
Rhianelle is the love of my existence, my everything.
I bow to Lilith. “As you command, my lady.”
Every step is the longest step I have ever taken.
My body moves, but my beasts resist, pulling back and screaming at me to stop.
They want me to turn around and rip Ruth’s throat out with my bare hands and paint these walls with Lilith’s blood.
Coinneach writhes in the dark of me, pressing against my ribs, tearing at the inside of my chest, demanding I stop.
But I can’t. Not yet. We are not ready yet.
Lilith watches me with those black, bottomless eyes. She’s enjoying this. Feeding on the fear that must be radiating from Rhianelle and everyone in this cursed room.
I kneel before Rhianelle.
She is shaking, but not from fear. I know her fear, and this is not it.
She’s exhausted, pushed beyond her limits.
It must all be taking its toll on her. Summoning the beings from Astefar across such a great distance, watching her friends suffer, seeing Landon crucified and bleeding.
But when I meet her eyes, I see something that breaks me.
Trust.
She trusts me.
Even as I kneel before her with instruments of torture in my hands, Rhianelle trusts me. Her eyes are soft. Lilac pools that hold entire worlds. And in them, I see... knowing.
She knows.
I reach for her delicate foot. I’ve kissed these feet and now I’m supposed to—
“Do it or I’ll have Ruth do it,” Lilith commands, her voice sharp.
I position the metallic shoe and Rhianelle’s breath hitches from anticipation.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, so low only she can hear. “Forgive me.”
The room plunges into darkness.
Coinneach has finally made his move. I feel him surge through the room like a tidal wave of night. It wraps around our allies, pulling them from their bonds. The darkness is so complete even I can barely see.
But I feel everything because I’m the one who commands it.
Coinneach reaches Garrett first, dissolving the chains holding them.
Then Shade. I feel my shadow hesitate for just a moment at the Grimsbane assassin, some primal recognition passing between them.
Then the wolf, snarling and snapping as the bonds fall away.
Coinneach goes to Rainer last. He is still weakened from the Nevrin poison but alive and breathing.