Chapter 23 #2
“Probably not,” I said. “But neither is facing a superior fighter.”
He closed his eyes. “What does it require?”
I skimmed the first page, then traced a finger down the column of glyphs. “Blood,” I said. “Yours, mostly. Some… other elements. A wolf to channel it. But mostly, just blood.”
He looked at his hands again. “Fuck. How bad is this going to hurt?”
I shrugged. “All power hurts. That’s why it’s power.”
He laughed, a small, brittle sound. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
I didn’t answer. The worst had already happened: he’d let himself get cornered by an inferior, and now he was mine to shape or break.
I flipped to the instructions, scanned the supplies. Most were trivial—herbs, silver, salt. The rest would require some creativity, but I’d procured worse for less noble causes.
Dominic stood, straightening his tie even though it had wilted to a wrinkled cord. “How soon can we do it?”
I glanced at the clock. “We need to do it close to the time of the fight so it will be a peak potency.” I closed the book, ran a thumb along the edge, felt the prick of the binding needle. “Tonight, you rest. I’ll arrange the rest.”
He almost smiled, the pathetic bastard. “Thank you, Declan.”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I lifted the book and slid it back into the wall. As I closed the panel, I turned to Dominic. “Remember this, King. When you win, it’s because you did what was necessary.”
He nodded, and left the room with the bearing of a man who finally understood his role: the weapon, not the wielder.
When I was alone again, I poured myself another glass of whiskey. I drank, then stared out at the lake until the glass was empty and the sun began to stain the far shore with the color of old bruises.
It was done. My daughter would kneel, or she would die. Either way, I would prove who was the strongest.
The study’s atmosphere had just begun to curdle into a sort of stagnant peace when the door burst open, scattering the heavy silence into tatters.
Callum stalked in, hair wet with rain and eyes bright with mischief, a little too satisfied with himself.
He moved with the insolent grace of a favored son, but his gaze was all wolf—calculating, hungry, always searching for the spot of softest flesh.
Trailing him was a woman swaddled in a dark, ragged cloak.
The hood shadowed her face, but even from across the room I felt the cold spill off her in waves, a temperature drop sharp enough to crack the wax puddles on the desk.
Dominic straightened in his chair, went pale as cream cheese, and tucked his chin in as if to avoid the sight.
Callum stopped a foot from the desk. “Father,” he said, with an exaggerated bow, then jerked his chin at the cloaked woman. “Moira Blackthorn. You said to fetch her if things went sideways.”
“Things have not gone sideways,” I said, but even I could hear the lie in my voice. “They have gone terminal. Thank you, son.”
The woman peeled back her hood. Her face was a contradiction: smooth, ageless skin stretched over the fine bones of a child, but the eyes… the eyes were bottomless, tar-black, no white, no iris, only the infinite night. I felt them rake my soul, weigh and measure every secret, every debt owed.
“King Declan,” she said, and the syllables dry-brushed the air like leaves scudding across tombstones. “Your son tells me you require a remedy for an… impasse.”
I stepped forward, carefully, as if approaching a loaded trap. “We require certainty. The ritual challenge must be won. No room for error, no room for mercy. My daughter’s future—and my own—is on the table.”
Moira’s lips curled, not quite a smile, but something far more obscene.
“Blood magic is always happy to oblige the proud and the desperate.” She glided to the bookshelf, her long fingers trailing across the spines with the delicacy of a blind pianist. “Which flavor of certainty do you desire, King? Invulnerability? Madness? Death in the shape of your enemy’s face? ”
Moira’s fingers stilled on the shelf. The cold radiating from her deepened, frosting the air in my lungs. “You’ve already begun,” she said, less a question than an accusation. Her black eyes flicked to Dominic’s as he sat at his desk, then back to me. “With an ancient book.”
I didn’t flinch. “You know it?”
She laughed—a sound like ice snapping underfoot—and withdrew her hand as if the spines had burned her.
“Know it? It’s a corpse’s breath given form.
The Black Codex should’ve been ash five centuries ago.
” For the first time, her ageless face twitched, a spiderweb of tension fracturing her composure. “Where did you—?”
“Irrelevant.” I crossed to the panel, pried the Codex free again. Its binding needle bit my palm, drawing a bead of blood that sizzled against the leather. “Can you work it or not?”
Moira didn’t touch the tome. She leaned in, nostrils flaring as if scenting rot, then recoiled. “This isn’t blood magic. This is… communion. With things that gnaw at the roots of the world.” Her voice wavered, just a tremor, but I stored it away like a blade. Fear. Genuine fear.
Dominic stirred, knuckles white on the chair arms. “Declan, maybe we should—”
“Quiet.” I didn’t look at him. Kept my gaze locked on Moira’s endless eyes. “Name your price, witch. Triple your usual.”
Her tongue darted out, wetting lips gone gray. “Triple won’t save you when the debt comes due.”
“But it’ll buy you prettier headstones,” I said. “Do we have an accord?”
A beat. Two. The cold sharpened until my teeth ached. Then—
“Dawnbloom petals. Still dripping sap,” she snapped, suddenly all business, though her shoulders remained rigid. “The heart of a storm-struck oak. And a living vessel—something with teeth enough to bite back when the void starts chewing.”
“The wolf,” I said, nodding toward Callum, who grinned like a feral dog scenting blood.
Moira’s gaze swept over him. “He’ll do. Barely.” She turned to Dominic, and I watched him try to sit up tall under her attention, sweat glistening on his upper lip. “You. Strip to the skin. Scour yourself with salt and vervain. No metal on your flesh when the moon crowns.”
“Why?” he croaked.
“Because when the Codex opens you,” she said, smiling now with all the warmth of a grave’s shadow, “you’ll want every barrier gone. Pain is the kindest part of this.”
Dominic’s throat bobbed, but he nodded.
Moira swept toward the door, her cloak billowing like a storm cloud. “One hour,” she threw over her shoulder. “Pray your wolf doesn’t piss himself before then.”
The door slammed.
Callum chuckled, cracking his knuckles. “Feisty.”
“Out,” I ordered. When the room emptied, I pressed my bleeding palm to the Codex. The leather drank greedily, runes flaring copper-bright.
Let her fear, I thought. Fear made servants of wolves and witches alike.
Dominic lingered, trembling in the lamplight.
“Go prepare, King,” I said softly. “Your mate awaits.”
He fled.
Alone, I poured another whiskey. The lake outside mirrored the sky’s gathering colors—purple, violent, beautiful.
Soon, Menace would learn the cost of defiance.
Soon, the Codex would feast.
I stared into the bottom of my glass, waiting for the last drop of courage to dissolve. Then I set it down, wiped my mouth.
Whatever it took. Whatever it cost.