Chapter 38
Cayden
My first day in the Alun resulted in nothing. Yes, the room was incredible. The patterns and markings through the ages were powerful in ways even I would need to research to understand, but their secrets were just another thing holding us back.
Every failure destroyed another piece of my sanity.
Early the next morning, I slipped into the hatch expecting solitude but found the Architect cross-legged in the center. Irritation punched through my chest.
“Are you willing to work together today?” he asked.
Before I could answer, Rowan bumped my shoulder with his heavy leather boot. I quickly scooted to the side so he wouldn’t crush me with his bulk coming down.
“Teamwork time,” Rowan smiled. “We’re going to find her today. I know it.”
I didn’t look at the Architect, but I didn’t argue with Rowan either.
We closed the hatch and got comfortable.
Theoretically, power sharing was a part of life.
Rowan and I, well, Rowan had pushed his magic into me to save Quinn.
Some slaves existed solely to channel magic into people or objects.
But I was a Lawson, the son of our Prophet.
Control, mastery, and discipline were my world. I did not exist to give, but to take.
We sat in a circle, with our knees almost brushing. Xan held out his hand, and Rowan placed his palm in it. White and baby blue mingled. Of course, the simple, overly optimistic enforcer gave up his power so fast.
The Architect extended his hand to me, but when I took it, nothing changed.
“Think of me like an object, if that helps,” the Architect said. “Something to fill.”
I scowled. “Except I can’t save you to use later.”
“You’d have to talk to Ezra first, but I’m sure we could work something out,” the Architect responded evenly.
I jerked back, while Rowan let out a belly laugh.
“Stop fucking laughing, she’s missing.” I held my hands together in front of me, just like she did, as if that would help. “Gone. Do you even care?”
Rowan’s laughter cut off. “We’re all hurting, Cay. I won’t respond to that.”
“Again,” the Architect commanded.
We tried again. And again. Each failure turned the small space hotter. By midday, they worked in sync while I still stumbled.
“Can you send your magic into me?” I asked after yet another failed attempt.
Rowan nodded. We’d already done this to save Quinn.
Both of us turned to the Architect and waited. After a short stare-down, he inclined his head. “Trust goes both ways.”
Sweat dripped down my back, and I ripped off my tunic as if it were the reason for my discomfort.
Like me, the Architect didn’t share well.
It took him several attempts and a lot of murmuring to himself before my body finally hummed with more magic than I’d ever felt.
I crossed my legs, closed my eyes, and reached for my tether.
Our combined magics sank into it only to swirl out.
Heat pressed against my chest, but I wasn’t ready to give up.
“What’s happening, Cayden?” the Architect asked.
I didn’t answer him. I threw every bit of magic I controlled at the tether. I had to get her back. The magic hit the dead connection and once again spun back to me. Agony seared my chest, and a whimper escaped my lips as I grabbed my numb left arm.
Two hands pulled me to the ground. My back slammed against the Alun floor, and a burst of magic exploded from my chest, leaving me gasping for air, but pain free. Light burst behind my eyelids, blinding even through the darkness, and Rowan yelped.
The runes drank the sizzling magic, and we all exhaled. That had been enough magic to level The Great Hall.
“Cayden, you must communicate with us,” the Architect said.
I opened my eyes to see his baby blues hovering above me.
“Or at least Rowan, if you hate me.” He sat back and rubbed the growth on his chin. “Please. I just want to find her.”
I rubbed my chest, exactly where Quinn should be, and where our magic ejected out of me.
“I don’t hate you. But I don’t want to find out this is another cult.
” I was suddenly exhausted. I’d been so angry for so long.
“You manipulated her and withheld her options. You attempted to steer her life. I know because that’s what I did.
Every woman who came through our doors learned to worship the Prophet and walk in the light of the Sun God.
” I slammed my fist into my chest, chasing pain to drown out the guilt.
“It wasn’t teaching. We broke them. Took their choices.
Rebuilt them into what we wanted.” My nails bit deep into my palms until warm blood slicked my fists.
“I did it. I was celebrated for it. And I believed, God help me, I believed.”
I wanted Quinn. My Quinn. I wanted her in my arms so I could hide in her strength. But she wasn’t here. I glared at the Architect. “How are you any better than my Prophet?”
Not my Prophet. Never again, but after a lifetime of conditioning, I wasn’t sure I could think of him as anything else.
The Architect fell back, catching himself on his hands. Power throbbed around us. Rowan rubbed a dark bruise forming on his bicep where he hadn’t been able to dodge the explosion of our combined magics.
“There’s nothing I can say that will change what you think.” The Architect folded his legs under him and grimaced. “But you’re right. I did all of those things.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. I’d expected denial or explanations, not acceptance of my accusation.
“It was Ezra’s call to keep her within our walls, but I didn’t change it.
I wanted her in my family, so I threw my allies in her path.
Every family in existence can give her better options than I.
” He gestured around the space. “My castle is a relic from BT. It’s been a fortress, a prison, a garrison, and a tourist attraction.
Its bleak stone walls are filled with a mix of people either running from something or heading toward something they hope is better than what they had. ”
He leaned back on his arms again. “So, in my insecurity, I didn’t want her to know what else was out there.
” He smiled sadly. “And manipulation has shades of gray that I do not deny participating in, but if I truly intended to force her”—shadows fell over his face—“she would be silently screaming while my mental will held her exactly where I wanted her.”
A rigid ache locked my spine.
Rowan let out a painful grunt. “Sir.”
“I wouldn’t do that to anyone.” A shudder ran through the Architect. “That’s not me. It will never be me. But it is something I’m capable of.” His gaze turned inward. “Sometimes, it makes me hate myself.”
His last words were barely more than a breath, almost lost to the air.
Self-hatred was something I knew well, just not something I ever thought I’d share with the Architect.
He turned to Rowan, and his entire demeanor shifted. “We are so far past ‘sir’ it’s painful. I’ve spent two days half-naked in a tiny room with you. We’re even on the same pee schedule, not to mention the showers a few days ago. Call. Me. Xan.”
Rowan ducked but also grinned. “And we tethered the same woman.”
For a split second, the Architect grinned back, and then his entire face fell.
Quinn. My fists clenched, my pulse a pounding drum in my ears. She was out there somewhere, and instead of looking for her, I was wallowing in my own shit.
The Architect turned back to me. “I’m human, Cayden.
I’m not a god. I’m not a prophet. I am just a man.
” He sat back up and held out his hand to me.
“My name is Alexander. My friends call me Xan. I didn’t grow up in a cult, but if you wanted to swap stories about shitty childhoods, we could probably go toe to toe. ”
I studied his hand, not liking the humor he was trying to interject into the moment. But Quinn would have.
‘I know you haven’t felt it yet, but Xan and Ezra make her happy. Give him a chance to show you who he truly is.’ Rowan’s voice was so quiet, like he desperately needed to speak but also didn’t want his words to shift the balance in the wrong way.
I let out a pain-filled sigh and clasped Xan’s wrist. “I have no interest in swapping anything with you.”
His grip tightened, steady, grounding, but far from aggressive. “Honesty’s a start. Now, what just happened?”
We released our grips, and I described the wall and the pain in my chest. The feeling in my arm slowly returned. We spent the rest of the day attempting to widen the tether in every way we could think of until our bodies and magic were exhausted.
Xan’s TB buzzed once, twice, and then followed by a small trickle. He pulled it out and grimaced. I could almost see him age with each message.
“Sir?” Rowan asked.
Xan scrubbed his face. “I’m a mentalist. Accusations that I’m manipulating Quinn’s mind were already rampant from the three days she spent in my rooms. With her missing, the accusations are turning to open hostility. Even from a few of my allies.”
The hatch opened, and Ezra’s head lowered. “Xan, sleep now. You’ll do her no good if you’re unconscious.”
I pursed my lips. We did her no good asleep either. Quinn’s mind was her own; anyone who had spent time with her knew it. We just had to find her. And if I couldn’t now, I’d make damn sure she was safe once we did.
As commanded, we filed out. Instead of going to my room, I pulled Ezra to the side. “If my Prophet learns about the Alun, he will try to take this castle by force to possess it.”
Ezra’s gaze darkened.
“Your security is bad. You have holes and too much trust in your men, especially with them stretched to hold The Mile.”
“And you’re an expert in these things?” Ezra said flatly.
I wanted to be sick. “Yes. Our security was tight because the Prophet needed total control over our lives. It’s not called The Lawson Compound for nothing. No one in. No one out.”