Chapter 25
Cyra
I was most of the way back down the hall when Axenus caught up and stepped in front of me again. He was breathing hard, and I couldn’t help being momentarily mesmerized by the way the light from the torches made his iridescent skin shimmer with the movement.
Axenus was beautiful, much like Bressen was, but I couldn’t recall ever hearing him talk about relationships he’d had.
Bressen and Samhail could be blunt and even bawdy about their past conquests, but I knew nothing about any past lovers Axenus may have had, either before or after Clarice.
It was possible he just liked to keep that part of his life private, but I had to wonder if he shied away from intimacy in general since his ordeal with her.
Perhaps he eschewed any opportunity for love because she’d broken something in him.
The thought alone made me want to kill her all over again.
“What did you do?” Axenus asked me, his voice shaking. “Cyra, what in the three hells did you just do?”
I cocked my head at him. “You know very well what I just did. And you’re welcome.”
I tried to move past him, but he grabbed my arm.
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” he said through gasping breaths. “I would never ask you to do that.”
“I know. Which is why I did it without you having to.”
His face fell. “Cyra.”
My stomach twisted at the disappointment in his voice, and I cursed myself for caring so much about his opinion of me. Clarice had deserved to die, so why was I frustrated it hadn’t made Axenus happy?
“What’s done is done,” I said. “Mourn her if you want, but I don’t have time to shed tears. I need to find Bressen, and I don’t know if anything I got from Clarice will be useful. I need to speak to Glenora.”
I pushed past him and started toward the stairs again. Hettie had gotten ahead of us while we’d spoken, and she led the way while the twins brought up the rear.
“And do you actually intend to talk to her?” Axenus asked as he took the stairs a step behind me. “Or are she and her child going to end up like Clarice?”
“That depends entirely on how cooperative she is,” I said.
Angry as I was, I didn’t think I had it in me to kill Glenora’s child, even if I didn’t mind seeing her herself die, but I didn’t feel like explaining that to Axenus. Despite what Magdalene had claimed, and despite what Axenus seemed to fear, I wasn’t a monster.
I was not a monster…
My legs burned from the climb by the time Hettie stepped out of the stairwell.
The floors all looked much the same in Revenmyer, save for the amount of light each got, so I had to trust we were in the right place.
While Clarice’s cell was belowground somewhere and had no windows, Glenora’s was near the top of the prison and had one small window that let in outside light, even if that light was often dim from the constant clouds that plagued the area.
The upper levels also had windows at each end of the corridor, and the demoni that surfaced out of the stone every now and then seemed to avoid the area of floor just below them where the muted light touched down.
Even with these windows, the inside of the prison was dark enough to need torches on the walls.
Hettie unlocked the door to Glenora’s cell, and I strode in with Axenus and the twins in my wake.
I felt Axenus directly behind me, so close he nearly touched me.
Had he not been a merman, I might’ve been able to feel his body heat, but Axenus’s body temperature ran cooler than a normal human.
His skin wasn’t cold per se, but he wasn’t as warm as Bressen and Samhail.
I knew he was determined to stay near me, although what he thought he could do if I decided to kill Glenora, I didn’t know.
The former Lady of Polaris stood at her window today, but she turned when we entered. I couldn’t read the range of emotions that crossed her face as she took us all in, but I was sure I wouldn’t have liked any of them.
“Back so soon, my dear?” she asked. She surveyed Axenus and the gargoyles. “And who have you brought with you this time?”
Her eyes fell on Axenus, and she cocked her head. She came forward and stopped in front of him to look him over. After a moment, she gave him a small sniff.
“I thought I smelled fish,” she said with a quirk of her lips. She looked back at me. “He does look rather delicious, though. Have you taken this one to your bed as well, or just the gargoyle?”
I felt the color drain from my face as I realized neither Axenus nor the twins knew I’d taken Samhail to bed. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. Bressen wouldn’t care, but I didn’t know how Samhail might feel about Axenus and his siblings knowing about us.
Unfortunately, Glenora noticed me go pale, and her eyes lit up.
“They don’t know, do they,” she said.
“Don’t speak about things you don’t understand,” I told her.
I willed her to stay quiet, but I knew she wouldn’t. Glenora had spent her life reading people, always looking for evidence they might be trying to get around her ability to see their lies. It had made her a sharp observer, and she knew how to use those observations to her advantage.
Glenora eyed the two gargoyles. “Relations of Samhail?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. Gods damn it. Why hadn’t I anticipated this?
“Do they know you’ve taken him between your thighs?” she went on.
I glanced at the twins. Both looked at me with wide eyes, but I didn’t bother denying it. It was none of their concern who I fucked, and if they tried to take it up with Samhail, he’d set them straight.
I frowned as some kind of mark glowed gold on both of their foreheads all of a sudden, but it was there and gone in an instant, and I wondered if I’d imagined it.
I turned back to Glenora as her sharp gaze swung to Axenus. “The merman didn’t know either,” she observed. She narrowed her gaze in consideration. “But he’s only surprised, not jealous. Perhaps you have yet to let him fuck you.”
I refused to look at Axenus to see his reaction.
“Why such concern with who I take to bed?” I asked her. “You seem determined to shame me, but that didn’t work out for you with Bressen.”
Glenora’s gaze turned cold. “You’re right. You don’t seem to have any shame,” she said. “It wasn’t enough for you to have one Triumvirate lord. You had to have two, plus the gargoyle.”
I furrowed my brows. “Two lords? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how I spent years seducing Jerram, and even more years fucking him until he was willing to do anything I wanted.
Then you walked through the door, and it took him all of a week to decide he wanted you instead.
You don’t think I know he would’ve betrayed me and taken you as his consort if you’d agreed to it?
You don’t think I know he tried to fuck you on the Harmilan? ”
“Tried and failed,” I said. “Don’t blame me for Jerram’s fickleness.”
She gave a bitter laugh and turned away to go back to her window.
“I have more questions for you,” I said to her.
Glenora didn’t say anything, but she began to hum as she looked out the window. I recognized it as the song I’d learned from my mother, and I resisted the urge to make her stop humming it.
“Where does Magdalene live?” I asked her, gritting my teeth and trying to ignore the song.
She didn’t respond.
I strode toward her. “One way or another, you’re going to answer my questions,” I said.
I jerked to a halt as Axenus grabbed my wrist.
“Cyra, don’t do what I think you’re planning to do,” he said.
“I’m planning to make her talk,” I said.
He shook his head in warning, but I wrenched my hand free and rounded on him.
“I don’t have time for this!” I yelled at him. “Don’t you understand that Sandrian and Magdalene could be torturing Bressen to death right now? We need to find him!”
Tears welled in my eyes, but I froze at the noise of delight behind me.
“The Nemesis Incarnate has been taken?” Glenora asked.
I swung around to find her grinning broadly.
“You should have led with that,” she said.
My brow furrowed. “You’ll help me find him?” I asked.
Glenora laughed merrily, a hideous sound coming from her.
“No, of course not,” she said. “But I would dearly love to hear all about how you lost the lord.”
I screamed and launched myself at her. I was nearly to her when I was hit by a wall of water that swept me back all the way out of the cell.
I found myself in the hallway as I hit the opposite wall and fell to the floor, sputtering for breath.
Axenus stood over me, and I was momentarily confused at how he’d used his powers until it hit me that he’d left the cell when I charged Glenora in order to get them back.
I glared up at him as I got to my feet. “You overstep, Axenus.”
“You know Bressen wouldn’t want you to do this,” he said.
I started to raise my hands, to do what I wasn’t yet sure, but Axenus was faster.
A huge wave crashed into me as water filled the corridor before I could do anything.
I had to clamp my mouth shut to avoid gulping it in as I was swept all the way down the hall and into the stairwell.
I heard Surgeon and Serise shout, but they could apparently do nothing as the deluge washed me down the stairs.
I expected to crash into the stone walls, but Axenus’s water magic swept me down the center of the stairwell, although I did bump and scrape against the stone every now and then.
I considered porting, but I had only a limited range, and there weren’t many places I could go unless I wanted to port into one of the cells and take my chances with whatever prisoner was inside.
I could try to fight Axenus’s water magic, but even with my enhanced syphon powers, he had far more practice with and control over that element than I did.
I was dizzy and nauseous when I finally washed through the atrium and found myself pressed hard against the bars of the gate to the foyer.
I ported outside onto the landing at the bottom of the stairs near the stone path and took a moment to collect myself.
I’d had to use my air magic to breathe as I was swept down the stairs, and I gasped in a breath as the last of Axenus’s water washed into the bay.
I picked myself up off the stone and looked up to see Axenus striding toward me out of the front door and down the stairs.
I’d underestimated the strength of his powers.
I’d only ever seen him manipulate relatively small amounts of water, but it appeared his control of the element was more prodigious than I’d realized, and – more surprisingly – he was willing to use the full might of it against me.
I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or furious.
“How dare you!” I snapped, opting for fury at the moment. “You just attacked the Lady of Hiraeth.”
Axenus’s expression remained hard, and I had a feeling he’d made his peace with that when he’d decided to act.
“I stopped a friend from doing something she’d regret,” he countered as he came to stand in front of me. “I know that’s not how you see it, but I’m prepared for the consequences of my actions.”
“Where are Surgeon and Serise?” I asked.
“Fighting a riptide back up on Glenora’s floor,” he answered. “You and I need to talk.”
“I told you, I don’t have time to talk!”
“Hurting Glenora isn’t going to get Bressen back,” he said. “You heard her. She’s not going to help. She’ll only take pleasure in needling you and pushing you into doing something you’ll regret. I’ve only known her a few minutes, and even I can see that.”
“She knows something!” I insisted. “And I’m going to find out what.”
I lifted my hands and sent a forcefield at Axenus to push him aside, but he was fast, and he threw up a wall of water to block it as he’d done once before when we’d first started my training. It occurred to me that he’d probably trained with Samhail before and knew how to counter forcefields well.
“Merman!” Surgeon’s enraged voice echoed in the atrium before he and Serise emerged from the prison onto the front terrace. A containment bubble appeared around Axenus a moment later.
The twins looked thunderous as they stalked toward us, Hettie on their heels.
Axenus shouted in alarm as the bubble he was in began to shrink.
“I should crush you to death!” Serise roared as she closed the bubble in on Axenus.
Axenus dropped into a crouch inside it as he tried to pull back from the walls closing in around him.
“Stop,” I said. “Let him out.”
“But, my lady-” Serise tried to argue.
“Let him out,” I repeated. “If anyone gets to punish him, it’s me.”
Serise grumbled something under her breath but lifted the bubble just as it closed in around Axenus. He collapsed out onto the ground in a sprawl as the bubble disappeared.
I tried to get my rage under control as Axenus got to his feet again.
“Cyra,” he said.
“You’re my friend!” I yelled at him as my frustration boiled over. He was supposed to be helping me find Bressen, not hindering me.
“Yes, and as your friend it’s my responsibility to keep you from doing something you’ll regret,” he answered.
“It’s your responsibility to support me!”
“Not blindly. I won’t support or condone you hurting Glenora.”
“Because she’s pregnant?” I spat out.
“Because she’s human, and I don’t want to see you become a cold-blooded murderer.”
I huffed a laugh. “It’s too late for that.”
I saw the crushing truth of that statement in his face, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
Every second I spent here arguing with him was another second Bressen could be in pain, another second he might be closer to death.
I was going out of my mind with worry for him.
I had to believe he was still alive, but I didn’t know for sure, and the uncertainty was killing me. If he was dead, I just needed to know.
Because if he was dead, I’d destroy this world.
“I’m going back to question Glenora,” I said as I headed inside again, “and if you really are my friend, you’ll let me do it.”
Axenus glanced at the water behind me in the little bay that surrounded the prison. I looked as well and frowned as the tide seemed to swell before me.
My gaze snapped back to Axenus, and I saw the resolve in his face.
“I’m sorry, Cyra,” he said, and then he launched himself at me.
I’d barely raised my hand to defend myself before Axenus’s hard body hit me and the breath punched out of my lungs. Then I was falling backward with Axenus wrapped around me.
My back stung as we hit the cold water of the bay, and I took in a mouthful of it before I had the wherewithal to shut my lips.
The shock of the icy water as it closed around us left me paralyzed as my mind tried to make sense of what was happening.
I felt Axenus’s body moving against mine, and it gradually occurred to me he must be swimming.
I felt the pressure of the water increase, and somewhere in the back of my mind I realized we were going deeper below the surface.
My mind cleared suddenly, and one thought rose above the others.
Axenus was trying to kill me.