Chapter 53 #2
He was too enraged to be confused, to care about the discomfort. “I will fucking slaughter you!” he roared to the ceiling, spots dancing in his vision to mix with the faintest tint of red.
A link in the chains gave the tiniest bit, creaking as he flexed. He couldn’t let this creature live. Couldn’t let her hurt Luna more than she already had.
“My, my. You are strong. Just as I’d hoped.” With a snap of her fingers, his shackles healed themselves.
“No, no, no. Okthana, please!”
Brand wasn’t sure which of them was more astonished when the name left his lips—a name he didn’t know, but did. The deep-seated awareness had just burst from inside of him, but why? Why?
“Oh… you do remember.” The tears in her eyes sickened him. “Good. Good. Then we have work to do—starting with reminding you of our purpose.”
Brand didn’t have time to loose the colorful response crawling up his throat before writhing shadows leapt from the chains to engulf his face, forcing their way up his nostrils and down his throat. Suffocating him. Eating him alive.
He had just enough time to watch her dissipate into a dark mist before he was lost.
All he knew, for a long while after, was black and the sound of Luna’s screaming and sobbing.
Darkness and dread shrouded her, holding her below the surface of waking. They locked her within and denied her the satisfaction of unleashing her screams upon the realms. She tried to rouse herself enough to set them free, but he was too strong. Too connected.
Instead, she loosed them inside along with her tears as she searched the invisible places of the world for her other half.
Every lash. Every bruise and break. Every bellow. She felt them as if they were her own.
They were, in a way. His heart was hers, after all, and hers was his—which meant his agony belonged to her, as well.
Shitting stars, what agony it was.
Their internal weeping and wailing wove together, a silent symphony of pain shared.
It should have helped—should have bolstered them to know the other was alive and they weren’t alone—but it hurt. His torment forced her to sink, deeper and deeper. There, the sounds and feelings painted a picture that was the stuff of nightmares. Assaulted her, drowned her, owned her.
Over and over, she clawed her way upwards—towards light and air and living, where she might be able to do something—just to be wrenched backwards when fresh cruelty was visited upon his mind and body.
Back and forth she went, locked within the blacks and greys of his torture and her own survival.
When his suffering finally eased—when the onslaught disappeared from their eternal bond, and she felt his peace—she should’ve been comforted. Except, that peace drifted away to nothing. Little-by-little, bit-by-bit, until the day she could no longer feel him at all.
That was the first day she finally heard something other than the sound of their shared anguish.
Conversations bled together in a warped cacophony around her and she latched onto them, hoarding every piece she snatched from the confusion.
“For the mate of my son would I freely bleed. Accept this gift, and awaken, my daughter.”
She swam and scraped and dragged, trying to emerge. To get closer to the calloused hand gently sweeping the curls from her face as the smell of copper permeated the shadows.
“You are mine as much as the others now, for the mate of my son is a child of my heart. Take my gift, freely given, and mend, Lunara.”
Closer to the warm lips landing upon her brow, even as an iron tang met her tongue.
“For the mate of our brother would we bleed—now our own sister. Take our gifts, freely given, and heal.”
Closer to the procession of powerful bodies, each giving more than the last.
“Give it up, witchling. You won’t find him in sleep, and I refuse to lose you both.”
Closer to the strong arms holding her in hopeful silence, tears that weren’t her own falling upon her skin. They burned where they struck and brought her own flooding forward.
She tried to share their words—sending them into the deepest parts of herself to show him he was loved, even when it was her they were tending to—but he’d gone. Just like that. There one second, holding as tight to her presence as she was to his, and then nothing the next. Like he was… Like he’d…
She couldn’t let herself think the word. Couldn’t imagine living in a world so cruel and empty. There was an explanation. She just had to get the fuck out of wherever she was to find him.
“Everything happens when and how it should—I’ve made sure of it.”
She shivered within, nerves waking and firing with every gentle syllable the Voice spoke into her.
“Yes, that’s it. You heard them, moth. The Veil is not ready for you yet.
Your mate needs you. The realms need you.
And someday, well… you’ll see.” Power of a strange and familiar sort pummeled into her mind, her body, and light sparkled across her lids.
“Take my own offering, my friend, my sister. It’s time, just as destiny demands. Wake up!”
That bellowed command, in a voice she’d tried to ignore for as long as she could remember, was the final push she needed to tear through the barrier of their mated mind. To pull herself away from the heartbreak of not feeling him, just for a little while.
Just until she could find him.
A shock of otherworldly strength jolted through Lunara’s veins, jerking her against roughened hands that sought to steady her. Air filled her lungs near to bursting, the first true draw of breath she’d had since…
Since Brand had been taken.
She used it to finally free the screams outside of herself.
Denial, raw and violent, shredded her control and Lunara released her agony. Knees buckled and hit the floor. Hands clapped over ears. Grunts and groans sounded. She heard it, sensed them fighting against the wretched sounds coming from her, but she didn’t care.
Light poured from her body, pulsing and battering in waves, her power seeking all possible routes to funnel away before it could shatter her apart.
She subjected them to every jagged shard of her heartbreak. Every ounce of her fury. Every drop of her misery.
Let whoever it was feel a fraction of what she did. Let them hear her torment. Her utter revulsion that she was without him.
On and on, until the air in her lungs ceased to exist, and she was forced to gasp. Out and in again, mingling with her strangled sobs.
“That’s it, Lunara. Steady now. Just breathe.”
Magnus’s voice was an anchor in the storm. She did what he said, focusing to steady her breath. Trying to blink away the tears that wouldn’t stop coming.
There was no point in the effort, so she gave up and let them flow as Magnus rocked her, back and forth, helping her to come back to herself little by little.
“Aye, you’re alright. I’m here. We’re here.”
A ragged inhale brought a semblance of calm—if the burdened, hopeless numbing of her limbs could be called such a thing. “Oh, Mag—” she started, but couldn’t finish.
“Ach, there she is,” he said, voice gruff as he pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Finally deigned to grace us with your presence then, witchling?”
She shifted her head to look up into the eyes of her friend. His face was haggard and tear-streaked. Dark circles and shadows had replaced the laughter that usually gilded his features, and his beard was an overlong mess, but she was strangely glad because it meant he understood.
With a hole where her heart should be, Lunara nodded.
There was a shift in the room as others pulled closer, familiar power radiating off of them to mesh with her own.
The strength of it permeated straight through her skin, a buzzing sensation that rippled in time with numerous heartbeats.
She’d known there were creatures around, but the realization of who hadn’t truly registered.
“Magnus,” she whispered, refusing to look.
“Aye, lass?”
“Please, for the love of the Sisters, tell me I’m not going to find your entire family around my sickbed.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint, but…” His eyes shifted towards the room before he gave her a pointed look.
Shitting stars. Just what you need. Twice you’ve faced the Imperial Sovereigns, and twice you’ve mauled them.
“I don’t know if I can do it.” Her tone was pleading. “The last time I saw them—”
“You gave us more excitement than we’ve had in an age, little sister,” he said, smoothing her hair and leaning in a little closer.
“You forget we’re your family now. You’re one of ours.
We’ve all done far worse than toss each other against a wall here and there—on purpose and just for the laugh—and we still stand at each other’s side when needed.
That’s what happens when people love you, witchling.
They don’t run screaming just ‘cause you’ve thrown a wee fit. Go on, look and see.”
Tears welled anew, his words wrecking her. He was so earnest as he peered down at her that she had no choice but to trust him. To believe there was a family waiting on the other side of her fear.
Which was how Lunara found herself staring back at the Imperial Sovereigns and their remaining Sons, and sobbing all over again.