Chapter 19 #2
“I’m fairly certain it’s as simple as kill or be killed in this place.”
Callie makes a noncommittal sound. “Reaves is one of the best, but that comes with a price. The more powerful you are, the more the Keepers expect from you. The more they take.”
The memory I accidentally stole from Falcen—the one of him lying on an altar, a hooded, robed man above him and the absolute desolation in Falcen’s eyes—comes to mind as Callie says this.
No. I cannot fall into the trap of feeling sorry for that man. He brought me here. He left me here. And Callie’s right; Falcen could return at any moment and continue making my life miserable. I am not waiting for him. I’m certainly not missing him. Not on Lux’s eternal life. Nope.
I’m about to ask Callie to explain further when a sudden, searing pain lances through my skull. A guttural scream tears from my throat as I double over, my vision blurring. It feels like someone has driven a fiery blade straight through my eye socket and into my brain.
“Verily? Verily, what’s happening?” Callie’s panicked voice reaches me as if from a great distance, muffled by the roaring in my ears.
I try to respond, but all that comes out is another agonized cry. My ember shoots around my chest erratically, sending searing bolts of energy through my veins, unsure who to target or why.
Suddenly, the door to my cell bursts open with a deafening clang. I force my eyes open, blinking through the tears of lava, to see a figure standing in the doorway.
Falcen. Falcen’s doing this. It shouldn’t surprise me that he’s resorted to physically hurting me, but it shouldn’t hurt me emotionally, too.
Yet it does.
But as my vision clears, I realize it’s someone else entirely.
He stands outside my cell, cloaked in tattered black robes. His face is obscured by a hood, but I catch a glimpse of ashen skin and eyes that glow a ghoulish violet.
“Well, well, well,” he rasps, his voice as dry as parchment. “What do we have here? The Elite’s little pet, left all alone to fester in her own juices.”
It hits me then. Who it is. The rogue Soulren, the one Falcen and I fought while rescuing young children being soul-trafficked.
“You.” My whisper is hoarse with overuse. “How did you find me?”
The Soulren laughs. “How quickly they forget. ‘Find’ implies that I ever lost you.”
“Verily, who is that? What’s going on?” Callie’s voice rises in alarm from the neighboring cell.
I try to answer her, but another wave of agony doubles me over. “What are you doing to me?”
The Soulren chuckles, a sound like bones rattling in a crypt. “Oh, this? Just a little trick I picked up during my time in the Void. A rather nasty bit of soul manipulation, wouldn’t you say?”
He steps into the cell, his robes trailing behind him like tendrils of shadow.
“How—how did you get in here?”
“The same way I got out,” he replies.
The closer he gets, the more intense the pain becomes, until I’m writhing on the floor, my screams echoing off the stone walls.
“Stop it!” Callie shouts, pounding on the wall between our cells.
The Soulren pays her no heed. He crouches down beside me. “You owe me a soul, darling. I intend to take my due.”
His skeletal hand reaches for my face, and something inside me just—snaps.
My ember awakens with a sudden surge of power, and before I process that I’m in a different position, my body has moved of its own accord.
It rolls to the side, narrowly avoiding the Soulren’s grasping fingers.
His hand slams into the stone floor where my head had been a mere heartbeat before, cracking the rock.
I spring to my feet, my ember flaring with a fierce, ravenous inner light. The pain in my skull recedes, replaced by a searing clarity. I can see every detail of the Soulren’s pocked, withered face beneath his hood, every flicker of movement as he lunges for me again.
He hisses in frustration. “You can’t evade me in this cell for long, girl.”
But my ember has other ideas. It propels me to my feet, and I find myself facing the Soulren in a fighting stance I’ve never used before.
The Soulren lunges at me, his hands outstretched like claws. I sidestep him easily, as if I can predict his every move, and he slams into a stack of books. Tomes scatter and parchment floats in the air as he whirls around and comes at me again.
He thrusts out a hand, and a bolt of violet lightning shoots toward me. The ember uses my hand, throwing it up, too, and a shimmering wall of blue light blooms. The Soulren’s attack shatters against it, dissipating into acrid smoke.
Callie’s voice rises in a wordless shout.
I can feel her soul, bright and strong, lending me strength through the stone that separates us.
It’s so strong that I can actually see the gorgeous cobalt lines of it on the wall, like my vision can pierce through stone and watch as Callie’s bright outline pushes to her feet and pounds her hands against the wall.
Yummy.
I recoil from the sight.
Do NOT eat Callie. And give me my body back!
While I’m impressed with my moves, they’re also the problem. They aren’t mine. To have no control, to be an audience to your own body language, is both horrifying and unsettling. The ember has never done this before, and I’m not sure I like it.
To my shock, the ember flutters as if giving a tiny shrug, then recedes, and with it, my sudden fighting prowess.
My body is my own again, but now I’m left facing the Soulren with only my wits and my novice soul-rendering skills.
Well, shit.
I try to summon another shield, but all I manage is a feeble flicker of blue that sputters out almost instantly.
The Soulren laughs. “Thank Nox you’ve floundered. I was actually beginning to grow concerned.” He advances on me. “The Elite’s pet indeed. He should have trained you better rather than dumping you in with the other decrepit souls.”
“Hey!” Callie bangs on the wall. “Say that to my face, you Void-fucked filth!”
The insult she flung deforms his features more than they already are. “I’ll get to you next, you rotting cunt. And unlike this one, I’ll fuck you dry until you’re begging them to Hollow you just to make it stop.”
Taking advantage of my horrified did he just say that?
distraction, he dives for me, his hands wreathed in crackling energy.
I attempt to dodge, but my movements are sluggish and uncoordinated.
His hands close around my throat, slamming me through books and against the rough far wall.
Pain explodes through my skull, stars bursting across my vision.
“Verily!” Callie screams.
I claw at the Soulren, gasping for air. The ember within me gutters, flickering weakly as if it too is being strangled.
“Nothing to say?” the Soulren asks. “You had plenty of shit stuffed in your mouth last time.”
But then his head jerks back like he’s been struck. No, like he’s been hooked. Dragged back by some invisible force that sends him sprawling onto the vomit-caked floor.
Falcen strolls into view in front of my cell, calm and unhurried, like he’s been watching this unfold the whole time. His cape shifts with his movements, heavy and black.
“Still alive, I see,” Falcen says to the rogue, his voice as even as his strides. “That’s a pity.”
The rogue gets to his feet, his energy flashing around him in desperate spikes. His hood falls back, revealing a face mottled with black veins and pallid skin.
I slide down the wall, gasping for air, my throat burning where his fingers dug into my flesh, but I keep my eyes on Falcen, drinking him in despite the very real danger that ignites every time we’re together. His dark hair is disheveled, his skin paler than usual, and dark circles ring his eyes.
He looks terrible. And unfairly beautiful.
“You,” the Soulren rasps at Falcen.
Falcen’s lips quirk into a sardonic smile. “Me.”
The rogue’s purple-rimmed eyes bulge as he’s lifted off his feet, Falcen’s magick binding him in an unbreakable hold. He thrashes and squirms in midair, but isn’t close to managing to free himself.
The rogue stops fighting, his cracked lips curving into a grim smile. “You look tired, Reaves. How long has it been since you fed properly?”
Falcen says nothing.
“We both know what happens when you wait too long.” The rogue’s voice drops, and he adds, “You taught me that lesson yourself.”
I glance between the two of them. What is the rogue talking about?
“I’ve had a few entrées since the last time we met,” Falcen replies. “Ones you’d also find delicious.”
Falcen’s hand stays up, fingers spread as he intensifies his magickal binds.
“So you feasted on Voidspawn, did you?” the rogue snarls while renewing his struggles. “I thought you swore off such filth.”
Falcen shrugs, his expression unaffected, but it’s too controlled and stiff, like he’s using every ounce of energy not directed at the rogue to stave off his emotions. “I’d forgotten how invincible it makes me. How easy it becomes to subdue putrid vessels like yourself.”
My attention darts between them, apprehension forming like a lump beside my heart.
Falcen consumed Void souls because of me.
Because I forced them on him. And now he’s not acting like himself.
Rather than killing this rogue and being done with it, he’s stretching it out, playing with him like a cat would a wounded bird.
“Verily,” Falcen says without glancing over. “Come here.”
“Don’t do it!” Callie cries from next door. “Do not trust him!”
Falcen scrunches his nose in disgust, his stare slicing to the side. “Stay out of this.”
“Not on your life, you asshole!” Callie retorts.
The sheer lack of terror in her voice when talking back to an Elite makes my mouth fall open.
“Verily. I’m not going to ask you again,” Falcen warns. “If you want to get out of this prison, you will come to me. Now.”
I hesitate, torn between my distrust of Falcen and my desperate desire to escape this wretched cell. Callie’s warning ricochets through my mind, jabbing against Falcen’s ultimatum.