Chapter 20
Twenty
Istumble over the threshold when the Hollows shove me forward into a luxurious room, my traveling chains clanking mockingly. After weeks in the dank catacombs, the bright wall sconces and multiple candles sting my eyes. I blink through the bright spots in my vision, trying to get my bearings.
As my vision clears, I see him. Falcen Reaves leans casually against an ornate mahogany wardrobe in a dark tunic and breeches, his muscular arms crossed over his broad chest. He regards me with those piercing blue eyes ringed in molten gold.
I hate him. I hate the way his gaze seems to pierce through me, as if he can see the turmoil roiling within my soul. I hate the way my pulse quickens at the mere sight of him, my traitorous body responding to his presence even as my mind scolds me to ignore him.
“Welcome to your new quarters, Initiate Holbrook,” he says, his deep voice resonating through the spacious chamber.
I glance around, taking in the opulent four-poster bed draped in rich crimson silks, the intricately woven tapestries depicting scenes of soul-rendering, and the plush velvet armchairs arranged before a grand fireplace of black marble.
It’s a far cry from the cold, damp cell I’ve called home this past hellish month.
“You must be loving this,” I say, rattling my chains. “Seeing me brought so low in such a pretty place.”
Falcen pushes off from the wardrobe and stalks toward me, his movements fluid and graceful, like a Void-cat on the prowl.
“On the contrary,” he murmurs, stopping mere inches from me. “I take no pleasure in your suffering.”
His proximity sets my nerves on fire.
I despise him, despise everything he stands for, the Resonance Academy, the cruel subjugation of the soul-touched, the twisted perversion of Vehloria’s necromantic arts. Yet...
Yet I can’t deny the electric pull between us, the way my skin stands at attention whenever he’s near. It’s as if an invisible cord binds us together, tugging me inexorably into his orbit no matter how hard I fight against it.
“Spare me your false sympathy,” I hiss.
The gold expands in his eyes. “You brought this upon yourself. Your refusal to embrace your potential, your stubborn defiance in the face of the academy’s authority…”
“Authority?” I scoff. “Is that what you call it? Ripping children from their families, forcing them to bend to your will, to become soulless puppets in service of your poisoned realm?”
He takes another step closer, his large frame looming over me. Without his cold armor, heat radiates off his body, the electric crackle of his soul-magick dancing along my skin.
“You are so stubbornly ignorant,” he growls. “The sacrifices we make, the burdens we bear to keep Vehloria safe from the Void’s corruption.”
A harsh laugh escapes my lips. “Oh, I’ve seen your sacrifices firsthand.
Innocent lives shattered, families torn apart, all in the name of your so-called greater good.
” I lean in, my face mere inches from his, my voice dripping with venom.
“You’re nothing more than a mutant, Falcen Reaves. A soulless, heartless monster.”
Falcen’s hand shoots out, gripping me by the hair and forcing my head back.
His touch ignites a firestorm within me, a dizzying mix of rage and desire that threatens to consume me worse than the ember.
I want to lean into his touch even as I want to tear myself away, to hurt him as deeply as he’s hurt me.
His eyes blaze with a fury that matches my own.
“You know nothing of my heart,” he snarls, his grip tightening in my hair. “The depths I’ve plummeted to, the darkness I’ve faced to keep our people safe from the Void’s insidious touch. You think me a monster? You have no idea what true monstrosity is.”
I meet his gaze unflinchingly, even as my scalp burns with the force of his grip. “Then enlighten me, big, bad Render Lord. Show me the inner workings of your black soul.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. There’s a single intake of breath where I think he might strike me. Part of me yearns for it, craves the physical release of violence, the exquisite agony of his hands upon my flesh.
But instead, he releases me with a disgusted scoff and turns away, but not before he flicks his hand out, and my chains unlatch and clatter to the floor.
“Do your worst,” I say to his back, taunting him, goading the beast within. “Break me, mold me, shape me into your perfect little soldier. But know that you’ll never truly have me, not in the way you want. My soul will always rebel against you.”
He rounds on me, his expression thunderous.
“I do what is necessary. What I have to do to ensure not only Vehloria’s survival, but yours.
A concept you seem incapable of grasping.
Do you think the girl I brought through the ceiling of the dining hall would’ve been able to handle immediate training with the Keepers and classmates with decades more killing experience? ”
“You think I don’t understand sacrifice?” I hiss, my voice holding my heart. “I’ve lost everything to your precious academy. My family, my freedom, my very sense of self. All stripped away, piece by piece. You fed me souls against my will. Tortured ones. Dark ones.”
Falcen’s nostrils flare. “You ungrateful child. You have no idea the lengths I’ve gone to keep you alive. The strings I’ve pulled, the favors I’ve called in. I could have let them execute you for your inexperience. I should have.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I demand. “Why bother saving the life of a remnant who refuses to learn your rules?”
He leans in close, so close I can feel his breath against my lips.
“Because unlike the Keepers, I believe your kind is too rare and too valuable to waste,” he growls.
“The strength of your soul-magick, the way you can enter the Veil tears without succumbing to the Void’s corruption .
.. it is not an easy ability to develop.
And I’ll be damned if I let that potential go to waste because of your shitty attitude. ”
“You think yourself so high and mighty,” I spit at him, my hands balling into fists at my sides. “But I see through your self-righteous facade. You’re nothing more than a pawn, a dog heeling at the feet of your masters, begging for scraps of approval.”
Too fast for me to capture, his hand wraps around my throat, his thumb pressing into my windpipe just hard enough to make breathing difficult.
“Watch your tongue,” he warns. “Or I’ll put it to better use.”
Desire, hot and shameful, unfurls in my core at his words, at the depthless promise in his gaze. I hate myself for responding to him in such a sensual way.
“Do it, then,” I rasp. “Put me in my place. It’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?”
A shadow crosses his features, there and gone in an instant. His grip tightens fractionally, his thumb pressing harder against my racing pulse.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” he murmurs, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “The things I could do to you, the exquisite agonies I could inflict.”
I swallow hard. Falcen watches his hand flexing against my throat, at my clear, physical response.
I’m exposed. Laid bare. Like he can see straight through to the secret places inside me that even I fear to tread.
A ghost of a smile arcs his lips.
“I could destroy you,” he muses, then abruptly releases me. Falcen does it with enough force that I fall back onto the soft bed—how did we end up so close to the bed?—and land in a tangle of crimson silk, my chest heaving, my skin burning with the imprint of his touch.
As he stalks away, I note the tattoos along his forearms flaring to life, flickering wildly, then fading away, as if he struggles to suppress the dark souls that fuel them.
“Your new roommate is in the adjoining room,” Falcen says to me without looking back. “Enjoy the latest curse you’ve put upon yourself.”
Falcen has reined in his fury so completely, the door doesn’t make so much as a soft click when he shuts the door behind him.
The silk sheets are cool against my flushed skin, a mockery to the heat still coursing through my veins. I stare up at the intricate canopy above me, the dark wooden posts carved with crooked patterns that seem to move and shift in the candlelight.
As my racing heart slows, I take in more details of my new quarters.
The walls are hung with rich tapestries depicting scenes of soul-rendering, a gruesome reminder of the dark arts practiced within these very walls.
One shows an imposing figure, hand outstretched, tendrils of glowing magick flowing from a kneeling supplicant into a swirling vortex.
Another portrays a battle, Soulren warriors with blazing eyes and crackling auras clashing against the vile, fetid creatures of the Voidspawn.
I shudder and turn my gaze to the black marble fireplace. The mantel is adorned with grotesque figurines with contorted faces frozen in eternal screams, skeletal hands reaching out.
A fitting decoration for a place that trades in stolen souls and ruined lives.
Rising from the bed, I pace the room, my bare feet sinking into the plush carpet.
An ornate floor-length mirror stands in one corner, and I hardly recognize the girl staring back at me.
Her once vibrant, blond waves hang almost as lifelessly as her formerly green eyes.
I’ve lost weight, the souls foisted upon me instead of actual food seeming to feed off my body and not the other way around.
Disgusted, I turn to the bay windows on the other side. The view beyond the glass is breathtaking in its bleakness. Craggy mountains stretch as far as the eye can see, their peaks shrouded in mist. My village, I think, is somewhere to the west.
A soft knock on the adjoining door pulls me from my bleak reverie. I tense, half expecting Falcen to burst back in, ready for round two. But a gentle, hesitant voice calls out instead.
“Um, hello? Is someone there?”