Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ASTER
I t was supposed to be simple, really. Morgana would fetch the ledger under the guise of my shadows, concealed from even the most well-trained eye, but as soon as she found it, something shifted in the air. The tang of magic turned against me, if only for the briefest second, and she was found.
Francis DeBurne was not a man worthy or capable of wielding magic, but he was smart. He’d go to great lengths to enchant items that were dear to him, and I knew this book was no different. But to think he’d put his family at such grave risk, knowing the sort of people who would seek out this ledger.
Actually, that made perfect sense. Lord DeBurne was nothing if not vile.
When I saw Morgana struggling to fight back against the two men twice her size, I thought about the repercussions of letting her suffer through it. After all, I just needed the ledger. She could get beaten, bruised, and then she’d heal. I’d continue to find answers behind the origin of her power.
But that wasn’t acceptable, was it? No, that wouldn’t do. I, unfortunately, had a still-warm, still-beating heart, despite my father’s best attempt at turning me cold. So I redirected my efforts away from escaping, and I helped her fight back.
And where did that get me?
Face down in the mud of Vespera. I groaned, lifting my head as the dark shoreline washed up closer to me. It was too dark to see further than ten paces ahead, but I’d spent years training and adapting to utter darkness. The University of Arcane Magics had taught me many things. Notably, I learned how to maintain and practice three key concepts: solitude, supremacy, and severity. All of which flourished in a place as dangerous as Vespera.
My sister, in theory, was graded on her ability to uphold the same three concepts—but she had a heavier emphasis on morality. As archaic as it was, neither of us were permitted to form relationships. To feel the warmth of a fleeting romance.
I hardly got slapped on the wrist at the first sign.
She, however, was faced with how severe the pillar of severity got. I didn’t get to see her for months after she had her first kiss with a boy during the lapse between sessions.
In reality, this place was no more intimidating, a shrouded storm—an eternal twilight where the sun had long forgotten to shine. While a goliath of a beast to beat, it was not impossible. With the right tools, information, and magic, I could survive. My heirs, should I be so unfortunate to have them, would survive. Just so long as they survived in a world without this curse—without our plague —then I’d have succeeded. The violence, sacrifices, and stabs in the dark I took along the way would matter not. It had to work.
This place simply couldn’t win.
The air was thick with the scent of decay and the faint echoes of the lives that once thrived here. Shadows twisted and writhed at my command and breathed power into me, a gift from the arcane arts, but I was not so foolish as to not know such power had an expiration. My curse awaited me, just as it had my father, and his father—every male of the Sinclair crown had been faced with it. Each step I took, every breath I drew pulled me closer to the fate that had plagued my bloodline for generations. The darkness here was alive, a sentient force that slowly consumed everything in its path.
Monsters lurked in the shadows, grotesque specters born of the abyss. Ghosts of those who once walked these lands whisper mournfully, their forms barely discernible in the gloom. Ghouls, twisted by their hunger, stalked the periphery, their hollow eyes glinting with a feral light. And then there were the lost souls, those who had surrendered to the infinite darkness, becoming one with it. Their presence was a constant reminder of what Vespera once was—a land vibrant with life, now reduced to a haunting memory.
The ruins of villages and towns stood as silent witnesses to the devastation, their crumbling walls and shattered windows hinting at a past that was abruptly torn asunder. Every corner of Vespera was a testament to the lives that had once flourished here, now obscured by the creeping shadows. And as I bent these shadows to my will, I could almost hear the faint, desperate cries of those long gone, their spirits forever trapped in this cursed land.
I pulled myself to my feet, turning my attention to the man I’d just ruined. His skin was already decaying, but soon enough the mud would swallow him whole as the shores inched further inland. He’d never be found again—and, frankly, that day couldn’t come quickly enough. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the thought. This had to be a setup—Francis had to have known his days were limited.
It was all too easy to get in, and all too volatile getting out. I planted my foot on his side to roll him onto his back, watching his head flop to the side with bloody drool frothing out of his mouth. I kneeled, closing his eyes with two fingers before reaching into his jacket pockets. He had a bit of money, a pen, and loose threading bunched up into tangled balls.
I took the money and turned my head to the infinite depths that surrounded me. There was no clear way out, but that didn’t scare me. If it weren’t for my growing years perhaps that wouldn’t be the case, but this place was no threat to me.
It was, however, my answer behind multiple generations’ worth of death. It might not harm me today, but Vespera was my end.
Without a cure, it’d consume me just as it consumed these very lands. Before long, those with the dullest, most pure-of-heart bloodlines would suffer. It mattered not if their crown suffered a plague in silence. No—soon, Vespera would get her revenge.
Vespera would kill us all in the end.
A shudder laced down my spine, but I tilted my chin down to look at Morgana’s assailant. Crimson red glistened off the back of his neck, dozens of wooden splinters surrounding a shard of rusted iron sticking out of his skin. On that iron rod, however, was a piece of cloth.
My eyes widened, and cynical joy overwhelmed me. I tore the shard free, no larger than a bad splinter after running down an aged shipman’s dock, and brought it to my nose. I closed my eyes, inhaling the rotten stench of death—the blood, essence of life, and shrouded decay that poisoned him—until I latched onto something fresh. Warm, inviting, clean—unworthy of such violence, despite her nature to fight.
Morgana Kyllingham was not a killer at heart, but I had no doubt she’d bring the world to ruin in the name of what— who —she sought. That passion lingered on the fabric, and with my exhale, I became one with darkness as I found my way back to the lost little dove.