Chapter 51
GARRICK
Edmund screamed. Our father did not bother to stop him. His son’s anguish had no effect on him.
But when the darkness came so did the silence.
Both sudden. Both absolute. My senses blurred so that I could not make out what was happening around me or to me, only that I was being taken somewhere.
It felt similar to when Syleris had transported us from outside the presence chamber back to our bedroom earlier in the night, but not as harsh.
Before I could exhale, the world solidified again.
My feet were on solid ground. Solid black obsidian that stretched out in every direction. There was no definition in any direction. I could not identify a light source. But the stone beneath my feet was solid, and I could see well enough to know that I was not alone.
I reached for Koryn by instinct, checking that she was real.
I reached for Koryn. I was no longer trapped by my father’s compulsion. “What is this?”
“Syleris,” Koryn breathed.
He materialized in front of us from the darkness itself. The ground, the sky—if the ephemeral black could even be characterized that way—they all coalesced together to create his familiar form.
Koryn launched herself into his arms without hesitation. She had been here before. Wherever here was.
“How can we move?” I checked for my weapons. Everything was in place.
“Your bodies remain in Balar Shan,” Syleris said over Koryn’s shoulder. He clasped her hand to his chest between them, but his eyes were on me. He knew what had just happened. “Only your consciousness is here with me, in my realm.”
He held out his hand that did not hold Koryn.
My stomach and heart twisted together inside of me. The Dark God was offering me comfort for the death of my sister. The absurdity of it barely registered—not with Koryn in such obvious distress.
I moved my chin an inch side to side. It wasn’t a rejection but a request to focus on our bonded.
Koryn clung to the front of his vest.
“Syleris, stop it,” she begged. “Please, you can stop this.”
His tongue slipped out and over his bottom lip. He did not have many tells, but that was one of them. Usually, it was effective at distracting Koryn and me both. But this time it bought him no more than the time it took to complete the motion.
Koryn stared up at him, and even from behind her I could feel the force of her plea. I took a step closer to them. This was not going to end well.
Alize was already dead. Syleris was the Dark God. He presided over the afterlife, but he could not bring someone back from it unless—
You are making witches. That was what Koryn had said.
My father had not handed over Alize simply to punish her.
He did it so that Maura could resurrect her as a witch.
Everything became clear to me in an instant.
Koryn was already there, her mind way ahead of mine.
Maura wanted an air-bound witch so that she had one from each bind of power to finish each of the talismans.
Koryn wasn’t begging Syleris for Alize’s life. She was begging him to spare Alize from an afterlife as a witch.
“Please,” Koryn whispered again.
Syleris could not avoid her any longer. His jaw clenched beneath his beautifully arched cheekbones.
“I cannot,” he said.
Koryn did not accept that. She had to tip her head back to look up at him, the ends of her hair brushing against the lavender scales embroidered into the back of her gown.
Syleris brushed his fingers along her curves with such reverence.
As if he needed to remember. As if this might be his last touch.
“You are a god. What do you mean, you cannot?” she demanded. “Garrick, tell him he must not allow Maura to resurrect Alize.”
But she was not looking at me as she made the entreaty.
“Sweetling, if I could—”
“Do not call me that.” She jerked away from him, but Syleris kept his arm around her.
This argument was not taking place in their minds. Koryn wasn’t making intentional choices, but Syleris was. He wanted me to hear every word.
“Syleris… she can’t choose this. She can’t choose. She will be trapped forever.”
Just like Koryn was.
Pain flashed across Syleris’ face, so intense no mask could hide it. Koryn was too irate to notice, but I saw what her words cost him.
Still, his answer remained unchanged. He didn’t release her. Even the Dark God was foolish enough to hope.
“I can’t,” he said.
Koryn threw him back with a shove to the chest. Syleris—the Dark God—stumbled.
But Koryn did not see it. She fell to her knees.
I expected him to disappear. To dissolve into shadow to escape the interminable pain of this moment. But he stood there, corporeal and real, his throat sliding as Koryn sobbed on the ground.
Syleris did not speak into my mind. There was no need. The understanding between us was deeper than words. He could not be there for Koryn in this moment. But I could.
I went to my knees beside her and pulled our bonded into my arms.
The Dark God disappeared. He let me hold her for a few moments before the ground beneath our knees, and the light around us disintegrated, and we were transported back into our bodies.
If time had passed, it was so little as to be unnoticeable to those around us. Or maybe they were all so intently focused on what was happening in the center of the pentagram that Koryna and me were of little consequence.
In truth, we were. We were absolutely useless to Alize.
There were a few sure ways to kill a fae. Beheading was the most well-known. But now I knew that suffocation worked, too, because staring at my sister’s body on the floor of the throne room, there was no question. She was dead.
Koryn was no longer in my arms. We were all held in place.
Isanara was not—her tail lashed from side to side.
I did not want to imagine the argument that she and Koryn were having within their minds at that very moment.
Koryn would do anything to protect her familiar, but she could not physically move or use her power. That only left her with begging.
The chanting intensified. A fresh tear slid down Koryn’s cheek. I’d never hated my father more.
I could not feel power the way that Koryn could, but every hair on her body rose on end as the head witch stepped into the middle of the pentagram.
She knelt beside Alize, withdrew a dagger, and sliced open her own arm, then Alize’s.
She dipped her fingers into her own arm, then into Alize’s so that their blood ran together.
With that macabre mixture, she drew a series of runs on Alize’s arm and then on her forehead.
That one I recognized. The coven mark—the same one that glowed on Koryn’s forehead when her power surged.
It glowed so often now that I’d come to take it for granted.
The blood on Alize’s forehead darkened, then surged a bright, glowing blue against her ashen skin. The crowd gasped. Koryn’s tears came in earnest, even though not a single other part of her body could move.
My rage coalesced inside of me. Alize and Edmund had offered me a family, and I’d scoffed at them.
I’d left them to their own devices and investigations, and it led to this.
If I had helped them, maybe the king never would have found out.
Maybe this would be some other fae woman being sacrificed for the talismans.
That possibility should have been just as abhorrent, but I could not help the thought. Alize was my sister. We’d hated each other at worst and irritated each other at best. But she was my sister.
One of the other witches came forward—the shapeshifter. She wore a pale face with high cheekbones, wide eyes, and silken black hair. For a moment, she reminded me of Syleris.
A new pain arched inside of me. He could not stop it.
I knew I should be enraged by his refusal, but I was more hurt by what that refusal did to Koryn. She’d already suffered one betrayal from a man she loved.
Maura held up Alize’s arm. Elodie produced a needle and thread and stitched the wound together. Alize still lay prone in the center of the pentagram. Dead or unconscious? Where was the distinction?
Then her body arched, her back bowing off the ground as she gasped for air. Her limbs shook. The crowd of terrified and awed fae behind me grimaced as one as a fit took over Alize’s body. She writhed, joints jerking in unnatural angles until she just… stopped.
Maura knelt at her side. Elodie stood with hands flexed. The braided rope was still around Alize’s throat.
“What is her power?” the king demanded.
The authority in his voice was as absolute as the magic that held my limbs in place. I could feel my arms and legs, but no matter how I screamed at them to move, they were stuck. Turned to stone. Immovable. Like my father.
The head witch had miscalculated, even if she did not know it yet.
“Close your eyes. It will come easier to you in darkness. You are of the Dark God. You are one of us now,” Maura said to Alize. She did not reach for her hand or offer any comfort. Alize was surrounded by a coven, but she was alone.
Koryn. I’d never found our Lifebind lacking. But I wished in that moment that it afforded us a mind connection. I could not even see the pain on her face. The king had locked everything inside of us both.
Alize moved her arms awkwardly beneath her, pushing herself up to sit.
My sister had never moved with anything but the exquisite grace gifted to her by her wind magic.
But she did not have wind magic anymore.
She was a witch, now. Dead. Resurrected.
It was not her heart that pumped the blood that fed her organs, but Syleris’ power.
But Syleris did not stop it. I cannot.
Koryn heard a choice in those words. But Syleris was keeping secrets. The talismans were still in my pocket.
I cannot. Syleris could not.
I believed him, even if Koryn did not. He would not hurt her willingly.
“Witch,” the king warned. Alize jerked, her head snapping in his direction. Her eyes widened in horror; even resurrected, she remembered what had happened. But there was no fear in her eyes. Only rage.
Thick black ropes formed around Maura’s wrists. They crept up her arms, encircling her neck. They appeared at her ankles and wrapped around her legs. She stumbled sideways. Elodie tried to catch her, but they both went down.
What power or magic was this?
Maura clutched at her throat, the black band tightening so fast her eyes started to bulge. She was going to suffocate.
Alize—this was Alize.
Elodie realized it at the same time I did. She cast a spell so fast I could not catch the words. A wooden club formed in her hand, and she brought it down on Alize’s head before my sister could realize she needed to protect herself from behind.
Alize slumped to the floor, unconscious once more. The ropes binding Maura disappeared instantly. The head witch lay sprawled across the bloody pentagram, gasping for precious air.
“Well?” the king demanded. He was unbothered by Maura’s brush with the second death.
Maura got an arm underneath herself. She used the other to wave Elodie forward. The shapeshifter knelt down at Alize’s side and splayed her fingers out over the center of her chest.
The Dark God granted witches their power based on their manner of death. Alize was strangled, and now she had the ability to create bindings from nothing. But what did that mean to Maura and the king?
Elodie lifted her hand away. She took a step and leaned down to confer with Maura in whispers, then returned to her place on the pentagram. She did not offer her head witch a hand up.
Maura found her feet. If her legs wobbled, her voluminous robes hid it. Her mass of dark curls was askew, but she took the time to straighten them and her spine before she addressed the king.
“She is earth-bound, Your Majesty.”
The King of the Fae stared down the head witch of the Midnight Coven. My father had always had a temper. Those who survived at Balar Shan became adept at recognizing and avoiding it. But Maura stood under the full weight of his fury as it burned out of his turquoise eyes.
If he could have killed her then, he would have. I knew it. From the defiant tilt of her chin, Maura knew it, too. The only reason the king did not attack was that he was not assured of a victory.
“Then we have no use for her. Do with her as you wish,” he said.
The king strode from the presence chamber, the fae courtiers stumbling over themselves to open a path for him.
Behind their masks, there was fear in their eyes. Maybe they had never realized what their king was truly capable of, or maybe they had thought he would never turn upon a fae. But he left his daughter in the clutches of a witch. No one in Balar Shan was safe.
Feeling coursed back into my limbs. For a moment, the world spun, the heady drunkenness of self-control coming back. The first step I took of my own volition was to tug Koryn into my arms.
Isanara hissed behind me, but I did not care. She could take a bite if she wanted. I needed Koryn safe, if only for a second, even if it was a lie.
“Stop!” Alize screamed. She was conscious again. Fire burned along the lines of the pentagram, trapping her inside.
“A coven can only have five, and I have no use for another earthbound witch,” Maura said. The flames whipped higher.
Koryn twisted out of my arms. Isanara roared at her side.
My Lifebind was free. No one was safe.