Chapter Twenty-Two
ERABELLA
Thirty days later…
“What’s wrong with her?” one of the soldiers asked with a concerned stare as he escorted me up the steps to Castle La’Rune.
An Otacian soldier beside him leaned in close, but I could still hear him as he whispered, “King Ulric has something planned for her.”
“I get that. But she’s just so… still.”
“I’d be too if I’d committed treason.”
Each day was a hazy abyss, my consciousness ebbing in and out, though my limbs always remained out of my control, moving on their own. It wasn’t peaceful like sleep, more like a never-ending nightmare.
Ulric had Silas killed, and yet he was bringing me to the castle. For what, I didn’t know. I just hoped my death would be swift. Hoped that I would be seeing Merrick again soon, though I knew my place in the afterlife would be different than his.
Silent tears rolled down my cheeks—I could feel them. Darkness clouded my head, and I tried as hard as I could not to think about him. Anytime I did, I blacked out completely, unable to handle the loss of someone so special.
Instead, I focused on the sound of each footstep as I was led closer to the throne room. Focused on the air touching my skin, my heartbeat steady in my chest.
It’s almost over.
Ulric was seemingly anticipating my arrival. He stood tall, arms crossed, as I was shoved into the expansive room. He ordered his men away, leaving us completely alone.
The King’s chilling gaze raked down my body. “I am unsure how you are alive,” he commented after a beat. “Your death was supposed to wreck Silas. Yet, as it turns out, his interest was in fucking the Supreme of Ames, not you, Erabella dear.”
He lifted his hand, and a sharp gasp escaped me as my limbs loosened. My brows crinkled, tears falling as my hands roamed over my face.
Free.
“I couldn’t see or hear much through you, but I’m aware you know of my identity. So, let's get to it, shall we?”
As his long legs strode toward me, I panted, “What…what have you done to me?” I lifted my head, meeting his lowered gaze. “How—”
“Does magic course through your veins?” he prodded, his towering frame circling me. “Infected blood for a human should’ve led to your demise a while ago.”
My hands slowly sank. “Infected blood?” I froze, recalling the moment when Elowen’s mother had me in her grip—had cut my neck, had kissed over it with her own black-blood-stained mouth in Temple Celluna. “I have no magic.”
He let out a deep hum, and I stiffened as I felt him come up behind me.
“It was supposed to be a slow corruption, a slow demise, as I tracked you.” He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand, lowering his lips to my ear.
“And yet look at you,” he said softly. “There’s a darkness in you, too, isn’t there? ”
My lips wobbled, my lids falling shut as I tried not to cry.
In Half-Life Pass, I had told Merrick I’d never killed before, but it was the one falsehood he’d never caught.
He was too focused on comforting me than detecting lies.
I didn’t want to accept what I had done to my own mother all those years ago…
accept that something was inherently off about me, that I could do something so atrocious.
Was my corrupt soul the reason for my survival?
My eyes stung, glaring at him with hatred as he confronted me again. Ulric’s dark stare scanned me from head to toe before he gave a small tilt of his head, intrigued. A predator studying its prey. “How is it this human girl has resisted death?”
“Why?” I whispered. “Why are you doing this?”
“That’s the burning question, isn’t it? But the answer is far too complex for your comprehension.”
“Try me,” I bit out.
What did I have to lose at this point? My death was imminent. At least I would perish knowing the truth.
His mouth twitched again, and I stumbled back as his wrist snapped, his appearance morphing to his true form, the handsome King becoming the monster he really was: depthless, black eyes with blanched skin and inky veins.
“Centuries ago,” he began in a silken yet soulless voice, “a necromancer used their abilities to raise the very first Undead.” He stepped away, sitting atop his throne before continuing. “You know about that, yes?”
I nodded. That history was common knowledge—the beginning of the persecution of necromancers.
“But do you know how they were stopped?”
“They were killed?”
Ulric shook his head. “That’s what we’ve been told.
But that Mage’s death was far more complex than a public burning or a sword to the chest.” He leaned back in his seat, resting his forearms on the armrests of his throne.
“Others with the gift of necromancy were hunted after that, nearly wiping out the bloodline. But what people don’t realize is that necromancers cannot create the Undead.
Not innately. Their fear wasn’t fully unjust, but it was for the wrong reasons. ”
Hairs rose on the back of my neck. “So… you can only make them because you’re a God?”
Another shake of his head, and he raised his hand, rotating it as black shadows slid up his arm.
“Valor’s power grants me shadow. Grants me strength.
Not the ability to corrupt souls.” He let the shadows slowly slink down his arm, slithering along the floor to me.
“Besides, if that were the cause, that would’ve meant that Mage in the past was a God, which they were not. ”
My nerves spiked as the shadows began swirling up my legs, but I tried my best to stay calm. “Do you know the answer? Or is that what you’re looking for?”
That cruel smile grew as he said, “Oh, I know the answer. What I’m looking for, however, is far more complex.”
The shadows were ice cold as they enveloped my torso, but my stare remained on him. “The Weapon?”
“The Weapon is just one piece of a very intricate puzzle.” His fingers splayed, and shadow surrounded me viciously as he growled, “And you’re going to help me find it.”
There was nothing I could do as the sensation of liquid fire poured over my brain, nothing but screams tearing from my throat.
Ulric’s power burned into my forehead, the mark of deceit deeming him my master.
As his dark magic filled my veins, my consciousness became his prisoner, my body nothing but a puppet he could command at his will.
As my thoughts quieted, a blanket of evil suffocating my individuality, I thought about my friends. About the fact that they were prisoners in Halsted. That they believed I had betrayed them. All I could hope for was that they could escape, and so could I.
And if death was my only path to freedom, I would accept it gladly.