Chapter 20 - Isabella #2
As they escort me through the hallways, the villa transforms around me. Candles everywhere, hundreds of them, casting flickering shadows on white fabric draped over everything. The smell of incense mixing with something medicinal underneath. Chanting from somewhere ahead—low, rhythmic, desperate.
We pass a window, and I catch a glimpse of the sky. Still gray, still stormy—but there's a break on the horizon. A line of lighter clouds. The storm is weakening.
Sunset. It's coming.
I just have to make it until then.
The ceremony room was probably a ballroom once.
Now it's been converted into something between a chapel and a stage.
White fabric drapes the walls. Candles form patterns on the floor—circles within circles, symbols I don't recognize.
The believers stand in formation, twelve of them, their faces lit with that desperate hope I've seen since I arrived.
The Irish woman. The Calabrian. The Russian woman and her bodyguard. Others I don't know, all of them sick or grieving or both, all of them believing they're about to witness a miracle.
Alexandros stands near the back, his expression unreadable. Nikos is beside him, pale, his hands shaking slightly. And Stefanos—
Stefanos is watching Dr. Theos with something that looks like murder.
His hand keeps drifting toward his hip. Where a gun might be hidden.
And at the center of the room, waiting at an altar draped in white, stands Henrik.
Black suit. Blood-red tie. That predatory smile I remember from the auction, from my nightmares.
"My bride," he says, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Finally."
The chanting shifts. Grows louder. The believers begin to sway, their voices rising in unison—words I don't recognize, something that sounds ancient and invented at the same time. The candles seem to burn brighter, their flames perfectly still despite the draft from the storm-lashed windows.
Dr. Theos raises his hands, and the room falls silent except for the wind howling outside.
"We gather tonight," he intones, his voice taking on that honey-over-gravel quality that makes my skin crawl, "to witness a sacred union. A binding of blood. A joining of souls."
Henrik's grip on my hand tightens. Possessive. Patient.
"The moon has risen," Theos continues. "The vessel stands before us." He gestures toward me, and I feel every eye in the room lock onto my face. "She who conquered death. She whose blood carries the memory of resurrection. And when the blood is given freely—when the sacrifice is complete—"
The believers respond in unison, their voices fervent and rehearsed: "The gods will fly."
My blood turns to ice.
The gods will fly.
Antonio mentioned intercepting that phrase. Days ago, when he was still trying to decode what the Greeks were planning. I thought it was a code. A password. A signal for some operation I didn't understand.
I finally understand what it means—and it's so much worse.
It's a prayer. A collective bargain with the universe: give us enough blood, enough faith, enough sacrifice, and our dead will return. The gods will fly. Their loved ones, ascending from whatever afterlife they've imagined.
Except gods don't fly. They fall. They fail. They stay in the hearts of the people who loved them, but they don't come back.
These believers don't know that. They think tonight is the night their children walk through the door. Their lovers. Their lost ones.
And I'm the sacrifice that's supposed to give them wings.
"When the gods fly," Theos says, spreading his arms wide, "the veil between worlds will part. The lost will return to us. The dying will be healed. Death itself will bow before the power of faith and sacrifice."
Siobhan is weeping openly, her hands pressed to her heart. The Calabrian's lips move in silent prayer. Even Madame Pushkova—silent, stoic Madame Pushkova—has tears streaming down her cheeks.
They actually believe it. Not Henrik—Henrik wants power, ownership, me. But these people, swaying in their white clothes, clutching photographs of dead children and lost lovers—they genuinely think tonight is the night their loved ones come home.
Their belief is Henrik's alibi. When the ceremony completes, when I'm bound to him through whatever twisted legal fiction he's constructed, these people will swear they saw something sacred. Something willing. Something divine.
They don't even know they're being used.
My mother weeps silently in her wheelchair, positioned at the altar like she's giving me away. I wonder if she's figured it out yet—that her miracle cure was never coming. That she was just another mark, another desperate soul Henrik harvested for this moment.
I walk forward because there's no other direction to go. Each step measured, controlled—a dancer's walk, a performer's walk. Playing a role until I can stop playing.
Henrik takes my hand when I reach the altar. His grip is too tight, his thumb stroking across my knuckles in a way that makes my skin crawl.
"I've waited so long for this moment," he murmurs, low enough that only I can hear. "For you."
"I'm not yours."
"You will be." His smile doesn't waver. "One way or another, after tonight, everyone will know you belong to me."
Theos raises his hands again, and the chanting stops. The silence is absolute. Only the wind, weaker now, and the distant crash of waves against rock.
"We will now exchange the sacred vows," Theos announces. "Words spoken before witnesses. Words that bind blood to blood, soul to soul." He turns to Henrik. "Repeat after me: I bind my blood to yours."
Henrik's voice rings out, clear and possessive: "I bind my blood to yours."
Theos turns to me. Waiting.
The room holds its breath. Siobhan's hands are clasped at her chest, her face luminous with desperate hope. The Calabrian has stopped praying, his eyes fixed on me.
"I..." The word sticks in my throat.
"I bind my blood..." Theos prompts.
"I bind my blood..." I let the words trail off, blinking slowly. Playing the drugs harder than they're actually hitting me. "I'm sorry, what comes next?"
Henrik's grip tightens. A warning.
"To yours," Theos repeats, patience fraying. "I bind my blood to yours."
"To yours." I say it like a question. Like I'm not quite sure what I'm agreeing to.
"Now: I offer my body as vessel."
My stomach turns. Vessel. Like I'm empty. Like I'm waiting to be filled.
"I offer my body..." I pause, let my eyes drift to my mother. "As vessel."
Henrik's thumb traces a circle on my palm. Satisfaction in his eyes now. He thinks I'm complying.
"I surrender my will to the sacred union," Theos continues.
Surrender my will. That's what this is really about. Ownership.
"I surrender..." I stop. "I'm sorry. The medication. Could you repeat—"
"Isabella." Henrik's voice cuts low and dangerous. "We've been patient. But my patience has limits."
He pulls something from his pocket. A photograph. Holds it where only I can see.
Elena. Playing in the garden at the fortress. The image is recent—within the last week. Someone got close enough to photograph her through the hedges.
"Your stepdaughter is charming," Henrik says softly. "She counts everything, doesn't she? I wonder what number she'd reach if she started counting the days until someone came for her."
The world goes cold. Still. Every thought narrowing to that photograph.
"The vows, Isabella." Henrik tucks the photo away. "All of them. Now. Or I make a phone call, and counting becomes the least of her problems."
I look at my mother. At Theos. At the believers swaying in their desperate hope.
No help coming from any of them.
I look toward the windows, where the last light of sunset bleeds through the storm clouds. Somewhere out there, Antonio is fighting through weather and water to reach me. Somewhere out there, Franco and Manuel are waiting for a signal.
But Elena is four years old. And Henrik has people close enough to photograph her in her own garden.
"I surrender my will," I hear myself say, "to the sacred union."
Henrik's smile widens. "There. That wasn't so difficult."
"I accept my fate as chosen vessel," Theos prompts.
The words taste like ash. Like surrender. Like everything I've fought against since the day my father put me on an auction block.
But Elena's face is burned into my mind. Her laugh. Her counting. The way she calls me Bella-ballina and asks when I'm coming home.
"I accept my fate," I say, "as chosen vessel."
The believers exhale as one. The chanting begins again, softer now, reverent. Theos produces a ceremonial knife—silver blade, bone handle, ancient-looking though probably manufactured last year.
"The blood binding," he announces. "A mingling of life force. A seal upon the vows."
Henrik holds out his palm. Theos draws the blade across it—a shallow cut, blood welling immediately. Henrik doesn't flinch. Just watches me with those patient predator eyes.
Theos turns to me, knife gleaming.
My hand trembles as I extend it. Not from fear. From rage. From the effort of keeping that rage contained when every instinct screams to run, to fight, to claw Henrik's eyes out and take my chances with the guards.
But Elena. Always Elena.
The blade touches my palm. Cold, then hot, then the warm slide of blood.
Theos takes my bleeding hand. Takes Henrik's. Presses them together, our blood mingling, while the believers chant and my mother sobs and somewhere outside, the sun finally sets.
Come back to me, ballerina.
I'm trying, Antonio. I'm trying.