Chapter 19 #2
Seeing her bloody on the ground was an image he’d never forget, and the men deserved to suffer far longer than they did. Shadows crawled over his skin, mimicking the black veins from days prior.
As he flexed his hands, the shadows retreated. Since learning he’d sent Rory into danger, his anger had been harder to control, and the darkness crept into his heart like a poisonous spider ready to inject its deadly venom.
A quick knock sounded, and Lauren waltzed in. “It’s like you read my mind,” Caius said in way of a greeting. “I need to speak with you about something.”
She handed him a paper. “Here is yesterday’s report.” Caius set it on his desk as she sat down. “What do you need?”
“I need you to go to Erdikoa tonight and switch places with Sam.”
Her long nails drummed on the arms of the chair. “Why?”
“I need to train using the shadows to create a way through the magic.”
She flicked her long hair over her shoulder. “I think that’s smart.”
Caius expected pushback about her leaving early. “Thank you. Is there a trusted enforcer that can do your job in your absence?”
“I’ll hand in today’s report before I leave, along with the name of someone who can handle the rest while I’m gone,” she replied and stood to leave.
“Lauren,” Caius called out, stopping her retreat. “Thank you.”
“I will do anything if it means saving Rory,” she said and slipped out of the room without a backward glance.
There was another knock, much softer than Lauren’s, and Caius called upon the shadows to open the door. Lenora stood on the other side with a bag and drink carrier. “May I come in?”
“Always,” he said with a demure smile. “Is something wrong?”
She loomed over his desk and opened the bag.
He watched as she pulled out napkins, placing one in front of him and keeping one for herself, followed by two travel mugs.
“I don’t need a reason to see my son-in-law,” she chided and pulled cookies out of the bag, laying them on the napkins.
“Rumor is you love sweets, and the bakery downtown has the best macadamia nut cookies in both realms.”
She called Caius son-in-law as though she knew Rory would give him a second chance. If only he were as confident. He knew Rory, and if she regained her memories, she would try to kill him for sending her to Erdikoa.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “I know you’re still adjusting to life here.”
She harrumphed and set down one of the cups. “I have adjusted fine. Eat and relax.”
He puffed out a quiet laugh and bit into a cookie. They were his favorite, and he wondered if someone told her or if it was a lucky guess. “Thank you.”
She tapped the top of her mug and pointed to his. “Hot chocolate. I’m not sure how, but things here taste better than in the other realm.”
Picking up his drink, he took a tentative sip and hissed. It was scalding hot. “I agree. Everything is made from scratch.”
“Being clear of mind is something I never thought possible.” She sighed and sipped her drink. Either her coffee was cooler than his, or she had a high pain tolerance. He scowled down at his boiling hot drink.
“It seems unfair that the magic exists to take away essence, yet Sibyls are forced to succumb to their abilities for most of their lives,” she said, and Caius didn’t miss the bitterness simmering beneath her surface. “Why would the Seraphim do that?”
“They wanted Sibyls around to predict any great disasters that may arise,” Caius replied robotically. It was something he’d wondered himself, and as a teenager, he’d often researched different mystics. He’d always loved reading and devoured anything he could.
“But no one predicted Atarah’s murder.” Bitterness overwhelmed him. “Or if they did, they didn’t come forward. It seems unfair to force Sibyls to live that way for nothing.”
Lenora dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Vincula is the only place that takes a mystic’s essence, and it wouldn’t be fair to allow Sibyls to live forever while others suffer mortality.”
She was right. In Vincula, mystics did not age, but they could die by force. Caius wouldn’t be able to stomach ending a Sibyl’s life after a certain number of years to avoid their immortality; therefore, keeping them in Vincula was not an option.
The silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Quite the contrary, it was comforting to have someone who cared for him other than Sam. And maybe Lauren. She was a wild card.
Speaking of, he grabbed her report and opened his drawer to file it away, but Cora’s emergency report stopped him.
Lenora noticed the tension and set her drink down. “What is it, dear? Is there a ghost in that drawer?”
Bringing up Cora’s death seemed like a bad idea, but before he could lie and say it was nothing, Lenora said, “Don’t even think about lying to me.”
Closing his eyes, he pulled out the file and set it on his desk.
“It’s a copy of Cora’s emergency report.
” He took a glimpse to gauge her reaction, but instead of looking distraught, she looked curious.
“When Rory accused me of killing her sister, I wanted to know why, and I had a copy of her report brought to me.”
Lenora reached her hand across the desk. “May I?”
It was amusing to him that she felt the need to ask. He would deny her nothing. “I’m sure you know everything in there.”
After placing the file in her hand, she flipped it open, and he watched pain contort her face when she saw the pictures of Cora’s body. The urge to snatch the file back was strong, and he had to grip the arms of his chair.
“How did the king have a Merrow erased from the database without raising any flags?” she asked without looking up. “The Merrow database is controlled by enforcers in The Capital, is it not?”
“It is,” he confirmed. Merrows were soul stealers whose abilities were bound by a mandatory monthly elixir. He never understood why Merrows were created in the first place.
The books said they were created to capture souls, keeping the black ones trapped in jars and releasing the others to ascend into the aether. But why not let black souls descend to hell like they do now? He stopped trying to understand the Seraphim’s motives a long time ago.
She snapped the file shut and passed it back to him. “What if Sibyls could take the elixirs the Merrows are forced to take?”
Caius rubbed his chin, surprised no one had suggested it before. “The elixir has only been around for a few hundred years or so, and if I’m not mistaken, it was curated specifically for Merrows. But if the formula was altered to cater to Sibyls, hypothetically, it could work.”
If anyone suggested using it on Sibyls, he doubted Gedeon would approve it, especially if he feared a Sibyl would predict his transgressions. No one would listen to them if they weren’t coherent. “When we kill Gedeon, I will see that it is tested.”
“It’s a wonder that wretched brother of yours approved the Merrow elixir in the first place,” Lenora spat, and the tops of her rounded ears turned a bright shade of red.
Caius grabbed his hot chocolate and sipped, forcing himself not to make a face at the now cold drink.
Did the drink burn him and then cool extra fast to spite him?
It felt like it. “Merrows cannot help themselves when their abilities are unbound,” Caius explained.
“The temptation to take and use souls for their own gain slowly blackens their own. The crime rate among Merrows was astronomically high. Finding a solution has been a priority since before my time. My brother couldn’t deny using a solution if one was found, lest he risk the wrath of the Seraphim. ”
Not that the Seraphim cared anymore. He bit off a piece of cookie and chewed slowly.
“He killed your sister,” Lenora countered. “Was that not a risk?”
“It was, but I cannot begin to understand the way my brother’s brain works.” He grabbed a napkin and wiped his hands, thinking hard about Lenora’s observation.
Blackened souls saw no issue with the most heinous crimes known to man. It wouldn’t surprise Caius if a mystic’s black soul slowly ate away at their sanity.
Lenora gasped, leaned forward, and grabbed Caius’ hand, turning it over. He watched her curiously. “You must tread carefully,” she cautioned.
“You do not have your abilities here, but you speak in riddles,” he remarked. “Have you seen something?”
“No, but pieces come back.” Lifting a plump finger, she tapped the side of her head. “My memory is a large filing cabinet filled with visions I’ve had. Now that I don’t have millions of new visions coming in, I can focus on sorting through the pieces of old visions in my memory.”
He nodded, not understanding. “And what pieces have you put together that involve my hands?”
She let go of him and stood. “You are feeding the darkness inside you, and you must stop.”
“I know I’ve been a bit of a downer since you arrived in Vincula,” he said, moving to walk her out. “But surely my company has not been so abhorrent that you think me a monster.”
His bad joke put a faint smile on her lips. “You are a good man, Caius. Do not lose yourself.” She patted his arm. “Rory is lucky to have you.”
“It is I who am lucky to have her, Ms. Raven. It was never the other way around.”