Chapter 24 ~Sylas~
~Sylas~
Well, then.
I was in deep motherfucking shit.
Of all the things I’d done, all the lone-wolf, unilateral, dangerous—and possibly reckless—actions I’d taken over the years, this would very likely take the cake.
Especially where Velra, Lazriel, and Cassius were concerned.
I was currently powerless.
My lunatic, power-addicted father was alive.
Puritas wanted to take me.
I was vital to The Shadowed in a larger, bigger picture sense that wasn’t yet fully known to me, vital enough that they’d worked tirelessly and risked a great deal to find a cure for me that shouldn’t even be possible, meaning violations had been made, dangerous lines crossed.
And yet here I was now out in the open, beyond the wards protecting Cassius and Ketheron’s apartment.
I grimaced.
The fact this was coming right after I’d promised them I wouldn’t pull this fucking madness anymore was going to hit like a sledgehammer—a sledgehammer imbued with a fuckload of magic.
And the worst part?
It hadn’t been my intention.
For once, it hadn’t been my intention to take action like this.
But Ketheron… fuck… he hadn’t been able to calm down.
After he’d had that brutal trauma flash, which he’d told me about in great detail, he’d lost control. His fear and rage had been leading the way. He’d destroyed a lot of the furniture in their apartment. And then he’d demanded I take him to Ambrose Wisteryn.
He wanted answers about Corvin Morvain.
He needed them, actually.
“Are you certain this is his residence?” he asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
I turned to him as we walked across the dark sands beach.
In the pitch black.
He had a ball of his gold magic on his palm, giving off just muted light so I could see where I was walking, especially when I didn’t have access to my magic and had no animal instincts to fall back on to guide the way either.
He didn’t want to use any more light for fear that we would be spotted. And, unfortunately, this location wasn’t one he could simply teleport us straight to. There was massive black magic resistance that would skew any teleportation attempt.
That paranoid fucker, Ambrose.
Well, as if I could talk where that was concerned.
“I’m certain,” I told him. “You just can’t sense him because he always appears at the last moment and shielded by very heavy black magic, and only when we reach the precise spot.”
“All right,” he grunted.
I looked at him in his sweatpants and hoodie, this particular hood overhanging so it covered most of his face.
He’d also cast a glamor so that the golden fissures that formed jagged patterns all over his skin and radiated a whole lot of light, especially in the darkness, weren’t visible at all.
He was the only one of his kind and the fissures were a distinctive aspect to that and therefore a dead giveaway as to who and what he was to anybody who laid eyes on him.
It bothered me that he had to do this—at all.
Those cracks and fissures were him and he should be able to not just show that, but revel in it. Not just around the apartment or within the confines of Haven Initiative, as he did now, but out in the wider world also.
But with these dark times, he saw it as him making himself into a target.
Not for long.
We would change all of that.
“I will safeguard you.”
I swung my head. “What?”
“Your pulse is racing. You are worried. I don’t believe you can experience true fear.
From what I have researched and gathered about what has happened to you, fear has been bled from you through so much trauma and also isolation.
However, you can actually worry. But you do not need to in this case.
I am strongest in the world. I will not allow any harm to befall you. ”
I usually despised anyone thinking they needed to protect me. And, no, it wasn’t ego, like most people thought it was. It was fucking self-preservation. Maybe the trauma he’d just alluded to as well.
But with Ketheron, the way he delivered those words, I didn’t despise the intent.
“I appreciate it,” I said, patting his arm.
He smiled and we walked in comfortable quiet for a few more feet, before I found myself telling him, “It’s not just being without my magic… the reason you feel my pulse racing.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“It’s… urgh… it’s the fucking black magic.”
“This is about your father?”
I nodded.
“You are not him. He didn’t just succumb to black magic usage, he sought it out. That is known the world over. I have discovered it from several different sources, so it is not just conjecture, Sylas. Also, you do not covet power for power’s sake.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Let me rephrase. Because, yes, you do covet power as a means of control and protection. However, you do not covet it to rule, to dominate, nor to hurt. You right wrongs. You protect the innocent. And you are capable of love, of altering bad habits for the benefit of those you love. You care. This man who just happens to be your father is not your mirror. You are a world apart.”
“I see what you’re saying,” I murmured, working to reconcile his words.
He nudged me. “Also, The Shadowed is invested in your recovery and you returning to power. That organization gauges the stability of those who wield great power and you are marked as somebody who can be trusted. So much so that they have worked tirelessly to find a cure to return your might to you.”
I stared out at him. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “You are most welcome.”
We made our way across the narrow strip of coast near the coves to our right then.
A hundred feet in, I choked, tasting that familiar foul shit—the mark of heavy black magic.
Ketheron shuddered, clearly feeling it as well.
I felt a sudden surge and then in our very next steps, everything disappeared and we were immersed in a black void, air swirling around us, yet not touching us.
In a burst of deeper blackness, the one we sought appeared six feet from us.
“It has been a long time, Sylas,” he spoke.
Ambrose Wisteryn.
I took him in as he flipped down the hood of his navy cloak, the entire thing studded with black diamonds.
He looked more pure demon than man, his face utterly covered with black veins, his eyes an eerie white, more like holes in his face than anything else.
His straggly, long white hair cascaded down his cloak.
“Our last interaction, I believe, was me sparing your life,” I responded pointedly, should he need a reminder that he owed me.
Dearly.
He smiled with dark amusement, then looked at Ketheron. “You don’t need to glamor yourself in my presence, Polygenus Entity. All the while you remain in my magical orbit, we are cloaked—from everyone and everything.”
“I am content,” Ketheron told him, moving closer to me until his arm brushed mine, his way of bolstering me and making it clear to Ambrose that he was doing so.
I had no doubt that Ambrose could sense my current powerless state.
“It’s not my intention to harm the Master of Death Magic,” Ambrose assured Ketheron. “And believe me, I definitely don’t want to harm you.”
“I know you don’t wish to harm me,” Ketheron told him. “You tried to spare me.”
Ambrose arched an eyebrow. “You saw me there?”
“Yes.”
“You were unconscious. That is what they told me. Your eyes were open, but that was induced by magic.”
“Corvin and those scientists lied to you. They had injected me with a paralytic. I couldn’t move, couldn’t respond, nor even blink. But I was aware of everything. I saw everything, heard everything.” He shuddered. “I felt everything that they did to me.”
Fuck. My stomach roiled. I felt fucking sick.
I looked up at him, but he avoided eye contact and steeled himself as he recalled to Ambrose, “You refused to infuse me with black magic. You told Corvin that it would undermine the Celestial power they wanted to plant within me. I am now aware with the knowledge available to me as a fully-formed creation, that you told them a lie.”
“I did, yes. It would have caused you unimaginable agony. And I also did not want Corvin to be able to create a being infused with potent black magic who also had access to Celestial power. Black magic being present would have ensured that you could never exercise free will, that you would have remained under his control forevermore, and certainly not able to imprint on Ariana, which was the catalyst to you then being able to think for yourself and break free entirely.”
“And then you came back a day later. You snuck in and tried to liberate me.”
Ambrose grimaced. “Yet, I failed. And then I was siphoned by Corvin and his group of black magic users—young fools of wielders.” His gaze flicked to me. “That is what was infused into your father in order to assist with his resurrection. My power now fuels him.”
His? He was the most powerful black magic user in existence.
That didn’t bode well at all.
It was a fuck of a lot to go up against.
I scrubbed my hand over my face. I couldn’t actually believe it, but it was worse than I’d thought. “Motherfucker,” I groused.
“It will take your all to defeat him, Sylas. I am sorry.”
“His all? You are referring to it draining all his magical energy?” Ketheron questioned.
“Not just magical energy, I am afraid.”
“You believe he will die?”
Ambrose sighed and looked at me. “This is not just necromancer against necromancer. You are stronger than him where that is concerned. Of course, he is well aware of that fact. If you approach battle with him as a test of strength and power, you will drain yourself. You will fall with him. However, you are not just your power, are you?”
“You’re a strategist,” Ketheron said, understanding what Ambrose was getting at. “A manipulator. Lazriel said you used that well against Victor Halrow that night.”
“Victor Halrow?” Ambrose questioned. “He is aware that you are currently bound?”
“Yeah, he came for me.”