Chapter 37 #2
So I tried to show what I had learned—that oppression could be toxic to the oppressor as well as the oppressed.
That, in a world built around haves and have-nots, there would always be someone with more.
That they didn’t need a Crown to have a voice.
That those less powerful, even those with no power at all, deserved a voice, too.
But as more and more Centenaries crept into my head, my control went from feeble to none. Their curiosity crowded me out, and I became a silent spectator to the show.
They dove with gleeful abandon into my darkest moments.
I sensed their delight as they forced me to relive the night I’d almost given up in the armory, the way I broke so completely as I clutched my father’s dead body, the tears I shed as I buried Perthe in the cold winter soil.
It was only when they watched the death of their gryvern that they moved on to my happier moments.
I immediately wished they hadn’t.
They laughed with scorn at my family, belittled every proud accomplishment, ridiculed the upbringing I held dear.
The intimate moments I’d shared with Luther became cheap fodder for their jabs.
I listened in sheer terror as they threatened to wipe every memory of him from my mind, to take him from me in as permanent a way as their fellow Centenaries had been taken from them.
Thank the gods for Drusila, who insisted that disturbing a person’s memories of their mate would be an affront to the Kindred.
Then my horror grew as they debated whether to erase my father from my memories instead.
Though I couldn’t say why, it was Symond who spared me. He commanded them past their wicked fun to the prize they’d come for: my conversations with the Kindred. Glimpses of their own thoughts slipped through as that memory on the island played out:
That’s Blessed Father Umbros!
What is a heartstone?
There’s a tenth Kindred . . .
She’s his daughter.
On the ground, by the Blessed Father’s feet, is that . . . ?
At the sight of Yrselle’s battered corpse, their thoughts went silent.
I felt them hover on the Kindred’s warnings and the ominous vision of what Emarion could become.
Their distrust waned with each Crown they witnessed the Kindred place upon my head.
When they realized the Crowns would end with me, the normalcy they’d been yearning to return to was finally laid to rest.
They began to withdraw. They had seen the truth, unpleasant as it was. They could not doubt my calling. Now there was only the choice of whether they would join me in seeing it through.
Symond was the last to remain. He dug through my memories with an odd sense of purpose, searching for something, though I couldn’t tell what.
He followed my escape from Umbros across the Sacred Sea and scrutinized every move I made on my return, each painful moment leading toward Luther’s seemingly unavoidable death, right through to my tearful surprise when I awoke to find him healed. Then he went back to replay them again.
And again.
And again.
My blood, I said into my thoughts, hoping he could hear me. The cure was my blood.
I felt, rather than saw, his body lock up.
A glimpse of a memory flashed into my head—a man I didn’t recognize, lying in a bed and drenched with sweat, his skin covered head to toe in blackened veins.
The man’s dark eyes gazed at me, so clearly in pain and pleading to make it end.
My trembling hand closed around a dagger and held it over his heart.
I felt warm tears spill down my face as I tightened my grip and—
I stumbled backward at the violent force of Symond’s retreat from my thoughts. Our eyes met for a moment—both confused, both wild—then he grabbed his head and looked away.
Drusila turned to the turquoise-eyed man at her side.
Their heads bowed in conversation, and after a moment, his shoulders sank, and he nodded.
He laid a sweet kiss on her lips, then took the child from her arms. Her palm pressed tight to the mating mark on her wrist as she walked to my side and turned to face her peers.
“Do you remember what Yrselle told us before she left for the island?” she asked them.
“‘If there is to be a future for our kind, my Centenaries must live or die as one.’ None of us understood what she meant. Now, I think I do.” She lifted her chin.
“We must fight, but we must do it together. As one, the way our Queen commands. Our loyalty belongs to her.”
It was not lost on anyone that the Queen she spoke of was Yrselle, not me.
“We could run,” another suggested. “Your mate could sail us all somewhere they’ll never find us.”
“What if we lose our magic when we leave?” another asked.
“Better our magic than our lives,” Hagface said.
“Ophiucae is a Kindred,” Drusila reminded them. “He’ll find us, wherever we go.”
“How do we know she’ll really kill him?” Hagface argued. “Even she isn’t sure what she’ll do.”
Drusila sighed. “If she fails or spares him, we’re doomed either way.”
Those words clanged like a gong in my head.
“Drusila’s right,” one Centenary said as they moved to stand beside her. “We have to help her stop him.”
“I knew this girl would be our ruin,” another muttered, shuffling to join them.
“Wait,” Hagface said. “Symond is our Chief. We go where he commands.”
I looked at Symond. His head was bent, his shadowed eyes narrowed on his feet. I’d known Symond to be a cobra and a rogue, often at the same time, but this quiet, pensive man was unlike any side of him I’d seen before.
“I understand that what I ask is no small thing,” I told him, “but if you—”
“You knew in Sophos.”
His voice was so quiet, I barely heard him.
“Knew what?” I asked.
“That you could heal them.”
I frowned. “My Fortos magic?”
“The godstone,” he hissed between clenched teeth. His poison-black eyes lifted and seared into mine. “Do you know how many people in this realm were poisoned?”
I’d badly misread his silence. Symond wasn’t pensive . . . he was furious.
I fell a step back. “I wasn’t sure it worked until I—”
My words cut off as his fist smashed into my temple. My head snapped back, stars swimming. Before I could make sense of what just happened, he slammed into my body and pinned me to the floor. His hands closed around my neck and started to squeeze.
Drusila lunged to grab him. A dark energy pulsed around us, and she froze, hand hovering in mid-air.
All the Centenaries had stilled.
Symond’s grip tightened on my neck. I flailed beneath him, clawing a hand at his face. It jerked to a stop, my limbs no longer in my own control.
“You could have saved him!” he roared, quaking with rage.
I tried to cry out, but with no voice, no air, I only managed a desperate croak.
He leaned down, snarling in my face. “You should have come back the second you heard. And she should have warned us.”
My eyelids fluttered as consciousness began to recede. I could feel my heartbeat slowing, my vision spotting, my thoughts fading . . .
He’s going to kill me.
I’m going to die.
And then everyone else will die, too.
“Good,” Symond growled as he squeezed the last gasps of life from my throat. “Let this whole fucking world suffer and rot just like him.”
A baby’s cries floated from the darkness—the one vulnerable mind he hadn’t seized. I clung to the sound as my heart gave its last, defiant thumps.
My final thought was of Luther, and how much I would miss him.
I was almost too far gone to feel the fingers unwrap from my throat. There was a light hovering over me, flickering red and gold. It was warm like fire, and blissfully welcoming, a bright beacon in the glacial shadows.
The Everflame had come to call me home.
Breathe.
The thought was not my own, but my body obeyed. Compelled by Umbros magic, my chest rose with a shallow rasp.
Breathe again.
Again.
The commands kept coming, and my lungs kept filling.
The world came back into focus, though the firelight beckoning me forward did not go away.
A tiny glowing ember floated loose from its flames and fluttered toward me.
When it landed on my cheek, a sharp burst of pain sliced through my half-conscious daze.
I shot upright and gulped in air, nearly colliding with the torch Drusila held as she knelt at my side. “Are you alright?” she asked.
I couldn’t even think an answer. My head was throbbing, my throat was aching. To my right, a door slammed open and cracked against the stone.
“Get out of this realm,” Symond snarled.
“Symond,” Drusila said, “after what we saw, we have to go with her.”
“We’re not going anywhere with her.” He turned his glare on the others. “If anyone tries to join her, I’ll execute you on the spot. She can fight on her own, like she left us to do.”
Drusila pressed her lips together. She offered a hand and helped me to my feet.
“Symond,” I managed to croak out, “the world is at risk.”
“Get. Out.”
“Just go,” Drusila whispered, nudging me toward the door.
I held my ground. This was too important. I had to make him see. “The Centenaries can’t hide in this cage forever,” I said. “That’s not a life worth living—”
“How dare you speak to me of a life worth living?” he roared. He flew across the room and snatched me by the hair, bending his wrath-red face to mine. “You sacrificed us all for your mate. What good did it do? The gods gave you more time, and you’re throwing it away.”
He dragged me to the doorway and pushed me through with a violent shove.
“Show your face in this realm again, and I’ll kill you.”
The door slammed shut.