Chapter 67
LUTHER
“Iknow the Umbros accent is hard for you westerners to understand, but ‘no’ is pretty clear in any dialect.”
Diem and Symond scowled at each other with mirrored contempt. My hand twitched at my side as I watched, ready to put a shadow through his gut if he tried to attack her the way he had in Umbros. I had half a mind to do it anyway.
“I respect your choice not to fight,” Diem gritted out, looking like she was battling the same desire. “I’m asking you to protect the people who were brave enough to say yes. This could be what we need to win.”
“We both know that victory won’t hinge on what I do.” He smiled frostily. “Tell me, have you made up your mind whether you’re going to kill Ophiucae or keep pathetically begging for his love while he slaughters us all?”
The shame that spiraled through Diem turned my vision red. I drew the Sword of Corbois and jabbed its point toward his throat.
“Could you three keep it down?” Drusila hissed, stepping out of a nearby tent. “If you wake the baby, no one in this camp is getting any sl—” She paused at the sight of Symond an inch from my blade. “What’s going on?”
“We think we have a way to keep Ophiucae from controlling our minds,” Diem told her. “We need Umbros magic to test it. A minute of your time, that’s all I ask.”
Diem rubbed her wrist. I could tell it was killing her not to have her magic, and it killed me to see her reduced to begging because she couldn’t do it alone.
Drusila gave her an apologetic look. “I would, but Symond is our strongest. He’d stop me before I could try.”
Symond’s smarmy smirk had shadows writhing at my palms, but Diem beat me to it.
She shoved the blade of my sword away and stepped up to him herself, chin high, coming so close he was forced to lean back.
“I will not let you get everyone here killed just to spite me. Symond. You are going to help me.”
He scoffed. “And how are you going to force me?”
“I won’t have to. This is an order from your Queen.” She leaned in, teeth bared. “And you will obey.”
My body responded to her courage in dark, carnal ways.
I should have been raising my shield to protect her, but she needed this moment.
She needed to show him, herself, and everyone else that her true strength had never been in her magic—and that when it came to saving her people, no one would stand in her way.
“And there will be no consequences if I do?” Symond asked, voice threaded with threat. “Not even from your snarling guard dog over there?”
“Yes,” she said without flinching. “We need to see if the godstone mixture my brother made can stop Umbros magic from getting in.”
His mouth curled into a smile. “As you wish.” His hand twitched, and beside me, Teller went stiff. “Why don’t you tell Her Majesty what you really think of her?”
Teller’s eyes glazed over as his head swiveled to Diem. “Sometimes, I hate being your brother,” he said, his voice unnaturally monotone. “I’m sick of living in your shadow.”
“Stop,” I barked.
Symond shrugged. “Queen’s orders.”
“It feels like the only way I’ll ever live my own life is if one of us is d—”
I raised a shield to sever Symond’s magic, and Teller staggered back, looking horrified. “No—D, I didn’t mean it.”
“Alixe is wearing the mixture, not my brother,” Diem said calmly. Though she appeared unaffected by Symond’s trick, pain flooded our bond. I knew Teller’s words had confirmed the worst, cruelest voices in her head.
Symond’s smile stretched wider. “My mistake.” He flicked a hand at Alixe. “Why don’t you tell her, instead?”
Alixe fell back a step, looking like she’d just taken a shove—but her mouth remained closed.
Symond’s amusement faded. His eyes narrowed as he turned toward her fully, raising both palms. The air around us shuddered with a surge of his aura.
“You’re . . . too afraid . . . to lead,” Alixe said in a stilted tone.
Grim disappointment rolled off Diem, and I knew it wasn’t from Alixe’s comments alone.
“I’ll keep working on it,” Teller insisted. “I can run some more tests.”
“We don’t have time for tests,” Diem said, sighing. “Just focus on the flameroot.”
“You don’t . . . trust yourself,” Alixe droned on. “Until . . . you do . . . we can’t, either.”
I raised a shield around Alixe, and her face went pale as she realized what she’d done.
“Your Majesty,” she began, looking distraught.
“It’s fine,” Diem murmured. “Nothing I didn’t already know.” She shut her emotions down in a way that was painfully familiar, then turned for the palace, with the others sulking behind her.
I stared at Symond, imagining all the violent ways I wanted to kill him. He matched my hateful look, looking as if he was challenging me to do it. Almost as if he hoped I’d unleash.
“Do you even want to live?” I asked him.
He let out a hollow chuckle. “What a stupid question.”
“Is it?” Drusila asked. “I had to drag you into the godstone room during the attack. Now you don’t want to fight or even help. It’s like you’ve given up.”
“How I feel is none of your concern,” he snapped.
She frowned. “We’re Centenaries. We don’t keep things from each other.” Her face softened. “Is this about Yrselle? You took her death so hard.”
Symond waved his hand, and Drusila’s mouth closed with a snap. Her eyes went wide, then her pitying expression hardened into anger as she staggered backward toward her tent as if being pushed against her will.
Symond looked at me like I was next. I raised my shield, refusing to leave. He scowled and skulked toward the campfire, standing beside it and staring into the flames.
I watched him, wondering if Drusila had been closer to the truth than she realized.
“I know grief,” I called out to him. “The specific kind that comes from an unjust death. The way it eats away at you, thinking of all that could have been done to prevent it. It took my sister’s birth to make me care about living again.
She needed me to be more than my loss. Your people need you, too. ”
“I should make you walk into this fire and burn alive,” he mumbled. “You’re the real reason he’s dead.”
He? I wondered.
Symond stared down at his hands, working his jaw, then let out a grumpy huff. “Call your bitch Queen back. There might be a way to make it work.”
I pushed down the urge to saw off his tongue with something rusty and sent a flare of light magic to catch Diem’s eye. I waved her back, and she returned with the others.
Symond leaned in close to Alixe, studying the black smears on her forehead. “The placement is wrong. Our bones are infused with our magic. It makes them harder to penetrate.” He brushed a fingertip just below her brow. “You need it here. Over the eyes.”
Teller dipped his hand into the mixture and held it up. Alixe nodded her consent, and Teller dabbed the sparkling black paste over her eyelids.
“Here too,” Symond said, pointing to her temples. “That’s the thinnest part of the skull, where it’s easiest to get through.” Teller added more paste, creating a thick stripe across her face. Symond’s head tilted. “Walk away,” he said, voice thrumming with compulsion.
Alixe held still for a moment, then shook her head. “No,” she said firmly.
Symond held his palms out at her temples. “Walk away,” he ordered again.
Alixe clenched her jaw. “I feel the magic telling my body to obey. It’s weaker than before—I can resist it.”
Symond nodded. “There are still ways to get through, but they require more focus. Ophiucae won’t be able to capture a large group of Descended at once.
It won’t do much for the mortals, though.
Without magic, their skulls are as easy to get through as air.
Same with Diem. The only way to make that muck work for her is to drown her in it. ” He flashed an icy smirk. “I’ll help.”
Alixe looked at Teller. “It’s hard to use my magic with the godstone touching my skin. Is there a way to fix that?”
Teller thought for a moment. “We could put a barrier between the godstone and your skin. Something like wax.” He looked warily at Symond. “I’ll need to run more tests.”
Symond sighed. “You have one hour. Then I’m using my magic on myself to forget all of you exist.”
The others took off at a sprint for the palace, leaving Diem and I alone with Symond. “Thank you for your help,” she told him. “This will save many lives.”
“Not the ones that matter,” he mumbled as he turned toward the fire, giving us his back.
Diem watched him with a frown. “In Umbros, the man I saw in your thoughts . . . was he a friend? Something more?”
“You’re pushing your luck,” Symond warned.
She chewed on her lip, frown deepening. There was a wound in Symond that I could tell she wanted badly to heal. “Whoever he was, I’m sorry for what happened. I wish I’d known sooner what my blood could do. I wish so many things had been different.”
Symond’s eyes lifted toward the evening sky, where the black of night was beginning to lighten with the coming dawn. “You are the moon, Diem Bellator. You shine so bright, yet darkness follows wherever you go.”
Diem’s gaze dropped, features pinched with a tumultuous mix of emotions I couldn’t make sense of through our bond. “There’s someone I’d like you to see while we wait for Teller.”
“Oh good,” Symond said dryly. “More helping.”
She led us back into the palace, and my heart dropped when she turned for the dungeon. There was only one prisoner in these cells, and I knew immediately why we were here. She slipped her hand out of mine as we descended the stairs.
“Wait here,” she told us.
She walked down the long corridor and stopped in front of a cell at the end, murmuring quiet words. I warred with the urge to drag her away and protect her from what I knew this would bring. Symond eyed me, his interest apparently piqued. Diem unlocked the cell door, then disappeared inside.
“You can come,” she called out.
Symond began to stride forward, and I stopped him with a hand to his chest. “Slowly,” I warned.
“Should I be raising my shield?” he asked.
“No. He can’t hurt you. But he’ll try.”