Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
WOLFE
No!
I hurled myself against the glass, giving more than my all.
Cracks of darkness splintered through my vision and the cage shuddered. Still, it held, trapping me inside.
I knew it was no use. The cage was imbued with binding spells strong enough to hold even the most powerful sorcerer. I had no chance.
But I tried.
I tried for her.
My Ziyka. The only light I had left in this world. My reason to live.
To try.
Elariya.
Gods, she broke her curse. She found a way. She located the ring. Knowing that gave me the strength to change back. At that moment, getting the confirmation of something I thought impossible gave me a dose of new life.
But the curse had surged back to life, swallowing every piece of me. I fought it. Gods, I fought it with everything I had left.
There was no use. It was like drowning beneath an endless sea.
As the officiant took my girl and my family away, a howl tore from my throat, raw enough to strip flesh from bone.
Don't leave.
The words never made it past the darkness.
Elariya looked back at me with tears streaming down her cheeks, then she was gone.
They were all gone.
Elariya, Arielle, Alaric, Bastian, Garrick, and Kaem.
The door closed.
Silence followed and true despair settled in the little that remained of my soul.
Fuck.
I stilled, but the darkness surrounding me moved in a cloudy whisp, tendrils of shadow flickering all around me.
I was able to tell them the truth about Dreynthor and Zyrra. But would it matter?
It was doubtful. Death was my sentence.
And… Artemyss was right.
Being set up for Dreynthor’s murder was one thing, but the more prominent matter at hand was that I was a monster. An abomination. A threat to the realm that needed to be eliminated. Artemyss was dealing with me exactly as I would myself.
To everyone else in the Hall of Judgment, I looked like a mindless fiend, but I was very much aware of every single thing that was going on.
I saw everyone in the room. I heard Bastian’s testimony, felt honored by his defense of me, and hoped he knew how much I appreciated our friendship.
I saw and heard the witness. The servant girl who spotted me weeks ago with my hands around Dreynthor’s neck, threatening him. When I was first taken prisoner, I knew they’d call her or she’d come forward. Whichever it was didn’t matter; the problem was she was a solid character witness.
Something to use against me.
I couldn’t have been prouder of Elariya for speaking up on my behalf. I’d never heard her sound so firm and powerful. She spoke like a true queen. I would have loved to have made her that.
The power that rippled from her hands was new. I didn’t think even she realized it, and I was glad Arielle was able to calm her.
A half-mage, half-human girl revealing new powers right in the heart of the Citadel was like signing a death warrant. The magistrates were dangerous around anything they didn’t understand.
Fuck, look what happened to me. I was the prime example
None of those magistrates were even willing to try and save me.
They already knew before the session began what they were going to do with me. Today was just a matter of formality.
The shitty thing about it was… I didn’t know if I could fight this. Even with the ring.
For a start, I needed hands to put the fucking ring on.
A wicked little giggle filled the air, and Zyrra stepped out of the space beside me.
She took one look at me staring at the closed door like a lost puppy and laughed out loud.
“Dear brother, look at you pining over your lover.” She drifted over to me and looked me up and down. “I had such a great time today watching them scramble together to help you. And they failed.”
I hissed at her, a sound like a vicious basilisk. Today may have been a failure, but thank the gods she didn't know the ring had been located. I prayed it would stay that way.
“Poor you. I was thinking the other day that I wished Dreynthor could see you like this. Locked away and helpless. How about we play a game?” She’d hardly finished speaking before she transformed into my dead uncle.
I hissed again, and she threw me a smile so menacing it would have made my skin crawl if I had skin.
I stared at the unsettling vision of my uncle. There was nothing about her that could convince me she wasn’t Dreynthor alive in the flesh.
“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How many times did you see him when it wasn’t really him?
Did he really die last week? Or was that an illusion, too?
” She spoke in his voice but laughed her annoying-as-fuck laugh that grated on my nerves.
“No, I won’t be mean. All that was true. I can only take the form of the dead.”
Interesting. I’d never picked that up about her. I’d assumed she’d chosen my sister’s form to fuck with me.
While I didn’t doubt that, knowing she could only take the form of the dead was something I was sure was key to figuring out what she was. But…
I could almost laugh.
Who would I tell?
What would I do with that information now?
Not a godsdamn thing. That was why she’d shared it with me.
“Your Ziyka would make a nice pet. I’m going to trap her again like a bird. And when she finds the ring for me I think I’ll cut her face off and wear it like a hat.”
Even if I weren’t a Deathwalker, I wouldn’t have been able to let her get away with saying that. In this form, though, I was feral and my control was non-existent.
She was about to laugh when my talonlike hands whipped out and wrapped around her neck like rope. I was surprised she allowed me to get my hands on her, but she did, and by the gods, did I squeeze.
The problem I’d had before was that I saw her as my sister. I wouldn’t hurt her or even call her the fucking bitch she was because I saw my sister’s face when I looked at this demon.
That was over. Now I saw her for what she was.
She gasped for breath, her eyes wide. The shock of my outburst made Dreynthor’s form dissolve and she became Zyrra again, probably a ploy to play on my good side and get me to let her go.
What she didn’t realize was I had no good side. And there was nothing good about me when someone threatened my wife.
I was so focused on trying to keep my grip around her neck that I didn’t clock on that I was actually doing some damage.
Smoke erupted from where I touched.
No. Fuck. That wasn’t smoke. It was a misty black substance like ichor.
“Release me!” she wailed, her voice as haunting and hellish as my Deathwalker howls.
I squeezed tighter, wanting to end her. She screamed louder, then a white mist appeared around her and seized her, ripping her from my grasp. Like a hand, it yanked her back into the pocket of air from whence she’d come.
I stared, stunned.
What was that?
And what did I just do?
It had been clear she’d wanted me dead.
I think I just figured out why.