CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT #2
I forced my eyes back to Griffon. “You think his power is insignificant? Let me lay this out as clearly as I can. He doesn’t read your motivation for ‘taking a piss.’ He reads your motivation for being.
Your reason for getting up in the morning.
That thing deep down in the pit of your soul that you need more than anything.
” My heart tugged me to him and I took a few more steps, until I stood just a few feet away.
“Many view me as the most powerful channeler in Privalt. But Beck just might be the most powerful on all the continents. Because when you know what truly drives someone? They’re just…
putty, in your hands. Yours to manipulate without them even realizing you’re doing it.
A sentence here. A lie there. Perfectly placed words that play on something so deep and ingrained they don’t even know it’s there. And Beck played us all like a fiddle.”
I let out a half-crazed laugh at the truly diabolical nature of what Beck had done. My mind knew it was true, but my heart just couldn’t believe it.
I laid it out for myself as clearly as I had for Griffon.
“The Archon brings the legion. A battle lures her general into the square. The talkative priest stalls her commander and buys them enough time for the bait…” My gaze darted to Griffon, and my mouth went bone dry.
I licked my lips. “For the bait to fool me into abandoning you all to that fucking net. And draw me away from the ships.”
“But he couldn’t have done all this,” Aris argued, some desperate plea buried in the words. “He was here until that human showed up with Bellan’s summons.”
I dashed that hope before it could sprout so much as a single root.
“He has a pet hawk, Astra. She almost certainly relayed all this to Bellan, who in turn told whoever he was working with. And she brought him annuleaf,” I added.
I held out my crumb-dusted hands and began to pace again.
“It all fits, but it doesn’t make sense,” I muttered, more to myself than them.
“He was around Davina at the party, but not Sorrell or Aris.” I rubbed at my temples, my frazzled mind struggling to slide all the puzzle pieces into the right places.
“Yes, he was.”
My head snapped up at the sound of Aris’s voice.
“That day in the courtyard. I remember you sitting on the stairs, and the human hovering nearby. I noticed him staring at us but didn’t think much of it.”
“Oh gods,” I breathed. “The attacks.” How had I forgotten? My head grew dizzy. I plopped down on my ass before I fell on my face. “Could someone have known how long it would take for you and Sorrell to fly to Falcos? To stage it so that Beck was in the courtyard when you both got here?”
“Yes,” Aris said again, that one word coated with dread. “The flight time to Falcos for all those stationed across Privalt is noted. It is just good practice to know how long it would take to relay a message.”
Sorrell rubbed his fingers over his forehead. “The attack was so strange. A coordinated hit from all sides of the city. It was quick, and bloody, and over within minutes. I left as soon as it was done.”
“So did I,” Aris added. “As someone clearly knew we would.”
My head fell into my hands. “This was their plan all along. Why Beck came here in the first place. I was just the excuse to get him inside.” How could I have been so stupid?
And how could he? My brow scrunched at another memory.
“Except that Astra brought him annuleaf right after he got here, and he tried to get me to run with him.”
Griffon, having watched the entire exchange like a statue, ripped his hand through his hair. “The fucking coward probably lost his nerve.” He pinned me with a heavy stare. “But you told him no. Because you still hadn’t learned the truth of Solstice.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Why did you hide this?” he demanded.
“I would also like an answer to that,” Davina said.
The males beside her nodded.
I threw my hands up and managed to find my feet.
“Because I’ve always hidden it! He would have been a pariah, if not dead, if people knew he had unfettered access to that kind of knowledge about them.
And Beck has always been good. Unable to trust himself, yes, but still good.
I never thought he would abuse his power.
” I looked at each of the people I had condemned to an undoubtedly terrible fate.
Silence fell. The Archon and her warlords withdrew, their eyes growing distant as they each considered what I’d told them.
Griffon just stared at me with those hard eyes that I didn’t know.
This, I was certain, was just another way I had betrayed him.
He was so hard to look at. I shifted my gaze before I started weeping again.
Davina drew a deep breath. “Well, this explains a great deal. Thank you for telling us, Lydia. It would have been impossible to decipher what happened in Vircann without the knowledge of Beck’s power.
Now, we need to know who we’re really dealing with, so we can repay the favor.
” The barest hint of pity broke through her expression when she turned to Griffon.
He nodded, but his body was as stiff as a sheet of iron. The Archon, Sorrel, and Aris turned and headed down to the dungeon.
Griffon made to follow them, but I grabbed his elbow. He flinched at my touch and I let him go, his reaction a knife to my chest.
I fidgeted with the bracelet again. “Why do you have to be the one to hurt her?” I asked, the words barely a whisper. “You’re already suffering so much.”
A shudder wracked his frame as he fought to stay in Flesh. “Because I’ll be dead soon and won’t have to live with it.”
I took one look at the agony in his expression and shouldered past him and down the stairs.
The dungeon was old and seemingly unused for the most part.
The corners of the stones were a soft green and slicked with the lightest sheen of moisture.
The smell suggested they hadn’t been dry for the past millennium.
The ground was mostly clean, but the stones were chipped and scuffed, suggesting they had once seen a steady stream of traffic.
I shoved aside the thought of wingless gargoyles succumbing to madness down here.
I didn’t break stride as I shoved my way past the two guards that stood to either side of Indra’s cell and wrapped her in flames like she was a godsdamned gift from the gods. To her credit, only a tiny gasp escaped her mashed-together lips.
I knelt in front of her, my gaze skirting over the patches of still-burned skin that littered her body. My stomach flipped when my attention snagged on a splotch that looked like it had been scoured with a wire brush. Once I saw one, the dozen red and raw wounds were impossible to look away from.
I swallowed the fear that surged up my throat at the sight of my own flames and the torment Griffon had wrought with the first burns I’d given her.
“The last asshole who found himself like this lasted up to one wrist,” I lied.
“And as I explained to him, the fire cauterizes as it goes, so don’t worry about bleeding out on me.
” I pinned her with a glacial stare. “Who is pulling the strings?”
“I’m not telling you shit,” Indra spat. “Do your worst.”
I forced a laugh up my throat. “Poorly chosen words.”
I split the flames wrapped around her fingers and forearms into threes, so that dozens of tiny bands of fire sat a hairsbreadth apart from each other.
“I’m pretty sure gargoyles can’t regrow limbs, so I suggest you start talking.
Now. Or I will let these little rings slice you up like a fucking solstice boar. ”
Bile surged up my throat as I stared at the ring at the tip of her pinky finger.
I was so tired of blood. I lurched between thinking this was the right thing to do and knowing it wasn’t, but I was so lost I couldn’t tell which was true.
My face must have conveyed something else entirely as I stared at her finger, though, because Indra blanched and caved.
“Fine,” she all but shouted at me. “Fucking fate. It was Kiran, okay? Kiran is responsible for all of it, going back to the winter solstice fifteen years ago.”
I glanced back at the others to see if that meant anything to them. Griffon was rigid, his chest frozen with a captive breath. I glanced around the room, seeking an explanation.
Aris caught my searching gaze. “Ryker,” he whispered.
I whipped toward Griffon and he pivoted, slowly, until he was fully facing me. His mask was gone, obliterated by a name I had never heard. My gut twisted with the horror that eclipsed his face.
“My father,” he rasped.
I stood on shaky legs and released my magic before leaving Indra’s cell. “You said he died,” I barked, too shocked to bother with sympathy.
“We thought he did,” Davina answered for him. “The dead coming back to life seems to be a common theme of your attempted coup,” she added over my shoulder.
Indra snorted. “Oh, he is very much alive, and I wouldn’t label it as ‘attempted’ quite yet.
His plan will reshape the fabric of this world.
” Her eyes glinted with manic glee through the pain that still dominated her features.
“You’d better stay hidden in your little fortress,” she taunted. “Or you won’t survive what comes next.”