Chapter 46
Traitor Doesn’t Really Cut It
ANNA
The darkness was like an old friend.
It was there, out of reach, yet near enough that sometimes it crept in. It would take hold, fit like a glove, and allow me to wield it like an ax to a tree.
It was easy to use.
It solved everything.
Within it, I had no pain, no suffering, no need of anyone at all.
It was power without the constraints of morality.
I wanted it to stay but it never did.
The light always returned. My pain yanked me from blissful slumber and the darkness would ebb away, leaving me to mortal misery.
Flame flickered around me in chaotic ripples of shadow as if it had a pulse.
The stone above was weathered and cracked.
Water dripped somewhere and a dank, mossy smell filled the chamber.
My back rested upon a cold, hard surface and an agonizing pain in my head made me gasp as it jolted me into consciousness.
“Ahh,” I whimpered, reaching for my forehead, but my hand was caught by a cold metal cuff around my wrist. A chain clinked as the slack ran out.
My hands were chained to the table above my head.
I took a breath and mist formed in the air. I shivered, blinking in rapid succession.
I was in the dungeons at Nightfall. The stone was the same. It was much colder than I ever knew it to be. I must’ve been much further underground than I’d been before. I tried to move my feet but they were also chained.
My heart raced as I summoned everi from within, forcing it to my wrists and into the cuffs. A ssharp, searing pain ran through my arms.
My scream echoed around me.
I lay there breathless, the pain still blazing up my arm.
“It would be best if you try to avoid using everi.”
His voice stopped my heart.
The memory flashed through my mind like a nightmare coming back to you in the middle of the day.
“Caelan,” I whispered, unable to muster anything louder.
Torches ignited into flame and the silhouette of my friend came into view.
“Why?”
He neared me, looking down at me from above. I was on a raised table at the center of the chamber. There were pillars around me, shadows shifting them in and out of view. Flashes of faces came to light, familiar pieces of clothing, shades of hair.
“No,” I cried.
They were all here. Bodies bound to the pillars like a sacrificial ceremony. Cody and Skylar were the most decomposed. Isaac’s face was still discernible. Reece… appeared to have struggled.
Cody.
Skylar.
Reece.
Isaac.
Their skin was pale and bloodless. Their bodies were bound to the pillars that surrounded the table that I was bound to. They hung, limp, lifeless. Reece’s body was beginning to decompose in places, and Isaac was losing patches of hair.
Silent tears slid down my cheeks.
They were helpless. Had they been bound here alive? Everything within me was screaming. My heart was bleeding and there were no tourniquets capable of slowing the flow. To take a breath here, in this tomb, would be an insult to their memory. I would suffocate before I accepted this fate for them.
I shut my eyes, choosing the darkness, but the sickening smell of death and Caelan’s cleaning solution twisted through me with painful clarity.
It called upon a memory, bringing it vividly to the forefront of my mind.
It was the night I’d found Reece in the catacombs with Malakai.
I smelled it then too. We had been so near.
It would’ve been Cody and Skylar in here at the time.
This foul, metallic, and mint scent that he used to clean his blade was what he used to hide the smell of decay.
If I’d just investigated further that night maybe I could have prevented Reece and Isaac from ending up here.
It had been all over him—an herb his grandmother used to grow.
A rush of bile forced me to heave over the side of the table as I recalled how he touched me before the ball, this sick scent all over him. I coughed until my chest hurt, finally resting my cheek on the cold table.
I was ready to die.
A painful grip on my jaw made me twist and jerk. I fought Caelan as best I could while restrained as he forced air into my mouth with his own but my body reacted.
I coughed, taking in the air that belonged to the dead, guilt wracking my senses.
“Get away from me!” I screamed, jerking against the chains.
I forced everi into the cuffs, all four this time, trying to flood them no matter the cost.
Stop.
Caelan’s voice echoing in my mind halted my actions. I stared at him. He had never shown any ability in mind affinity before. Had he been hiding it all this time? Making everyone forget about my friends while he butchered them?
“You cannot save them now and I will not allow you to kill yourself,” he said. “Do not try again or I will be forced to take further measures to restrict your autonomy.”
I met his cold gaze, my mind breaking as I tried to process my friend’s face with the monster that stood before me.
“What have you done?” I whispered.
Caelan circled the stone table, his face in the shadows.
“You would not understand,” he said, his voice, for a moment, sounding familiar.
But there was nothing familiar about this man.
Nothing at all.
“I have prepared you a serum,” he said. “It will take away your pain.”
The five columns around the table began to glow. I looked more closely, seeing each of my friends’ bodies holding a crystal in their bound hands. The fifth pillar was at my feet, a green stone sitting in a claw setting tied to the pillar with rope.
“Is that…?” I whispered, staring at the stone.
“Yes,” he muttered. “I needed you to find it, the one you resonated with the most. Ironic and a bit troublesome that it turned out to be the piece you would wear in the play.”
I stared at the replica Amulet of Elenyar, the emerald stone at the center casting an eerie glow.
“They are soul gems,” Caelan said. “I needed them. Powerful mages that had formed a connection to you. In order to acquire your everi, I had to secure the ritual area. Their sacrifice was necessary. It will save many.”
“Save many?”
Caelan held up a crystal in his hand. He placed it in an iron sconce fixed to the fifth column. It began glowing faintly, connecting to the other four around us, forming a pentagon.
Caelan lifted himself onto the table.
My breath caught as he hovered over me. His knees straddled my waist, his face above mine.
“I like you, Anna,” he said. “I am sad that it was you who had to be chosen for this.”
He shifted his hips against mine intimately, holding me tightly in place with his body and everi. I swallowed painfully and tried to summon my everi, but it was channeled into the cuffs no matter how much everi I forced into it.
He held a small, clear vial before him.
“Please, take it,” he said.
I laughed.
He tried to drain it into my mouth but I spit it out violently.
“If you are going to kill me like this, chained to a stone slab, you’re going to listen to me scream,” I seethed.
Disgust curled his lip.
“You will come to regret that. To fill a soul gem, one’s soul must be extracted slowly and carefully.
It can take hours. As your life energy is drained from your body, it is captured in the crystal.
I am here to ensure that the process is slow and the collection is done correctly.
Unfortunately, that means a painful and agonizing death for the one’s soul being collected,” he said.
A soul gem? He wanted to steal my soul?
“Why are you doing this?” I demanded.
“To save my people. You have no idea what it is like to live near the Bloodmist Void. I have lost so many. The rest of the Realm uses my people like a shield. They let us die, promising aid that never comes and leaving us to fight the darkness alone. But with your power, I’d be able to protect my home.
Protect my people from the Void and the creatures that dwell within it.
We have lost so many, Anna. And your sacrifice will save an entire city. ”
It felt like I was talking to Caelan again. The Caelan from before. His passion, his love, his dedication—it was all there but being driven into something foul. It was there, lurking within, poisoning him against his true self.
“I do know. I was there. I saw the wraiths that broke free from the bloodmist. Why not ask me for my help?” I asked. “Why do all of this to steal it from me? I want to help.”
His face twisted with anger.
“No one keeps their word,” he said. “Not even Derrick. I pledged my allegiance to him in exchange for his help to protect my people and he never came.”
“All of this, Cody, Skylar, Reece, Isaac—was Malakai helping you?” I asked.
Caelan scoffed. “Malakai was too easy to frame. Of course, it was a little unfair. My mind affinity far surpasses his. He still does not realize I made him attack Saryna and Isabella. He practically asked for it. I thought I was going to have to take Blake down because Malakai was starting to put the pieces together, but instead, he turned on him—so convenient. Everson was supposed to have cleared my path, but when he took Reece, there was no time to cover up her disappearance. Far too many already knew.”
“It was you; you made everyone forget them,” I whispered. “Why focus on me? Why train me when you were just going to kill me?”
“I am sorry, Anna,” he said. “But I needed you to awaken your everi. I needed you to summon it from the depths of your soul because I am running out of time.”
Caelan pulled a dagger from his bracer.
“Why me?” I asked, staring into his crystal-like eyes.
“You are special,” he said. “All of the Aurkai know it but we do not understand it. It is greater than we are. Are you sure you will not take the serum?”
I turned my head away from him.
I looked at Skylar, her face hidden behind her soft brown hair.
“Just get on with it,” I growled.