Chapter 8
Adriel stroked the Oculus as though it were a rare jewel. The artifact hummed, albeit quieter now, but it still called to him, nonetheless. He had missed the power that emanated from the item and chastised himself for ever letting it out of his sight. “I’ll not part with you again,” he said aloud to it, as though it were a sentient being. Though the sentiment was figurative, he still had trouble loosening his grip on the all-seeing eye.
He placed the artifact on the ornamental stand in the hall of worlds, amongst his father’s things. He had not bothered to discard the previous Architect’s possessions, as they could still be of value to him in the future. He was no fool.
With one last look at the all-powerful object, he turned to leave, but not before imparting some choice words to the two guards who stood at the hall’s entrance. “If anyone apart from me attempts to enter, cut them down.”
“Yes, sir,” they replied.
Adriel’s lips curled at their automated response. They would sooner die than defy his orders.
Over the last two and a half decades, Adriel had honed every citizen in Anistera into his own personal executioners. Well, almost every citizen. He had heard rumors of a possible uprising on and off over the years, but seeing as no action had been taken, he did not waste time fretting. Worrying was for the weak, and he was anything but.
He retired to the Architect’s quarters, stretching out on the large, circular bed. Some days, he swore he could still smell the scent of Celandine on the linens. Though their bond had been broken, the remnants still remained. The moments they’d had together were something he still cherished and thought back to often, even as he took others to his bed. They had performed admirably, but bonding physically with a mate was not a feeling that could be replicated by another.
Adriel let out a growl of frustration as the bulge in his training leathers strained against the fabric at the thought of her astride him on the shores of the waterfall.
He stripped out of his clothes and took a cold shower. He would not give in to his bodily urges, not tonight at least. You are pathetic to allow her to still have power over you, his mind sneered.
He cut off the water stream, shaking the excess liquid from his hair, and dried off hastily. He donned a pair of white linen pants, poured himself three fingers of nectar, and sat back on the curved velvet sofa. He had yet to change out any of the furniture in the twenty-odd years he had lived in the Architect’s quarters. He couldn’t bring himself to. They were the last reminders of her.
He swallowed the golden liquid and savored the cool trail it left in its wake. It was like drinking the rays of the setting sun from a mountain creek. With every sip, he felt his grief slip away like the trickle of the stone waterfall.
He took one last look upon the grounds below before retiring to his room. He required rest, for tomorrow, he would move forward with the next phase of his plans, and the Oculus would hum for him once again.
* * *
The training groundswere lined with the citizens of Anistera. All of Adriel’s little playthings standing at attention like the good little soldiers he had trained them to be. He smiled to himself, the edges of his mouth turned up in satisfaction at their obedience. If only our father could see you now,he thought.
He ordered the majority to return to their general duties but requested that all mated couples stay behind. If he could not use the original mated bloodline to unmake Entheas, he would use the blood of all the fated mates to bring it to its knees.
Out of the thousands of Celestials in Anistera, there were approximately fifty mated couples. Some had been mated for eons, others for decades, but no matter. The power of one hundred blooded mates was sure to give Adriel what he needed.
He’d had the blooding table moved to the center of the training ring in a similar set up to the day Obsidian had been made. The Oculus was perched on a stand in the middle of the stone slab with the ceremonial dagger at its side. The Celestials formed circular rings around their leader, their hands intertwined with their mate’s.
Adriel smoothed his features before addressing them. “I have a very important task for you all.” His eyes raked across the crowd, shining with mirth against the violet sky. “If you do this, Anistera will be saved from great peril.”
The couples looked at each other then back to their leader, worry filling each of their hearts for the home they so loved.
“Lady Celandine has produced an heir in Entheas, and she plans to destroy us. Her name is Soren Nightsong, and she will be the death of us all.”
The crowd erupted.
“The end of Anistera? It cannot be,” an onlooker exclaimed.
“Surely, all will be well. We have outlasted countless ages,” an older male reassured her.
The murmurs amongst the crowd intensified.
“What are we to do?” another male asked.
“I thought Lady Celandine died during the fall,” his mate commented.
A few more beings nodded in agreement, and a stern-looking female narrowed her eyes at Adriel.
“You informed us of Lady Celandine’s demise, yet you say she is alive. Speak truth, for I will receive no lies.”
Adriel’s jaw ticked at the tone in which she spoke, but he knew better than to make an example of her here. Therefore, he reassembled his mask and spoke once more. “Calm, dear ones, calm.” He held up both hands in a placating gesture. “Do not allow panic and fear to distort your judgment. I, your Architect, will share with you all that I know so that we may move forward.”
The congregation quieted, holding their tongues so they might hear what their leader had to say.
“When I announced the loss of Lady Celandine, I spoke only truth,” he said, his eyes boring into the errant female’s, who crossed her arms, pressing her lips together in a fine line. “Until recent days, I thought her to be dead.” He sighed, as though he bore a great weight on his back. “My troubled, lost mate has indeed met her end, though not in the manner we originally suspected.”
The crowd gasped audibly, hanging on to his every word as though it were the very air they needed to sustain themselves.
Adriel folded his hands together and bowed his head, as though in mourning. “In my recent travels, I discovered that Lady Celandine survived the fall. How? I do not know. But she healed from the loss of her grace and mated with a human male.” He brushed his hand through his inky black hair. “Their joining produced an heir who is half-celestial, half-human.”
The entire assembly seemed to hold their breaths. Never before, to their knowledge, had a Celestial mated with a being from another realm. Father had expressly forbidden it. Anisterans were not meant to survive other realms, and to risk a child’s life, not knowing if it would survive the world in which it was born, would be cruel.
“I have seen this child with my own eyes and could feel my mate’s blood coursing through her veins,” he continued. “I thought I could talk sense into this young creature, but alas, she has chosen another path. She has forsaken all of Anistera and turned the people of Entheas against us. Her warriors have already ended the lives of many of our faithful soldiers. She has no remorse and will bring on the destruction of Anistera.”
The crowd fell into chaos. Screams and shouts rang off the stones of the colosseum.
“What will become of us?”
“Is there nowhere else we can go?”
“What would the Architect have us do?”
They all looked to their leader, at a loss for how to save their realm.
“My dear brothers and sisters,” he addressed them with great reverence, “to save our world, I require but one thing from you all.”
The air practically buzzed with their anticipation.
“Tell us, great one,” an urgent voice broke from the crowd.
Adriel nodded in acknowledgment before speaking again.
“All I need is your blood.”
* * *
Luscinia lookedon as her brothers and sisters walked forward, one by one, and offered their palms to Adriel. He slid the blade across their skin, and they fisted their hands over the Oculus, coating it in each of their blood.
She leaned against her mate, Abraxos, who stood at her back.
He brushed her silver hair aside and kissed her affectionately on the neck. “All will be well, my beloved.”
A single tear fell from her amber eyes as she turned to him. He brushed it away with his thumb and planted another kiss on the crown of her head. She nuzzled into his chest, her heart aching for what was to come.
“Celandine should be here.” She sniffed. “She was so much stronger than I.”
“You doubt your own capabilities. She was strong of heart; you are strong of body and mind. Whatever comes next, be it winds of frost or mountains of fire, I will follow you into the fold until I am no more.”
Her heart constricted as she looked into her mate’s soft gray eyes. “Until we are no more.” She bowed her head.
“Until we are no more,” he replied, embracing her.
His long brown hair brushed against her cheek as his strong arms enveloped her. Then their eyes turned back to the scene unfolding in the center of the arena. The final mated couple had returned to their original position as Adriel lifted the knife to his arm. He plunged the blade deep, slicing halfway from his wrist to elbow, bathing the Oculus in a scarlet pool. The act made Luscinia wince. How one could do that to themselves she would never understand. She silently thanked her father that her and her followers had been able to resist Adriel’s orders.
Though they were made to obey the Architect, Adriel was unaware that demands could be resisted based on the way in which said command was worded. For instance, Adriel had asked all mated couples to stay behind; however, he had not specified where and for how long. This allowed Luscinia and Abraxos to remain in the shadows and avoid partaking in the horrific scene in front of them.
She held on to her mate tighter, forever grateful she’d had him by her side these last eighteen years. He was a few hundred years her junior, yet this was but a blip in their lifetimes. She had known more joy and love in these last eighteen years than she had since her creation.
He had found her during a particularly dark time and had brought her back into the light. If one were to gather all the poetry written in all the worlds combined, the words would still not be enough to describe how deep their bond was.
A sharp wind blasted around them, and Luscinia’s eyes shot open. She had let her lids fall shut while nuzzling her mate, and her pupils dilated as she paid witness to what lay before them.
The mated couples stood still as statues, their gazes turned upward, awaiting their fate. Adriel stood atop the stone table, holding the Oculus upward, eyes closed, deep in thought. The artifact hummed so loudly that the entire arena began to vibrate. The excess blood that had pooled around the stone slab seemed to flow backward, absorbing into the metal.
Adriel’s hands shook as he put his vision to the front of his mind. When his eyes opened, the whites were gone, leaving behind a black void.
The lavender sky was now a dark gray, and angry clouds rolled across the expanse above them, frothing like the mouth of a great beast ready to strike.
Suddenly, Adriel dropped the Oculus as though the metal had burned his fingertips. The silver eye sat face-up on the stone, waves of power flowing off of it.
Luscinia’s sterling hair lifted as the first swell reached them. The couple turned to face it, eyes wide and hands clasped. The second wave brought with it the scent of old magic, of scrolls and parchment, of the lingering smoke after a candle had long burned out. The third crackled around them like an endless shower of sparks, making the hairs on their arms stand on end. The fourth and final wave nearly caused Luscinia to double over, for it brought with it the stench of death, of black magic pulled from the dark places of the world. Places long since forgotten.
Luscinia heaved, and Abraxos covered his mouth with the sleeve of his tunic, stifling a cough. They knew they should leave, escape from this place before what Adriel had decided would come to pass, but they could not look away.
The waves seemed to splash up the sides of the colosseum before cresting and falling back down, the power slowly ebbing back into the Oculus as though the tide was being pulled back out to its home at sea. Then everything went quiet.
All sound had been drained from the arena. Not a single breath or shifting of limb could be heard.
Adriel looked to the Oculus, his black eyes narrowed in frustration at the useless object. He bent slowly, reaching for his most precious artifact, when a bolt of blazing red light scorched past his face and into the stormy sky. The frothing clouds roiled and churned, the sight something akin to the cauldrons over which conjurers of other worlds would toil.
Adriel bellowed, holding his face where the bolt had struck, leaving behind an angry red scar that sat diagonally across his previously flawless skin. It did not heal. The Oculus, it seemed, had decided to remove his well-placed mask.
Thunder boomed in the distance, and the clouds spun, the eye of the storm forming where the Oculus’s power had struck.
The couples, who had been silent up until this point, began to murmur, unsure of their next move. Their whisperings were cut short, however, when a bolt of black magic shot down, encasing Adriel in a blinding flash. They had little time to react as a barrage of lightning rained down upon them, each bolt striking its target as a viper would its prey.
Luscinia stared on in horror as, one after another, the couples fell.
“Luce, we need to leave,” Abraxos warned from beside her, but she could not concede to his wish just yet. She needed to see what had become of her brothers and sisters.
She held her breath as the storm dissipated and the incessant humming finally stopped. It felt like hours before they witnessed any movement, though they now wished their siblings had perished. For, before them, rose beasts from which no weaver of nightmares could have imagined.