Chapter Thirty-Five • Power • Damien
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“I’m sorry. Share?” I ask. “Who the fuck are you?”
I flinch as a nearby tree cracks in half like it’s been struck by lightning. The heavier part of the tree falls toward the stranger. Between one blink and the next, he’s five feet away from Lillith’s felled tree, dusting off his lapel.
“Don’t talk to him, Damien,” Lillith says.
“Oh, stop being dramatic,” the fuckass says. “We’ve already met and had a nice conversation before, anyway. Didn’t we, boy?”
It’s the most bizarre thing when the earth opens up and appears to swallow him like a gaping maw.
Lillith isn’t even moving. She’s not holding her hand out in some kind of foreboding gesture, not even whispering any incantation.
It’s so strange for the only sounds in the nature reserve to be the subtle rustling of leaves and the croak of toads.
“Damien, what is he talking about?” Lillith says looking back at me.
“Huh?”
A hand breaks through the earth beneath my boots and grasps onto my ankle. I don’t really understand the physics of how it works, but I’m suddenly on my back, tree roots latticing over my legs and hips and binding my arms to my body.
I don’t think to panic until Lillith screams and kneels down, shoving her fingers into the ground.
It’s so strange to feel the subtle game of tug-of-war between Lillith and her unseen enemy.
The roots writhe tighter and looser, pulling and pushing in a way that conjures mental images of lying in a pit of snakes.
“Baby?” I croak, voice shaking.
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are the color of moonlight around her constricted pupils.
Sweat beads on her temple, carving a line through the bit of makeup still on her face after our run through the forest. I realize with horror that I may have exhausted her enough that she can’t use her magic, and as the clay under my body starts to swallow up my legs, I start to fight against the restraints.
No give. I’m not a weak fucking guy, but I can barely shift my weight. It’s getting hard to even expand my lungs for a full breath.
My hand vanishes under the compacted earth, then my shoulder.
Lillith screams again, some emotion between frustration and sorrow.
Tears have joined the sweat, her lips contorted into focused grimace, set like obsidian in the pallor of her face.
Her eyelids flutter and go heavy, and I can see it.
I can see the exertion threatening to trigger a seizure.
“Lillith, baby, stop,” I say.
“No,” she grinds out.
I realize I might die, and I don’t want my final moments to be filled with nothing but my own panic and the despair of the woman I love.
“Lillith,” I say more sharply. “Look at me.”
She does, but her fingers stay in the ground.
“It’s alright,” I say.
“No,” she says even more fiercely.
“If these are going to be my last moments alive, please just kiss me,” I say.
“Damien, no,” she sobs.
“Gods, you are both so dramatic,” the intruder says. I crane my head up to see him appear from behind a tree a few feet away.
“Let him go,” Lillith seethes.
“You can have your plaything back after we have a grown-up conversation,” fuckhead says. “This game of avoidance has gotten old.”
And listen, I’m not saying this guy isn’t a twat waffle. But the roots do finally still. They finally stop pulling me deeper into the cold earth.
“What do you want, Aemon?” Lillith sneers.
“I want you to stop being a foolish child,” Aemon says, sounding bored. “I want you to listen and use your little brain to think critically for once. Out here dropping wards, prancing around the city like there’s not something out here trying to get you.”
“You can’t trick me back into solitude and entrapment. We learned your little secret. We’re not even cursed.”
“Of course you’re not cursed. That doesn’t mean you’re safe!”
“And who’s fault is that?” she shouts back. “You destroyed the Nightingale pearl!”
He blinks at her, looking genuinely taken aback by this accusation.
“No, I didn’t. That was simply a moment of terrible coincidence when I was checking the spell.
” He pauses, his dark eyes narrowing on her.
“I don’t understand. You should know this already.
You have the journals. You’ve read them, haven’t you? ”
Silence. Lillith shifts between her feet.
“You’re joking,” Aemon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Gods. Why is it so hard for you Nightingales to care about your own mortality?”
“How do you even know we have the journals?” I ask him.
His eyes land on me reluctantly, like he’s chosen to forget that I’m there. “I have someone on the inside,” he growls.
“Who?! No one can get past—” Lillith starts.
“Relax. The cat. It’s just the cat. What did you name her? Foam?”
“Gloam?” I balk, betrayed. “That little traitor.”
“I summoned Gloam. When I was six,” Lillith says.
“You summoned a Familiar. And you’d already had one. I couldn’t go in myself, so I threw a little something together for you. You’re welcome.”
“The wards on the house would have never allowed that,” she challenges.
“They ward very specifically against me, but otherwise they just block out anyone who would cause you harm,” Aemon says, then as if getting back to the matter at hand, “Lillith, why haven’t you read the journals?”
“Back off, asshole. How would you feel if everything you thought you knew to be true wound up to be completely flipped on its head?”
“Oh, you mean like if a little farm girl agrees to wed you in exchange for your power, and then decides to take off with some concert pianist instead?” he asks. “Like when it keeps happening for eight more generations? Like when the bloodline promised you decides to end itself?”
“Why do you care? Just marry someone else!” Lillith says. “With the romance novels these days, I’m sure you can find some other mortal girl to put a ring on.”
“I can’t,” he growls.
“Why?” she growls back.
“Because a marriage between a witch and a familiar is a powerful thing. Because your wedding gift would be power. And that power can’t go to just anyone. It needs to go to a vessel that can carry it.”
“Then find someone else who gives a fuck about power and marry them!” Lillith cries.
“And how, exactly, do you expect me to do that. Hm? Since the trials, most witches spend their time hidden in pocket dimensions like The Buried City. I haven’t exactly had time to court anyone, what with my full time job protecting you and your imbecilic bloodline.”
“What exactly would a willing marriage even do for you?” I ask. “Like, I don’t get the obsession. Why would you want to lose all this crazy power you’re talking about?”
Aemon heaves a sigh and leans against the tree next to him. He crosses his arms. “It would change who I am. It overwrites my being. One oath in place of another. It frees me from his contract.”
“Whose?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Can’t tell you that.”
“Bro—” I say.
“I mean, I am literally unable to tell you. If I try, my throat will catch fire and take a week to heal.”
Aemon stills, breathing heavily for a moment before he rolls his neck like something’s just given him a chill.
He clenches his hands at his side, his eyes staring at nothing as he quiets his breathing.
Lillith inhales to speak, but he puts up his hand to stop her.
“Be silent if you don’t want to die,” he hisses.
Lillith’s face goes pale. Her mouth moves, but nothing comes out. She holds the column of her throat. He didn’t just tell her to shut up, he actually stole her voice away.
The roots holding me in place snap back into the ground with the ferocity of an angry serpent. The earth lurches beneath me, getting me back onto my feet.
“Take the girl and get back to the house,” Aemon commands, dispersing into mist. “Now. I’ll meet you there.”
The look in Aemon’s face is one of pure terror. That’s all the information I need—his terror. I don’t wait around to ask questions. I fucking listen.
Lifting Lillith into my arms, I tear into the darkened woods, running as fast as I possibly can. She holds herself as stable as she can while I sprint, seeming to smooth the ground before us as I go, preventing us from eating shit.
The temperature around us plummets until turning our hard breathing into tufts of white and pebbling our skin with goosebumps. Lillith’s arms tighten around the back of my neck as she looks behind us and lets out a little gasp.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says, but the words waver like a lie. “Just keep running.”
Her fingers curl against my back, and while I keep my eyes on the path to the car, I hear the earth opening behind us—the crackle of tree trunks splitting and the groan of each one falling—followed by the harsh whisper of foliage hitting the ground.
“Fuck,” Lillith whimpers in my ear, right before a force like a bus crashes into me sidelong.
I do my best to cradle her against me and take the brunt of the fall, but it’s almost impossible to keep her in my arms without crushing her.
I slide, woodchips and gravel imbedding themselves in my skin.
I watch Lillith slide too, but she’s given a chance to catch her bearings before she starts levitating in midair.
At first, I think she’s doing it herself—that she’s got some weird hex-games mode she’s tapping into. But when I see the expression on her face, I realize I’m horribly, terrifyingly wrong.
Her eyelids stretch wider than I’ve ever seen before as she reaches for her throat. Her bare feet kick beneath her, looking for purchase. My mind almost can’t comprehend it—then, the reality snaps into place.