Twenty
Kaius
Please, please, please, I beg of you–let me in. Show me where you are.
My only solace to be found as I search for Adelasia deep in the Blackwood is that I can still feel my magic tethered to her. While it cannot guide me, it’s proof that she’s still alive.
To know that she was so angry with me and felt so betrayed by my lies that she would risk her life in the most dangerous territory in the world only goes to show how fractured her heart is. I cannot bear the thought of her dying, let alone dying because of me.
I can’t imagine she got very far, but in the time I was recovering from the dark magic’s effects on my body, she could have gone any number of ways. She could be anywhere, and my mind only races with terrible assumptions.
The forest air is so thick with foul magic that it makes her scent nearly impossible to pick up. She could be bleeding out ten feet from me and I wouldn’t know. All I have to rely on is my sight and sound.
I find myself in a clearing and before me lie three werewolf carcasses. I rush to them to find them surrounding a pool of dried blood. I grab a handful of the dirt and the blood to inhale deeply, half-relieved and half-afraid when I catch the sweet scent of Adelasia, nearly fully engulfed by the smell of her terror.
I examine the werewolves to find deep lacerations in their torsos. Werewolf skin is too thick for a human’s blade to penetrate this deep. Whatever killed these creatures had supernatural strength.
That in turn means that whatever killed these creatures probably has Adelasia, too.
And then it happens.
I feel the icy-cold spear of dread rip through my very soul as all of my magic comes rushing back to me in an instant. I can do nothing but fall to my knees, gasping for air that I do not need; clutching my chest to feel a heart that does not beat.
“No,”
I whisper to myself.
It’s not true. It can’t be. This is some vile trick of the forest. She’s not dead. She can’t be.
The weight of the pain in my chest makes it hard to stand, but I force myself to my feet and cry out her name over and over, searching for any sign of her at all.
I pause when I hear something in the distance. A gagging sort of sound like when humans are sick. And then a labored inhale, and a wet cough.
It must be her. It has to be. I close my eyes and will all of my focus into tracking which direction she’s in. On the wind, I catch the smell of stale water…infected flesh…lavender.
I sprint through the forest towards the smell, and only through the grace of my supernatural sight do I spot her in the distance, face down on the bank of a river.
“Adelasia!”
I rush over to her, only to find myself still filled with dread as I gently flip her over and take her in. Her eyes are sunken and dark. Blood pools in her tear ducts and drips out of her nose. Her skin has gone gray and the claw marks at her side ooze far too much blood for her to make it much longer. She’s soaked through to the bone and shivering.
I need to get her back to the Obsidian Palace. Now.
I pick her up and hold her tight to my chest as I sprint faster than my supernatural speed has ever carried me. Adelasia moans in pain, coughing out blood and the toxins invading her body.
When I make it back to the valley, I immediately bring her to my bed. I force her to drink a tonic for the pain, and then begin cleaning her wound.
As I scrape out the hardened toxins from the gashes, I find Witchfoil tightly and skillfully packed into it. No human in her condition could have done this on their own. First the wolves…now the blossoms…
I know the tonic has done its job when I rub a thick cream over the wound and she doesn’t scream, and the temporary paralytic properties keep her still.
I am no medicinal expert, but I’ve seen my fair share of werewolf injuries over my lifetimes to know how to treat them.
But I’ve never had to do so on a human, and deep within me, I know there’s no guarantee that she will survive. It terrifies me.
After I clean her wound and cover it with the highly concentrated Witchfoil salve, I hover my hands over the injury and close my eyes.
I concentrate on healing magic, willing the Bloodstone around my neck to help her.
In response, I feel nothing. Not even a whisper of magic. I open my eyes and stare at my hands before trying again. I watch as a faint glow radiates from my fingers and then dissipates before reaching Adelasia.
My mouth falls open in desperation and confusion. I don’t understand. I remove the chain of the Bloodstone from my neck and stare at it. It has completely lost its aura–as if I stole too much magic when I used Amatisi’s stone with Yekaterina’s to banish the Priestesses.
Adelasia’s wound suddenly begins to fade to grey and then black. The salve is failing. She will die.
“No,”
I whisper to myself. I don’t know what to do. I’ve always relied on my magic in dire situations. I don’t know how to help her.
I press my palms to my eyes, trying to think of what to do–and then it occurs to me that there may only be one option.
Quickly, I conjure a knife in my hand and slice open my palm. On the floor of my room, I use my blood to vaguely create the shape of an eight-pointed star. In the center, I place both of the Bloodstones, and then I kneel and place my forehead to the cold marble floor.
I recite an ancient language that’s long been forgotten. The air in the room seems to shift, and I feel an evil presence standing over me.
I raise my head slightly, but a force keeps it down.
A husky female voice that rumbles through my bones snarls at me.
“I have not permitted you to look upon me,”
it says. My desperate pleas that I have lined up in my throat die there, and I wait for permission to speak.
Before me, I have summoned the one.
Eternity. Goddess of Magic and Misery.
“It has been a long time since I have been summoned to this plane,”
she says. I keep my eyes downward and my lips tight. “There are few who know how to do so. Even fewer are foolish enough to try.”
She pauses for a moment, and subtly I raise my eyes to just barely catch the Goddess looking to Adelasia. I cannot make out her face or any of her features. I can only see the glimmering black robe she wears, identical to the ones the Priestesses wear.
“You wish to bargain,”
she finally says, and then she walks to Adelasia’s bedside. With Eternity’s back turned, I lift my head to watch her stroke Adelasia’s cheek. Then she lowers her veil over her head and turns to me. “She is destined for the grave.”
“Can you save her?”
I ask quietly.
Eternity snickers and then approaches me. She stands at about Adelasia’s height, the eight-pointed crown of black crystals sitting heavy atop her head, reaching upward like claws.
“Perhaps,”
she whispers. “But tell me, Kaius Voroninov, is that truly what you want?”
Her voice enters my ear in a sensual way, and then she summons a mirror in front of us. In the reflection, I see an apparition of Adelasia standing next to Eternity, my body nowhere to be found.
“I think in your heart lies another desire,”
she hisses. “After all these years of waiting, don’t you wonder what that looks like?”
Adelasia’s ghost fades from the mirror, and in her place–a man.
He has dark hair and bright green eyes–a familiar and handsome smirk on his lips.
It’s not until Eternity raises a hand and strokes my cheek with her fingers and I watch as she does the same thing in the mirror that I realize who this man is.
Me.
Or at least who I used to be, a thousand years ago.
I open my mouth and find no fangs in my reflection, and before I get a chance to close my mouth, the reflection morphs into me again–only this time in the present.
And for the first time, I’m allowed to see truly what a monster I have become. My red eyes are not inviting. My white hair stands out harshly from my skin. The handsome smirk I had previously has been washed away by a permanent frown and an unmovable furrow in my brow.
I close my eyes and turn my head away from the mirror. Eternity laughs into my ear, mocking my disdain for myself.
“I’ve been watching you for a long time, Son of Crows. How fragile you are to give up one desire for another so easily. I can save the girl…but what is it you will offer me in return?”
“Anything,”
I answer absolutely. “You can have anything you want…just don’t take her from me. Please.”
“Anything?”
she repeats curiously. “Have some dignity; I do not find pleasure in watching you beg. How much is her human soul worth to you?”
“Everything.”
“A soul for a soul, then?”
she offers. “One of my choosing.”
“You can have a thousand souls if you wish. Just not hers.”
“Careful,”
she warns, “Desperation is not a bargaining tool.”
“She is the only soul that I care for.”
Eternity hums as if she doesn’t believe me, but she holds out her hand to me. I take it. Dark magic on our skin forms a crimson line.
A blood vow with the Goddess of Misery; one that will not be broken.
When she releases my hand, she uses her magic to lift the two Bloodstones at eye level. Her dark magic surrounds them, crushing them together until they form a single stone just a smidge larger than their original size.
She plucks it from the space in front of her and hands it to me.
“You only delay the inevitable,”
she says as I take it and place it around my neck. I approach Adelasia and focus on healing her wound. “I have seen millions of futures. Infinite forevers. There are none where your mate does not perish.”
I swallow cautiously, keeping my focus on Adelasia. When I once again feel the soft warmth radiating from her body, only then do I turn to face the dark Goddess.
But she has vanished, leaving me wondering who I have just sacrificed for this sinister pact.
Though some of the radiant flush of Adelasia’s cheeks has returned, I still fear that I was too late–that by some twisted version of fate, I’ve only prolonged her suffering instead of saving her.
Eternity did not specify when Adelasia would die, just that she would spare her this once. But for how long? A day? A week? A century?
I lift my hand to Adelasia’s supple cheek and stroke her soft skin with the back of my fingers.
I watch as her arm reveals goosebumps at my lifeless, cold touch. I retract my hand and feel a sense of dread and guilt for ever bringing her here. I stole her from her life, only to cause her harm and misery.
“It’s like you were created solely to be my ruin, my sweet agony”, I whisper across her lips, barely grazing them with mine as I place the most featherlight of kisses there. “But we both know you were meant for more than that, don’t we?”
I take a deep, defeated breath, and my voice shakes as I tell her still body, “Everyone dies. And one day in the future, when it’s your time, your memories of me will die with you. But for me? I’ll carry you with me for the rest of my miserable eternity.”