Chapter 18 #2
Upon one of the dragons, I caught sight of Arvent Tenebris, who I recognized from my research on Velra months ago.
Her father. He was in all black regal robes, clearly thinking himself royalty.
His features were sharp and severe, amber eyes gleaming with disdain at all those he looked upon as though they were so very far beneath him. He was tall but of a lean stature.
I tracked Velra’s mother, Lavra, next, finding her clapping and urging her husband on, while she had a female vampire between her spread legs underneath her dress pleasuring her.
“You cannot get enough of this honor of tasting me,” she was uttering in a hypnotic tone, a different facet of mind-meddling. “Demonstrate your appreciation.” She assaulted the woman with whips of her gray magic across her back that shredded through clothing and skin alike and had her whimpering.
As if that was not enough of a violation of free will and a crime against one’s humanity and autonomy, Lavra was holding a dragon steady with mind-meddling, commanding his frozen position as he was forced to hold his mouth open and breathe fire, while she continued to pour ice upon it, making him choke and his eyes flicker with panic.
She laughed, flipping her dark hair back in the wind, as the dragon convulsed, yet couldn’t break position to cough and retch like he needed to in response to what she was doing to him.
“Oh my God,” Velra breathed from beside me.
I looked to see her utterly sick with what we were witnessing.
“Cassius,” she uttered, grasping my arm.
“I know, little shadow. I know.”
“I don’t feel any black magic, but they’re definitely using Celestial magic for some of this mind-meddling.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a risk to you. They could take control of your mind as well.”
“You are suggesting I stand by as you go in alone?”
“We can’t wait on this, can’t wait for help to come. Everyone is taxed right now, so much on their plates. And this… what these beings are enduring… I can’t… it needs to be stopped right fucking now.” She pulled out her phone and rapidly typed away, telling me, “I’m calling in Thryne.”
“They will be ill-equipped to handle the Celestial power in play.”
“Can you siphon it?”
I studied the area, the usage, taking a read, needing to gauge the potency. “Yes. Temporarily. I will need to unload it very swiftly afterward. If we are detained, it will release into the atmosphere and cause untold devastation.”
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“The damage it will do to you, Cassius?”
“No damage. Nothing permanent. Just a little weakness.”
“I know you,” she said, giving me a look. “You’d be incapacitated if it couldn’t be released in time, right?”
“Yes,” I admitted. I gestured at her phone. “While you have that out, alert Ketheron. But he cannot, under any circumstances, come here. We will go to him at Haven Initiative immediately afterward.”
She nodded, typing rapidly, before then stowing her phone away, and squaring her shoulders.
“You’ll need time to gather it, yeah?”
I nodded.
“All right,” she said, calling her purple Dark Fae power to either palm, her shadows also swirling around her. “I’ll create a distraction, buy you some time, and draw their attention to stop this madness at the same time.”
My urge to have her stay back was intense.
But she wasn’t a thing to shield. She was her own powerful person, a warrior. She was to become a mother also. More than ever she needed to know she could protect all that she held dear, that she wouldn’t be sidelined either, that her power was enough.
And of course it was. It always had been. I’d known that from the moment she’d rescued me from the Celestial Plane during the Severance.
“Go,” I told her.
She nuzzled against me for a moment and we breathed one another in, then she used her swirling shadows to pass through the barrier functioning as both a ward and an illusion that ensured what lay within wasn’t perceptible to most—except Celestial-touched beings like me and those with illusion magic capabilities like Velra.
And, of course, Sylas, with his learned ability to see through illusions after the tragedy of Glasswake Massacre.
I fought to focus to call my power very carefully, as siphoning other Celestial magic was a complex and delicate feat.
That focus was hard to come by as I watched Velra walking across the sand toward the heart of the nightmare within, her shadows swirling around her, her palms upturned with her flaming purple power, and her frost crackling along the path she walked, sweeping forward two feet ahead of her in a protective move.
“And here I thought my big, bad brother was the depraved one in the family,” her voice rang out.
As she’d predicted, it did jar her parents, both of them swinging their heads in her direction and stilling.
She pushed on, walking across the sand, and looking between them. “Looks like the two of you take the cake there, huh? Quite the disgusting accomplishment.”
Lavra ripped the vampire female from between her legs and rose to her feet.
With a snap of her fingers, everything stilled—the cruel games, the twisted revelry… all movement of their minions.
My muscles locked, my white power that I’d called to both of my upturned palms flickered unsteadily, as all eyes were on her.
The attention of almost forty enemy hostiles.
All focused on the woman I loved so very dearly.
The terror for her was undercut all of a sudden as Velra sent a stream of her purple power to the magically pouring ice being used to constantly snuff out the victimized dragon’s flame beside Lavra.
It shattered the magic entirely and the dragon was released, gasping and spluttering, and collapsing with relief on the sand.
Still in a state of danger, yet at least no longer suffering under such torment.
Arvent kicked his heels into the dragon he was riding and touched down on the beach upon the poor being, barreling over to Velra.
“Disgraced spawn,” he seethed as he forced the dragon to a stop just three feet from Velra—just outside the range of the frost lining the sand in front of her protectively. “How dare you come where we are?”
Velra maintained a steady gaze. “The disgrace is all yours.”
I smiled to myself. Well done indeed, little shadow.
My power stabilized, and I began carefully forming concentric circles of swirling white magic levitating before either palm, wherein I would then use them to draw the Celestial power present in the mind-meddling taking place into the center points of each and hold it there until it could be released somewhere more permanent.
“She’s come for punishment,” Lavra spoke, sauntering over, her dress brushing the sand.
“For the shame she’s visited upon our name.
” She hissed. “For killing our dear, beautiful son. We know. We know it had to have been you!” She swept her hand in a sudden arc at Velra, slicing her cheek open with her gray magic.
Velra hissed, her head snapping to the side, but her footing remaining steady.
The urge to forgo our strategy and move in instantly was indeed overwhelming.
But then all would be lost.
Our chances of confiscating this Celestial magic.
Liberating the victimized and wronged without hefty collateral damage.
And Velra achieving closure and empowerment at a time when she dearly needed it.
I had to hold to our agreement. She had earned that from me several times over. My trust. My respect. My belief.
I watched as Velra merely smiled, then swept a wisp of her frost over her cheek and healed it with her left palm easily.
Lavra’s eyes widened, but she swiftly forced her shock into disgust, which Arvent then voiced as he told Velra, “Sickening hybrid heresy.”
“Wow. Coming from you and what the two of you are doing here, that’s some next-level hypocritical bullshit,” Velra spoke. “And that’s without even factoring in your bigger-picture goals. Goals, by the way, that your supposed dear son gave me the full lowdown on.”
Lavra and Arvent exchanged a look, their worry clear.
“Now get the fuck off him,” Velra demanded of her father upon the dragon.
“And end the rest of this shitshow while you’re at it.
” Her eyes flashed. “I’m sure your revered leader, Gregor Varsellis, has enough data to work with from this twisted display to determine how useful the mind-meddling capabilities you’ve offered to weaponize for him will be.
” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine Darethor sanctioning this alliance with the leader of Puritas. ”
“That fool is inconsequential!” Arvent snapped.
“You’d think.” Velra shifted her weight, making a calm, composed show of weaving her purple power between the fingers of her right hand, while doing so on her left with her frost, while her shadows continued to swirl around her.
“The thing is, he’s still King. By blood, which is very important in the Dark Fae Realm, as I recall.
As members of his Royal Fae Court, you completed an induction ritual, remember?
One that included your blood and power briefly melding with his, something that represented unity.
On the surface. But beneath that, it was still a magical ritual.
Did you neglect to factor that in with your betrayal?
With believing you were able to act independently and in ways that your king will not take well to? ”
I could feel Velra’s urgency through the Soul Brand, despite how well she was doing with not showing it at all to them. But she was sick about what was still happening to the dragon and all the other beings in the immediate area.
I knew she’d made peace with her parents’ treatment of her, so she didn’t need to interact with them now like this, nor did she want to, but she was affording me time to forge the magical means to siphon.
She could not end the mind-meddling while so much Celestial power was present.