Chapter 35
Dastian
“Looting the archives?” I pluck the black book from her hand, ignoring the way Dreven looks ready to blow a gasket. “Treason, breaking and entering, and defying a direct order from the God of Shadows? Slayer, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to impress me.”
Nyssa rolls her eyes. “I was trying to find out what awaits me in the Pantheon realm. And before you get all pissy, no, I wasn’t going to ask you because you’re all liars and deceivers. I wouldn’t get a straight answer out of you if I asked your name.”
Dreven scowls. “You took a risk.”
“I took initiative,” she corrects, tilting her chin up. “There’s a difference.”
“This is what you found?” I flip the journal open, scanning the frantic scrawl. The ink is old, the fear palpable in the jagged handwriting.
“It’s all I had time to find before the Order waltzed in, talking about the veil breaks. I see no one told me the original site was up here, not in the crypt.”
“Is that pertinent?” Voren asks, gliding in, his gaze fixed on Nyssa in a way that is too possessive, bordering on obsessive.
“Pertinent?” she mutters. “I would say so, yeah. But it begs the question why the madman opened the veil in the crypt.”
I shrug. “It makes no difference really. We will enter the Pantheon realm through the veil that was torn open and that you sealed.”
She snatches the book from me. “Does this tell me what I need to know without all the games and cryptic shit?”
Voren glides closer, his pale eyes unreadable. “The book will only tell you of the dangers. It will not tell you how to survive them.”
“That’s your job, is it?” Nyssa asks, her gaze flicking between the three of us. “This is the map. You are the tour guides from hell. Now, I’m going to read this, and then tonight, we will go and find this crown.”
I love it when she takes charge. It makes me want to break things. Preferably with her. Or just her. “Off you go then. Don’t let us stop you.”
She hisses at me and heads back out into the rain.
Dreven’s gaze is annoyingly heavy. I turn to him. “What?”
“We got lucky. If the Order had gone to the crypt instead, we’d be outed as being returned, and Nyssa would be on trial for treason for not reporting it, and worse.”
“And this is my fault, how? Because I didn’t let her freeze her tits off in the lake? Forgive me for providing a bit of comfort. You were quite happy to watch her get fucked into next week, so don’t suddenly get all protective now.”
Voren drifts between us, a placating wisp of cold air. “Dreven is right to be concerned. Taye felt your magic, Dastian, and it led them straight here.”
“Nyssa handled it. She outsmarted them, stole their secrets, and that book, wherever the hell she found it, will give her the answers she seeks.”
Dreven’s jaw tightens. “She is reckless, and you encourage it.”
“I embrace it,” I correct him with a grin. “Chaos and recklessness are old friends. You should try it sometime. All this brooding is giving you wrinkles.”
He looks like he’s about to throw me through another wall, which, honestly, sounds like a decent way to pass the afternoon. Better than standing here listening to his doom-and-gloom monologue.
“Relax. She’s got the book. She’s got the power of the Firsts buzzing in her veins. Tonight, we will enter our realm, and she will get her hands on that crown and end this fucking depressing end of the world shit.”
“You hope,” Dreven growls.
“I know. You don’t give her enough credit.”
“I give her plenty of credit. She is the only one who can do this. That doesn’t erase the fact that it is dangerous, and she has never faced anything like this. We can’t lose her.”
“She’s not going to follow our rules, Dre. That’s why she’ll win. She’ll find a way to break the board.”
“Or she’ll get herself killed trying,” Voren adds from the corner, his voice a dispassionate whisper. “Her mortality is still a liability, no matter how much power is crammed inside it.”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure the things trying to kill her are more scared of us.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find something to break before I go insane from all this doom-mongering.
” He doesn’t try to stop me. I wander deeper into the house and find the old ballroom.
The floor is warped, the chandeliers are cocoons of cobwebs.
Perfect. I raise my hand, and a ball of red-gold energy fizzes into existence, creating a vortex that spirals outwards, causing destruction in its wake.
The truth is, Dreven is right. The Order got too close to us. The seer sensed the sheer power that has descended on their small village. There is no way to hide it. We bleed power. It’s who we are. But perhaps a little meddling won’t go amiss.
I leave the ball to cause chaos in the ballroom and vanish, appearing beside the seer, under a cloak of invisibility, as she lingers outside a small shop, smoking a cigarette, under the cover of her umbrella.
“You, my dear,” I say, leaning in and crushing the end of her cigarette between my fingers. “Are a bit of a problem.”
“Who’s there?” she mutters, dropping the cigarette.
“There’s nothing at Marrow House. Just a drafty old mansion full of ectoplasmic residue.
You’re just stressed. Overworked. Seeing things.
” I let a thread of chaotic energy slip into her mind to scramble the signal.
The next time she has a vision, it will be of singing badgers and raining teacups.
No one will believe a word she says. She clutches her head, groaning.
“Dastian,” she mumbles, and I freeze. She inhales deeply, and her eyes fly open as clear as day as she smiles coldly. “It’s been a long time, old friend.”
I blink, and the glamour fades from her face, revealing her old, weathered and definitely someone I know.
“Tabitha,” I hiss. “I might’ve fucking known it was you.”
“You have returned. Who let you through?” she demands.
“No clue. Some crazy dude with a death wish.”
She hums, and it slices through my head like a blade made from divine steel. “Compromised the slayer,” she murmurs. “She is under your thrall.”
“She is under no such thing,” I say indignantly. “She rides my cock all of her own volition.”
Tabitha’s expression doesn’t even flicker. No shock, no outrage. Just a cold, calculating assessment that reminds me why I loathe her. “You’ve infected her.”
“Infected? We awakened her. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” She takes a slow drag from a newly manifested cigarette, the tip glowing cherry-red in the gloom. “You always did have a talent for breaking things and calling it progress, Dastian. Aethel should have erased you when she had the chance.”
The casual mention of Aethel grates on my nerves. “You’re a long way from the Pantheon, witch. What’s your game? Playing house with these mortals?”
“Someone had to watch the prison gates,” she says, blowing a perfect smoke ring that doesn’t dissipate in the rain. “And now the prisoners are out, playing with the warden’s daughter.”
“Stay away from her,” I warn, my voice dropping the playful tone. The chaos inside me stirs, hungry. “Or I’ll remind you why even Aethel thought twice before crossing me.”
Tabitha just smiles, a thin, humourless curve of her lips. “You’ve tainted the latest of the Firsts’ bloodline. But remember, there is another, when she perishes.”
My magic crackles at my fingertips, the urge to wipe that smug look off her face almost overwhelming. “Tainted? We’ve enhanced her.”
“You’ve marked her for death,” Tabitha whispers. “The Order will not tolerate a compromised slayer. You think you’ve claimed her? You’ve just signed her death warrant.”
“You won’t touch her,” I growl, my hand closing around her throat and squeezing until her eyes bulge.
She doesn’t struggle. Instead, a web of silver light, fine as spider silk, snakes up my arm from her skin. It doesn’t burn; it chills, a creeping frost of complete order that attempts to deaden the chaos in my veins.
“Still resorting to brute force,” she rasps, her voice strained but steady. “Some things never change.”
“This is why I hate you,” I hiss. The silver light intensifies, and I’m forced to release her, snarling as I shake the numbing sensation from my hand. She is the only creature in existence that can stop chaos from unfolding. Stop me.
“I’ve seen realms die, Dastian. The slayer is a key. A key you’ve just jammed into the wrong lock.”
“The only key is my fist down your throat, witch.”
“Try it, Dastian.”
“The Devourer comes,” I grit out. “Your existence will be wiped out if she doesn’t stop it. Seems a waste of all these centuries of hanging on, don’t you think?”
Her eyes go wide, and I know I’ve hit the jackpot. “The Devourer,” she whispers, terror seeping into her tone.
“That’s right, you old hag. You will leave Nyssa to complete the mission, or we all die.”
She nods once, and her glamour falls back into place.
“I will misdirect the Order,” she mutters, suitably cowed when faced with something even I fear.
It pisses me off, but I’ll take it. I can’t kill her.
She can’t kill me. But we can do enough damage to each other to create a ripple effect that would cause irreparable damage to this world.
“See that you do,” I say quietly. “Or I will come for you and feed you to it myself.”
She breathes in slowly through her nose, but she doesn’t reply. She simply drops her cigarette, crushes it under her boot and stalks back into the shop.
Typically, I would thrive on the chaos that has unfolded in the last few minutes, revel in it, but this…
when Nyssa is concerned… I suddenly rival Dreven for doom and gloom.
The shop door swings shut behind Tabitha, and for the first time in centuries, I feel something other than reckless amusement.
I feel… outmanoeuvred. The Witch of Order, hiding in plain sight as a mortal seer guiding the Firsts’ bloodline.
It’s so perfectly, infuriatingly her. Dreven is going to be insufferable about this.
I need to tell them. The thought does not bring me joy.
Admitting I went off half-cocked and found a bigger problem is not exactly my style.
But Tabitha being here changes the game.
She’s not just some hedge-witch with a crystal ball; she’s an ancient power with her own mission, and now she knows we’re back.
I vanish from the dreary street, reappearing in the crumbling hall of Marrow House, knowing I’m walking into a lecture that will bore my arse off, but they have to know.