Chapter 28 Seraphine #2
His words assailed her, her magic cowering from his vision as though it knew something she didn’t.
The vine on her leg prickled, and she shifted again, trying to ignore it.
‘I want the best for this kingdom too. Peace. Freedom. Light. But when I think about the future, I struggle to see my place in it,’ she said, her voice low.
‘Lately, I’ve started to wonder whether there’ll be a place for me at all. ’
He set his mug down. ‘What are you talking about?’
The words wouldn’t come no matter how hard he stared at her, how long he waited.
‘Sera.’ He slid off his stool, rounding the workbench. ‘What’s going on?’
She didn’t know how to explain it to him. It was a fear. Or paranoia, perhaps. A reflection of Ransom’s anxiety. She didn’t even understand it herself, so in lieu of words, she rolled her trouser leg up to her knee and said, ‘Look.’
He dipped his chin as she twisted to reveal the thorns crawling up her leg. Worry gave way to confusion. Grabbing the oil lamp from the workbench, he set it down on the floor and knelt to get a closer look.
‘What are these?’ he murmured.
She stared at the crown of his head. ‘Thorns.’
‘How many are there?’
‘Five.’ She tapped the one just below her hip. ‘The last one is here.’
He lightly traced the one behind her ankle.
She shivered at the contact, a sudden wave of dizziness making her grip the stool.
He snapped his hand back. ‘Sorry.’ Power, pure and covetous, flickered in his gaze as he peered up at her, the gold there like a slant of sunlight on the sea. ‘Does it hurt?’ he said, softly.
She was distracted by a sharp tug in her chest. The sudden awareness that they were not alone.
‘Not as much as you’re about to,’ came a growl from the doorway. ‘Get off your fucking knees, Versini.’
Ransom filled the threshold to the cloakroom like darkness incarnate. Shadows swarmed him. His eyes were gold and full of that same promise: death, swift and lethal.
Theo rolled to his feet, just as Sera slid from her stool, letting the hem of her trouser fall. ‘What are you doing down here?’
Without tearing his gaze from Theo, he said, ‘Making sure our resident soul-eater isn’t about to devour you.’
Theo flinched at the word.
Sera sighed. ‘I asked Val not to say anything until—’
‘It was Caruso.’ Briefly, his ire flicked to her. ‘He knows the weight of a secret doesn’t come close to the value of your life. I thought you knew that too.’
‘Relax, Hale,’ said Theo. ‘We were just talking.’
‘Do you always talk to Seraphine on your knees like a dog?’
‘Fuck off,’ Theo spat, reaching the end of his temper. ‘And get those shadows out of here. You’ll taint the Lightfire.’
‘Too bad you’re not afraid of them,’ said Ransom, stepping over the threshold. ‘I can still kill you with my hands, you know.’
Theo sneered. ‘Once a Dagger, always a Dagger.’
‘Exactly.’
The air crackled with tension.
Sera slipped in front of Theo. She was reasonably sure Ransom wasn’t going to try and murder the Shadowsmith in his own workroom, but lately his moods were as volatile as his magic. And there was so much darkness in the room it was choking out the light.
‘We don’t have time for this right now,’ she said, but Theo was already moving around her.
‘Get the hell out of my cloakroom, Hale.’
Ransom bared his teeth. ‘Make me.’
Theo swung first, slamming his fist into Ransom’s jaw. Ransom’s answering strike sent him back down to his knees. He lunged after him and they fell to the ground, cursing and swinging. Shadows plumed, staining the floor black.
Sera stomped through them. ‘Stop fighting, you idiots!’
Spitting blood, Ransom tipped his head back to look at her. ‘This will only take a second.’
‘Not if I rip out your fucking soul,’ snarled Theo, from below him. His eyes flared gold, and for the first time since she’d come down here – since she’d known the Shadowsmith – she found herself afraid of him.
‘Get off him!’ she yelled, grabbing Ransom’s collar.
He reeled backwards, narrowly avoiding Theo’s grasp. He leaped up, rounding on the Shadowsmith. ‘Here you are at last, Soul-eater.’ Hatred dripped from every word. ‘Welcome to the game.’
Theo scrabbled to his feet, those devouring eyes trained on Ransom. ‘I’m about to claim my prize.’
‘Enough!’ Sera cried, but Theo was lost to his power, and Ransom’s taunts weren’t helping. She stepped between them, raising her hands. ‘Theo, enough.’
He wiped the blood from his chin, glaring past her.
Forcing him to concede a step, she pressed her hands on his chest to calm him. The second her fingertips ghosted his skin, his magic slammed into her. The blow was deep and primal. It snatched at the edges of her soul, knocking her backwards.
Ransom caught her, and with a roar of fury, swung her away from the Shadowsmith. She clutched his arms, feeling like her soul was flapping in a violent wind.
Theo cursed, stumbling backwards. ‘Shit. Sera. Shit.’
Ransom drew Saintkiller from his belt and unsheathed it with his teeth.
She grabbed his wrist. ‘Ransom, no!’
Flattening himself against the wall, Theo panted heavily. ‘I’m sorry, Sera. That was a mistake.’
‘The last you’ll ever make,’ said Ransom, shaking her off. His eyes burned, belying the icy kiss of his shadows. His temper crawled up the walls and swallowed the last of the warmth as he rounded on Theo.
This time, when Sera moved between them, she kept her back to the Shadowsmith and placed her hands on Ransom. His heart hammered against her palm, his jaw so tight it looked like cut stone. He was beyond seeing her, beyond mercy.
She said, in a voice broken by fear, ‘Bastian, please.’
He blinked. Then stilled.
She cupped his jaw with trembling hands, and said again, ‘Come back to me.’
He looked down at her just as a bolt of lightning erupted.
Sera screamed as the oil lamps exploded, the windows shattering in a spray of glass. They dropped to the floor, Ransom covering her with his body as shards rained down on them.
When it was over, and the room had stopped trembling, he climbed off her. There were cuts all over his face and neck.
His brows knitted as he looked her over. ‘Are you all right?’
She brushed glass from his shoulders. ‘Better than you. You’re bleeding.’
Theo stood up, shaking the glass from his hair. He glared at the figure standing in the doorway. ‘What the hell was that about?’
‘Damage control,’ said Paola, stepping into the room. ‘Tobias told me you two idiots were on the verge of killing each other.’
‘That little rat,’ muttered Theo.
‘Idiots,’ she said again.
‘You’ve made your point,’ said Ransom, tersely.
‘Good luck explaining this mess to Mercure,’ added Theo.
‘You two heedless brutes can explain it to her yourselves when you bury your egos and remember what we’re fighting for here. If you’re going to waste your fury on each other, then go and fight in an alley somewhere like all the other feral cats.’
She grabbed a broom from the closet and slammed it into Theo’s chest. ‘Start cleaning.’
Then she skewered a finger at Ransom. ‘And you – go and take a very long walk.’
Sera dragged him out of the cloakroom before he could protest. His shadows dogged them all way to the end of the hallway, where she rounded on him.
‘What were you thinking? You could have killed Theo!’
‘He put his hands on you.’
‘I put my hands on him.’
‘And then he tried to rip your soul out,’ he said, seething.
‘Ransom.’ Her anger deflated, exhaustion making her slump against the wall. She closed her eyes. ‘I can’t do this with you. Or him. There’s too much at stake.’
The sharp hiss of his breath filled the heavy silence. It came slower, deeper. Inch by inch, his shadows receded. Sunlight returned to the lower hallway, and when she opened her eyes, his gaze met hers. It was the colour of autumn.
Bastian. Her Bastian.
He scrubbed his jaw. ‘I lost my head. When I came in and saw him on his knees like that…’
Her heart sank, as she imagined the scene from his eyes. ‘It was nothing. I thought I had injured my ankle.’ The lie was small, a bandage to cover a grander, more terrible truth. Now was not the time to reveal it, not while he was still teetering on the edge of destruction. ‘We weren’t… It wasn’t…’
‘I know,’ he said, evenly.
But there was doubt in his eyes. Beneath the veil of his anger, there was hurt.
‘I would never do something like that to you.’ She reached for him, sliding her hands up his chest. ‘I would never want to.’
His hands found her waist and he pulled her close, bowing his head until his lips ghosted hers. ‘What we have, Seraphine… It’s a different kind of magic entirely. Rarer than gold blood and dark shadows. And far more precious.’
Not sainthood but fate.
She smiled against his lips. ‘Once in a lifetime.’
‘Far longer than that, spitfire.’
They kissed, soft and slow. And when the last of his fury had dissolved on her lips, she stepped back, hooking her finger around his. ‘We have bigger enemies to face, Ransom. Don’t waste your anger on Theo.’
A long beat of hesitation.
‘It’s not anger, Seraphine. It’s fear.’ He let her go, the shadows returning to claim him. ‘I’m afraid that there will come a time when you ask me to kill him, and it will be too late.’