Chapter 36
Maeve startled in her sleep as the metal cell door swung open. Nicklefrost stepped inside. He lifted two fingers in the air. Then swirled them sharply.
What felt like a jagged rock slammed into her cheek, busting through the skin and sending her spiraling onto her back. Her eyes squeezed closed.
She groaned as the sharp pain pulsated in the side of her lip and her cheekbone.
“That wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped it would be,” said Nicklefrost. “Get up. The Commander wants to see you.”
Maeve touched her lip. Blood seeped into her fingers from the wound. Maeve stood.
Nicklefrost scowled. “You look disgusting.”
“Perhaps you could convince your Commander to let me bathe. Or have a change of clothes,” she said. “Maybe a nice satin gown or a beaded dress. Something tight. Those are the ones I always saw you staring at me in.”
Nicklefrost lunged towards her. His forearm collided with her neck, slamming her head against the concrete wall of her cell. The room spun. Her legs bent beneath her. She sputtered a cough.
“I wouldn’t touch a blood traitor like you,” he seethed.
He pushed back away from her and she slid to the floor, arms weak at her sides. She coughed until the tickle in her throat was gone. She looked up at him with a small smile.
“Well, that was fun.”
“Get up,” he said.
She followed him out of her cell, rubbing the back of her head. They didn’t head towards the study or the dining room. He led her somewhere else entirely.
Maeve froze in the doorway. The room was filled with soldiers, all of them in red and black uniforms. Kietel stood at the middle of the room with another man. He frowned upon seeing her.
“Miss Sinclair,” he said. He eyed Nicklefrost.
“She wouldn’t come without a fight.”
Kietel looked ready to reprimand Nicklefrost but brushed it off. He motioned for Maeve to join him at his side.
“Today we jump, Miss Sinclair.”
Maeve’s mouth fell slightly open. “No,” she snapped.
“You’ve very accustomed to saying that aren’t you.”
Maeve looked sideways at the soldiers that lined the room. They all looked up at her, speaking in hushed whispers.
“I figured you’d love to show off.”
Maeve looked back up at Kietel.
“I said no,” her voice shook more than she liked. “You don’t need me-you have your human army and their bombs.”
One of the metal cuffs on her wrist snapped loose and fell to the floor with a clang. The room fell silent at once.
“Kill him if you like,” said Kietel pointing at Nicklefrost. “I’m certain a Supreme needs only one free hand.”
Maeve looked at Nicklefrost. His expression blank.
“He struck you,” said Kietel. “Strike him back.”
Maeve didn’t move.
He circled her. “Come now, Sinclair, my boys are dying to see that Sacred Seventeen power from someone so young.”
He stepped towards her. She gasped as he grabbed her free wrist and held it up. The skin was raw over the tattooed three stars. A symbol of her blood.
“See those marks, boys?” Continued Kietel. “Those stars? Some of you here have them.” He looked down at her. “Those stars mean something to you, Sinclair?”
Maeve looked up at him. “Usque ad Mortem.”
Kietel grinned. He struck fast, and Maeve slammed up a shield, blocking his spell. Her hair whipped behind her.
“Give me both hands,” muttered Maeve, pressing her shield against him.
The other shackle fell to the floor with a clang. Maeve drew two fingers at her side.
Kietel released her, stepped away, and nodded.
Bright green light burst from her fingers, shooting towards Kietel. He blocked her with a dramatic wave of his arm.
“I trained with your father, you know,” said Kietel. “I was the top Bellator for years.”
“I know,” said Maeve. “He made you captain.”
Kietel fired on her, Maeve dodged his attack and fired back. His shield slammed up, and Maeve fired again, damaging the shield with fiery red sparks.
The room sucked in a breath.
“We’re playing with Dread Magic?” Said Kietel. “Alright then.”
He fired on her with deadly red hexes, each one dissipating as it hit her shield. She drew Mal’s magic through her arm. It was like breathing after suffocating. A silent sedation and rush of violence.
She pointed at him and pulled all of their Magic together. The curse shot to him at light speed and shattered through his defenses. Blood spewed from his arm, where a thick slice of his uniform had burned up.
Nicklefrost moved towards him.
Kietel held up a hand and then braced his wound. He stared at Maeve. “Well done.”
Maeve’s heartbeat was fast. Almost too fast. She was certain they could all feel her fear. She pressed her feet into the floor as her legs threatened to collapse. She was nearly drained. She needed a full meal.
“Now that the ice is broken,” he said. “Nicklefrost. Felden.” He snapped his fingers and pointed at the center of the room.
The soldiers obeyed without hesitation, moving side by side.
“Enter one of their minds and jump to the other.”
Maeve shook her head. Panic raced through her.
The soldiers that stood before her didn’t look at her. They stared straight ahead.
“Don’t be stubborn, I want to see,” said Kietel.
Maeve stepped back, still shaking her head. Kietel looked at her shaking hands, her trembling lip.
“You’re afraid,” he said quietly.
Maeve’s jaw tightened. She scowled at him. Rage swelled inside her, fueled by embarrassment.
“You haven’t jumped since you jumped to me, have you?”
Maeve cursed herself. And refused to answer.
“At last,” he said. “A weakness.”
Maeve turned towards him.
“Do it,” he said. “Every day that you do not is another day you spend here without food.”
Maeve looked back at the two soldiers. Her stomach knotted, sweat pooled at the back of her neck and her palms.
“He’ll find me eventually,” she said quietly. Then she spoke louder and pointed at Nicklefrost. “I can’t get to his- he’ll have to open his mind to me.”
Kietel nodded.
Maeve stood before them, begging the part of Mal around her neck to keep her safe, to keep her calm.
The only thing standing in your way is you.
Mal’s voice rang out over her head. She regretted not letting him push her to jump before. Now she was cornered with the enemy breathing down her throat.
“Are you a Supreme?” She asked Felden.
He nodded.
Maeve looked at Nicklefrost. She didn’t ask him if he was ready. She barreled into his mind. Flashes of his life shot before her. Trainings, meetings, attacking Vaukore, a conversation with Headmaster Elgin, a blonde woman with little clothing on.
Maeve called out for Felden. And Nicklefrost’s mind bent to her. A memory popped forward and Maeve snagged it. They were training in a facility. Felden and Nicklefrost calling the drills.
Maeve took a steadying breath as the door to Felden’s mind opened, and she slipped inside. The darkness beneath her remained steady as the memory changed to Feldens. It looped through once and Maeve pushed deeper into his mind. There was nothing stopping her.
The room filled with soldiers reappeared, blurry at first. And then she saw herself. She did look disgusting. Her days old dirty and wet pajamas made her look like the prisoner she was.
Her eyes were solid white. She looked to her side, Felden’s side, at Nicklefrost. He glanced over. Maeve felt a surge of satisfaction. There was a confused fear in his eyes.
Maeve lunged for him, Felden’s magic bursting from his palms, palms that she controlled. She slammed Nicklefrost’s throat to the ground. Curse after curse slicing into his throat.
The room erupted in red light. Maeve screamed. She was yanked from Felden’s mind and sucked back into her own. Her arm burned hot. She gripped at it protectively.
She opened her eyes at the ceiling. Kietel stood over her. She hadn’t felt herself hit the floor. She pressed into her arm with a wince. She let her head rest on the wooden floor beneath her, panting. The metal shackles reappeared on her wrists.
“That is the problem, isn’t it?” Said Kietel quietly. “If you’re going to use that trick, you can’t protect yourself.”
Maeve looked over at Nicklefrost. Blood pooled beneath him. Two healers stood over him, working quickly to seal up the wound.
“He’ll be fine,” one of them said. “It isn’t too deep.”
Maeve looked back up at Kietel. Her eyes desperate to close. To sleep. “Satisfied?”
He stared at Nicklefrost. “Unbelievably.”
Maeve wasn’t given a bath or a change of clothes. She sat uncomfortably opposite Kietel in his study for dinner. Maeve looked down at her plate, attempting to calmly eat. Dinners with Kietel were all she was given.
“You told Nicklefrost to hurt me.” She said.
She had realized it hours ago in her cell.
“I have it on good authority you need a little spite to strike.”
“I feel strange thanking you.”
Kietel stopped eating.
She jumped successfully. Without panic and without falling. And Felden had not pushed back into her mind like Kietel had. She remained in control until Kietel fired on her.
“I would like to make an offer,” said Kietel.
Maeve’s brows raised.
“Fight with me,” he said.
“You mean fight for you.”
Kietel broke their gaze, cutting his steak.
“I imagine what it would be like to have you at my side, altering memories whenever necessary. Jumping through minds in a deadly manor. I wonder how powerful you could be with training and discipline. Just how far could you bend memory and time?” He sighed.
“Makes me regret having taken you in this way. For I know that Pureblood pride will not allow you to join my cause. I fear you will waste that weapon of yours.”
Maeve was quiet for a moment. Reeve had called her a Warrior. The Orator’s Office had already named her Bellator. And now, Kietel named her a weapon.
Maybe she could be all those things. At Mal’s side.
“I read an essay you wrote last fall,” she said. “I was so inspired. So hopeful. None of us dared talk about it. Talk about you. Almost like it would jinx your existence.”