The Wards Shatter
Daphne
Walking down the corridors to the music room, it seemed like the house was holding its breath. The night was still young. I hoped that the Hollowborn were more active after midnight and that the human eyes of Vexley’s men would be at a disadvantage.
The notes of the melody I played the night before were still hanging in the air of the music room. The light of my lantern shimmered over the mosaic floor when I crossed it, ignoring the pale, ghostly boy leaning on the marble mantel.
There was the hidden door. I pushed it open, and the scent of damp stone rushed to meet me.
Torches mounted in sconces flickered to life. “You’re really trying to help, don’t you?” I whispered and rushed down the steep corridor.
Everything was just like I left it–the book torn in a fit of rage, the silvery lines of the symbols carved into the floor, the distant dripping of water. In the corner was that crack in the floor that took me to the lake.
“I know you can hear me,” I said, loud enough to awaken whispers and memories in the dark corners. “I came here to bargain.”
A cold shudder ran down my spine. Were those steps echoing behind me?
Get yourself together, Daphne. This is your only way out. Unleash the lion and let him wreck the circus. Slip away in the smoke.
The dripping of water grew louder.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said, but my voice shook a little.
“Help me break these wards, and you’ll get what you want.
” I stepped toward the unseen trickle. There it was—the crack in the floor I fell through was only two feet away.
Water droplets fell—dear Lord! I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
Against all logic, the water was flying from the floor to the vault above.
A ripple shivered across the circle, and dust rained down from the vaulted ceiling as if the manor itself flinched.
Water surged from the dark opening that led to the lake, pooling outward like an inkblot.
It crept across the stone floor, swallowing the silver runes until they fizzed and faded beneath its weight.
The water climbed up the walls, across the carvings, slithering like a thing alive. I blinked, doubting my own eyes.
A sound reverberated low at first, a haunting hum, more vibration than a voice. Mourning. Endless.
I staggered back into the rune circle, my soaked feet slipping. The water lapped at my ankles now, icy and rising.
Something was here. I sensed its presence—a chill piercing my marrow.
The Unbidden didn’t appear. It unfolded. A pillar of water twisted upward, unfurling like silk in a storm. It gained shape: a woman’s silhouette, forming from the current. Riverweed hair drifted around her translucent shoulders. Her eyes were voids, rimmed with grief, glowing with faint light.
The undyne spoke.
“You seek to undo what was done. And you would use me to do it. But what about the price? Are you willing to pay it?”
The voice wasn’t what I remembered. It was older. More feminine. A chorus of currents. The crash of waves. The whisper of deep, forgotten wells.
“I’ll give you Arthur,” I said, balling my fists. Praying that she’d agree. “My brother. You want a Draymoore child. He’s yours. Please help me break these wards.” A part of me felt bad for a moment.
Her laugh was water splashing over stones. “You offer me a morsel… when I hunger for the feast.”
My heart clenched, and I struggled to remain in place. The temptation to turn on my heel and run was too great. “What do you want?”
“You.” The word rippled with power. “The one who captured me. The powerful one. You are mine already. But I will help you now, if you say it. Say that you are mine.”
I hesitated. Surely there was a way to bargain myself out of this later. The undyne tried to claim me years ago, and it didn’t work. What if I agree now and find a way to trick her later?
Trick her…how? The tiny voice of reason asked in my head.
That’s a problem for the future, Daphne.
“Say it,” the undyne roared.
“Fine. I’ll be yours.” The lie tasted like sand in my mouth. How would I find a way around this promise? But my mind focused on one thing. Break the wards. Get out. “Do it.”
A purr echoed between the wet walls, and she smiled—a terrifying grin saying, “See? Told you I’d get what I want.”
Dark water surged.
The runes on the stone circle glowed white-hot. With a snap and hiss of magic, the silver etchings on the floor unraveled. A deep pulse echoed through the chamber, and far above, something groaned—the manor itself.
Crack.
One of the ward stones split. Then another.
And everything went wrong.
The water turned black.
A sigil flared to life on the floor—a serpent devouring a skull, inked in searing crimson.
I screamed. Agony lanced through my body.
My chest burned like fire as the Renegade’s mark appeared on my skin; the red vertebrae of the snake around the skull branded into my flesh, blood trickling from the skull.
It glowed in response to the wards falling apart.
I was heaving. Breathing was like swallowing broken glass. The Renegade’s sigil was consuming me. Lava ran through my veins, and I could swear that my bones melted. I dug my fingers into my chest, desperate to claw the cursed mark out, to peel my skin to do anything to make it stop.
“No!” I collapsed. “What—what is this?!” How was this possible? I thought his mark was nothing more but some illusion to scare me into obedience. Terror, chilling and all-consuming, reared its head. He said he’d kill me. This monster would kill me.
The undyne recoiled. “He is in you,” she hissed, her form flickering. “He left his rot behind. Now you bear his stain.”
The last ward broke. A wide crack slithered across the stone floor like a serpent. The hum of magic in the air muted.
The wards were no more.
But I didn’t care. Black tendrils spread across my collarbone all the way to my heart. The air left my lungs with a painful hiss, and the room started spinning. I lay motionless in the rising water, its coolness doing nothing to soothe the fire consuming me.
“You tricked me!” The undyne thundered like a tidal wave. I was not afraid of her wrath. The pain tearing through me was too great.
Light flashed around me. A different kind of magic.
“Daphne!”
He came for me.
Emrys ran into the flooded room, shadows coiling around him. His eyes widened when he saw me sprawled on the floor. He noticed the Renegade’s mark spreading its taint through my body.
“You foolish, foolish girl!”
I parted my lips to explain, but a scream was all I could muster.
Emrys kneeled next to me, ignoring the churning water, the shattered wards, the undyne still looming over me. He took my face in his hands, his touch so soothingly cool.
“The Renegade marked you.” His voice shook with fury. “He snuck inside you like a parasite. If I don’t force him out now, he’ll consume you.”
“Then do it,” I choked. “Please—do it!”
Emrys covered the mark with a trembling hand. “Hold still. This will hurt.”
I screamed as his power entered me—cold, commanding, ancient. The pain became something else: lightning, ice, fire—all at once. The Renegade’s mark fought back, resisting the pull. It felt like a poisonous sting being drawn from my heart.
Something inside me snapped.
“I won’t lose you,” Emrys growled.
The room exploded in a shockwave of white light.
The undyne disappeared with a splash, the water rippling like a living being, like a terrifying, tentacled monster. She crawled toward the floor crack leading to the lake. A whisper slithered from the hole. “I am free. And I will come for what is mine.”
The voice inside me was gone. The Unbidden had left. But it left a void inside me. A terrifying, dark abyss that hungered for something.
I looked around like a starved beast and held onto the glowing tendril connecting me to Emrys.
“No—” he gasped. But it was too late. The void in my chest pulled on his bright, powerful magic. “Daphne—” he warned. “Stop this now.”
His eyes glowed up with the light of a thousand lightning bolts, and that thread beneath us severed. The world turned black for a heartbeat.
“Daphne?” he shook me. I blinked. It was quiet. Too quiet. The pain was gone. The Renegade’s mark, too.
“Am I dead?” I whispered.
He shook his head. The black pupils of his eyes narrowed.
“That didn’t go the way I planned it, Miss Daphne. Quite the price we both paid for this.”
Wait a minute—
“The way you planned it?!” I asked, pushing myself to my elbows. God, I was soaked to the bone. “You planned all this? And made me risk my life? You—” Still in shock, I couldn’t think of any fitting insult.
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t know you bore the mark of the Renegade, Miss Daphne.” His tone was cool again, his features composed. All traces of warmth were gone. Was I really only a tool to this man? I shuffled backwards.
“You were planning to use me to break the wards and set you free?” I repeated, my mouth suddenly dry. How foolish I was!
“Let’s say I saw our common interest and let you do what you intended, Miss Daphne.” He pushed himself to his feet and brushed his wet clothes. “I’m afraid it didn’t go as planned. Had you told me before that the Renegade marked you—”
I stood up, too, refusing to take the hand he offered to help me. “What do you mean, it didn’t go as planned? The wards are down, aren’t they? And the undyne—”
“She’s free. Just like both of us,” he said darkly. Something stirred inside me. Something powerful and ancient had taken the place vacated by the undyne.
And familiar.
“There’s more to it, right?” I asked softly.
“Yes. You stole a fragment of my power. We’re bound to each other, little thief. Until I find a way to undo it.”
Somewhere above echoed a blood-curdling screech.
Hollowborn.
“We need to move. Now. Stay close to me. A part of me is inside you now. If you want to live, stay close to me.”
Sweet Mary and Joseph –
“But—”
“No “but”. We escape. We live. And we find a way to solve this,” he said, and his tone made me bristle.
No way.
Did I just escape from one trap to land in another?
That was a problem for later.
Liang burst in, a large gun in his hand.
“How many?” Emrys asked without even looking at him.
“Three dozen Hollowborn and some of Vexley’s footmen with guns. More are coming.”
Emrys cursed.
“Are you ready to run, little thief?”
He didn’t wait for my answer. Shadows swirled from the wet floor and veiled him. And when they dissipated, he was gone. An unkindness of ravens swarmed the domed chamber instead and left through the steep corridor.
“You heard Lord Emrys, Miss Daphne,” Liang said, his voice laced with urgency. “Let’s get you out of here before this whole place goes to hell. Please keep up.”
I blinked rapidly and ran my shaking fingers through my hair. What should I do? Liang followed the ravens, and his steps died out.
If you want to live, stay close to me, Emrys told me. I’d dwell on his trickery later, I decided, and ran up the corridor toward the battle.