Chapter 32 - Alastar
With a flash of white light from my magic, I weaved into the deepest recesses of Derrick’s mind.
My feet hit solid ground—I had feet? I looked down at my hands and smiled. My magic must have been getting stronger if I could create a body to walk through memories.
I stood in the middle of what looked similar to the palace ballroom. The black and white tile of the dance floor stretched all the way to the circular curves of the walls.
I looked up. The ceiling of painted bulls was gone and a dome of shimmering stars in a black sky stood in its place.
Arms wrapped around me and pulled me into a tall chest. Even Derrick’s inner self smelled like oak and vanilla.
Now was my chance. I pushed away from him and looked into his eyes. “Midnight, you have to free Fraleigh. Summon her and say the words ‘ Ipse Dix—” ”
Boom. The floor shook.
Midnight gripped me so tightly I thought he was going to crush me. Damn it! He was not going to listen
Boom. The floor shook again, sending cracks through the perfect black and white tile. I jumped—the pressure was like the impact of a boulder crashing right under my toes.
The monster was trying to escape beneath us.
Midnight scooped me up in his arms and ran for a door that had just appeared on the other side of the ballroom.
BOOM.
He flung the door open. “Hide in here!”
As soon as he set me on my feet and slammed the door closed, darkness fell over me like a blanket. Wait…it was an actual blanket.
I sat up in a bed— my bed. I was tightly tucked into the sheets and my quilt weighed on my legs. Green wallpaper patterned with willow leaves surrounded me. He had shoved me into an exact replica of my bedroom.
With a grunt, I shoved the heavy blankets off my legs and headed for the door. I had to slay the monster.
I wrapped my hand around the iron handle only to find the door was locked. I rolled my eyes and pinched the air to retrieve my magic silver needle. I stuck the tip of the needle into the keyhole and wiggled the lock open.
The door creaked open and I stepped into darkness. My needle had disappeared. The faint sound of cheering echoed behind me.
I turned around, finding an archway lit up with sunlight at the end of a long hallway. Derrick stood in the shadow of the arch, twirling the hilt of a narrow dueling sword in his hand. He looked no older than eighteen and he wore a streamlined version of his black school uniform with a Hyton Blue band around his right arm.
I peered outside the archway—we were in the Hyton arena. A rainbow of colors of the noble Houses lined the upper boxes. Screaming peasants filled the lower rows.
The memory was the Heaston Spring Exhibition.
A loud voice boomed amongst the sand-filled arena floor. “Announcing first in his class, Grigory Orion Thornebow!”
Most jeered and hissed. The cluster of grey-backed nobles cheered and waved the banners of the Thornebow silver fox as Grigory stepped into the sun at the opposite end of the arena. He beamed in the noon light, effortlessly stepping away from the refuse thrown at him, and entered the white inner circle in the center of the sand.
I spotted Anders Hyton wearing the gleaming Lycaster crown. He sat in his throne beneath his Hyton Blue canopy with, not Freya, but my mother at his side.
Anders’s brows were furrowed as he watched Grigory deftly swish his sword.
The Alastar trials might have ended, but the implication of the match went far beyond a schoolboy competition. The grandson of the treasonous Baron was facing off against the sole heir to Lycaster in the exact location where most of the heirs had fought and died for their title.
All the eyes of Lycaster were on Derrick. He could not lose the first of the endless trials if he was going to prove himself worthy of the name Alastar.
Especially not to a Thornebow.
“Announcing the sole heir to the House of Hyton…”
The cheering swelled.
“… and the Dukedom of Lycaster…”
Derrick let out a breath and his brow hardened.
“Lord Alastar Derrick Pervale Hyton!”
He stepped into the sun and the crowd went wild. I followed his footprints in the sand to get a closer look.
As soon as he entered the white inner circle, Derrick and Grigory crossed swords and waited for the duel to begin. From across the arena, Anders leaned on the golden armrests of his throne. Mother held her hand over her heart.
The boys so focused their chests barely rose with their breath, but then Grigory’s voice was low enough to slip beneath the roar of the crowd. “I wonder what that sweet twin sister of yours will think when I beat your ass.”
Derrick bared his teeth and sliced his sword. Clink. Grigory blocked him.
The crowd erupted with screams of delight—their heir had struck first.
The swords flashed in the sunlight as they dueled. Derrick moved with the genteel of a sportsman and had the advantage of height, but Grigory had a ferocious edge, fighting with the tenacity of someone with everything to lose. He was a desperate boy with his family’s honor on the line, a jaded noble son seeking revenge…
…or, some could whisper, a man with the spirit of the Conqueror.
Grigory pushed Derrick to the edge of the white line, nearly throwing him off balance to win the duel.
The entire arena held their breath as Derrick teetered on his heel, Grigory’s blade crossed with his over his chest. Grigory hissed out a breath as he pushed his blade further, making Derrick’s arms tremble…
“ You cannot be weak, ever! ”
Derrick suddenly pushed back and unlocked his sword from Grigory’s force. The crowd thrummed with energy.
I looked around. The monster had spoken again, but I could not find him. My sight locked on Derrick as he escaped…and only because I was an invisible woman in a memory was I close enough to see the unthinkable happen.
Derrick spun around Grigory, catching him off guard…and then hooked his foot around Grigory’s ankle.
He knocked Grigory into the sand as he completed his spin. Before Grigory could even blink, Derrick had the tip of his blade over Grigory’s heart.
“Duel goes to Lord Hyton!” cried the announcer.
The crowd erupted into applause. Derrick turned and gave the arena a sweeping showman’s bow.
Even though I could not affect the memory, I still tried to scream in warning as Grigory rose from the sand with a white-knuckled grip on his hilt.
“You damn cheat!” he shouted.
Derrick turned around right as Grigory sliced his face open.
The ribbon of blood that burst from Derrick’s cheek blanketed my vision in crimson. I flailed my arms as I tried to swim through the vast expanse of red.
Maybe I could find a door into another memory.
I pushed with my magic, knocking on all the invisible doors around me…
“ You cannot escape me, sorceress. ”
A claw wrapped around my ankle and pulled. I looked around, but saw nothing but red. How could I slay the monster if I could not even see him?
A blast of magic burst from my fist and the claws released my ankle. A sparkle of light glimmered above me as the door to another memory opened.
I reached toward the door and pulled with my magic, making my escape…
I crashed on a wooden floor and shoved myself up. I stood in the middle of what looked like a boys’ dormitory room. No sign of the monster, but I needed to stay aware in case he was lurking beneath the fabric of the memory.
Derrick sat in a wooden chair at a desk, keeping his eyes down. Mother bent at the waist and lovingly applied balm over the fresh stitches on his wounded cheek.
The setting sun peeked through the window panes. It was merely a few hours after the exhibition and Derrick seemed all right, but I held back a wince as my eyes ran down the wound. Grigory had sliced him ear to lip.
The strong aroma of warm herbs filled the air. Mother closed the lid to her balm and dampened the smell only a little.
She gently brought Derrick’s chin up so his eyes met hers. “You are not going to have a scar.” She placed the round pot of balm in his hand. “Just apply this every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to bed.”
Derrick’s left cheek twitched slightly as he looked up with doe-eyes at my mother.
“Come on, show me that handsome smile,” Mother said with a smile of her own.
He stretched his cheek muscle with a smile—it stopped twitching.
Mother patted him on the shoulder. “You are going to be just fine, sweet boy.”
“I doubt that.”
I turned away from Derrick to find Anders leaning against a bedpost on the other side of the room.
He glared at his son. “The Thornebow rat is going to your Uncle Ragnar so he can…discipline him. Although I should charge him with high treason for what he did.”
Mother looked over her shoulder. “Oh, Andie, he is only eighteen. Besides, everyone goes into the Spring Exhibition expecting a few cuts and scrapes—is that not the fun of being a boy?”
Anders narrowed his eyes at Mother. “That is not the issue, Dolly. ”
Dolly? I wanted to vomit.
He returned his sharp glare to sheepish Derrick. “The issue is that a Thornebow spilled your blood and you just laid there in the sand like a little worm. You should have run him through!”
“ No weakness! ” the monster roared.
I jumped and I swiveled my head, looking for the monster, but Derrick stood up and stole my attention.
“You wanted me to just kill a Thornebow to solve all of our problems?” he shouted “That did not work for you the first time!”
Anders launched across the room and his meaty fists gripped Derrick by the collar.
“Anders!” Mother cried as she grabbed Anders by the arm. “Leave him al—!”
Anders shoved my mother so hard she cracked the back of her head against Derrick’s bedpost.
“Adalia!” Derrick cried before Anders choked him into silence.
I knelt beside my mother on the floor. She blinked, dazed, as her hand floated to the back of her head. Her fingertips returned stained with blood.
Anders’s eyes widened but then narrowed into a glare. “He is my son, Adalia. Not yours.”
He returned his ire to Derrick, who was red as a berry as his father choked him. “Your weakness will be the death of you—the death of all of us! The Thornebow rat was just the beginning. Soon, everyone will flock to pick you clean like ravens on a corpse. Toughen up, or you are going to face the consequences.”
Anders released his grip and Derrick crashed to the floor with a gasp. His watering eyes looked up at my mother, but she did not look at him. Mother glared with a poisonous malice at Anders as he dragged a silver flask out of his pocket.
I only wished Mother could have pushed back sooner.
“ I am only trying to protect you, sorceress. ”
I whipped around but found nothing but an empty bed. That damn monster was lurking beneath the fabric of the memory, I had to find him.
I turned back around. Derrick sat at his writing desk and stared at a sheet of parchment. His cheek only bore a bright pink line that was shining with fresh medicine. Mother and Anders were gone.
At least a day had passed between memories. I walked to the desk for more clues of where I was, but instead I smiled at the blank parchment. It was the beginning of one of Midnight’s letters to Birdie.
Which letter was it? Was he going to tell me about a new song he learned? Or was I about to see him craft a new poem?
Derrick’s head turned as two other boys entered the room.
“Damn, Derrick, are you still sulking?” Myles asked.
Gerond elbowed Myles in the ribs. “Careful not to upset the precious heir, lest he call for his father and ruin your life too.”
Derrick furrowed his brows. “I d-did not c-call for my…my father…”
Myles and Gerond roared with laughter. Derrick’s hand curled into a white-knuckled fist on top of his writing desk and his eyes shined.
“Oh look, the s-s-stutter is back!” Myles laughed.
“Is Der-bear going to cry?” Gerond shouted through his laughter. “Are you going to cry and get us sent to the military academy?”
Those pricks!
I wrapped my arms around Derrick’s shoulders. He could not feel me, I could not change anything, but…he needed someone.
“ Toughen up, ” the monster growled.
Before I could look for the monster, the quill in Derrick’s hand snapped in half. Then, with an underlying growl, he said, “Get out.”
Gerond and Myles stopped laughing and their eyes went wide. The boys quickly retreated, slamming the dormitory door shut behind them.
Derrick threw the broken quill aside and yanked open his desk drawer. As soon as a new quill was in his hand, Derrick let out a long breath and melted back into the person I knew.
He dipped the quill in a pot of ink and wrote: “ Dearest Birdie, I won the Spring Exhibition. Life has never been better. ”
My fingers traced the parchment. We had wasted so many years trying to impress one another…what would our lives be like had we just been honest from the beginning?
Suddenly the ink on the parchment morphed into new letters, spelling out the message: “ You will never escape your bargain, sorceress. ”
What bargain?
I turned around, ready to confront the monster, but stardust-flecked Midnight had replaced the memory of Derrick at the writing desk.
“Serafina, get away from him!” He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into the darkness of his embrace.
I pushed against him. Light entered my vision and suddenly I was tucked in my bed again.
“Stop protecting me, Midnight!” I yelled as I shoved off the blankets. “I am trying to help you!”
Boom. Hairline cracks appeared in the floor beneath the bedroom door.
The monster was coming for me. I sprung from the bed and retrieved my silver needle from the air. The thread of infinity tied itself through the eye and coiled in an endless loop near my feet.
I threw open my bedroom door and stepped into the ballroom of the castle of dreams.
With a wave of my hand, the shattered black and white tiles flipped back and exposed a wide pit. I stood on the edge and looked down—no bottom in sight.
I let out a shaking breath and steeled myself. I had slayed a giant, how difficult could the monster in Derrick’s mind be?
My needle flew in the air, weaving the glowing white thread of infinity into a ladder that dropped into the pit.
The silver needle floated dutifully at my side while I descended the ladder.
Down, down, down, I climbed, my feet dropping into the darkness one after the other. Suddenly, my left foot did not hit the thread of the next rung of the ladder, but pressed against solid ground. I silently released the ladder but it still glowed, the only light in the pit.
My needle quickly stitched a lantern from the thread. I gripped the knotted handle and held it up—I could only see a few inches in front of me.
“Hello, sorceress.”
My heart jumped and my hair stood on end. The monster was near. I swung my arm. The light of my glowing lantern blanketed the area around me, but I found no sign of…
Then its hot breath skated across my shoulders.
I spun around and my eyes dragged up. Head of a bull. Muscled arms of a man. Steel armor on its shoulders. A mouth that was too wide.
Worst of all, it had big, very human, Hyton Blue eyes.
A chill ran through me but my neck burned, where its teeth had once left bruises. My ears pricked with the memory of every promise of possession it had whispered.
I knew Derrick, but I knew the monster too.
His name was Alastar.
A huge claw pricked me underneath my chin and pulled my face up. Alastar took in a deep breath through his wide nose and his pupils dilated.
He opened his mouth in something like a smirk, showing off rows and rows of sharp teeth. “Are you mine, sorceress? Or are you a threat?”
I gritted my teeth behind closed lips as I quietly summoned my silver needle. If my timing was just right, I could drive my needle through his eye and end him…
Alastar dropped his claw and a growl reverberated through his chest. “I have my answer, then.”
He opened his wide mouth and lunged for me. I dove out of the way, crashing against the wall of the pit near my rope ladder.
Alastar dug its claws in the ground and roared. With a flick of my hand, my silver needle speared his eye, sending the infinite thread through his skull. Alastar shook his heavy head and the thread snapped. I sent the needle through his heart, but he kept coming for me.
My heart thundered. I could not kill him.
I scrambled for the ladder. I had just pulled myself up the first rung when Alastar caught up to me.
Just as he was about to wrap his claws around my ankle, my needle wrapped the infinite thread around and around his thick wrist. The needle dove into the ground, yanking the monster back and stitching him to the bottom of the pit.
Alastar snapped the threads around his wrist, but the needle flew through the air at the same pace of my pounding heart as I pulled myself up the ladder. The needle weaved through the walls of the pit until it created what looked like a glowing spider web.
I heaved myself out of the darkness but commanded the needle to dart back and forth over the pit. Alastar roared and tried to climb through the web of threads, but its horns and claws got caught in my trap.
The needle shot out over the top of the pit and quickly stitched a tight basketweave over the opening. Right before I closed the pit, Alastar looked up at me through the threads.
“Mine,” he growled. “Mine. Mine. Mi—”
And then I sealed him in.
I stared at the glowing blanket of thread over the pit. It was not as secure as iron bars, but it was all I had. I waved my hand and the black and white tile of the ballroom reappeared over my stitches.
I was tired…so tired.
I closed my eyes and let out a breath as I released myself from Derrick’s mind.
The smell of the Duke’s chambers filled my nose and I crumpled forward onto Derrick’s mattress. I used my last bit of strength to brush the curls out of Derrick’s face. He slept peacefully, blissfully unaware of the battle I had just fought.
I crashed next to Derrick on his pillow. I let out a breath and softly traced the invisible line on his cheek where Grigory’s sword had slashed him.
If only Derrick’s mental wounds could have healed so easily.
The monster that prowled in the darkest parts of Derrick’s consciousness did not just come from the pain inflicted by his father. Alastar was also his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and all the way back until even pieces of Alastar the Conqueror had stared back at me with a covetous lust in its eyes.
As long as Alastar roamed inside Derrick, there was no way I could convince his trembling inner self to free Fraleigh—not when she was his, and the Dukedom’s, only security.
I could not kill Alastar, but maybe I could banish him. I could stitch all the cracks in Derrick’s mind together, make Alastar’s pit deeper, and make that monster so small that Derrick was no longer beholden to him.
I only had eleven days left until the full moon. I had to heal every part of Midnight’s domain until he felt safe enough to accept my commands rather than lock me in my bedroom.
If I made Midnight strong, Riyan would walk the earth again.