Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Seraphina
As much as she hated it, she was grateful that Dominick had insisted she see a healer.
Her reasoning for the cut on her forearm wasn’t the best, but they didn’t dare raise their brows in front of a member of Daedeth.
Dominick was above them, and who were they to question a warlock on a higher level?
Such a dangerous policy.
When Sera got to her mother’s street, it was eerily serene compared to the rest of the Citadel. She stood at the base of the stone steps leading to her mother’s row house. It was made from the same white stone as the buildings in Citadel proper—all the homes in Daedeth Quarter were.
Fifteen years ago, Nora had picked out the color of the door. Red, for their father’s placement, and their mother had kept it that color ever since.
Sera couldn’t help that it reminded her of blood. Suddenly, every bad thing she ever heard or read about Gehenna wasn’t happening to a stranger. They were happening to Nora.
Was her body being ripped apart and fed to lesser demons? Burned alive? Mutilated and tortured? What foul experiments could a lord of Gehenna conduct on a witch? A sob left Sera’s throat. She gripped the stone post, steadying herself, choking down fear and bile.
Nora would be all right. She had to be. One sorry step at a time, Sera climbed the steps to her mother’s door. When she beheld the purple rose petals, meant to signify Nora’s decision to go into arcane, the tears she’d worked so hard to keep back fell like anvils from the Citadel’s walls.
She turned the knob to her mother’s row house and stepped inside.
Her sister’s robes and cloaks hung on the hooks neatly, below them a few pairs of shoes and beaded slippers in a row on the floor. She almost lost herself again when her mother rounded the corner.
“Teesina,” her mother said, casting a barrier to muffle the sound. “What have you done, Seraphina!”
Sera’s breath shuddered. This exchange was so familiar to her that it was almost comforting.
“We both know I didn’t do anything on purpose.” Sera kept her voice even, despite the urge to scream. The well of darkness inside her was noticeably quiet despite her rising anger, a slight relief.
“Your abomination! You manipulated that portal. There is no other answer for it. Your utter lack of self-control has endangered more than you or me this time.”
Her mother’s words left their mark right where intended.
It was true. Her strange magic had wrapped itself around Nora’s portal, turning it from blue to black, cursing it with darkness.
“You think I wanted this?” Sera clenched her jaw. “Why would you think I’d ever do anything to hurt Nora? Why would I want a demon to steal my sister? I can’t control this.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” Her mother’s voice was like a stone underwater—deep and unmoving. “You’ll get her back.” There was something more fathomless than rage in her mother’s amber eyes. A storm of anger and panic just below the surface.
“I’ll do anything. Just tell me what to do.” She opened her palms and let her arms drop to her sides.
“I don’t think you understand, Seraphina Wildrick. You will go to Gehenna and bring her back where she belongs. I do not care if you die doing so, but you will get her, and you will bring her back to me.”
Her words felt like a slap, the verbal handprint purpling across Sera’s mouth. “Mama,” she whispered. “How do you expect me—”
“Spineless,” Lavinia spat. That storm in her eyes hadn’t wavered, even though Sera had let down the walls in her mind, revealing every tortured thought and emotion.
But that didn’t matter. Lavinia didn’t soften for her.
At least she hadn’t in a very, very long time.
“That’s all you’ve ever been. Sniveling and deficient.
You’ve been a burden since you came into my life.
I don’t care.” Lavinia threw her hands up.
“We meet in front of the Council in an hour. You will volunteer and get your sister back.”
“This is suicide! The Council would never let a Dobro-level witch enter the underworld. If that’s even where Nora is!”
Her mother paced in the small sitting room. The cream-colored walls pulsed inward with every step she made on the sage carpet—closer, closer—until the breath in Sera’s lungs stalled. How would she get to Gehenna? And once she made it, what was she to do?
“Did you think I just stood and watched that monster take my daughter?”
“Of course not. The crowd you—”
“Not just the crowd, Seraphina.” Lavinia threw her hands out. Her black robes swished around her with each step. “I ripped into that demon lord’s mind. If I had moved to save your sister, he would have snapped her neck.”
Sera knew her mother was powerful, but to dive into a demon lord’s mind without cognizance was a skill unmatched by any other mastria. Surely, if that lord had known what her mother was doing to him, he would have ripped them all to shreds. A shiver of fear snaked around the column of her spine.
“I’ve done so much more than that to protect you. You think the Council missed your defect? You think they didn’t notice the dark magic seeping out of you?” Her mother crossed the room and opened the front door wide. More purple petals tumbled across the steps and into the entryway.
“I will not keep them waiting.” The golden glass beads in Lavinia’s braided hair clinked as she descended the steps. She was right. Nora needed to be rescued as soon as possible.
A chilling breeze whipped down the street, and Sera looked out onto the quiet Daedeth corner.
For so long, she hadn’t wanted to believe it. Had told herself that somehow, someday she’d figure out a way to master this darkness within her. Every single day had been a fight.
The elixirs didn’t work.
The pain didn’t work.
And now she’d harmed her mother. Sera’s utter lack of control had gotten her sister taken to the underworld. And Nora… Sweet and young Nora didn’t deserve this.
Only with magic who sang to Gehenna. That voice… What was it?
“Let’s go,” Sera said and followed her mother toward the Council chambers.
She had walked these halls more than most coven members. The first time was when her mother had been appointed master mastria ten years ago. Then on her trial day, when her mother had demanded Sera’s placement be in Dobro and not Jedan. Now they walked the halls again, hoping to save her sister.
Sera’s gaze was fixed on the grand wooden doors.
The chambers hadn’t changed. Exotic greenery draped tall columns of white marble.
Lush leaves, roaming flowers, and ivy that didn’t grow anywhere else in the Citadel flourished here.
It was a disservice that most of the coven members didn’t get to witness the beauty of it, to breathe in the soft scent of the blooms.
Between the displays of plant life were the faces of the first rebellion leaders, woven into the weft threads of tapestries lining the walls, celebrating the freedom they’d gained two thousand years ago.
It was all beautiful, but Sera couldn’t look away from the mess she had made of her mother’s hand. On the walk over, her mother’s fingers had swelled to twice their size. Blisters had erupted, along with angry pink patches of missing pigment.
She had done that. Guilt choked her, but she forced herself to not look away from the damage.
Sera had harmed her mother in such a way that the beautiful pigment of her skin had been stripped. She was a monster. A fucking abomination that deserved to be locked away.
Sweat rolled down the length of her back, inch by inch, with every step she took toward the carved arched doors.
If her mother had missed even one person in that crowd, if they had seen what Sera was and reported her, this would be the last time she would see the light of day.
Too many times, Sera had heard of witches and warlocks being tortured for not adhering to the coven’s requirements, seen them dragged from their homes.
What would be the punishment for her? She could imagine that if they ever found out she had burned an entire human village to the ground, the first place they’d throw her would be the tower.
Lavinia and Sera reached the doors, which opened wide of their own accord. Then closed shut behind them.
The deliberation room was circular, its vaulted ceiling ribbed in crisscrossing marble. The farthest portion of the curved wall was made entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows.
Sera wished she could admire the view. Take in the vastness of the ocean beyond. This was the only room that she knew of in the entire Citadel that allowed for a break in the walls to view the sea. But blocking that view were five Council members sitting in their golden thrones.
“Solarni Council.” Sera bowed deeply, sinking to one knee. Her heart pounded as she kept her eyes on the floor. She was centered in the blazing mosaic sun.
“Rise.” Chair Briar’s voice was like tumbling gravel. Her dark jowly cheeks drooped to her neck.
Sera stood and acknowledged each Council member.
Blackwell and Thorne were pale. They looked as rattled as she felt.
She wasn’t surprised, since they were the only Council members who had actually seen the demon.
Chair Renata sat in the center, poised as ever, while Chair Corbin had his usual scowl.
Off to the side, in the only shadow the windows allowed, stood a figure. A guard.
“Council.” Sera kept her hands clasped in front of her. “It is my greatest wish to be granted permission to leave the coven and rescue my sister.”
She’d do anything. Take Nora’s place, be knocked down to Jedan, anything. But she wasn’t leaving this chamber unless they approved her to go, or locked her in the tower.
Silence blanketed the room. Swallowing its thickness, she waited. Chair Blackwell’s red robes rustled as he changed position. “Witch, do you think yourself capable of this task?”
“Yes, sir, I believe I am—”