Chapter 56
Chapter fifty-six
Alistair
Alistair awoke early, packed his bag, and prepared to return to the Citadel. He checked in on Sera while she slept. Her dark eyelashes cast a shadow across her light brown skin as she held Snik close to her stomach. Even in sleep, they were inseparable. He couldn’t say the same for the raven.
He was happy the bird wasn’t perched in her room. He hated birds.
Alistair swallowed hard. It had all gone wrong.
When he learned that she’d accompany him on this mission, he’d almost told Chair Renata to demote him. Sera was stubborn, rude, and so fucking beautiful. By some miracle, she’d warmed up to him.
He still thought about their first night in the tavern.
Sera twirling under his arm in that oversize purple dress he’d bought off a washerwoman.
The way her hair bounced when she danced, her smile brilliant in the middle of the tavern floor.
She looked free. At that moment, his heart opened to her, to the possibility that this mission might bring him something more than a job well done.
When he saw that human in their room in Ironoak, Sera scared out of her mind and wielding his dagger, he’d lost every ounce of control he’d attained as a Legion captain.
When he traveled that human to the clearing, he’d gripped the bastard’s throat until his face turned purple.
He’d let one breath fill his lungs, then seared him from the inside out.
He’d felt his magic rip through every one of the human’s blood vessels and watched him writhe in agony.
Just before he was about to die, Alistair had snapped his neck.
Then he’d traveled back to her.
Seraphina.
Now, Al went to look for the oracle to make sure she hadn’t escaped in the night—hadn’t changed her mind, causing more chaos. But when he went to the mirroring pool, she was there.
“Warlock, is it time?” she asked without turning away from the water.
“It is.”
“Wish to sneak me away without her knowing?”
Alistair cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t do that. I’ll let her say goodbye.”
Ophelia was eyeing him suspiciously, but he didn’t care what she thought of him. She would be the Council of Elders’ problem soon, and he could move on to something else. Perhaps he’d travel back here, kill Vasso himself.
“You’re torn.” She smirked. “Maybe torn is the wrong word. I think a better term is feeling guilty.”
“I have no guilt. I do what must be done, is all.”
“That is not all. Everything hangs in the balance.” The oracle seethed at him.
“You and all this mystic bullshit. You go on and on about the world but share nothing of use. It amazes me this demon kept you for so long.”
“Showing your fangs, warlock?” Her voice was sly. The feline grin crossing her features turned into something feral. “Tell me what I am.” Ophelia flung her arms wide, and image after image came from the threads that shot out of the water.
In the projections, he watched a spear pierce his heart. Next, he was alight with black flames. Another had him holding Sera limp in his arms, Dominick dead at his feet.
Image after image flashed before him. Hundreds of ways he would die. A sickening unease built in his gut.
“We have free will, yes,” Ophelia told him, more images flashing.
“But what is free will if it all ends in disaster? These are all the ways you will die if you take her with you on this day. Only one may come true, but the possibilities are endless. I am warning you one more time, warlock. Leave her.”
He tried to swallow his nausea. “How do I know you’re not manipulating me?”
“Of course I’m manipulating you, but only for the good of Eraphon.
For if you take her, you aren’t the only one who will die.
” The oracle swung her arms again, and images of Seraphina and Dominick appeared.
Sera was beheaded and hanged. Dominick was buried and burned.
He watched as they screamed over and over again.
He watched Sera covered in blood, howling his name.
“Stop it,” he choked. The oracle dropped her arms, and the images and the threads from which they came disappeared. “Swear it, swear on Shadow this will happen if I take her back.”
Ophelia left the center of the pool and walked toward him. “One of these events will happen. I swear on Shadow.” She placed her hand over her heart. “On Eraphon.” And bowed.
The sinking feeling in his gut did not cease with her promise. “Get whatever you need together,” he instructed, and went to wake up Sera.
Outside the door, he gathered himself. He took a deep breath, then knocked. Sera answered, her hair half up, Snik beside her.
Her pack wasn’t on her shoulder where he wished it was; it was lying against the far wall.
“Ready?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Al, I want you to know, I’m not mad at you. I know you meant well, all of it, and I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He pushed into her room, pulled two daggers from the back of his waistband, and set them on the bed.
“Al?”
“These are for you. Carry them with you everywhere,” he said, then reached into his pocket and pulled out two quartz spheres. “Open your hand.”
She did, and he dropped the stones in her outstretched palm.
“These are summoning stones. They’re enchanted. You break one and I’ll know exactly where you are.”
Silver lined those beautiful green eyes.
“Anything…” His voice caught. “If you need me for anything, you throw that on the ground and crack it, and I will come for you.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and every second her eyes bore into his broke him. He would come for her if she needed him. He could give her that in atonement for all the secrets he kept from her.
Barely above a whisper, she said, “I’m sorry for what we could have been. I think”—she wiped her nose on her sleeve—“I think we both know it wouldn’t have ended well for us.”
Her breath hitched, and it felt like a knife piercing his heart. He didn’t need to watch it in the images from Ophelia’s threads. He felt it here, in her words.
“Come on, we’re wasting time,” he said and left her room.
Every step closer to the mirroring pool was a step farther from her. Chair Renata had been adamant that he bring the oracle back today. The last time he’d been there, the Citadel had been playing on the offensive, or at least trying to, and he didn’t want to push his luck.
Vasso walked into the room, and Al straightened. The witches were saying their goodbyes. He approached the demon lord.
“I don’t like you,” he said in a whispered warning. “I don’t trust you with her.” Vasso’s eyes blazed red, but he kept the smirk on his face as if Al wasn’t a threat. “But I’m not blind. Something is going on, and I want assurance you’ll not harm her.”
“Your loyalty is admirable. I will promise you that no harm will come to Seraphina while I am near.”
Seraphina and Ophelia were whispering to each other. He only had a few more seconds, and this was going to hurt, but… “I want to make a bargain.” Vasso raised his brows. “I want your word that you’ll protect her with your life.”
“What do I get in return?”
“What do you want?”
Vasso’s eyes shifted from him to Sera and back. “I want the same. You’ll need to protect Seraphina with your life, if it ever comes to it.”
Alistair slid his glove off his hand and held it out to the lord. Vasso took it. His palm felt like a hot coal. That sensation raced up his arm, over his shoulder and onto his ribs. Then searing, blinding pain.
Al bit down so hard he thought his teeth would crack to prevent himself from crying out. She’d hate him even more for doing this, but he couldn’t help it. He wouldn’t chance her being harmed by him.
Vasso breezed by him. “Leaving without saying goodbye? How rude.” Ophelia walked to the demon, her hands extended to him.
Alistair only saw Sera.
He took her in—her raven hair and tawny skin.
Those sage-and-emerald eyes were brilliant against the tears spilling down her cheeks.
She was wearing the Legion tunic, one that she was never meant to wear but willingly had to save Nora.
She’d jumped into this quest without training, experience, or knowledge of the outside world. She was the bravest witch he knew.
He swallowed.
Sera locked eyes with him then, and he approached. He held out his arms, a prayer, a sign of forgiveness for doing the unforgivable. She stepped forward and hugged him back. He breathed in that nutty smell of sea air, savoring every moment of her in his arms.
It was the way it should have been if he hadn’t been so damned stupid. He didn’t want to let her go, but she broke the embrace.
“Promise me that you’ll take care of Dom?” she asked.
“I promise, Minnow.”
Her lip quivered, and he took a step back. He didn’t want to break in front of them, in front of her. Al looked at Vasso. The demon’s face revealed a deadly assessment of him. It seemed he wasn’t the only one who’d fallen for her.
He gave the demon lord a nod of understanding. Vasso gave him one back.
Look at her—just one more time.
He didn’t want to know what she was thinking.
He didn’t deserve to know, and it killed him to leave her here.
But if one of those outcomes came true, if he was the reason for her death, he’d never live with himself.
He’d lost his father, his mother, and Colton.
Now, the only hope he had of love again stared back at him with a sad smile and tears streaming down her cheeks.
Alistair crossed the room, grabbed the oracle’s hand, and was gone.