53. Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Three
Kya
V icria sat on the thin pad with her back pressed against the wall and her hands flat against the pad at her sides.
The diamond was still embedded at the top of her sternum.
She still wore her robes, which were filthy with dirt and blood and other things I didn’t want to guess at.
There was a stench to her as well from lack of bathing, mixed with that of the bucket.
Hakoa nodded to one of the guards who unlocked the cell door for us, creaking with the sound of metal against metal as it swung open.
Malina and I shared a knowing glance before I looked at Hakoa. Malina stepped inside the cell as I spoke to him.
“Would you wait out here please?”
With his reluctant nod, I entered the cell. Malina threw up a wall of light, obscuring the inside of the cell from the outside and bending her light on the inside so that we could not see the outside, giving us privacy.
Malina backed against the wall and remained silent as I stepped toward the Sage, crouching down in front of her. The putrid odor of her filth invaded my nostrils.
“Hello Vicria.” My voice was poisonous .
“Well if it isn’t the Worthy with no lands.
Oh wait, I’m mistaken. I suppose being mated with the Lord of Oryn grants you a ruling over his Nation as well.
One can only hope that the other Worthy won’t see this as a threat to their positions of power.
” She rolled her eyes, keeping her gaze from meeting my face.
So she could tell. That means the rest of the Sages could too.
I tilted my head to the side. “You don’t truly care about that now, do you?” I felt a familiar set of heavy steps that I would know anywhere in the tunnels we entered through. I ignored it.
She sighed exaggeratedly.
“She’s yet to be broken.” Malina’s voice was calm and lethal.
Whatever interrogation techniques the guards used, it was far too merciful. Simply holding her here, and maybe a few beatings, wasn’t enough to crack her.
“We can fix that,” I said with a lilt.
Vicria scoffed and mumbled something under her breath.
Too quickly for her to react, I pulled my daggers from behind my back and stabbed my blades through the back of her hands, into the thin pad beneath and the floor below. She wailed and tried to pull back, but I held them steady.
“Now,” I said with a low voice once her screaming turned to cries through gritted teeth.
She trembled from the pain. “I have some questions I need you to answer, and I want to make sure I have your undivided attention.” It felt good to slip back into the skin of a Roav once again.
“If you answer honestly, I might just take out my blades when I leave here. Do you understand?”
“You vile bitch ,” she spat. I pressed my blades forward slightly and she screamed. “Yes! Yes! I understand!”
“Oh good!” I said mockingly.
Malina chuckled quietly from her corner.
Ryker spoke through the bond then. “What are you doing?”
I could feel him standing just outside the cell and sense his emotions, a mix of anger and worry and longing for his mate.
My shadow would always come for me.
I thought for a moment while Vicria was still screaming.
Maybe Ryker being here could prove to be beneficial.
I knew how he felt about using his magic, and I hated myself for asking him to use it.
“I need answers. Some things are not adding up from what I read. I know you said her mind is blocked but you also said you can still hear her active thoughts. My shadow, can you enter her mind and see if she’s telling the truth?” I asked carefully.
He hesitated for a moment before responding with a sigh. “Yes, little gem. I would do anything for you.”
Vicria had stopped screaming and I spoke. “First question: were you the one controlling the Glaev attacks?”
“No,” Vicria bit out.
“Not a lie but not the complete truth,” Ryker said to me.
“Tell me more. Explain it to me,” I demanded.
“I would find a location and it would be destroyed by the Glaev.”
“Truth.”
“What is the Glaev?”
“It’s some kind of dark magic. It absorbs the energy of life until there’s nothing left,” she said.
“Truth.”
“How does it work?”
“I…” she stumbled. “I don’t know.”
“Truth.”
“How did you learn about it?”
She paled. “From…a book.”
“Lie,” Ryker growled.
A cruel grin crossed my lips. I pressed the blades forward again, with more pressure this time.
“Try again!” I shouted over her wails.
Malina bristled behind me.
“It was him! He’s the one controlling it! Stop, stop!” she screamed.
I lessened the pressure on the blades.
“She’s telling the truth…” Ryker sounded agitated.
“Who is he ?” I demanded, my heart rate increasing.
What she said made sense. It seemed so unlikely that she was the one doing all of this on her own with no explanation as to how she was able to hone magic at all, as a Sage. But to hear her confirm another…
“He calls himself Daegel,” she sobbed. “He’s a dark wielder from another realm.”
“Explain,” I hissed.
“He’s behind everything!” Vicria screamed.
“Someone stole a book from him and he needed it back desperately. He’s been hunting it for years.
It’s his…guide or something. He’s killed so many for it, and he went to personally find it in Morah after he had some drugged up low-life killed.
And he cursed me after I made a deal with him a long time ago.
He used me to find the places for him to attack.
I couldn’t be released from my deal until my task was complete. ”
He really was behind everything. The murders of the Scholars and the seller. That was him.
“Which is what exactly?” Ryker asked.
“What is your task?” I relayed Ryker’s question.
“To serve him.”
“How? Why you? You’re a Sage with no abilities.”
“I’m more…sensitive to the Spirits. It allows me to detect where there are greater amounts of them.” She curled her lips. “He had me determine which places for him to attack based on how much he had of his reserves at the time.”
My breath left my lungs. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts from my readings of the book. “What is his ultimate task? Why is he doing this? What does he want?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me anything. He only gives commands,” she said. “However, he has been particularly fixated on finding something recently. Something other than his book. A precious diamond.”
“No… Kya, let me in,” Ryker requested carefully. I ignored him.
“A diamond?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. It couldn’t be that simple. That’s what stopped the dark magic from being wielded. It didn’t make sense.
“Kya. Let me in,” A demand.
Vicria lifted her head to look at me with a malicious smirk. “He’s been gathering information on finding someone specific. Someone he calls the Diamond. That’s the only one who can give him the amount of power that he needs in order to complete his ultimate task…”
“Malina, let me in!” Ryker shouted.
“…found within the darkness of fate…”
I looked back at Malina. She glanced between me and the light wall at the doorway with furrowed brows. I narrowed my eyes on Vicria as she continued.
“…a female. One of the last daughters…”
A conglomeration of shouting voices and commotion ensued behind me, but I kept my focus on Vicria, now wheezing and gasping for breath.
“…a Worthy with no Nation.”
My face paled and everything went silent in the room.
Vicria leaned in closer, pulling against the blades of her own will, our faces nearly touching.
She whispered in a strained rasp, so that only I could hear, with a scowl on her face, “He’s coming for you.
I held him off as long as I could, but the moment you sealed your mating, your power grew and he could sense you.
I tried to warn you, but you just wouldn’t listen. ”
“Warn me? Why didn’t you just come right out and say it?” My mind was all over the place with the amount of information.
“The curse mark on my chest. Go ahead and look,” she croaked.
My eyes widened when I ripped down her robe to see a black mark right over her heart like a blot of ink, spreading out across her body.
Ryker gripped me around the waist and lifted me up, holding me against his chest and backing away, leaving the daggers in Vicria’s hands. Malina came up in front of Vicria. I pushed off Ryker and whipped out my bow with an arrow aimed at the Sage.
“How do we stop him? How do we stop the Glaev?” Malina demanded, her hair was now a mess.
“Answer her,” I snarled when she didn’t say anything, pulling the arrow back farther.
“The Rip.” She hacked a cough, the curse starting to consume her. Her body began to convulse strenuously as she gasped desperately for air, hunching over with her head against the floor.
One of the guards behind me gasped when the black curse spread along her body, webbing out along her skin, through her veins.
We all stepped back, pressing to the other end of the cell.
She arched and threw her head back violently with her mouth gaping open in a silent scream.
The whites of her eyes began to turn black.
Malina breathed, “It looks like—”
“The Onyx Kiss…” I finished. Ryker’s arm came back around my waist.
Vicria thrashed so violently that she ripped her hands from the daggers, slicing straight through the flesh and bone. She fell back, grasping and clawing at her chest and throat, the blood pouring from her hands staining her robes, and the blackness continuing to spread along her pale skin.
Then suddenly, she stopped. I felt her heart beat one last time.
No one said a word as we stood there, appalled at what we had just witnessed.
I turned to face Ryker, noticing the cuts on his face that were already beginning to heal.
I looked to Hakoa and the other guards to find their faces, arms, and chests cut as well.
I eyed them all curiously then noticed the blood on Malina’s blades at her thighs.
“That wasn’t the Onyx Kiss. That was dark magic,” Malina said quietly.
I nodded.
“Kya?” Ryker whispered. His eyes met mine with a sad smile.
I felt his overwhelming emotions of longing, worry, and anger. The same as before. “Take me home.”