by Eva Brandt
That didn’t mean I’d just resign myself to be an extra out of Dexter, just because Louis wanted me to. If I’d been interested in ritual scarification, I’d have done it to myself, thank you very much.
I started struggling underneath Louis, straining against the silver cuffs even if the shackles broke the skin and weakened me further. Louis pulled away and let out an exasperated sigh. “Please stand still. You won’t be able to do much except hurt yourself and if I don’t manage to draw the symbol right the first time, I’ll have to start over.”
That sounded fine to me. I didn’t care about pain. Even the smallest delay could make a difference and it might buy the others time to come up with an idea that would help us free ourselves.
With a thought, I tried to reach out to my newly discovered earth magic. I doubted I’d be able to do much with it, but it was worth a shot.
The ground started to shake beneath us as my power responded to my call. It had no effect on Louis or on the room we were in. Before it could reach me or my foe, the magic hit an invisible, powerful wall. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break it.
Louis rolled his eyes at me. “Oh, for gods’ sake, Declan. Do you think I’m stupid? This place is secured against elemental magic of any kind. Surely you must realize I’m not going to take any chances.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Before the meeting with the fae, he hadn’t known I could use earth magic, but that didn’t make much of a difference. Even if he’d been unaware of my abilities, he’d have taken steps against Darius’s, Bjorn’s and especially Mathias’s powers. And since all Accursed magic was elemental in nature, the block worked on me too.
My failure didn’t discourage me. For the better part of my life, I’d survived and fought without using magic. First and foremost, I was a shape-shifter. No matter what happened, I’d always have the wolf.
I reached into the deeper recesses of my mind and forced my beast to the surface. It responded to me just as easily as it always did. The wolf was already angry at being caged, so it wanted to come out. Staying half-human was a bit more of a challenge, but it was necessary. The middle form was far more powerful than the two extremes.
My limbs stretched and grew, my spine changing shapes and my skin sprouting fur. That alone was an advantage since the fur made it tougher for Louis to work. Unfortunately, the shape change didn’t do much else. The silver shackles must’ve been enchanted, because they didn’t snap. Instead, they tightened around my wrists, shattering the bones that suddenly felt much too fragile.
I snarled in pain and anguish. Even so, the beast inside me refused to give up, so I kept jerking on the chains. Louis took a step back and waited, watching me with eyes that were almost compassionate.
At that moment, I didn’t think I’d ever hated anyone more. In fact, I hated him so much that, even if I knew I should shift back into my human form, I refused to do it.
I didn’t know how much time passed while I ignored the only thing that could’ve helped me stop the torture induced by the silver shackles. In the end, Louis lost his patience and walked up to me once again. “I warned you, didn’t I?” he asked, huffing under his breath. “I warned you that you’d just hurt yourself if you kept pushing. But you didn’t listen. You never listen. Hold still now. As amusing as this might be, I don’t have time to play games with you.”
He pressed his hand against my chest and his mind invaded mine. All of a sudden, I could see a gigantic snail reaching for me, and when its tentacles grabbed me, I had no hope of escaping it. I howled in agony as the snail started to rip me apart, its tentacles reaching into my very core, into my connection with my beast. By some kind of miracle, I managed to send the cowering wolf away, hiding it at the back of my consciousness. It forced me to face Louis alone, but it kept him from destroying my animal form altogether.
To his credit, Louis had been honest when he’d said he had no desire to play games or prolong this further. Once he was satisfied that I’d be cooperative—which was a far more painful process than I’d have liked—he withdrew from my mind. When I came to, I was shivering on the floor, my muscles still tight with the memory of a pain that shouldn’t have existed and my beast so far away I could barely feel it. I was still conscious and not yet dead, but I suspected I might begin to regret that soon.
“There we go,” Louis said. “Isn’t that better? Why do Accursed have to be so stubborn?”
“Maybe we have to be,” I replied between gritted teeth. “Kind of comes with the territory. Fighting an unbreakable curse for over a millennium does make a species stubborn.”
“I suppose that’s true and it’s not like I can point fingers. But you know what I think, Declan? Stubbornness is only a bad thing when you don’t have the power to make your actions matter. If you’re fighting a worthless battle, it can’t even be called stubbornness anymore. Just stupidity.”
I’d never been known for being an intellectual. Still, this was one of those occasions when you didn’t need to be a genius to realize it was time to retreat and regroup. As much as I hated giving up, even temporarily, I had no choice.
Stalling was all well and good, but if I crippled myself in the process, I’d be a liability and a burden on my soulmate. I’d already taken enough damage and I doubted I’d be able to use my shifted forms anytime soon. If I pushed myself further, I wouldn’t be able to make my escape at all and I’d drag them down.
Louis eyed me from head to toe and his hold on my hip tightened. For the first time, I became aware that I was naked and unable to do much against him. Considering his history, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d decided to take advantage of the circumstances.
“It’s really quite a shame,” he said with a lazy smirk, as if he could guess my thoughts. “I would’ve loved to be able to have some fun with you. I was always curious about my Mathias’s werewolf. But unfortunately, I’ve passed that stage in my life and we don’t have time for leisure. Close your eyes, Declan. You won’t have to suffer for much longer. That, I can promise you.”
I wished I could’ve found that a comfort. It was anything but. Utterly helpless, I let my mind drift, sliding into memories of my past lives with Lucienne and the others.
As Louis started working again, slicing into my flesh with a steady hand, I remembered Lucienne’s smiles, as sharp as the dagger her father was wielding to cut me open. I remembered the happiness we’d once shared, all those times we’d lived and died together. And I listened to the cry of the earth, to what my element was telling me.
It was difficult to accept it, but at the same time, it made sense. We’d been ready for it from the moment Darius and I had returned from the battle with my pack and made the decision to go face Lucienne.
“We might not survive this one,” Malachai had said, “but we don’t have to, not as long as she does.” He’d tossed me the ace of spades, but Mathias had caught it in my stead and burnt it between his fingertips.
Yes, we all understood what we risked and what price we’d have to pay, but we didn’t mind it. Maybe Louis thought he had won, but he hadn’t, not by a long shot. No matter what he tried to do, no matter what foul magic he used against us, I would never give up. For me, for all of us, death was only a step forward, never a step back. He’d have to learn that, the hard way.
* * *
Darius
“How does it feel like to have emotions, when all your life you’ve known nothing but logic?”
“How does the Alarian Vow work?”
“Does it hurt to be in the body of someone else?”
“How does death taste like?”
I closed my eyes and ignored the repeated inquiries coming from the Dames Blanches. Instead, I tried to focus on clearing my head and chasing away my confusion. It didn’t work. I hadn’t been doing well even before the confrontation with Lucienne. Now, I was having real trouble distinguishing where, or rather, when I was.
Ironically, the Dames Blanches sort of helped. They had been peppering me w
ith questions ever since I’d woken up in this strange room. They hadn’t touched me, and while I’d felt their magic course over me, it hadn’t been invasive. As much as I’d hated the comparison, it had reminded me a little of Lucienne, enough, at least, that it had anchored me into the present and kept me from drifting into memories of a past I was no longer sure didn’t belong to me.
There was a good reason why Mathias had been vague about my past life. I knew that now. It was just a horrible time to have that realization.
I couldn’t imagine ever enjoying the memories that now battered my mind, but it would’ve been better if I’d remembered dying in horrible pain while not facing the real possibility of the experience repeating itself.
“Come now, don’t be so quiet,” one of the women said. “You’ll have plenty of time to be silent once Louis is done with you.”
That sounded ominous, but also boring. Most of my interactions with Lucienne’s father tended to be hostile and painful. This wasn’t news to me.
I opened my eyes to look at the Dames Blanches. “And what, pray tell, is Mr. de Hastingues planning to do to me that will silence me forever?”
I already had a pretty good idea, based on what Bjorn had told me. But Bjorn hadn’t known the exact details of the ritual, only what bits and pieces he’d managed to glimpse during his brief journey into Pierce’s mind. If I could find out more from my current guards, I might be able to do something to fight it, to fight Louis off.
A red-headed Dame Blanche arched a perfectly defined brow at me and smiled in a way that made me think she was questioning my intelligence. “He won’t silence you forever,” she said. “You’ll still exist. Just not like before.”
“Pieces of souls aren’t meant to inhabit their own separate bodies,” her blonde companion offered. “That’s what we intend to fix.”
She almost sounded sad about it, but I didn’t trust that emotion for a moment. She obviously didn’t understand my nature, or that of any of the others. We’d already become independent from Pierce, a long time ago. If this whole thing had taken place in a different life, before Pierce had been born as an individual, I could’ve understood what Louis was planning, although even then, it would’ve been very questionable.
“You can’t fix a situation that doesn’t need fixing,” I told them. “Your leader is a fool. If we exist, he has no right to question it. His power cannot create or modify a soul. That power only belongs to The Source.”
My words earned me bemused smiles from the Dames Blanches. Distantly, I found it surprising that they were no longer wearing their hoods. Maybe they didn’t think it was necessary to hide their faces around a man whose fate was sealed. “Is that really how you want to spend the last minutes of your life?” a third Dame Blanche, this time a brunette, asked. “By debating metaphysical nonsense with us?”
“Someone who is about to cast a complicated soul ritual really shouldn’t call soul magic nonsense.” I sneered at them, unable to hold back even if my outburst wouldn’t change a thing. “But hey, what do I know? I’m just the guy who’s been reincarnating repeatedly for the past millennium or so.”
I knew better than to think I could make them see sense. If I’d realized this, they couldn’t have missed it either. It was simple logic, after all. Besides, we were all aware that it wasn’t power Louis lacked.
He’d done soul magic of this nature before, when he’d first cast the curse that had started this whole disaster. One would think that his history would make the Dames Blanches wary of him, but for whatever reason, they’d decided to ignore the risks.
Maybe they thought the potential reward was worth taking the chance. Maybe Louis was forcing them or they had no sense of self-preservation. Either way, there was no help to be found in the Dames Blanches.
They were right about one thing. I needed to come up with something a little more constructive to do than arguing with them about metaphysical matters. Louis must’ve prepared beforehand to make sure I didn’t escape, but I still intended to test his defenses.
The bindings holding me down were enchanted silver, but in Mathias’s body, I had some immunity to that. It wasn’t ideal, since making use of Mathias’s magic now would unbalance my mind further. But if I didn’t get free within the next couple of minutes, insanity would be the least of my problems.
Just like I had done numerous times in the past, I reached into the core of magic I’d stolen from Mathias. Electricity swept over my body, testing the edges of the shackles. It was unlikely that I’d be able to do something using this kind of magic, especially with the Dames Blanches present, but they might not be an issue at all if I could make Mathias’s life steal ability work.
I couldn’t. The cuffs weren’t the sole precaution Louis had taken. The room itself seemed designed to suppress my magic. My elemental powers were trapped inside me, unable to get out. The only thing I managed through my attempt was to electrocute myself.
Would my mind magic work better? Wards focused on that weren’t as easy to cast as elemental shields. Louis might be a nightmare, but he wasn’t here and the Dames Blanches, while powerful, wouldn’t be able to stand in my way. It was dangerous to practice astral projection now, but I had no choice.
As it turned out, my willingness to sacrifice my sanity made no difference. The moment I tried to let my astral self drift out of my body, I hit an invisible, unbreakable barrier.
Ah. That explained it. No wonder Louis had left the Dames Blanches here. They didn’t need to cast anything themselves. Their mere presence reinforced and anchored the wards already on me and kept me from using my mind magic.
I tried to suppress my fury and frustration, knowing my helplessness would only please them and refusing to give them the satisfaction. I wasn’t completely successful and they smiled at me in that condescending way that made me want to scream. “Don’t be like that, princeling,” the brunette said. “Here we are, trying to be hospitable, and you’re ignoring our efforts.”
I didn’t know what I hated more, the sarcasm and humor in her voice, or the fact that she had called me ‘princeling’, the way Mathias used to. I doubted it was coincidence, which meant they must’ve looked into my mind at one point. Leaving aside how invasive that was, it meant that they had a pretty good idea about our abilities and plans.
A surge of panic coursed through me at that realization, but I stomped it down. If I allowed myself to experience fear right now, I might be permanently crippled and unable to do a thing.
Louis wasn’t perfect. He might have prepared for our abilities, but unexpected things happened all the time. We’d always been ready to lay our lives on the line for Lucienne and he was likely aware of that now. But there was one other thing he might be missing—the fact that Lucienne herself had been willing to kill and die for us.
I’d have liked to ask the Dames Blanches where my soulmate was, but that would’ve been stupid and pointless. Louis’s ritual would involve her in some way. I was sure of that. She’d be present for it. And Louis wouldn’t be able to cast it while still in her body, so I might be able to speak to her then.
It had been Alois’s death that had angered her enough to knock us out. Maybe I could explain my theory, the fact that I believed he could be brought back and his spirit might be waiting for us at the Palasion.
As I mused over my options, the door to the room opened and Louis walked in. “Any problems, Delphine?” he asked without preamble.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” the dark-haired Dame Blanche replied. “He tried to use his mind magic, just like we anticipated, but we were able to hold him back.”
“Good, good. I wouldn’t want the young prince to throw a wrench into my plans, now of all times. He’s been a thorn in my side in the past. But not anymore.”
He turned toward me and shot me a smug, knowing look. That alone wouldn’t have been enough to stir my temper, but when he leaned in a little closer, I could smell the distinct scent of blood on him. It wasn’t just anyone’s blood
. It was Declan’s. I would’ve known it anywhere, just like I would’ve known Lucienne’s, Mathias’s, Bjorn’s, and Malachai’s.
It was a bad idea to push myself and use my skills, but I still lashed out at him. I didn’t bother making threats that would just sound pathetic. Instead, I pooled every single ounce of my hatred and fury into a single attempt to hurt him.
The cuffs tightened around my wrists, making me hiss in pain. Spots started dancing in my vision and incoherent images from different lives flashed through my mind. Even so, my efforts were not in vain. The jolt of electricity hit Louis and he let out a low hiss of pain.
I’d have been happier about it had my efforts not been meaningless in the big picture. Within seconds, my magic died, absorbed by the cuffs, leaving me at the mercy of my foe. Louis narrowed his eyes at me. “Oh, dear,” he said. “Someone isn’t happy with his circumstances. Maybe we should reunite you with your beloved werewolf. Would that improve your mood?”
I doubted that very much, but seeing Declan with my own eyes would still be better than the not knowing. I didn’t grace Louis with an answer, though. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d use anything I said against me.
Louis didn’t appreciate having his questions ignored. For a few seconds, I could’ve sworn I saw the Lou Carcolh standing there, in front of me. When I blinked, the image had vanished. “Enough playing around,” he said. “Bring him, and be careful. This one’s still dangerous. He always has been and Mathias’s body gives him an extra boost.”
The shackles came undone, but that didn’t leave my arms free. The Dames Blanches had already wrapped a chain around me, one stronger than anything Alarians could ever create. They kept shooting me wary glances, and I assumed they’d believed I wouldn’t be able to use my magic at all.
My earlier defiance would doubtlessly make them all even more careful. Great.
As the Dames Blanches carried me out of the room, I almost laughed at the poetic irony. I’d captured so many people, bound them and made arrangements for their sometimes very painful deaths. In my time as an Alarian prince, I’d at least had the excuse that I’d been protecting helpless humans and removing real threats. Since then, my actions had been far more questionable.