She felt sick. She did not like the eager way he looked at her, how his fingers tightened around her boney knees.
“Tell me,” he pleaded, “what was it like? What was he like?”
Lena asked, “Who?” She had a feeling she knew precisely who Gregain meant.
He chuckled. “Don’t bother lying to me, Celena.” Gregain reached toward her face, cupping a cheek as if this were a tender moment. “All those years in the College, you refused to cast any destruction spells fearing you’d bring him forth. I was foolish not to see it.”
“See what?” she hissed, her voice sounding venomous.
Gregain stood. “That you are his link to this world. He needs you to call him forth, and since you will not do it on your own, I will call him forth for you. Perhaps he will reward me. Perhaps,” he paused as his eyes twinkled a sick, haughty twinkle, “he will reward me with you.”
She wanted to vomit. This was not the man she looked up to. This was a monster. “You’re the one who rose the dead outside the city.” She spoke it not as a question but as a fact.
“Yes. It is truly a shame that our kingdom does not keep body-filled undercrofts beneath our chapels like Sumer. What a bloody sight it would’ve been. But the dead serve their purpose. With the College locked down, no one will be coming after us for a while.”
She spat, “How did you get us out?”
Gregain glanced to Kyler, and the guard held out a hand as he cradled the tome to his chest. The hand Lena spotted was cut deeply, still bleeding from the fresh wound. Necromancy for the dead and blood magic for the utter control of the living. Blood magic got them out, probably compelled the guards to not see them as they went by with an unconscious Lena.
Was there anything Gregain would not stoop to?
“You act as though the magic disgusts you,” Gregain said, folding his arms across his chest. “It is his magic, so I suggest you get used to it. Once he’s here, there will be no room for weakness.”
Fighting the breakdown, the panic that started to set in, Lena cried, “Why are you doing this?” Was her promotion to apprentice a game to him? Did he simply not want her seeing Vale and Tamlen because he wanted her to himself this entire time? How wrong…how disgusting.
Gregain was the wrong man to look up to.
“Why did you take the tome? Why did you hide it from me? Why did you read from it?” Gregain shocked her with what he knew. “Oh, yes, Celena. I know you read from it. I put a hex on it so that I would feel when it was used. I saw you with those men, every time you had the book near you. What a dirty girl you are.” He was before her once more, running a gloved finger over her mouth. “I would have preferred you save yourself for me, but what’s done is done. Once he rises, he will throw those men back into the ground—or better yet, make them his slaves. Force them to conquer the known world at his will.”
Jerking away from him, Lena muttered, “You disgust me.”
He laughed. “My dear, I only do what he calls me to do. You and I are his servants. We do his bidding.” He went inside his long robe sleeve, withdrawing a curved dagger. It was stained with fresh blood; the same dagger he used to cut Kyler. “It is with our blood that he will rise. You may try to fight it, but his return has been awaited by underground mages all across the land.”
She eyed Kyler, whose flesh seemed to grow paler and paler. Sweat pooled on his forehead. His red hair looked browner when it was drenched in sweat. His armor still shone with an anti-magic barrier, but that was the only part of him that looked okay. The rest of him looked like shit. “Fine, do with me whatever you like,” Lena said, “but let Kyler go. He’s sick. He doesn’t look like he’ll make it much longer—”
“Oh, I highly doubt he will,” Gregain spoke flippantly. “He’s bound to me, now. He will serve me until his spirit dies, which, by the look of him, will be very soon.” He slapped Kyler’s back with his dagger-free hand. “Don’t worry, my boy, after you’re dead, I’ll raise you right back up. You’ll probably be of more use to me after you’re dead, anyway.”
Kyler didn’t even nod. He stared blankly ahead, unaware of everything.
Gregain moved his attention back to Lena, saying, “I do appreciate the self-sacrifice, though. A rare thing nowadays. Usually everyone’s in it for themselves. You’re a rare breed, a mage capable of so much if you put your mind to it. After he’s here, I will teach you everything I know…” His eyes fell to her chest.
Lena didn’t think Zyssept would appreciate that pointed look at her breasts, considering the old god thought she would be his wife, his goddess of death. She thought about breaking the news to him, telling Gregain that they weren’t on the same page here, but she knew he’d only laugh. He was too self-involved and haughty. How had she missed all the signs in the last ten years?
“Together,” Gregain paused, gliding the dagger across his palm, cutting deep. He knelt near her right hand, cupping his injury as he cut through the rope holding her right arm back. He took the steel to her palm, cutting her in much the same way. Adrenaline roared in her brain, through her veins; she hardly felt the wound. “Together, us blackbloods will rule the world. Kingdoms will fall, old gods will rise, and we will be together at last.”
Everything Lena had ever known was a lie. Bastian had told Gregain that her non-existent brother had started the fire. He’d lied for her, to protect her from the wrath of the King. Gregain was not a morally upright man; he always hid his secrets of necromancy and blood magic. He was not a mage to look up to, not a man to admire. Everything was a lie; was nothing true?
Her breath came up short, and no matter how hard she tried to regain it, she could not. The panic that set in when she woke here took over, her thoughts jumbled. Tears formed in her eyes. This was not how it should be, how any of it should be.
Gregain pressed his bleeding hand against hers, their cuts and blood mingling and mixing with the pressure. He smiled like a madman, and Lena had only one thought.
This was not how she wanted to die.
Valerius was relaxing in the bathhouse, enjoying the waters that Tamlen had heated up for him. Tamlen’s magic was good for one thing, he supposed. Though his relaxation was cut short as something strange nagged at him. A short, tingling feeling rose in his chest, his heart suddenly weighing a ton. He could hardly breathe.
What was this?
He’d been thinking about Lena, about how right it felt to hold her, to have both her and Tamlen with him. They fit together like puzzle pieces—something he would never have said in his first life, both about a woman and about Tamlen. They were enemies…and now they were so much more, just as Lena meant so much more to him. He was remembering the last few days, wanting things never to change, when the bizarre feeling surfaced inside him.
Though he never felt like this before, Valerius knew something was wrong. Lena was in trouble.
He hopped out of the waters, barely able to throw on his clothes before running out of the door. He held onto his boots, hopping into them as he bounded up the steps, ignoring the strange look that Harry gave him as he cleaned the empty tavern area. Harry was a nice enough man, didn’t ask many questions. Which was good; Valerius didn’t think he could explain what he felt or how he knew Lena was in harm’s way.
He made it to the top floor of the inn when he skidded to a stop. Tamlen was in the hall, his eyebrows together. His dark stare rose to Valerius, and within two long strides, he stood before him. “You feel it, too.” It wasn’t a question.
Valerius, deep down, knew. “Lena’s in trouble.” He stood motionless as Tamlen grasped his shoulder, inclining his head slightly toward him.
“Let’s go save our woman,” he said. With no other words, Tamlen was the first to rush down the spiral staircase, not even throwing Harry a passing glimpse as he ran out of the inn.
Valerius threw Harry a wave as he went by, his mind ruminating on what the other man said. Our woman. Lena was theirs. Theirs to love, theirs to protect. He would never let her down; nor w
ould Tamlen, he knew.
Their legs drew them to the gates of Rivaini, which were large and…closed? There was a crowd around it, whispering urgent and confused statements that his mind was too frantic to comprehend.
Valerius moved to the nearest town guard, saying, “We need to get out there.”
“Gate’s closed. Undead have been spotted. No one’s allowed in.” The guard stared mostly at Tamlen beneath his helmet, eyeing the other man’s scar. Enough time had passed since their first lives that they were not readily recognizable, but Tamlen had inadvertently caused the death of all those who died in his rebellion. Perhaps the history books had remembered him more than King Midas’s jilted lover and champion.
“What about out?” Tamlen practically growled. He could sound downright menacing when he had to be. Valerius was glad that they were now on the same side. “Surely you are not locking us inside the city? If we want to take a chance with the undead, will you not let us?” With each spoken word, Tamlen inched closer to the guard, until he stood, towering over the man in metal armor.
The guard sighed, gesturing for them to follow. They pushed past throngs of people who crowded around the closed gates, peeking through the iron-wrought squares for a chance at seeing a lumbering corpse. The guard led them to a man-sized door on the lower right part of the gate. It was barred as heavily as the giant gate itself, and the guard was slow to unlatch each one, even though there were no giant, hungry hordes of undead in sight.
“Get out,” the guard said, pissed. “And don’t think you’ll be coming back in until after the King gives the all-clear.”
Valerius and Tamlen moved to the gated door’s other side, and the guard immediately relatched and relocked it the very moment they were out. Valerius glanced at Tamlen, saying, “She wouldn’t raise more. There’s another necromancer here.”
Nodding once, Tamlen growled, “The fucking enchanter. Gregain.”
Lena’s heart was at her feet. Deflated, defeated, depressed. She was sad that it had come to this, shocked that she hadn’t a clue about his true nature. Was she truly so oblivious, or was Gregain simply a fantastic liar? She wasn’t sure which was worse. If the entire College could fall for his schtick, what would happen if the world encountered him?
He wanted to rule the world with Zyssept, and take Lena as his prize.
She felt her ragged breaths start to slow. Gregain’s hand had moved to clutch hers, their injuries mingling. The bastard was power-hungry and evil, delving into magics that were banned in Rivaini and Sumer. He wanted her? He wouldn’t get her. She would fight him, fight Zyssept, as long as she could.
This would not be her end. Not here, not today.
Just as suddenly as his hand clasped hers, Gregain pulled back, wincing and howling in an outcry of pain as he stumbled, yanking his hand away. His hand, where he’d cut, steamed as pink and red wisps of smoke rose in the air. “What,” he spat, “did you do to me?” His eyes—wrinkled and full of knowledge—fell upon her hand, gazing at her wound. In a split second, fear grew, replacing and dwarfing his rage. “What have you done?” he whispered, near silent.
Lena glanced at the deep cut in her palm, eyes widening as she realized that her blood was not red. It pooled black, dripping off her hand, sizzling as it touched the wooden armrest, burning holes into the stone floor. Her blood had never before been black.
She was a true blackblood. Gregain wasn’t. Zyssept wanted her, not him.
Gregain fell to his knees, dropping the dagger as he gripped the wrist on the burning hand. “No, no, I—I don’t understand. I did everything right. Our blood was supposed to bring him forth—” As he spoke, the wound on his palm formed numerous pustules and boils. His skin greyed and turned sickly, an ashen color that slowly traveled up his arm and throughout his body. When he lifted his eyes to Lena, she saw that the blood vessels in his eyes had popped, that the water that lined his eyes was no longer water, but blood. When he blinked, tears of maroon trailed down his cheeks, landing in his goatee.
The weather took a turn for the worse, starting to downpour outside. Lena felt herself starting to cry along with him, though for an entirely different reason. Gregain was a mage she looked up to, yet he turned to the darkness that threatened each and every mage. It was worse than that though, for a Demon hadn’t possessed him, hadn’t made him do any of this. Every single part of this was Gregain’s fault, and his fault alone.
He collapsed, his breathing ragged and pained. Gregain’s skin shrunk to his bones, veins popping and drying. Blood poured from his mouth in a waterfall of gore, a display Lena could not look away from. His eyes were on her, even as he withered away on the floor, dying a most certain and painful death. They seemed to roll back into his skull as he shrunk, all his musculature fading until he was nothing but skin and bones, full of oozing pus.
Kyler, the sickly guard, fell without warning, eyes remaining open even though Lena knew there was no longer life behind them. His life, what little spirit he had, was linked to Gregain’s. Blood magic was not a subject Lena knew much about, but she knew that its effects were usually irreversible. Kyler, as sad as it was, was as good as dead the moment Gregain tied the guard to himself.
Tears coursing down her face, Lena reached her free, injured hand toward the dagger. Her black blood dribbled on the floor as she stretched her arm as far as it would go, given that her other arm and her feet were still tied to the chair. With each droplet, the air around her sizzled and burned. Her blood was acidic, eating away at anything it touched. Odd, then, how it didn’t harm her.
Lena managed to grab the hilt of the dagger, ignoring the melting metal in her hand as she cut through the rope tying her other arm and her feet back. Once she was free, she dropped the dagger. Its grip was a mess of molten, reddened steel. She moved around the puddle of blood that surrounded Gregain—a puddle that was the size of a horse. All the blood in his body, judging by the sheer amount of it.
The Noresh tome sat on Kyler’s chest, and she stumbled toward it, placing both hands on it before she could think. Swearing as she realized it, Lena tore her injured hand off the tome, not wanting to hurt it…but when she drew it back, she saw that it was no longer injured. The wound was healed.
Did the tome do it, or something else?
Lena bit the inside of her cheek as she glanced at Gregain’s corpse. Responsible thoughts filled her brain—the College must be notified, the King told of Kyler’s death—so many things that had to be done, and all the suspicion would turn on her.
She couldn’t go back.
She shouldn’t.
She…had to, lest Zyssept claim her completely. Maybe the other enchanters could help her—but would they? Or would they suspect her of aiding Gregain all along? Everyone knew how close she was to him. She’d be seen as complicit.
Blinking, fighting back the nausea and the anxiety that crept inside her, Lena clutched the tome to her chest, hurrying out in the rain. She no longer could hold back her tears, and she cried harder than she had in years. The last time she’d cried so much…was when someone important to her had died.
Bastian.
Lena gazed down at the tome in her hands, the one she held against her like a child. The tome seemed to speak to her, telling her where to go, what she had to do to feel alive and okay after what she’d been through. Only one man could comfort her right now.
She ran.
She ran and she ran and she ran, past the point where her lungs would explode, past the point of crying now. She was no child; a mage’s betrayal should not have been such a surprise. All mages were capable of such destruction, blood and death. Gregain, even though he was the respected high enchanter, was no different. She was no different.
Perhaps she was the worst mage of all, considering what she was about to do.
Stupid and foolish. But she needed him. Only now did she know she held the power to bring him back.
Zyssept be damned. She wasn’t going to sit down and let him take her. She wasn’t goin
g to surrender to him. She’d use his power, the power he gave her—use it against him. An old god or not, Lena refused to take whatever he was going to give her sitting down.
She ran through the abandoned lands, farmlands that were too far from Rivaini, lacking in nutrients to grow anything worthwhile. These lands laid dormant until farmers rotated their crops again. Running past them, through them, the thunderstorm died down to a mere drizzle, her feet sloshing in the mud, her yellow robes completely soaked. The tome, by its own magic, remained dry by her chest.
Lena was logical enough to know she shouldn’t do this, but at the same time, she was tired of hiding from what she could do. She did not want to rule the world with Zyssept or Gregain, but she shouldn’t be fearful of what she was capable of. She had power in her blood that she couldn’t even dream of.
When the plague ran through the land years ago, when Lena was just a girl of thirteen, the King had every infected corpse dumped in a heap far from the city and buried. New hills surrounded the farms of Rivaini, hills that covered the tombless corpses beneath, untouched by man. Gregain’s magic hadn’t risen these corpses. It would take time, for hundreds of people inside the city’s walls collapsed with the disease, but she would find him sooner or later. She’d find him, even if she had to dig through every mound, go through each corpse.
It was perhaps her intuition, her gut, but her feet knew the way.
Finding a hill, Lena sat, her legs crossed. The rain above her stopped, the only water running down her was what was leftover in her wet hair and clothes. She swiped at her eyes, finding that her tears were dry. Good. She didn’t want to seem too much of a mess, even if she was a big one.
Her fingers opened the tome, to the very same page she read from when she’d risen the others. Vale and Tamlen. But for some reason she could not think about them now; she could only think of feeling Bastian’s warm, comforting arms around her.
An innate, natural talent took hold and Lena spoke the words written in blood on the pages before her. The power coursed through her, flooding her with raw energy. It felt good, almost too good. She didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, even when she heard shouting behind her. Vale and Tamlen ran to her, falling to their knees beside her. Vale tore the book from her grasp, tossing it onto the wet grass.
Spells and Necromancy: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Unfortunate Magic Book 1) Page 20