Lust Born

by Jacquie Underdown

  Ariana squeezes her eyes and lips tightly shut—to block out the sight of this reality and to stem the vomit from finding passage past her throat. Her body trembles against the vines digging into her ribs and numbing her arms and legs. When she can stomach the scene again, Gideon is striding from the room with the spell book in his hands.

  Chapter 48

  Ariana’s gaze meets Hadeon’s. His face is swollen and the left side is pulverized, a gaping gash with dark red blood leaking down his cheek and neck. She groans low to see it. His beautiful face.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It will heal.”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t believe any of this is happening. Domascus. Tuti…”

  Hadeon takes a shuddering breath inward. “He fucking killed my mother, Ariana. It was him all this time. He masterminded this whole charade. There is no Sun Queen. It has been him.” His lips twist with revulsion, and he spits blood onto the floor. “He was the one who planted Sonnig as the false king.” Hadeon shakes his head, such anger in his eyes they are almost as black as his father’s. “How could I have missed this?” The windows shake, the lights in the room tinkle, and dust falls to the floor from the quaking ceiling. “I would’ve killed him.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Ariana, tears filling her eyes. “For letting you down. I should be able to get us out of this mess and I can’t even perform a spell. And now he has the spell book…”

  Hadeon sighs. “Remember the real perpetrator here.” Hadeon nods toward the closed door. “He’s been eating the hearts of Enchantresses to gain their power like he is nothing but a fucking animal. But even a Mira wouldn’t feed on the innocent.”

  Ariana’s eyes widen and she gasps. “Is that why he tried to cut my heart out?”

  Hadeon nods, his eyebrows knitting together. “He said that if he can eat it while the power is still thriving in the heart, he assimilates it. That’s why he can do magic. You are the final frontier, Ariana. He’s been waiting for you to reach your pinnacle. All this time he’s deceived us. And I was the fool who delivered you to him on a platter,” he says, lips trembling with his anguish. “My father. My own flesh and blood. He thinks he is Mother Nature Herself and can do as he wishes. Even when it goes against everything Mother Nature stands for.”

  She remembers the words of the Oracle. “Which is everything I stand for.”

  Hadeon sighs.

  “What about the army? The barrier spell breaches?”

  Hadeon shakes his head and growls. “He’s been feeding us all lies. Has the battalion out there now chasing ghosts. No wonder we couldn’t find anything. Have never found anything.”

  “That’s why the spell book says nothing about the Sun Queen. She doesn’t exist.”

  Her gaze drops to Tuti’s dead body and the greatest sense of betrayal swirls in her veins, making her throat feel sick and tight. “And what about Tuti?” Her voice is weak.

  “A mere means to an end until he no longer needed her.”

  “Why? What does he want?”

  “He wants to end the matriarchal rule.”

  Ariana gasps as she has her next thought. “So it was Gideon who killed my mother and grandmother?”

  Hadeon sighs and nods.

  Tears well in her eyes and her lips tremble. “How do we stop this? I don’t know what to do? I need my necklace—”

  The door thrusts open with a gush and Gideon strides inside. Ariana snaps her head to watch him strut across the library floor, a smug smirk on his face. In his hands, he has a blade. His gaze meets Hadeon’s and he says something to him.

  Hadeon spits blood again.

  Gideon laughs and reaches for the long coffee table. He yanks on it and pulls it into the middle of the room, the noise of the legs scraping against the floor drums in Ariana’s chest. He rests the blade on the tabletop and looks at Hadeon, face expressionless.

  Ariana’s breaths quicken.

  Striding closer to Hadeon, he whispers a spell in a deep voice. Despite not knowing the words, she can hear the rhythm and cadence. The vines around Hadeon snap and crack and he falls to the floor. He crouches and lurches at his father, but another spell is cast, catching Hadeon in mid-air. His body stiffens and straightens. Gideon directs Hadeon with his hands, floats his body to the table and lowers him until his back rests on the tabletop.

  Ariana’s eyes flicker from Hadeon to the blade. Her pulse sounds in her ears, drowning all the silence out. Fear and anxiety swirls in her cells. Gideon’s going to cut his heart out and all she can do is watch. Despondency and hopelessness greets her like a boot to the guts and all air gushes from her lungs.

  Hopeless. Unable to do anything to help the only man she has ever and will ever love.

  Gideon grips the blade of the knife, and Ariana screams, “No! No! No! Stop it!” She struggles against the vines until they rub away her flesh.

  Gideon looks up at her, again with that smug grin on his lips.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” she screams.

  He looks away as though she is nothing more than an annoying mosquito and glares down at Hadeon. He holds the blade above Hadeon’s chest.

  So many memories flash through Ariana’s mind, of her childhood, the days spent in the library escaping to faraway places in books. She thinks of all the homes she lived in, all the foster siblings and parents, all the schools she went to, and all the places she worked. The memory of that first night she met Hadeon and looked into his ferocious face, and how since that day, despite Soul Seekers, Demon Hounds, Shifters, and countless near-death experiences, he has strived, always, to give her more—a permanent home, a position in life, unequivocal love. He has done everything to give her more.

  How can she watch as this man, this life, and this love, is ripped from her by someone so malevolent and selfish? A little of the gloom dissipates into the air around her, replaced by a desperate need to help Hadeon. After all he has done for her she owes him that much. More of the darkness fades, more of the fear scatters away like pin-legged beetles. Her mind is operating so fast, thought after thought, instantaneously flashing from one to the next.

  She remembers all the times he helped her through and tried to draw her courage out of hiding and into the light; how he tried to help her reach the stars rather than into the dark depths of her apathetic past.

  Face forward, Ariana.

  You are the creator of your destiny.

  Fear chases fear, so turn your back to it.

  The fog from her mind clears and she is lucid and alive, buzzing.

  You are the most powerful weapon we have. Can you feel that inside of you, Ariana?

  Energy bursts through her limbs and bones, igniting her cells. Hot and bright and so strong, she is vibrating with magic.

  Intention comes before words. The final narration in the spell book. Before now, it seemed like gibberish and unhelpful. But it echoes what Phenella was telling her about using magic intuitively without words.

  Ariana breathes in deeply as Gideon thrusts the blade down toward Hadeon’s chest. Fury shrieks from her mouth as a long, angry scream. How dare Gideon think he can create her future for her?

  Time slows down. Gideon’s movements grind like rusty cogs in a wheel. She pulls all life from outside and inside, harnessing it, using it, letting it swirl and swell in her veins. Her natural pool of magic ignites like a flame to dynamite and explodes within—fierce and potent.

  She assesses the scene—the twist of Gideon’s violent features, the black desolation in his eyes. She feels the warmth and love that emanates from Hadeon despite his strength, courage, and brutality.

  For the first time in her life, clarity settles in.

  I am the only one for this job.

  I am the balance.

  I am the strength.

  I am the creator of my life.

  With the ease of a thought, she captures Gideon’s arm and flings it through the air. The knife flies out of his hand. It lands on the floor with a clank. Gideon looks at
her, such ferocity in his eyes and a little bit of something else—fear.

  In that moment, she knows she has him.

  His lips move fast, but she slaps a metal tether over his mouth and threads it to his flesh with blunt nails. She harnesses him with a spell and thrusts him upward. Dust and plaster shower down as his back crashes against the ceiling. He hangs there, arms and legs flailing.

  She frees herself from the vines and lands two feet on the mess of books piled on the floor. She releases Hadeon from the spell Gideon had cast. He gasps and sits up, breaths heavy as he looks around the room and then up to his father.

  “Do you want me to imprison him?” she asks.

  Hadeon shakes his head, still peering up at his father. “No. His soul is black. He is but a stain on this land.”

  Ariana nods and flings Gideon’s big body through the library windows. They shatter as he smashes into the glass with a thunderous clang and falls six hundred feet down to the moat below—exactly the fate Gideon had given her grandmother. She weights him down when she hears the splash so that she is certain he sinks to his death under the silvery depths.

  Hadeon rushes to her and pulls her into his arms. His chest is heaving, as is hers. “Oh, flower,” he breathes, and presses his lips to hers, but shifts back, wincing from the pain in his face.

  She sinks against his chest and melts into his body, so grateful to have her arms wrapped around her love, her life, her king. “I love you so much,” she says.

  He takes her face between his giant palms and looks deep into her eyes. “I love you too. Thank you.”

  She tenses a smile and lifts her fingers to his face, hovering an inch above his flesh. “Are you okay?”

  Hadeon grimaces, but nods. “I’ll be fine. I heal quickly.”

  Stepping back so she can look at him again, she kisses his jaw, his neck. He smiles and pulls her into his arms and she remains there, breathing in his life and love, so grateful that she was able to pull herself together and find the strength to finish Gideon.

  “I’m still shocked,” she says against his chest. “To think that Gideon was behind all of this mess is surreal. All these years of unrest.”

  Hadeon kisses the top of her head. “I know. Marseon will be devastated when I tell her.”

  Ariana shudders and closes her eyes for a brief moment. “But it’s the end now. Thank the fucking moons it’s over.”

  He nods and tries to smile, but he can’t quite manage it. Instead, he squeezes her tighter. She never wants him to let her go.

  Chapter 49

  Hadeon takes Veruka and rushes out into the night to call the battalions back from their imaginary war—they are chasing mere ghosts. Meanwhile, Ariana organizes a carrier dragon to send a message to the evacuees to return home as soon as they can and to the Sealusters to abort their evacuation measures.

  She walks down the deserted halls of the palace, past the closed door in the hall where Domascus’s body lies. Gazing at the door, her stomach clenches from guilt, for not being quick enough to save him, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers with her palm against the door, but not willing to open it and look upon his body. She will leave that to village undertakers once they arrive back. The same for Tuti who still lies in the library and Gideon’s body lost under the silver waters of the moat. She shudders and strides faster away down the darkened hall, wanting to get away from these memories and these deaths.

  Once the bodies are removed, she will seal the wing off, the remembrances, extending as far back as her grandmother, are simply too much. They need to move on from all this with a new generation.

  She tears down the barrier spell, a mere fragment left by the past. It has no place in her new future.

  The troops arrive back a little after midnight and the evacuees some hours after. She organizes the staff to prepare a lunch for the villagers and palace residents, so she can brief them on the events. Ariana can imagine that the rumors would be rife, and she needs to settle them down with the truth.

  * * * *

  Sitting at the stage beside Hadeon, Ariana looks out at all the faces extended around long tables in the field. The buzz of rumor and intrigue is thick in the air. She stands and motions for silence. Every woman, man, and child looks up at her.

  Her people.

  Safe.

  Ariana raises her voice and relives the events of the night before through words. Her story is met by cries of disbelief. The same sensations of shock and betrayal she felt last night and is still fresh in her heart.

  “Much of the devastation that spread across Fiore was an illusion Gideon masterminded. Playing on our belief in these long-told stories, he cast spells on wives and husbands so their family believed their souls had been stolen. He burnt the land and ate the hearts of the innocent so he could grow stronger. He fed on the fear that grew on this land and inside of us like a virus.”

  “Why?” comes the questioning from the crowd. “Why would Mother Nature create such an anomaly? The king’s own father?”

  Ariana lifts her hand and the hum dies down. These were the questions she asked herself all night as sleep failed to find her, until early this morning when the answer stung her tongue.

  “We are all the living, breathing life force that we call Mother Nature. We, as a collection of mind and soul and body, all working and living together, are Mother Nature. But when our own self-belief wanes, we as a collective create anomalies like Gideon in order to remind us of our inner-strength. And if we are not able to stand up, face the fear, and defeat the demons, that’s when we know it’s time for someone stronger to step up to the plate.

  “It’s merely the dichotomies of life that exist within each of us. To know courage, one has to feel fear. To know love, one has to experience hate. To have self-belief, one has to know what it’s like to exist without it. To recognize loyalty and trust, one has to have been betrayed. To truly understand the value of peace, harmony, and acceptance, one has to almost lose it and taste the opposite. Last night had all of those. We had a traitor among the ranks trying to destroy this beautiful world. And I had to be reminded of my own strength and use my power against him, because I sure as hell was not letting him take over.”

  Ariana reaches down onto the table beside her for the spell book and holds it in the air. The crowd gasps as it beats in her hand.

  “Spells and Such,” she says, “is folklore. The same folklore Gideon had fooled the entire world with, with his fabrication of the Sun Queen. He managed to trick the population as to her existence.” Ariana taps the book with her hand. “But one doesn’t gain strength from a book. Strength already exists inside oneself. This can help you find it within you, but you won’t find self-belief and strength inside these pages. You will only ever find outside of yourself what already exists inside of you. That was the lesson I learned last night. By relying on this, I was denying the power I already possessed.” She taps the book again. “And thought I would find it in here. Only in here. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  She takes the book and tosses it into the flames of the fire pit that burns behind her. The crowd gasps, but she lifts her hands to silence them.

  “Trust me. We must return to looking inside ourselves, not outward for answers.” She presses her hand to her heart. “It’s all here. The spell book was written by us. The scrawls splashed across the pages have come from inside us. It’s already here. A very wise man told me a story once about when he was a little boy training to be the greatest Warrior Fiore has ever known.”

  She recounts Hadeon’s story to a spellbound crowd.

  “But what I take from that story is what saved me last night and saved this land from being destroyed by Gideon. Self-belief is what you need to reach the stars. Fear is what gave Gideon strength and fueled his confidence. Our fear. Our lack of self-belief. That’s what created him. He’s a lesson we must learn from and will learn from.”

  Hadeon stands and comes to her side, his ar
m around her waist. “From this day forward, we will be a civilization of strength, each knowing our own worth and power,” he says in a deep, rumbling voice. “You have all been blessed with your own innate qualities, and each and every one of those creates this beautiful land. Know your own value. Love each other with everything you have. And we will once again prosper.”

  A low roar spreads across the tables, which grows louder.

  “Together,” yells Ariana, “we will create a better future.” She looks to her husband, into his fawn eyes, and whispers, “Together we will create a better future.”

  Hadeon grins wide and nods. He pulls her into his arms and kisses her hard on the lips. The crowd cheers and laughter spreads, buzzing in the air like a living force, dipping and diving above their heads.

  Marseon stands on the stage beside her brother and wraps an arm around his waist. Tears are in her eyes, but she is smiling. She kisses his cheek, and the crowd cheers again.

  Ariana looks out at the crowd, at her family beside her. This is her home now. This is her destiny. And she helped create it.

  Chapter 50

  Big bulbous tents made of brightly colored silk, stages, chairs, eateries, and shops freckle the landscape. Deep purple mountains slice the horizon in the distance. The buzz of voices, laughter, and singing whirls on the wings of the wind and greets Ariana as she and Hadeon reach the summit of a small white-grassed hill. Veruka, her warm flank nestling between Ariana’s thighs, purrs.

  People have flocked from all corners of Fiore to be here, and they hum excitedly around the site of the carnival. What a magical sight as Enchantresses perform spells for children who sit cross-legged at their feet, mouths wide with wonder. Or actors and actresses strut across stages, re-enacting their version of the showdown between Ariana and Gideon.

  Singers with harps or bright blue violins play and sing songs telling the story of the new queen and her journey to Fiore. Enormous, furry bees buzz in the air or on the ground, awaiting passengers to take on joyrides around Pursia. The smells that linger in the air are mouth-watering.