The prison was empty, deserted, except for us. I passed several cells, all of them empty. Where were all the prisoners? I skidded to a stop and faced a wall of cells. The metal bars were rusted with age and stained with unidentifiable grime. Gasping for breath, I stumbled a few steps, trembling from head to toe as I blinked through my tears and stared at the empty cells.
I knew the signs of a panic attack.
“Jon? JON!” I screamed.
My voice echoed loudly in desperation. I ran into a cell and kicked a piece of shredded cloth. And then I ran into the one across from it. I ran into all the cells nearest me, fighting the bile that rose in my throat whenever I found a cell that was vacant. I didn’t care that Will and Leo were witnessing my moment of weakness. I was desperate. My knees shook, and I knew I was about to fall. I tried to control my breathing, but it was no use. The cell’s corridor was already spinning.
I should never have left him behind. I should have made him come with me.
“There’s no one here.” Leo’s voice was tinged with regret and sorrow. “I’m sorry, Elena,” he soothed. “We’re too late—”
“I’m here.”
The voice was faint and reverberated within the shadows from the opposite end of the chamber. But there was no doubt in my mind that it belonged to Jon.
“Jon!”
Frantic, I shot towards the voice, never wavering until I came to the exact location where I had heard him. I barreled into the last cell, searching through the semi-darkness for the man I loved.
And there he was. Even in the darkness, I could recognize his silhouette: the straight line of his shoulders, the slight wave in his hair, the hard line of his jaw, even the way he angled his head a little to the side. It was all him. My Jon.
“Finally,” he said. He stood up, and it took all of my self-control not to rush over and throw myself into his arms.
“I was about to give up on you.” He stepped forward into the light, and I gasped.
His face was gaunt and haggard. Scabs crusted and flaked over his skin like he’d been burned. And his once handsome face was covered in black veins.
Jon was infected with black magic.
CHAPTER 2
I CHOKED ON A sob and stepped back, shaking. “No, no, no. It can’t be.”
“Yes, it’s me, Elena.” Jon took another step towards me.
His smile widened, but his eyes were as black as tar, and they shone with something I couldn’t understand.
“I told them you would come. I told them about our…connection, that you’d never leave me behind.”
I was unable to form any words. It was him, my Jon, and yet he was very different. A chill spiraled through me, and I fought against the tears that welled in my eyes. The air moved behind me as Will and Leo came up to stand at my side. Their swords glimmered in the soft light, but they made no attempt to go after Jon. It was as though they were waiting for me to decide what to do. But all I could do was stare, praying and hoping that this was a bad dream, and yet I knew it wasn’t.
Jon raised his arms.
“Ah, perfect. My two loyal subjects. This indeed is a blessing. The high priest will be pleased.”
His black eyes met mine again and my heart gave a painful jolt, as though something inside was squeezing it. He reached out with his hand, and I recoiled at his rotten fingernails and the black threads that pulsed under the skin of his hand.
“Come, Elena. We can be together again. Nothing will ever come between us again, I promise.” He paused and then added in a gentle voice. “I love you.”
Silently, still beyond words, I stumbled back, shaking my head like a stubborn child. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but this wasn’t it. I knew it was some sort of trap, but I never once imagined that Jon would be lost to me.
Jon seemed to sense my reluctance to recognize him, who he truly was.
“It’s me, Elena. Jon.”
“He’s not Jon,” hissed Will, and his shoulders tensed. “Jon’s gone. Whatever this thing is…it isn’t him. Not anymore.”
Jon’s black eyes shifted in annoyance.
“Lies. All lies. Don’t listen to him, Elena. It’s me. Look at me. I’m the same man who saved you when everyone else left you to die. Remember? That was me. I took you to the witches. I took care of you.” He moved forward. “Let me take care of you again.”
I stumbled back into Leo. My sword was heavier than I’d ever remembered, and it started to slip from my trembling hand.
“But…” I faltered, trying to find a glimpse of the man I remembered inside this creature that stood before me. Was he even in there? Was this just another version of him or had his soul been corrupted by black magic? Was the man I loved lost forever?
“But you’re sick,” I said finally, for lack of a better word. And I don’t know how to make you better, I wanted to say. Tears fell freely down my face, and my throat throbbed with the emotions that cascaded in me.
“I’m not sick,” Jon said with a little smirk. It was almost like he enjoyed torturing me like this. “I am better.”
“Than what?” Will shot back. “Better than what?”
“Everything.”
Will and Leo exchanged a worried look. It was strange to see this shift in Jon’s behavior. I’d never seen this arrogance before. The real Jon was slipping away from me. It was like I was staring at someone else completely, a stranger.
“I am everything you’re not,” Jon continued. He focused on me. “I’m stronger, faster, smarter. I’m stronger than ever before. My body is resilient and fast. My senses are sharper, and I can see in the dark.”
“That explains the lack of light in here,” I added, and his eyes narrowed. Something in me went still and cold under his gaze, but I didn’t dare look away. I didn’t want him to see or sense how terrified I was. While I was terrified of him, I was more terrified of what I would be forced to do if he proved to have become completely corrupted.
“You’re frightened of me,” he said in a disturbingly casual voice.
My body started to shake.
“Don’t be,” he soothed. “There’s nothing to fear, my Elena.”
I flinched at his intimate use of my name.
“I am the same man with all the same experiences and memories. Nothing’s changed on those levels. The only thing that’s changed is that I embraced shadow and darkness, and it gave me real power. But it’s nothing to be frightened of. You yourself know of what I speak…of having power of your own. The power of darkness only wants to make you better, like me. What’s wrong with improving oneself?”
“My power is nothing like this,” I said. “You’re changed. The darkness has consumed you. Corrupted you.” My eyes burned as my stomach contracted into a painful ball.
Jon’s smile became wild.
“I have changed. I have the strength of five men, and I can do things that I never dreamed I could. It’s amazing really. Who wouldn’t want to taste this power? Anyone would be foolish not to want it. And you can have it, too, if you’ll join me. Think of what we could do together with our combined strength.”
I could swear there was a ghost of triumph on his face. “Join me. Join us.”
“I won’t.” I was surprised by my self-control. “Whatever this plight is, this infection that’s spreading in you, it is evil. I can feel it in my soul, and I know my intuition to be true, just as I know that the sun rises in the east every morning. It’s not right. It’s a sickness…a terrible sickness. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see what it’s doing to you?”
“Of course I can.”
He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. His pale alabaster skin seemed to radiate a sickly glow in the light.
“It made me a better man, the man I’d always wanted to be. I fought it at first, you know.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, and the familiar gesture nearly sent me to my knees.
“I fought for you,” he continued. “I fought it until there was no more fight left in me
…until I was a breath away from death. But once I accepted the darkness, everything became clear. I knew it was the right thing to do. Just like you will, Elena, when you embrace the darkness as I did. It’s wonderful. You’ll feel wonderful.”
He smiled at me again, and black liquid oozed from the small cuts and cracks in his once sensual lips.
“Come here, Elena,” he purred. He reached out again, and I felt myself leaning towards him.
“Don’t,” hissed Leo, and I froze, stupefied at what I had almost done.
Leo’s breath tickled my ear as he grabbed my elbow and squeezed harder than necessary.
“It’s you he wants. You can’t let yourself get close to him. Our Jon is gone. It’s too late.”
I’d learned to listen to Leo’s instincts and to trust my own. Our Jon is gone. His words resonated in my mind. I knew it to be true, but my heart refused to believe it.
I braced myself as I stared into those liquid-black eyes.
“You know I can’t follow you, Jon. Not anymore.”
The words stung my throat as I forced them out. I felt that my soul was dying as I stared at the creature who was once the man I loved. The man I love.
Anger flashed across Jon’s face, and his haggard features twisted grotesquely. He shook his head and smiled slowly.
“Ah, Elena,” he tsked. “You disappoint me.”
With a flick of his wrist, he drew a long silver sword from the sheath at his waist.
“I didn’t want to have to do this. I was hoping you would surrender to me without a fight. I thought our love would be enough, but you’ve always been infuriatingly stubborn. It’s a fault that will be cured soon enough. It’s not without regret that I’m going to have to kill you and your friends.”
His words hit me like a punch in the gut, and I strained to keep it together. Cold rippled through my soul. This might be the end of us. I might never get him back.
Jon’s eyes sparkled with primal fury as he paced with his weapon drawn. “The way I see things, Elena, you have two options. The smartest would be to accept my offer and come with me. The second option is that I kill all of you.” He raised his brows. “What will it be?”
Will and Leo moved in next to me.
This is it, I told myself. This is the day Jon dies. This is the day he is lost from me forever.
I tightened my grip on my short sword. I was shaking all over with an overpowering anger at the high priest. I swore that one day I would make him pay. I would make him pay and kill him.
And yet, even as I stood there clenching my weapon, I knew with all certainty that I could never hurt Jon. Even in his demented and infected state—I could never hurt him. Not ever. There had to be another way…
I clenched my jaw and took a careful step forward.
“The Jon I know would never threaten to kill or hurt me or his friends in any way.” I angled my body forward and added softly, “I know you’re in there, Jon. Fight it.”
For a brief moment, I saw a flicker of recognition on his face, but it disappeared so quickly I thought maybe I had imagined it.
Jon’s face wrinkled in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“That Jon was weak,” he said. “Clearly that Jon was weakened by his love for you. But I’m the stronger one, the better one. Your Jon is lost forever.”
“I don’t believe that.” My eyes burned and ached. “There has to be a way to stop this sickness, to stop the black magic from spreading to the Pit and the rest of Anglia. And when we find it, I’ll make you whole again. I promise.”
“You promise?” laughed Jon. “You can’t stop it. None of you can. Even as we speak, it has already spread to the southern and western parts of Anglia. Soon it will spread to every corner of Arcania and then to the rest of the world. Shadow and darkness will consume everything and everyone. It will never stop until it conquers all.”
As I frowned at this new bit of information, Jon lurched forward and cut the air in front of me with his sword.
Leo grabbed me from behind before I knew what was happening, and Jon’s sword missed my midsection by a hair. Moving faster than I’d ever seen him, Will lunged forward, kicked Jon in the chest, and slammed the prison door shut. In the same movement, he slipped the door’s iron bolt across and locked Jon inside.
In a rage, Jon threw himself against the metal bars.
“You will die! Die!” He let out a guttural howl that froze my blood. “Here! The faithless ones are here!” he cried out. “The steel maiden is here!”
Leo’s fingers dug into my elbow. “We need to move. Now!”
I knew he was right, but my legs didn’t want to move.
“I can’t…we can’t just leave him here.” But I took another step back as Jon rammed his head against the metal bars, thrashing like a wild animal.
“Yes we can, unless you want to die down here and become something like him,” hissed Will as he made his way back towards the exit.
“No!” I yanked my arm free and saw the annoyance on Leo’s face.
“This wasn’t part of the plan, Elena,” he whispered so that only I could hear him. “The plan was to rescue him if he was still alive—”
“He is still alive! He’s just sick.”
I bared my teeth, and blood pounded in my ears as my desperation increased. I needed to figure out a way to save Jon. “There’s got to be another way.”
Will halted and spun around. “If there is, let’s not think about it until we get out of here.” His eyes widened. “I hear movement coming from the upper levels. We need to leave.”
I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back on my hand. I looked again at Jon through the bars of his cell. Jon’s black eyes focused on me with an unnerving gleam of unnatural hunger. He seemed to have given up on fighting with the bars, and yet his body trembled. Sweat coated his face and skin as though he suffered from a high fever. The magic that flowed through his veins was an illness, dark and cold. I was not that different, but the magic that flowed through me was warm and light. Although we couldn’t be more different, we were both possessed by magic. And then something hit me.
“The witches. Yes, the witches can help.”
I looked into the face that I had once loved so dearly, but the sinister smile sent a new wave of shivers down my spine.
“If we took him back with us—
“And how do you plan on doing that? He’ll kill us all before we even make it out of the temple,” said Leo.
“We can’t do anything for him now. If you’re right, and I hope you are, his only chance is if we come back to get him out of here when it’s safer. Then we can make for Gray Havens.”
“I’m not giving up on him,” my voice cracked, and tears cascaded down my hot face.
Leo squeezed my arm. “You’re not. We’re not. But right now we can’t do anything for him. And if we stay, we’ll die. Jon wouldn’t want that.”
I blinked through my tears. I knew he was right. Jon just stared at me, unfeeling, unmoved, unimpressed. And although I looked into the face of a stranger, I knew deep inside that my Jon was there, trapped, and I was going to set him free.
Jon wrapped his fingers around the metal bars.
“Don’t leave me, Elena.” His words tore at my soul.
As I opened my mouth to say something, Leo tugged me away. At first I fought, but then I let him drag me away. They were right. There was nothing I could do for him.
“Elena! Don’t leave me. I love you…”
Cursing, I couldn’t even glance back at Jon. I could hardly keep up with Leo as we ran up the stairs because the pain of leaving Jon was consuming me. I barely managed to make my way up the stairs.
But I did.
Will disappeared out of the doors to the prison. I heard the clash of metal even before I saw the four temple guards. Their eyes, too, burned with the black sickness.
Will was the first one there, and he managed to throw them off with his long sword and quick stabbing skills. Leo rushed to his aid
as the guards rained down blows with their swords again and again. It was a miracle that Will and Leo deflected them. But they couldn’t last long because the guards moved just as skillfully as they did. And the guards never tired.
“Kill the steel maiden! Don’t let her get away,” one of the guards commanded.
A guard broke off his attack on Will and ran towards me, his sword raised above his head.
But I didn’t move. I was frozen. It was only when I heard Leo shout from somewhere that I snapped out of it.
I raised my weapon just in time to deflect the blow that would have landed on my skull. I sidestepped when the guard got near me, and I sliced my blade across his stomach. He howled as he stumbled, his face twisted in an ugly mixture of rage and cold murderous intent.
The wound would have disabled a regular man, but this man was infected with magic. And within a split second, he launched another attack. His sword flashed at me as he swung it in every direction, trying to kill me. I blocked, dodged, and parried all his swings. Except for one.
His sword slashed into my left thigh. I cried out in pain as I stumbled back into a wall. A heavy gold drapery cushioned my fall, but I could feel the blood dripping down my leg and into my boot.
I had to fight to stay alive. I shot a glance at Will and Leo. Sweat coated their flushed faces, and their eyes showed the same frustration and fear that I felt. We couldn’t outmatch them. They would kill us all in the end. But I got an idea.
“Will! Leo!”
I kicked my attacker in the knee with my good leg, and he went down. Without stopping I grabbed a fist full of drapes and yanked them down. The long, gold drape billowed behind me as I ran in a circle around my assailant and tangled him inside. Will and Leo immediately saw my plan, and before the guards registered what was happening, they grabbed the drape and ran the fabric tight around the other three guards. The guards wiggled and screamed and toppled over.
“Hurry, this won’t keep them for long, and more guards are bound to come,” said Leo as he and Will picked up their swords.
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