Leander stroked his wiry beard. “Very good. Let me ask. How did you get her here? You must tell me everything of what got you here. Everything—the answer is going to be in the details.”
~~~
Skye was still passed out, and Aiden and Leander were eating rice by the time Aiden had recited most of the details since the fire.
Aiden was exhausted by the telling. It wasn’t until he spoke the words of what had happened, that he realized what a truly dark path they had slipped onto.
He shifted on the large, smooth rock he sat on, as the last words of the tale left his mouth. “I should check on Skye.”
Leander shook his head. “No need. Theo’s in there with her.”
Aiden started to stand. “Nonetheless…”
“No. Sit. She is fine with Theo.”
Aiden inched downward, not wanting to offend, but also not sure what the proper protocol was with imaginary people around. Imaginary people that watched over his wife.
Pleased that Aiden sat, Leander leaned forward on his rock, eyes bursting with excitement, words flying like bullets. “This is fascinating. The two of you. Maybe. Maybe I can help. But I do not put stock in those that think they can help others, so why should I think that of myself? I have outlived all of the greats in these mountains, and even the most enlightened beings eventually didn’t know what to do with me. So maybe I’m useless, maybe not. But here is where I think we start.”
“Shoot.”
“You are strong, correct?”
Aiden nodded. “Think Hercules.”
“Now that was a crazy bastard.”
“You knew him?”
“Eh, let’s just say our paths crossed a number of times. But I was…ahem,” he coughed, “dark back then.”
Aiden didn’t care to explore that. “Back to Skye, what can we do?”
“You are willing to do anything?”
“I would move mountains for her. So yes. Whatever you need.”
“Excellent. Excellent. Here is what I know.” Leander went back to his beard, twirling it around his pinky finger. His twitchy eye had subsided. “There’s something that happened in our blood. Something that’s fucked in it. The mix of Panthenite and Malefic—something gets altered when the bloods mix, and we don’t just feel the ecstasy in our bodies like other Malefics when we injure or kill—we are instantly addicted to it. Addicted in a very bad way.”
Aiden nodded. Leander understood exactly what was happening to Skye.
“You were almost there,” Leander continued. “You were so close. But close isn’t helping her, is it? Let’s create a symbiotic relationship—she gets to cut you. You get to train her.”
“We tried that.”
“Yes. That’s where you were close, but you failed, didn’t you? Did you try it measured? Or did you wait every time until her skin crawled? Until she was ready to kill for it—and then the cuts were deep, weren’t they?”
Aiden started to see where this was going. “The latter,” he admitted.
“Yes. You fought it. She fought. You didn’t accept it.” Leander held his thumb and forefinger up for emphasis. “Little by little. We wean her. It won’t be easy, but she’ll learn to control it. The cravings. She gets what she needs—and I repeat—needs. You cannot cut her off. You have no imagination on how long it has taken me not to hurt people.”
Aiden nodded. The trek to this spot was beginning to be worth it. “Will it work?”
Maniacal laughter burst from Leander, echoing off the mountainside. He curled over, slapping his knee, before he managed to control himself. “How should I know? I’m just making this up. It’s never been done. I never had a handy cut-able Panthenite around myself. And I’ve been living on this rock for the past eighty years. Do you really think I know?”
The slight confidence Aiden had begun to feel, was already waning.
“And you,” Leander pointed at him, “you are not innocent either. You want her to need you. Right or wrong. It’s a hard power to deny, someone desperately needing you. You need to wean yourself too.”
“But—”
“Idiot. Do not argue.” Leander jabbed a crooked finger at Aiden. “You were together before this, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Then get over yourself. You will be together without it. What we try here—this is a way to make it happen, until her mind isn’t deranged anymore. You can take it. And she needs it. And in the meantime, you can make her into the warrior you think she will be.”
“But will we ever not be…crazy?”
There was a long pause as Leander looked out into the valley. Then he jumped. “Oh. You’re looking at me? You think I have that answer? Do I not look crazy?”
Aiden’s head bobbed, trying to give Leander the benefit of the doubt. “Possibly. Maybe not all there. But again, you are hurting no one. That is enough for now.”
Leander laughed. Hearty and real. “Honesty. Very nice. Make no mistake. I choose crazy. It’s easier.”
{ Chapter 11 }
Of all things to stumble across, Charlotte was completely unprepared for this.
Her “freedom,” as Damen liked to call it, had afforded her free rein in exploring the ancient grounds and castle. Near impossible to get to, as Charlotte quickly discovered, the estate had been built into the side of a sheer cliff, with only cold, foreboding mountains in all directions, as far as the eye could see.
She couldn’t see it when they arrived in the dark, but in daylight, Charlotte discovered only one thin ribbon of a road leading up from the valley, to the castle. The entrance at that road—along with the outer edges of the grounds—always had a barrage of soldiers on guard. But Charlotte was undeterred. Any ancient castle worth its salt had to have a secondary escape route. She only had to find it.
So she searched. She searched the grounds, she searched the sheer rock of the mountainside, and she searched the castle. A false wall, a rock that hid a tunnel—anything that would get her out of there. And in her searching, she was pleasantly surprised that the castle had fascinating architecture, so her scouring was at least entertaining.
Weeks into her captivity, Charlotte was forced inside by whipping blizzard winds. She was in the bowels of the castle, nosing through the vaulted undercrofts for a long lost escape tunnel, when screams echoed along a dank corridor. The screams were horrific, and pulled her deeper into the depths of the castle.
Passing through a maze of stone storerooms, the dingy smell getting stronger, she followed the sound. At an outside stone wall, she stopped, one foot in a shallow puddle, and peered into the room that held the epicenter of the screams.
The stone room was well-lit by hanging glass bulbs, but there was Damen, standing, feet apart, arms at his sides, and a lit torch in one hand. White shirt, sleeves rolled. Black trousers. His large body blocked her view from the thing that screamed. But even without seeing it, she knew she heard human screams. She couldn’t always discern Panthenite and Malefic screams from each other, but agonized human screams she always recognized.
She stepped into the room, gaining a vantage point around Damen’s form, and her stomach curdled. In a tormented ball on the floor, a man’s face sizzled, charred from the fire that still glowed on it. He writhed on the floor, trying to put out the flames with his already burnt arms, the flesh hanging from bones. The flames went out, and Damen casually, brutally, flicked the torch at him, re-lighting the torturing blaze on his head.
Without hesitation, Charlotte dove, ramming Damen away from the man. They landed on the floor in a jumble, and the torch flew from his hand, landing on the stone floor and sending sparks flying.
Charlotte scampered to her feet, rushing to the beaten man and slapping down the last shreds of flames. It scorched her palms, but she held her hands on his scalp, healing him instantly, trying to remove the burning pain.
Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw Damen get to his feet. She could already see the rage she set forth in his stance. She shifted her hands
, healing as quickly as she could.
“Charlotte. Stop.” Damen heaved in fury. “Don’t bother. He is not worthy of it.”
“Says you.” She moved her hands.
“Charlotte, I said leave him.”
She didn’t look up, and she let her own voice reflect his rage. “I will not. Pain may be acceptable in your world. But it is not in mine. Not if I can help it.”
Damen yanked her up by her hair without warning, and threw her to the wall. Her spine hit the stone, her feet barely catching her. He followed, grabbing her by the neck and pinning her to the dank rock.
“I said, you do not help him. You know not what he has done.”
Charlotte struggled under Damen’s grip, her nails digging into his arm, trying to free herself. His fingers loosened just slightly. Just enough for words to escape.
“Whatever it was, it does not warrant torture. You kill him or you let him live. He—”
Damen’s fingers squeezed, cutting off her words. He moved in close to her eyes, his face, harsh. “You will not judge. Not until you know. I will show you. You will feel this, Charlotte. And then you decide.”
Eyes wide, Charlotte nodded. Whatever he had for her, it would not sway her mind. It couldn’t. She had slipped into this once—into torturing—in Africa. And Triaten had pulled her back. She still regretted what she did, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to let it happen in front of her. Damen would not change what her integrity demanded.
His crushing hand slipped down from her neck to spread his palm over her heart, still pressing her to the wall. His other hand went to her forehead, thumb dropping over her eyelashes.
“Close your eyes. Listen to my breathing.”
Charlotte complied. His breath was hot on her ear, on her neck, drowning out the wails of the man. His body nearly suffocated her.
Damen started.
It wasn’t a slow build of emotion, simmering and growing into a boil. No, it was an explosion of hate and betrayal and rage and wrath. Every emotion that had ever carried her through a battle or a kill, tornadoed into her chest, into her mind. And then she saw the core of it all. The core of what he was making her feel. The core of why it existed.
He sent all of that into her in a matter of seconds. At the instant she thought she could take no more, Damen pulled his hand from her forehead. He didn’t soften his hand on her chest, though, and Charlotte slowly realized he was holding her up. She would be a heap on the floor if not for his palm pinning her to the wall.
Her eyes crept open in shock.
“Your child?” she whispered.
He moved his head away from her ear to look at her. “Yes. He handed her over to her executors.”
Charlotte nodded solemnly, understanding. Her hands went to the wall alongside her hips as her toes searched for footing, and she regained her balance.
Damen removed his hand from her chest. He turned alongside of her, leaning against the wall, staring at the smoldering pile of man in the middle of the floor. Apparently, what he had just done had not only affected her, it had drained him as well.
What she had just felt, just seen in him was horrendous, and probably justified. So she considered for one moment clamping down on her tongue and exiting the room. And just when her feet were going to lead her to do just that, her mouth opened instead. “So you kill him. You kill him and be done. Death will remove him from this world. It is the ultimate reward for what he’s done. Torture only lets him have power over you. It is a useless act and it only debases you.”
“You honestly think I care about debasing myself, Charlotte?” He leaned his head back on the wall, looking up at the arched stone ceiling. “You seem to have forgotten that you are talking to a Malefic.”
The cries from the man were now in waves of morbid pain.
Charlotte straightened, stepping from the wall. “You said I could decide after that.” She took a deep breath. “I have.”
She stepped forward to the mangled mess in front of her. Onto her knees, she gently grabbed his shoulder and flipped him onto his back. Her hands went to his face, and within seconds, were glowing red against the charred skin. Quickly, piece by piece, she healed the muscle and skin on his face, then moved to his extremities. Damen did not stop her.
Eventually, the man opened his eyes to her, and she could see the awe and gratefulness in his eyes. Her stomach curdled at that. She knew what this man did. She really didn’t want to help him at all. But her spine demanded it. So she swallowed the rage in her chest, the rage Damen had put there, and finished the job.
The man whole once more, she stood silently with a pointed look at Damen. He still leaned against the wall. He made no motion to her or the man, now healed, on the floor.
Charlotte gave him a nod. He had promised to let her decide, and he had stood by that promise without interference. Without word, she walked around the man and out the door.
She was five steps down the hall when she froze, cringing. The sound she knew so well—the sound that screamed above all others in her ears, the very specific sound of sword slicing flesh—echoed onto the stone walls surrounding her. With the gurgle of blood that followed, she knew a blade had just beheaded the man.
She had made her decision. Damen had made his.
Hand on stone, she paused, drawing a quivering breath, and wondering if what she had done—healing the man, giving him hope—had just been the ultimate torture.
~~~
Damen stood at the window, three stories up from the grounds, and stared down at the labyrinth. In her blood red cloak, Charlotte had just disappeared into the second row of hedges, past where he could see her. Her boots left deep tracks in the snow.
“I am making little—actually, no progress with this one,” he said at the glass.
“You have called me here to report your failing? Idiot boy. I told you to not be stupid. Not to go so grand. Not to take the best.”
“Don’t be a witch, Oriane. I did not bring you here to scold. Or doubt.”
He turned from the window to face the wretched hag. He needed her, but that didn’t mean he didn’t loathe her. “I have called you here to help me. I don’t intend to fail. Not with this one.”
She stood up from the fat leather chair she had been lounging in. Pushing back the strings of her long grey hair, she crossed the room to him. “You dare to be rude to me?”
Damen hid his glare by turning back to the window. “I apologize. I do ask for your help. I have tried everything with this Panthenite. I can read little of value in her mind. Conversation, threats, all useless with her. And I can force no emotion on her. Her heart is a wall. I can do nothing to it.”
“Have you tried pain?” The hag moved to stand next to Damen, her long straight dress rustling and her bird-like eyes pointed at the sky.
“You know pain rarely works. And it won’t work with her, I can assure you.”
Oriane spat in disgust. “Your dirty blood makes you weak. It may be worth a try.”
Damen shrugged and stepped away from the window. Away from her stench. “I doubt it.”
“I don’t need to remind you we need another soon.” She tapped the window for no discernible reason. “The balance is off, Damen, and we need a new being to reset it.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you handed off my first half-breed to my brothers.”
“Posh,” she waved her hand in dismissal, “you cannot blame me for that.”
“They made her into a monster, a very powerful monster, and now we’re all at peril,” Damen said. “Do I need to remind you that if they succeed against the Panthenite core, against the one they have that can control time, it will be widespread destruction? Life will not go on for us as it has. You will lose the comfort you have become accustomed to.”
She turned from the window and advanced on him, reaching up to poke a bony finger in his suited chest. “So make a new one, and be quick about it. We need the world to balance in our favor.”
“Th
en you need to help me. I need you to read her. There has to be something in her mind we can use. She has been very careful of her thoughts around me. But I cannot dig deep like you can. She must have a weakness. Find me something in there I can use.”
“Hmmm.” Oriane stroked her chin, her fingers entwining the four long wiry hairs. “An impenetrable heart. A mind that can’t be read. The girl must be hiding something important from you.” Her eyes pierced Damen. “You say she is strong?”
“Yes.”
“I am stronger.”
~~~
Charlotte could only describe her as an old hag. Not charitable, but true. The hag had been waiting for her in Charlotte’s room.
After the hours outside, Charlotte didn’t have a chance to shake the cold snow from her boots, and put them by the fireplace to dry, before the old hag popped up from a side chair where Charlotte hadn’t even seen her.
Charlotte had needed those hours in the labyrinth, in the clear cold, to regain her center after yesterday’s horrible scene with Damen. Deep in the labyrinth was the only place she dared to let her mind go near Triaten, and god, she needed him. Needed him desperately.
As much as she had vowed to clear him from her mind, the ache in her heart would not let it be. So she found the only place in which she dared think about him. Thirteen turns into the maze, five rows deep, and then—and only then, if she tuned her ears to all sound, and was convinced there was no one in the labyrinth with her—would she allow Triaten to come into her mind.
She would force her mind to her best memories of him. To his laughter. To the care he took when he touched her body. To the sweet woodsy smell of his skin. To the heat in his eyes. She had to force her mind to the memories, because horrid worry took over when she didn’t.
She knew Triaten was looking for her, searching, and she could only pray he wouldn’t find her. As much as she needed to be out of this place—she needed even more for Triaten not to be in danger.
For all its finery, Damen had this fortress locked down from infiltration. And Triaten finding her, what he would do to save her, could very well be deadly.
Flux Flame (A Flame Moon Novel Page 11