Chapter 8
The girl led Rosalind through a long hall, and Rosalind’s gaze trailed over the bony walls. Statues stood in alcoves, most of them depicting Drew with a crown. As her shoes clicked over the floor, she had the sense that shadows were flitting around the walls, watching her. A shiver snaked up her spine.
A breeze rushed over her skin, and at the other end of the hall, sunlight slanted in through an arch. She squinted at the light, that leafy aura curling around her ribs. Buried in the depths of her mind, a voice whispered a tunnel from the amphitheater…
The servants led her into the open air, and the hall opened into an imposing amphitheater, a sandy pit surrounded by a vast semicircle of stone benches. They moved on to a seat not far from the orchestra pit. In the center of the sand stood an iron altar, set with ruby-flecked chalices. And fanning out on either side of the altar were iron stakes, encircled by bundles of wood.
Her blood ran cold. We start with a sacrifice. Leafy magic licked at her ribs, and rage smoldered under the surface of her mind.
Slowly, Rosalind surveyed the space. Banquet tables had been set around the edges of the pit, laden with fruit, meat, and wine. A cool breeze rushed over the stone, toying with Rosalind’s hair, and she shivered. Slowly, the wedding guests began to fill the rows, pouring out from arched halls, staring at their new empress. They’d come to watch a sacrifice. Embers of wrath seethed in the hollows of Rosalind’s mind.
The afternoon sun dipped low, staining the guests with a lurid ginger light as they took their seats. Their bodies cast long shadows, and the guests’ voices echoed off the stone.
Cleo’s leafy aura churned in her chest, and she glanced to the right, where a tunnel opened directly into the pit. She couldn’t remember why, but that tunnel was important. The prisons…
Slowly, the rows of seats filled with guests, most wearing the iron chalice insignias. All around the amphitheater’s pit stood scorpion guards in iron armor.
Something moved in the corner of her eye, and she turned, her pulse racing. A man loomed over her, his eyes like flames. Tendrils of colored magic whirled from his body, staining the air with gold, green, and silver…
It should have been beautiful, but something about the sight of him filled her with dread. And under that, pure rage. Drew.
“Rosalind, my bride…” His voice wasn’t quite human. It sounded like seven people speaking at once—feminine and masculine, old and young—and all filled with a strange, lonely sort of agony. She would have felt sorry for him if she didn’t want to kill him.
A dark smile curled his lips. “I’ve so looked forward to this day. To making you mine. You do look beautiful.” He cocked his head. “I like you when you’re silent and still.”
That delicious aura stirred in her chest. I will watch you burn. I will sear your skin, melt your bones. Rosalind smiled placidly.
Drew sat by her side, and grabbed her right hand, pulling it into his lap. His grip crushed her fingers, his nails piercing her skin, drawing blood. He wanted to hurt her. He knew she wouldn’t cry out—she’d just sit there smiling numbly.
And yet, as magic stirred in Rosalind’s mind, it began to eat away at those cold, icy mists. Slowly, the scorpion guards began leading chained men and women to the stakes. Rosalind’s gut churned. A girl with short brown curls sobbed uncontrollably, and a young man with tattoos wailed to the skies. Their pain pierced Rosalind to the bone.
Drew pressed his fingernails further into her skin, letting her blood drip down her hand. He leaned into her, whispering, “Grooms are supposed to make their brides bleed on their wedding night, Rosalind.”
His breath, hot on her neck, fanned the flames of rage burning in her chest. She’d beaten his face once, broken his bones. Smashed it to a pulp. Under the icy stillness of her mind, she wanted to break him again, to crush him like an unwanted doll.
A heavy silence enshrouded the crowd, and they stared at the line of sacrificial victims. Rosalind’s gaze landed on one of the humans— a young girl with pink hair. She stood trembling in her thin, yellow dress, muttering to herself. She knew what was about to happen. She was about to burn.
Slowly, Randolph strode into the orchestra pit, and the sunlight lit his red hair ablaze. He wore a white robe, stained pink in the setting sun. The high priest of blood.
Rosalind needed to stop this somehow, if she could remember how to move. She scrambled to grasp at the strains of cloudy thoughts. I lived. I died.
Drew dug his nails further into her skin, moaning slightly. He was enjoying himself, drawing blood.
Randolph stood before the altar, and picked up a goblet. Raising it to the sky, he shouted, “Blodrial grants us power!”
The crowd roared back the same call. “Blodrial grants us power!”
Randolph began leading the crowd in a long, rambling series of prayers—prayers that Rosalind had once memorized as a novice in the Brotherhood. With the fog in her mind, it was hard to remember what they’d meant, but it was something about blood and iron, and ridding the world of evil.
As Randolph solemnly droned on, the guards chained the men and women to the stakes, and their panicked sobs and cries pierced the air. Rosalind’s blood roared in her ears.
Randolph raised his hands to the reddening skies. “We require a truly stunning sacrifice today, in honor of the one true god!”
The girl with the pink hair shrieked, her screams unrelenting. The sound of her panic tightened Rosalind’s heart.
By Rosalind’s side, Drew mumbled, “Azazeyl is the one true god.” He spoke in the voices of seven tormented gods. “Azazeyl rules the heaven and earth.”
She glanced at the blood on her hand where he pierced her flesh. Deep in her skull, a green aura roiled.
Around the amphitheater pit, the scorpion guards began moving, snatching torches from iron holders. One by one, they lit the torches, and with each blaze of flame, the angry fire in Rosalind’s mind burned hotter.
An image flashed in her skull—she was chained to a stake, and flames climbed up her body. She screamed for Ambrose, for Richard…
I can’t watch this happen…
Her aura was ready to explode from her body. She needed to stop this, if she could only free her thoughts from this mist clouding her mind, filling her skull like an icy miasma. If she could only…
Without understanding why she was doing it, she clenched her free fist, piercing her own flesh with her fingernails until she drew blood.
While her betrothed muttered about Azazeyl, Rosalind’s lips began moving, until she was muttering along with him. They weren’t her own words, and she wasn’t entirely sure what she was saying, but that vernal aura that was roiling in her skull, the one that smelled of oaks and moss, compelled her to speak, compelled her to pierce her own skin, making holes in her palm.
As she stared down at her hand, blackish blood flowed from the cuts in her skin. And as it did, the icy miasma clouding her mind slowly began to thin. Blood and iron poured from her hand, spurred on by the spell she’d just chanted, and it freed her from her icy prison.
I lived. I died. I lived again.
As the ice melted from her mind, clarity bloomed. Slowly, she looked around the amphitheater, at the guests who’d come to watch the sacrifices burn. Rosalind should bathe this entire place in fire, but she wouldn’t. She’d come here for a reason. She’d risked the charmed iron, and infiltrated the empire—she’d endured Randolph and Drew and the scorpion men or one reason, and one alone. She was here to stop Drew from creating any more demons to fuel his armies.
Maybe Rosalind had been mesmerized the entire time, but Cleo hadn’t. When she’d developed this plan, she’d been counting on her second soul. She swallowed hard, eyeing the scorpion guards as they moved around the edges of the pit, lighting torches while Randolph continued his lengthy preamble.
Her gaze flicked to Drew, whose fiery eyes were locked on Randolph. Even while Randolph chanted about Blodrial, Drew was muttering about Azazeyl, hi
s voice growing louder, face redder. To him, this was sacrilege.
As her thoughts crystalized, she surveyed the amphitheater pit, where the prisoners stood chained to the stakes. The human witches among them screamed. The demons stood in stony silence, their bodies curling with colored auras, one of them a woman with a deep silver aura, like Caine’s. Caine. As soon as she thought of his name, his absence felt like a hollow ache in her chest.
She scanned the rest of the sacrificial victims, taking in their aura. Besides the witch and the shadow demon, there were three valkyrie, two keres, and two hellhounds.
Slowly, she turned to take in the crowd. All around her, the wedding guests wore the iron insignias of Blodrial, their god. They smiled blandly, watching the guards chain the prisoners to their stakes, listening to the terrified screams. They’d come to watch a bloodletting.
Horror welled in her gut. This was supposed to be her wedding day, a gruesome slaughter. Later, Randolph planned to rape her. And who knew what horrors Drew had in mind.
But Rosalind had planned all of this—the drugging, the mind control. Infiltrating the Empire. For weeks, she and Caine had practiced, experimenting with charmed iron that clouded her mind, letting Cleo take over while Rosalind’s body went numb. And it had worked.
Now, she had to stop this slaughter before it happened. And that meant channeling all the magic she could—without Drew noticing a thing.
Randolph finished his prayers, and held his hands to the skies as if he were some sort of god. Prick. I will kill you some day. Not today, but some day I will watch you take your last breath.
Bearing torches, the scorpion men crossed to the stakes. A young witch with curly brown hair and large glasses shrieked in terror, and the sound turned Rosalind’s blood to ice.
She glanced at Drew. He clutched her hand in a death grip, but he wasn’t paying her attention. She surveyed her surroundings. Here, in the open air, the Hunters didn’t have a single weapon aimed at her. No iron powder or flamethrowers to stop her.
They’d underestimated her.
Drew closed his eyes, chanting about the seven gods. While he lost himself in the hell of his own mind, Rosalind let the power of Nyxobas flood her body—that cold magic, scented of lightning and peat. At the same time, she channeled the storm god’s magic to surge through her blood. Her pulse raced as she watched one of the scorpion gods bend lower, touching his torch to the pile of wood beneath one of the valkyrie.
The valkyrie—an Amazonian woman with pale white hair—was staring directly at Rosalind, watching, as if she could sense the storm power building in Rosalind’s body. Perhaps Rosalind could use the valkyrie’s power, too. Subtly, Rosalind nodded at her. The valkyrie nodded back.
Now raw, electric power blazed through her blood.
First she needed to take out Drew. He was her biggest threat here, and he alone had the power to stop her magical assault.
Over the reddening sunset, dark clouds rolled in. Electricity began to charge the air, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
After she immobilized Drew, she’d free the prisoners. Unshackled, they could slaughter the whole crowd of bloodthirsty Brotherhood wedding guests.
Flames began to ignite on the bottom of the valkyrie’s pyre, smoke curling around the demon.
Rosalind glanced at the sky, narrowing her eyes, letting her body fill with Nyxobas’s power, his speed. In a blur of cold shadows, she ripped her hand from Drew’s grasp, then shadow-ran into the pit. In there, the growing storm winds rushed over her skin, tearing at the ribbons of her wedding dress. Surging with the power of the storm goddess, she whirled in the air, churning it. Before her feet touched down in the pit, she sent a spear of lightning racing directly for Drew. Once.
It struck him just as her feet landed in the dusty earth. Twice, another bolt for good measure. Dust clouded over her white dress.
Drew fell back, the scent of burning flesh filling the air. Her body sparking with electricity, Rosalind summoned the storm’s power, and she struck Drew a third time. Around the amphitheater the crowd began screaming, now sounding a lot like the terrified witches as the stake.
Rosalind smiled darkly. Where’s your god now?
Chapter 9
She couldn’t kill Drew now, but the lightning would knock him out for long enough to get the real chaos going. Rosalind pivoted, flicking her wrist to send an icy stream of shadow magic at the pyre’s flames, extinguishing their fire. She pivoted again, snuffing out the torches.
Then she let the power of the fire goddess burn through her veins, a molten inferno welling within her. She held out her hands, calling a ring of fire that encircled the wedding guests, trapping them where they sat. Screams rose to the darkening sky. The fire goddess in her thrilled at their cries.
Boil their blood, Emerazel whispered. Melt the marrow in their bones.
She searched the crowd for Randolph, but she couldn’t find him in the chaos, and there wasn’t much time to look for him. The scorpions were moving for her, but Rosalind shadow-ran away from them, rushing around like a phantom wind. As she moved, her attention focused on the prisoners, and she felt the power of the mountain goddess light up her body. As coppery magic spiraled from her chest, she focused on the chains, twisting them from the prisoners’ necks.
I am the ancient mountains and stone, goddess of strength… I will bury you in your guilt. Images of Miranda’s dead body flickered in her mind, and Rosalind’s body tensed. I will bury you under the rocks.
Rosalind tried to block out the goddess’s voice. She needed to stay focused.
As five scorpion-men closed in, running over the red sand, Rosalind summoned her fire magic, letting it build in her body. The good people of the Empire had come here to watch a massacre, and she couldn’t disappoint them, could she? She lifted her hands, letting fire blaze from her fingertips, streaming in five perfect arcs into the scorpion-men’s chests. Within moments, fire engulfed their bodies, and they writhed in the dancing flames.
Rosalind’s lips curled in a dark smile at the scent of searing flesh, and the terrified screams filling the air. Melt the marrow in their bones.
The people in the seats were desperate, falling all over each other to rush from the amphitheater, shoving and screaming. She couldn’t let them get away that easily, could she? Humans needed to learn that Blodrial wouldn’t protect them.
She summoned the power of Nyxobas, letting it thrum through her body, ancient and cold. Silver streams of magic whirled from her fingertips, curling around the panicking humans, freezing them in place. Rosalind stared through the flames, a dark thrill rippling up her neck. The humans’ skin glazed over with white webs of frost, their eyelashes peaked in frozen icicles, hair dusted with white.
Fire and darkness, flames and ice… such a beautiful combination.
Let them feel the cold. And now, let them feel the gnawing dread of isolation. She closed her eyes, letting wisps of the void stream from her body into theirs, streaming into their chests as they slowly froze.
Shadows whirled around her, and she rose into the air, staring down at them. “Where’s your god now?” she roared. “Did he save you?”
From behind her, an electric power thrummed over her skin, and she turned to see one of the valkyrie rising into the air, filling the skies with her song, her eyes dark as death. The valkyrie struck Drew with another gleaming shard of lightning.
But the valkyrie wasn’t the only thing taking to the skies. In the distance, helicopter rotors beat the air. The Brotherhood were sending in their troops.
As much as she wanted to stay and fight in the battle, she’d come here for one reason. She needed to get Erish from the prisons, and return with Drew’s secret weapon to Lilinor.
Silver magic whirled around her body, scented of Caine, and she used it to propel her into the tunnel, her stupid wedding dress whipping in the wind as he ran.
She shadow-ran through the hall, and as she moved, the smooth sandstone gave way to dark, ro
ugh walls. Filled with the power of Nyxobas, she moved on the wind.
She wasn’t Rosalind anymore—she was Nyxobas, ancient god of the void. The god of stealth and terror, death and the vastness of space…
As she moved, emptiness gnawed at her chest.
Focus, Rosalind. You’re still Rosalind. As the air rushed over her skin, she turned a corner, finding one byzantine curve after another. This place had been built like a labyrinth, and she couldn’t say how long Nyxobas’s power would spur her on before she sacrificed her mind completely to the god of night.
She sniffed the air, scenting the seductive, jasmine scent of a succubus. Tendrils of black magic curled through the air toward her. Erish.
She followed the dark aura around another corner, and her gaze landed on the rows of iron cell bars. Bingo.
She slowed her pace, peering through the cells as she walked. Huddled in filthy corners were clusters of humans and demons, many so sick they hardly registered Rosalind’s arrival. Rough stone walls enclosed the cells, the floors covered in mud and rats.
Rosalind swallowed hard, her pulse racing. She’d come here for one reason, and one alone: to bring Erish back to Lilinor. But she couldn’t leave the prisoners here, either. Drew would burn them all in the amphitheater stakes.
First, she needed to heal them, and then she’d set them free. She wasn’t leaving anyone behind her to burn.
Slowly, she paced between the cells, letting the healing power of Druloch thrum over her skin. Foxglove and oak, the medicinal strength of moss—Druloch’s magic whirled around her. Green forest magic curled into the prison cells. And with it, curling around the green in strands of silver, Rosalind sent shadow magic to heal the pain.
Power ignited her body, and her back arched. I live again.
All around her, she could hear the prisoners rallying, shifting on the stone floors as they healed. She could even hear their hearts beating louder, stronger.
As she healed them, she moved from one cell to another, searching for Erish.
Divine Hunter (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 4) Page 5