by L. C. Mawson
Damon frowned. “It’s a Fate thing, I think. If she has a plan for two people, she binds them together. It basically turns them into magnets for each other.”
“A plan for them?”
“Usually it’s for if they’re either meant to kill each other, or fall in love in a pretty permanent way.”
And she was Soulbound with Damon. And Amber thought that Fate had plans for them. Plans that had even Gregor concerned. Plans that had Damon’s aunt apologising to her in advance.
Damon was Enhanced and a powerful Demon. Freya was an Angel.
Fate didn’t throw together people like that unless something big was coming.
And then they usually died.
Freya felt ill at the thought. Amber had more than enough experience with Fate’s plan, and it had led to the deaths of every member of her family. Her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law, her granddaughter... All lost because they were powerful. Because Fate needed them, used them, and then didn’t want them to continue to interfere.
“Why?” Damon asked her.
Freya sighed, deciding to be as truthful as possible without hurting him. “That was one of the things they were arguing about. That we’re Soulbound.”
Damon smiled at the news, but it faded quickly. “Wait, arguing about it? Why?”
“Amber doesn’t trust Fate. And I think that us being Soulbound might have something to do with what your aunt saw.”
“How is knowing that we’re going to be together bad news?”
Freya sighed. She didn’t really want to bring up Amber’s past, but it was at the forefront of her mind. She would be willing to bet that Amber’s son had been Soulbound with the Angel he had fallen for. She also didn’t want to get too close to the fact that being Soulbound was the only reason Damon had escaped his father.
“Because, as Amber pointed out, I’m an Angel. That makes me the most powerful being below the Big Three. And you’re from one of the most powerful Demon families, and you’re Enhanced. Why would Fate want the two of us together, unless she needed us for something big?”
Damon shrugged. “So? Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”
Freya sighed, not really believing that it would turn out so well for them. But she nodded anyway, as Gregor and Amber returned to the room.
“Alright,” Gregor said, “now that that’s out of the way, have any of you checked the news this morning?”
“We’re not done,” Freya said, folding her arms. “You two can’t just run off and talk without us and then say everything is sorted.”
“I’m sorry,” Amber told her, “but these secrets are no longer mine to tell.”
She disappeared at that.
Freya turned back to Gregor, glaring.
Gregor sighed. “Freya, she’s right. This is something to be dealt with once things calm down. There isn’t the time to talk about it, and it deserves to be talked about properly. Now, the news, have you seen it?”
Freya and Damon shook their heads.
“Uther’s not even trying to hide anymore. The Humans are running scared, and it’s purely luck that the media hasn’t realised the truth yet.”
“How do we fix it, then?” Freya asked.
Gregor shrugged. “The Cleaners are formulating a plan now. My contact is going to come and let me know once they have it figured out.”
“When will you hear from them?”
“No later than this afternoon.”
FREYA AND DAMON FOCUSED on not watching the news or going online for the rest of the morning, instead distracting themselves with video games.
By the time Gregor’s phone rang, Freya and Damon had managed to convince themselves that the blasts they heard outside were just background noise in their game, not Uther’s men.
“Come on,” Gregor had said, his face unusually stoic. “I know where we need to go to fix this.”
That was how they ended up in the back of his car, watching out of the window at the silent world
“How could Uther be allowed to do this?” she asked as they sped past several houses that looked almost ghostly in their emptiness.
Gregor shrugged. “He’s using more intermediaries, like Caroline. Seph tried to talk to him, but he’s feigning ignorance.”
“But Caroline was there. She’s a witness.”
“It’s her word against his, and he has more allies than her. To accuse him wouldn’t end well for her. Which means that this all has to be behind closed doors.”
They headed to the outskirts of town, the SUV heading off-road and into a field.
In the middle of the field stood a man in a dark suit, with a black cane.
“Gregor’s contact?” Freya asked Damon lowly, but he didn’t answer for a few moments, instead staring out of the window.
“That’s the Demon King,” Damon eventually told her, his voice a hollow whisper.
“That’s good, right?” Freya asked, not really getting Damon’s fear. Demon King or not, he wasn’t projecting an aura of fear, and just looked like any other young man, though his black hair was flecked with grey that seemed out of place. “We need all of the help we can get.”
Damon nodded silently, clearly not happy, but accepting that there was no real choice in the matter. The Demon King was here, and he was probably there to help.
Freya got out of the car just after Gregor, Damon trailing behind her.
The Demon King grinned at Gregor, greeting him with a slap on the arm. “Gregor! Doesn’t this just remind you of Lord Daven’s rebellion?”
Gregor smiled at him, shaking his head. “I remember saving your arse in that fight, what was it? Five times?”
The Demon King shrugged. “Six. But I saved yours seven, so you still owe me.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“That’s because you’re getting old.”
“I’m younger than you!”
Freya couldn’t help but smile at that. This was the great and feared Demon King? He seemed far too laid back for that. He and Gregor were clearly two peas in a pod.
The Demon King turned to her and Damon at that point, and his warmth seemed to fade as he examined her. Freya supposed that was natural. He was evaluating the threat in front of him. The potential enemy that he had only heard of second-hand.
But it put her on edge.
Suddenly it wasn’t so much of a question why Damon was scared of him. Her hackles raised and, for the first time in years, she honestly wondered if she would be able to beat the person in front of her if it came to a fight.
It wasn’t a feeling she enjoyed.
No. Scratch that. It was the feeling she absolutely hated the most.
“So,” the Demon King said after a few moments of examining her, “you’re the Angel protecting this city?”
Her usual I’m not an Angel retort died on her tongue, as she remembered that it wasn’t true, and she simply nodded.
“And you’re Damon’s Soulbound?”
She nodded once more.
“You know that Uther has been after you?”
Another nod.
“Why do you think that is?”
“Damon,” she answered simply. “He wants Damon back, and he thinks that he can use me to get to him.”
“Partially,” the Demon King said, though he didn’t elaborate. “Do you know why I’ve asked you to meet me in the middle of a field?”
Freya would have answered no, but she got the feeling that he was testing her. She concentrated her magic on sensing the space around her, and quickly came up against a magical barrier beneath them.
“There’s something beneath us,” she told him, folding her arms. Testing would grow tiring if he persisted.
He nodded. “An emergency reset. This area has been subject to an unusual concentration of magic for the past couple of centuries. It was only a matter of time before an excess caused problems. My father had the Cleaners set this up, in order to be activated if the worst were to happen.”
&nbs
p; “Well, that’s definitely the case now,” Freya figured. “Why do I sense that there’s a ‘but’?”
The Demon King smiled at her. “Because there is. The reset involves annulling all magic in the area for a short while, and then adjusting everyone’s memories.”
“Sounds a little extreme.”
“Indeed. Only someone of great power can activate it, and the path to the spell is not easy. If misused, this could be a weapon.”
Freya nodded. “Alright, so Damon and I will venture in and I’ll activate the spell. I’m guessing I’ll be powerful enough?”
The Demon King nodded. “That is the hope.”
Gregor frowned, turning to his friend. “Are you sure about this? We could-”
“The truth, Gregor, is more important.”
“I really don’t think it is right now.”
“There can be no mistakes. Not with this.”
Gregor nodded, bowing a little as any objection died in his throat.
The Demon King turned back to Freya. “Your power will be enough to activate the spell, but the guardian will not recognise you. It will test you, to ensure that you are not using it for your own gain.”
Freya frowned. “Test me? How?”
He smiled. “Don’t worry. I have every confidence that you’ll pass.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, folding her arms. “That’s what Gregor meant, isn’t it? I’m powerful, but so are you. And I’m guessing, since your father built this place, the guardian would recognise you. You’re sending me to test me. Why?”
“You are Damon’s Soulbound and Damon is my chosen heir. I need to know that you can be trusted.”
Freya’s eyes narrowed at that. If he knew that she was Damon’s Soulbound, then he knew that she was the very person he had sent Damon to search for.
But challenging that would reveal to Damon why he had been taken from his father.
“Fine,” Freya agreed. “I’ll take your test.”
The Demon King tapped his cane on the ground before stepping back as it parted to reveal a round hole.
Freya couldn’t see far enough inside to tell how far the jump was, but she supposed that the Demon King wouldn’t want her to get a broken leg in the first minute.
Or, at least, she could trust that he didn’t want that for Damon.
She jumped with only a moment’s hesitation.
Chapter Fourteen
After an eternity of falling, Freya could have sworn that she felt herself slowing down. A little while later, she dropped softly onto what felt like a stone floor, with the faint thud of Damon dropping down next to her.
It was pitch black and Freya focused her magic into flames across her hands and up her forearms. The fire dimly illuminated the stone hall, showing her torches on the walls. She threw fire at them from her hands to light up the rest of the room. She sensed around the enclosed space, but found that her senses couldn’t penetrate the large, extravagantly detailed steel door at the end of the hall. When she tried, she could sense nothing but a confusing barrage of Energy beyond. She tried to piece it together, but it was like staring into the sun, and she soon found herself tiring.
She pulled herself from the effort, deciding to focus on more immediate things.
“Are you okay?” she asked Damon, moving over to him.
He smiled. “Fine now that I can see you.” He leaned in and kissed her, surprising her with how out of place the gesture was, though she couldn’t really object when she instinctively returned the kiss.
She pulled away without the usual sparks.
Damon threw her a bottle of blue sports drink from his backpack, for which she was immediately thankful.
“You need to replenish your emotional and physical energy before we get to the tests,” he reminded her. “Who knows what they’ll be.”
“How did you know I’d drained myself?”
He shrugged. “I sensed it.”
“Through my protections?”
He smiled. “Close your eyes.”
She did as he asked. “Okay, now what?”
She felt his hand over hers.
“Try to sense me.”
“I can’t. You have protections. I’ve never been able to sense through them.”
“Because we never knew we were Soulbound. We’re tied to each other, Freya, and that tie can get through any protection spell, no matter how powerful.”
She frowned, searching for a tie. And there, much like the one she had with Amber, but even less perceptible, was a thread stretching out to connect her with Damon. Whereas the thread tying her to Amber felt like her own magic, this one felt surprisingly like Alice’s...
She tucked that thought away for when her sister returned to town, putting the cap back on her drink as a figure appeared at the end of the room, just in front of the door.
“Greetings,” the figure said, stepping forth so that Freya could see a woman with paper-white skin covered by heavy black robes. She looked kind of like Freya, with her thick, jet black hair, only she had black tattoos which curled up her right cheek to surround one of her familiar, wild green eyes.
“I don’t know who that is,” Damon said under his breath.
“I do,” Freya said in kind before raising her voice to ask, “Hope?”
The figure nodded. “I’m glad you remembered me. It’s been years since we met, and I was in such a state...”
“Yeah, well, the tattoos are kind of memorable.”
“They have made it difficult to hide who I am over the years...”
Damon frowned. “Who is that?”
“My grandmother,” Freya explained.
“Like, your mother’s mother? Isn’t she dead?”
Hope nodded. “Indeed I am, young man. But the veil between here and where the dead rest is thin in this place. Someone is needed to be your guide, and my shared blood with Freya brought me here.”
“You know, I always wonder why it’s you and not, you know, my mother.”
“Because I have more of my father’s power than she does.”
Freya frowned. “Your father? I know he was a Reaper, but is that enough to let you cross over like this?”
Hope sighed. “You know, Amber’s attempts to shield you are growing increasingly absurd.”
“Tell me about it,” Freya muttered before refocusing. “We need to get past to use the reset spell.”
“You are capable of activating the spell, but you are not recognised.”
“Yeah, I figured as much. That means that I have to go through some kind of test, right?”
“Correct. Beyond this door are three chambers. Each will determine whether or not you are worthy to wield the power beyond.”
“How? I mean, how will you determine that I wouldn’t use it for my own gain? How could you possibly test that?”
“You will see,” Hope said simply. “But the boy stays here.”
“Wait, the Demon King said he could come with me.”
“He may see you in the final chamber, but you must face the others alone.”
She gave a reluctant nod before turning to Damon. “You got a lot of bandages in that backpack?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I want to know how much damage I can take.”
Damon frowned. “Don’t take too much, Freya. I want you back in one piece.”
She smiled at his attempt to sound authoritative. The crack in his voice more than ruined the effect.
“I will. I promise,” she said before turning back to Hope. “Okay, let me through.”
Hope nodded, fading as the door started to open.
“I love you,” Damon said as she headed through the door, into the pitch black room beyond.
“I love you too,” she replied as the door slammed behind her, realising that it was the first time she had said it so clearly out loud.
AS SOON AS THE DOOR closed behind her, Freya was plunged into darkness once more.
She ignited her hand in flame only to realise
that she still couldn’t see through the abundance of fog in front of her.
Fog. Underground.
Whoever had designed this was a massive drama queen, Freya decided as she made her way through the fog.
“Hello?” she called out, in an effort to alleviate her creeping sense of unease. “I thought I was being tested here.”
A figure stepped out of the fog, holding a large crystal in her hands. It was shining light up to her face to create an eerie glow.
Freya frowned, only recognising Hope as she stepped closer and moved the glowing crystal up towards her face.
“Dramatic much?”
Hope smiled. “I was not the one who designed it,” she pointed out as she handed Freya the crystal. “Here. It will activate the spell.”
“What do I do?”
“It is simply a housing for Energy. You will need something else to activate the reset. Something you will not be given yet.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“Your birthright,” Hope said, cryptically. “But the housing may be broken now and you could use the Energy however else you want.”
Freya frowned. “Why would I do that?”
“You could use it to change your mother’s mistake.”
“Her mistake?”
“Her death.”
The fog shifted around them, fading to reveal what looked like a hospital room. In the centre was two figures.
Lily and Amber.
Lily was wearing plain white cotton clothes and was obviously pregnant. Amber was in a particularly impressive, black ballgown.
Lily paced up and down, fidgeting with her hands much in the same way Freya did when she stimmed.
She frowned. Had her mother been Autistic as well?
“Thinking of another escape plan?” Amber asked.
Lily shook her head. “I don’t have enough magic. Not until the baby is born.”
“Maybe not for a full blown escape, but I’ve been thinking, why don’t you try to call to someone on the outside? Let them know you’re here.”
“I already thought of that. But, if we’re thinking that the Enhanced did this to me, then the ceasefire has been broken. Humans and magical beings are no longer incapable of harming each other. Which means I have no idea who is still alive to call to.”