by Bec McMaster
"Hello, Drake. It seems you've brought me a present." As Morgana turned, something moved behind her, sagging against the wall—a mess of blue skirts and dark hair with blood spattered all down her.
"Eleanor!" Drake cried out.
Lucien hauled him back as his father took a step forward. He alone seemed to recognize the danger in the room. Cracks slithered up the plaster as a brutal pressure choked the air, but it seemed like no one else saw them. Morgana and Drake were both too busy with each other.
"Drake," he warned.
Sebastian had lifted his head as Morgana's attention changed focus. His eyes were pure black with power, and for one eerie moment, it felt like Lucien could read his mind. Sebastian's face calmed, as if he'd been wrestling with his own conscience, but now a decision was made. It was accepted. The world went silent. The moment of calm before the storm.
One second that felt like forever. Lucien stepped forward, moving through air that felt like jelly, one hand flung outward, trying to stop it in time.
"Don't!" Lucien screamed, tearing the reins away from his father for a second and flinging up the strongest ward he knew. The sudden ripple in the air tore away his words as Sebastian simply... detonated.
* * *
IANTHE THREW herself forward and clung to the edge of the second floor, her legs dangling in midair as the staircase sheared out from under her. Slamming the gauntlet onto the floorboards, she tried to find purchase, but her hands were slipping, slipping...
"Help!" she screamed as part of the ceiling gave way, dropping behind her into the foyer. The chandelier landed with a fierce crash, spewing glass all across the tiles.
The world wouldn't stop moving. The first ripple had almost torn her feet out from under her, but she'd felt it grow as power radiated outward. An earthquake that gained magnitude, the further away it swam...
A pair of pale silvery skirts swished into view. A young woman staggered out of the shadows, her hair a shining gold halo of curls around her head, and a linen blindfold covering her eyes. "Hello?" the girl called. "Where are you?"
"Here!" Ianthe gasped, trying to drag herself to safety. Nails wrenched themselves up out of the timber floorboards as the house shuddered.
The young woman moved with unerring accuracy, scrambling onto her hands and knees and grabbing Ianthe by the gauntlet. "I wish this bloody floor would stop shaking!"
The stranger was taller than she was, but lighter of figure. Her skirts slipped on the floors as she tried to haul Ianthe up.
"Me too." Ianthe kicked a boot up onto the edge of the staircase, and with an enormous wrench of effort, managed to roll herself onto the second floor. The pair of them sprawled there in a heap of skirts, panting, as the entire building shook and shivered.
The worst thing was, she could feel the torrent of power building. Something was barely containing it, but that something was about to give, and when it did...
"We've got to stop him," the girl gasped.
"Who?"
"Sebastian." The young woman turned around, stumbling against the wall. "I can see more sparks, but I don't think they're strong enough to hold back the storm. I don't even think I am, but I have to try! You have to take me to him!"
It sounded like utter gibberish, but Ianthe darted another glance at the blindfold. If she wasn't mistaken, that was a sure sign of a Cassandra. Taking the girl by the arm, they staggered along the hallway. "What's your name?"
"Cleo Sinclair."
Sinclair, Sinclair... Where had she heard that name? Then she realized. The Earl of Tremayne was a Sinclair. Ianthe stopped in her tracks, almost wrenching the girl off her feet. The shaking of the floor drove both of them into the wall.
"I mean, it's Mrs. Cleo Montcalm now, I suppose. I keep forgetting that I'm married. And stop looking at me like that. I can almost feel your eyes upon me. I'm sure you've had dealings with my father, but right now, there's no time. Sebastian's going to destroy half of London if I don't get to him in time."
"Sebastian's your husband?" A piece of plaster tore itself in half along the ceiling, and Ianthe dragged Cleo forward, trying not to fall as that section of the roof crashed to the floor. One by one, windows were shattering somewhere in the building.
"Yes. You would be Miss Martin, I presume?"
"How did you know?" Suspicion reared its head.
"I saw you. This whole affair set my precognition off, and I kept hearing your name and seeing your face. It was so prominent it was blinding the rest of my senses. I knew I had to find you. You're the only one who can stop this, I think."
Two brothers enter that building... Only one of them comes out...
Which meant either Cleo was going to be a widow very shortly, or Ianthe was never going to get the chance to be anything more than Lucien's Anchor. "Here," she said, dragging the young woman faster. Pieces of rubble jumped and shivered across the floor as a tremor began to shake the very earth itself. "It's intensifying."
* * *
SILENCE.
No wind. No air to breathe. Just pressure.
A vacuum of nothingness.
Lucien's ears were ringing. He took a step forward, power roaring through him and diverted through his outstretched hand into the Prime. Glass crunched beneath his boot, having given up the ghost in the first blast. The wall between the cell and the sunroom had blasted outward during that first intense wave as the Prime sought to contain the raw force erupting from his son.
Lucien's brother.
He recognized little of himself in the other man. No, Sebastian was cut from Drake's image, whereas he himself bore more of his mother, Lady Rathbourne. When Sebastian looked up, his eyes narrowed with hatred upon the woman that Drake was protecting, Lucien finally saw something that he recognized.
The loneliness. The ache of betrayal. A brother who had known some of the same miseries that he himself had felt.
"Can't... hold him... much longer." Drake grit his teeth. The sheer amount of power that he was grounding was extraordinary.
"Then let him kill her," Lucien shouted, though his voice sounded strange and empty. He was starting to feel empty. One of the rings on his hand shattered as he drew too much power, letting his father absorb it.
The Prime's startled eyes shot to his, but defiance formed there. "No. That task... is mine. Not his... No son should have to... kill... his mother."
Drake had been straining beneath the lash of raw fury, but at the words, somehow the Prime found an inner strength that began pushing back against the strain. Somehow he was containing it.
That sensation of feeling watched heightened. An eerie sensation trailed down Luc's spine.
Shouts. Ragged confusion. Then something slamming into his side as Morgana drove herself against him, sliding the knife into his side.
"Your sacrifice, my lord," she whispered, her green eyes meeting his.
Agony erupted. A wash of red flooded Luc's vision, making him see double, until it felt like he stood in two places. In one world he staggered across the floor with glass crunching beneath his boots, a cold throb erupting from just beneath his ribs; in the other world, there was an aching feeling of nothingness, just icy stonewalls and a shadowy figure turning around to face him, its hands lifting to drag the black hood back from its face.
“There you are,” something whispered in his mind. Its mental claws locked tight over him.
Lucien screamed as all of his old nightmares took shape and form.
When he blinked, he was no longer standing in the sunroom. The two worlds became one. Instead, he was screaming within a prison of nothingness, the grate overhead revealing a small, insipid moon that looked oddly wrong, and the walls shimmered with a haze of heat, as if they were not truly there.
Voice raw, he came back to himself. "Where am I?"
The shadow revealed its face. The demon stood there, wearing a mask, and a topcoat with tails. The thin eye slits gleamed black, as if the holes fell into infinity, rather than reveal its eyes. It smiled, the mask
stretching into a contortion that echoed its expression, and chilled his blood.
"My prissson," the demon rasped, "in your mind." Both hands speared wide. "This is where I dwell. Where you casst me, once my s...sservice was done."
No. A cold sweat gleamed along his skin, and Luc took a step back. "How...?"
The demon advanced without taking a single step. "Do you remember my name?"
Lascher. He didn't dare utter it. "I banished you."
That smile spread. "Yesss. Here. Always here. Did you not know that I have been watching you? All this time?"
A bubble of power spun to life, balanced on the creature's fingertip. Within the opaque globe, Lucien saw himself and Ianthe entwined upon their bed. Her pale skin gleamed against their dark sheets as her body arched in ecstasy and she threw her head back.
Lucien smashed the bubble, and it dissipated like smoke. "Not her."
It can't hurt me, Lucien told himself. This is a psychic plane that it's created somewhere within my mind. I'm not really here. "You cannot step through into the physical world."
The demon laughed. Between one instant and the next, it vanished, and then it was standing directly in front of him. One hand lashed out, catching hold of the back of his neck. Their bodies pressed together, and the demon reached out and licked his cheek.
It burned like acid. Lucien gasped, trying to push it away, but all he could hear was that mocking laughter. Its grip was iron. The press of its body mocked him, and the fingers that glided down his chest clenched in his shirt, driving through what felt like the first layer of skin covering his heart.
"This is where I rule," Lascher whispered. "You are not the strong one here. I am. All I needed to do was wait for you to open yourself up psychically, wait for blood to ssspill." It leered closer, its breath smelling faintly of cinnamon and burnt spices. "Have you not dreamed of me?" A poisonous whisper. It conjured memories of nightmares too horrible to remember. "Yes," it taunted. "That one."
Red silk sheets. Naked flesh. The creature entwined with his body, its skin sinking into his, its mouth on his, their bodies slowly becoming one until Lucien lay alone, blinking up at the ceiling with black eyes...
No. No. He wouldn't remember. This wasn't happening. The demon couldn't take from him; it was only granted power when he willed it.
"Are you certain?" Lascher taunted; its body pressed against his. The movement dragged him back into the nightmare...
Ianthe. Lucien threw the thought out there, clinging to her memory. Of the perfume she wore, the feel of her skin, the taste of her smile... It grounded him a little.
"She's lovely. Perhaps when I'm in your body, I'll get to enjoy her too?"
Rage spiraled through him. Somehow Lucien caught the creature by the throat and shoved it back against the icy walls. They throbbed and the demon flinched. Lucien found some strength in that. "You'll never touch her. Never!"
This... this was his boundary. Fury gave him strength that hadn't been there before. Suddenly, he felt like there was distance between them. He felt like himself again.
But how did he get out of here?
A whisper of skirts brushed against him. "Lucien!" A hand slid over his sleeve. There, but not here. "Lucien, wake up! Here! Take my hand!"
And then Ianthe shimmered to life beside him, her hand curling through his. Her figure was as opaque as the vision the demon had shown him.
She was blind to the demon beside him. Blind to this world. But somehow she stood on the threshold of it. The lilac color of her skirts seemed so bright, so vibrant against the cold, dark walls of this inner prison, even though she was not wholly here. Lucien could see right through her, but her touch... that anchored him. Suddenly, the ground felt real beneath his feet. Flashes of sorcery crackled off wards around him, and he saw Drake with his hands outspread, his rings sparking and smoldering as he flung sorcerous weaves at his ex-wife. Morgana retaliated, stumbling back in a rush of red skirts, staggering as both Drake and Sebastian hammered at her. It all swam around him in an eerie dream-like sequence, the figures moving so slowly as they ducked and threw battle globes at each other. Only the weft and weave of sorcerous power held any weight to it, any significance in this world. Battle globes met each other, erupting in violent coruscations of red and blue.
The only thing that looked real was his body, gasping on the floor, and Ianthe curled over him, holding onto his hand, while she frantically tried to staunch the blood.
Holding his hand, even now.
"Ssshe's the only thing holding you back," Lascher said spitefully. It reached out, gripping Ianthe's wrist.
Ianthe screamed. "He's mine!"
"The only thing holding you back," Lucien corrected, shifting so that his body was between them. He felt stronger now. "You have no hold over me. She does. She owns me; body, heart, and soul."
The demon hissed. A malicious cloud seemed to be building behind it, little sparks of malevolent green lightning crackling within.
"Lucien," Ianthe called to him. "Come back! You belong to me."
One last look at the demon, and then she was dragging Lucien back, through some sort of hazy tunnel, Lascher receding into the distance.
The demon hissed and flung the cloud at them. Lucien thrust up his hands, but it passed right through him, a sting of icy needles that tore at his skin. Ianthe, however, screamed.
As if it were cutting her apart inside.
***
DRAKE STAGGERED, torn between opposing forces as Lucien's spine arched off the floor and he screamed. Sebastian was on his hands and knees, swaying and bleeding from the nose and ears. He didn't know which son was in worse condition. Standing halfway between them, he eyed Morgana.
"Lucien?" he called.
Ianthe ground her teeth together, blood dripping from her nose as she lifted her face. "I've... got him."
A black haze enveloped her. Then she screamed as Lucien gasped, his eyes springing wide open.
"No!" a woman cried out. Eleanor.
Just a split second where his attention had been misdirected. Enough time for Morgana to make her move.
She held the tip of the Blade to Eleanor's throat, draping his lover's weakened form back against her. "Don't move," she spat.
Drake held both hands out in a gesture of surrender. His eyes met Eleanor's. She looked confused, weakened. Fight back, he wanted to yell, but Eleanor's magic was silent. She was never submissive, never this quiet. Eleanor was a raging lion when someone threatened those she cared for. It made his heart drop like lead. What had Morgana done to her? "You're facing a dilemma, Morgana. If you hurt her," he promised, his voice darkening, "I'll kill you. Let her go, and I might spare you."
"I'm the one with the Blade! Don't speak to me like you hold the power here!" Morgana gestured the tip of the Blade toward him, then shifted it toward Sebastian when their son looked up. "Don't you move either, you treacherous brat."
"Morgana." Drake held his hand out toward her and took a slow, steady step. "It's done. You're surrounded."
"It's done when I say it's done—"
Sebastian launched toward her.
His son's sorcery was burned out, leaving him weak and unsteady, but he moved with deadly accuracy.
"No!" Drake screamed, but it was too late. Sebastian collided with them just as Morgana drove the Blade home.
One final time.
Sebastian ground his bloodied teeth together, holding the blade sheathed in his side and his mother's hands around it. This time, there was no warning. Expression ripped its way through the room, focusing in on the Blade itself. The pressure built, and Drake barely flung up a ward large enough to contain it.
Red light exploded as the Blade's magic sunk in upon itself, stretching the very fabric of being, and then it collapsed. Sebastian's power threw him and his mother apart, taking Drake with it.
When Drake blinked and came to, he was lying beside Eleanor. Some part of him remembered crawling toward her before the blackness overtook him. "Ellie?" h
e whispered. "Get up. We need to get moving."
Those gold-ringed blue eyes met his. "Nur. Megurrh."
"What's wrong?"
The room began to tremble. The entire floor felt like it was going to drop beneath his feet. Their sorcerous duel must have weakened some of the supports below. "Ianthe, get Lucien out of here!" Drake threw over his shoulder, then curled over Eleanor. There was blood on her back—a blow directly from the Blade, which sent a chill through him. The only way to heal such a cut was by using the Chalice to mix a healing potion. If they got to it in time... The slow steady trickle of blood wet his hands.
"Ianthe's not breathing!" Lucien yelled back.
Everything seemed to turn on its head. Drake glanced behind him. Ianthe flopped like a doll in Lucien's hands, but Lucien looked fine. Strained and pale, but he was only bleeding a little.
Drake glanced back at Eleanor, who lay on the floor, and Sebastian, who was grappling with Morgana, torn between too many opposing forces. For the first time in years, he didn't know what to do.
Or who to protect.
For they all meant something to him. And he was terribly afraid that he would have to make a choice...
CHAPTER 30
'A Soul-bond is formed between two lovers, and it ties their life-spans together as if they were truly but one...'
–- LADY EBERHARDT'S transcription on Soul-bond's
"IANTHE?" Lucien whispered, his voice tight and dry. "Ianthe. Please. Please come back. Breathe, damn you!"
The floor shuddered beneath them. Something fell. Somewhere.
But he shut the world out, pressing hard on her chest. Power was a faded ember within him, almost burned out, but at the periphery of his senses, he could sense the faded gold spill of the bond that connected him to Ianthe. It unraveled with delicate slowness as if she were slipping away into a place he couldn't follow.
"No," he whispered, bending forward to breathe into her lungs. Her mouth was soft and unresisting. Whatever the demon had flung at her had been a psychic storm of immense proportions. Ianthe had held firm, focused on dragging him out of that inner prison, rather than on protecting herself. It had worked. Lucien had blinked and found himself falling heavily into his own body, flesh weighing him down, but the cost of it... He didn't think he could bear the cost of it. He reached out with unsteady hands, stroking her face, trying to hold on, with everything that he had, to that dwindling thread of gold.