She smiled down at her daughter and cupped her face in her hand.
“You did good, sweet girl,” she said. “I hope you’re ready to take over your own covens as the new priestess of the sapphire gates.”
“I’m ready,” Sophie said.
“Then let’s begin.”
With a nod of her head, several cloaked witches took their spots on the other four points of the pentagram star and knelt on the stone floor. Two others wrapped their arms around me, placing chains on my wrists to keep me from shifting to my demon form. I struggled against them, but I knew it was no use.
I concentrated on the army waiting on the other side of the demon door. They were our hope and our future now. It was all in their hands.
Priestess Evers began reciting the ritual words and when she stood on the fifth and final mark of the star, the sapphire portal stone healed itself, bursting forth with a shining blue light. Zara’s body tilted, floating in the air lengthwise above the stone. She tried to scream, but it came out as a dull groan.
As the priestess continued the ritual, the light grew brighter and black swirling smoke crept from the opening inside the light.
Priestess Evers looked to a witch standing in the hallway that led toward the room full of cages. “Bring forth the demon.”
The witch nodded and began to cast a spell.
An iron cage floated from the darkness of the hallway, a demon woman in a black cloak locked inside. I breathed in sharply. I may not have ever seen her face, but I knew this demon. She had come to me in my dreams and warned me this was coming.
They marched her toward the portal stone as everyone in the room watched, holding our breath.
This was not the normal way of things. Normally, a demon was chosen in the Shadow World and pulled through the portal. I‘d never heard of a demon being brought and held captive here in the human world.
When they opened the cage and brought her to stand beside the portal stone, the witch ushering her out lowered the woman’s hood and she looked at me, her face full of sadness and regret.
“No,” Jackson shouted. He beat against the iron cage they held him in. “How could you? You can’t do this. You can’t have her.”
I turned to him, not understanding at first. But then the demon looked to him and smiled, tears running down her face.
“Brother, how I have missed you,” she said.
I gasped, nearly dropping to my knees. It couldn’t be. How much horror could one family endure?
“Illana, no. I can’t lose you, too,” he said, sobbing and falling to the floor of the cage.
My eyes filled with tears. This was not part of my plan. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to save her, but how could I have known?
She was the one who had tried to warn us both, all this time. I’d wondered so many times why the cloaked woman hadn’t just come to us and told us what was going on, but now it all made sense.
She couldn’t come to us because she was locked up, held prisoner by the emerald priestess until the ceremony could be completed.
“Quiet,” Priestess Evers said. She pushed her energy toward Jackson and he raised a hand to his mouth, his eyes wide with panic. He couldn’t speak.
Illana lowered her head and waited as the ceremony continued.
“Illana, demon of the Shadow World, we bind you. Enter into this holy vessel, we command you,” Priestess Evers began.
Illana gasped and shifted to black shadow, her body pulled into the circle. The dark essence of her spirit swirled around Zara’s body like smoke.
Priestess Evers took the necklace, the chalice, and the dagger from the table and walked to Zara’s side. She grabbed her wrist and held it out as she sliced across her pale and withering skin. Blue blood poured from Zara’s wrist and fell into the chalice.
“Animus compingere moderatus,” the witches around us chanted.
Priestess Evers dropped the necklace into the chalice of blood, a hissing sound echoing in the chamber as the blood began to bubble and boil. She handed the cup to Sophie and returned to Zara with the dagger.
Everything inside me screamed out to put a stop to this. It felt unnatural and horrible, seeing her so helpless.
I couldn’t stand to watch it, but I refused to turn away. Tears fell from my eyes.
“Adnexus ab cognatus,” Priestess Evers called out as she placed the dagger against Zara’s throat.
Full Of Tears
The dungeons of the castle were dank and dark, an unpleasant smell wafting from the sewers.
It was cold down here, and I shivered. As a natural fire caster, I was more susceptible to the cold, feeling it deep in my core.
Lea had fallen asleep, tired from kicking the bars and struggling to try to shift. She should know better than anyone how hopeless it was to think you could escape these dungeons.
But to me, even this captivity was nothing compared to what I had endured in the human world. At least here, I was left to my own thoughts, instead of constantly being drained by someone else’s abuse of my power.
A door squeaked on its iron hinges as it opened, and I stood from my resting place on the floor and walked to the front of the small cell.
I peered out to see who had come, hoping maybe the king had changed his mind and agreed to at least let us warn Jackson about the betrayer. But my eyes filled with tears as the woman approaching let down her hood and revealed her face.
“Mother,” I said softly.
Tears fell from her eyes and she reached for my hands through the bars. “Is it really you?” she said, her voice a whisper in the darkness. “I never thought I would see you again.”
She placed her hand on my face and caressed it gently.
Something inside me opened, like a wall coming down, unable to hold back one hundred years of abandonment and agony.
“Why didn’t you come for me?” I asked. My lip trembled as I spoke the words. I had just told my own brother that they should have left me behind, and I thought I believed that with all my heart. But seeing her here, feeling her skin upon mine, I realized just how angry I was that my own parents had turned their backs on me.
Jackson was the one who’d fought for me. He sacrificed everything, even his own chance to rule this kingdom, to save me. And I had treated him like shit, blaming him for Lea’s sadness. I hadn’t even given him the chance to explain or defend himself.
Now, he was in danger, and there was nothing I could do to help him.
“Mother, you have to get us out of here,” I said. “I don’t know your reasons for leaving me to the Order, but you have to understand that Denaer doesn’t deserve this. He’s given up everything to save me. He’s engaged, Mother, to someone he truly loves. He’s happy. And he might die if we don’t warn him what’s coming.”
She pulled her hand from the bars and stepped away, turning her head to the side so I couldn’t see her face.
“You and your brother don’t understand how this world works,” she said. “You think it’s as easy as swooping in there with some army and taking out the Order of Shadows, but there is so much more you don’t know.”
“Then tell me,” I said. “Tell me why you can’t fight them. Why does the king lock himself away and abandon all of the other demons in the outer villages? I don’t understand.”
“Aerden, it’s not our place to question the king—”
“Then whose place is it? He’s gone mad, Mother. Can’t you see that? I’ve been gone over a hundred years, and he barely looked at me. He didn’t welcome me home or rejoice that one of his worst enemies had been defeated,” I said, careful not to wake Lea. “Instead of rejoicing and joining the fight to help us defeat the Order, he locked everyone in this city away and abandoned the rest. Have you been outside the gates? Have you seen what’s happened to the cities there? I saw it with my own eyes as the guards marched us here in chains. Places that once thrived with life are ghost towns. How is that good for any of us?”
“Oh, my sweet child, I don’t know h
ow to make you understand,” she said, raising her hand as if she wanted to touch me again, but reconsidered and drew back. “I have to go before they find me here, but I had to come see you. I had to make sure you were real and not just some dream.”
“I need to ask you something first,” I said.
“Anything,” she said.
“Has the king brought a stone guardian here to the city?” I asked it in a hushed whisper, terrified to know the answer.
The skin around her eyes twitched and she stepped forward. “Where did you hear that?”
“So it’s true?”
She breathed in slowly and shook her head. “I can’t discuss this with you. I need to go.”
“Mother, wait,” I pleaded. “If they won’t let me get word to my brother, can you do it? In our bags there’s a ruby communication stone that allows us to get in touch with him or with Harper. We need to warn them before it’s too late. If it isn’t already. Please, I’m begging you.”
“I can’t, Aerden. Can’t you see that? I’m powerless to help, and if I was discovered communicating with the future Queen of the South, I don’t know what would happen to your father and me. It’s bad enough I’ve lost so many of my beautiful children. I can’t afford to lose what we have here in the King’s City, too. I have to keep Orian safe, and I have to do what I can to keep you safe now that you’ve returned to me.”
My blood turned ice-cold. “What do you mean? Where’s Illana? Mother, where’s my other sister?”
She turned to me, her eyes again full of tears. “She’s gone, Aerden,” she said. “When she heard of the fall of the sapphire gates and that you had been saved, she begged the king to let us leave the city and find you. But he refused, saying that no one was allowed in or out, with threat of treason if anyone was found trying to escape the city. She stayed for a few months, but recently, she’d grown depressed and impatient. I should have recognized the signs. Paid more attention.”
“What did she do?” I asked.
“She sold some of her jewels and hired two guards to escort her from the city,” my mother said. “When the guards returned, they said they’d been attacked by a group of powerful hunters. They said Illana was taken. Don’t you see that this is why the king has locked us away? It’s for our own good, to protect us all. Once you leave this city, there’s nothing I can do to help you. Illana is gone, just like your brother.”
She placed her hands on the bars, looking at me with such sweetness in her eyes. I almost couldn’t bear to look at her. How could she say she cared about us when she could so easily turn away?
“But you’ve been returned to me,” she said. “And I will do everything in my power to keep you here, where you’re safe. I know the dungeons aren’t comfortable. I’ll try to make sure they’re bringing you warm food and blankets to keep you from catching cold. But thank God, you’re safe, my sweet boy.”
“Mother—”
“I have to go,” she said, turning her head at the sound of someone approaching. She placed her hood over her face and touched my hand one last time before she ran down the corridor and disappeared into the darkness.
I walked over to the bars that separated me from Lea and slid down the length of them, reaching my hand through to touch hers as she slept. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled at me for a moment before they closed again.
I had no idea how we were going to escape or if Jackson and the others in the human world were going to be okay, but I was used to uncertainty and fear. I’d lived with it for so long, it had broken me.
Over time, I’d given up on my own life and freedom a long time ago, never daring to dream that I would ever again be able to feel the softness of her skin or the way my heart beat when her eyes met mine.
Immortality is torture when you have nothing left to live for, but for the first time in as long as I could remember, hope blossomed inside me.
Maybe Jackson was right. Maybe it was time to tell her the truth.
I rested my head against the bars and closed my eyes, deciding that once we both woke in the morning, we’d find our way out of the darkness of this dungeon and head toward the light we’d both left behind so many years ago.
The Sorrow For All I’d Lost
Death comes to us all, eventually. But there is nothing more devastating than watching someone you loved die right in front of you.
The silver blade of the dagger sliced across Zara’s throat, and blood poured from her like a wave of tears.
My body rigid, I breathed in as her life flowed outward, puddling on the surface of the sapphire portal stone. The emerald priestess smiled and waited, ready to pass the power of the demon gate to her daughter. I watched the excitement and ecstasy in her eyes, forcing myself to see the kind of evil I was fighting against.
Whenever I doubted myself in the future, and whenever the battle seemed too hard, too costly, I would remember that look in her eyes. Anyone who could find such joy in the death of a soul so pure and innocent as Zara’s deserved to burn in hell.
And tonight, that’s exactly where I planned to send her.
The last of the blood drained from Zara’s body and she fell, lifeless, to the floor. The dark shadow of the demon swirling around her slowed and hovered like a cloud above her.
The priestess’s smile faltered and she wiped the dagger’s blood on her robes. She tugged at her hair and glanced at her daughter. I waited and watched, biting the inside of my lip.
She motioned for Sophie to join her, her neck stiff and her movements jerky.
“Daemon Ingredieris huc,” she said, her voice echoing in the still room.
Nothing happened.
Priestess Evers stared at the Shadow Demon, her eyes widening, anger flashing like lightning.
The bright blue light of the portal stone began to fade and the demon started to shift, her human form appearing in the smoke.
The priestess shook her head in quick, pulsing movements back and forth.
She ran a trembling hand across her forehead. “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice hoarse and grating. “Something’s not right.”
Her emerald eyes narrowed and she looked from Zara’s body to the chalice, trying to make sense of what was happening.
My stomach rolled in waves of nervous anticipation.
Finally, she snapped her head toward me. “What have you done?” she asked.
It was my turn to smile. I raised an eyebrow and tilted my head. “I wanted you to be surprised,” I said.
I turned to Sophie and in a loud, confident voice, said the words that released the power of Rend’s glamour potions.
“Exero.”
The body lying dead across the portal stone changed as the glamour dropped. Blood covered Sophie’s neck and hair, her eyes lifeless and unseeing.
Rend had created three potions. Zara’s potion gave her strength and glamoured her to look like Sophie.
Sophie’s did the opposite, making her look like Zara.
The third potion had taken Sophie’s voice away so she wouldn’t be able to scream or protest or tell anyone I had switched their appearances.
The potions didn’t take any concentration to maintain and could be dropped with that one word. Exero.
Zara’s eyes met mine and tears coated my lashes. I might not be able to save her from her mother’s curse, but I would never willingly let her die by another’s hand.
“Go,” I mouthed.
I wanted her out of there before the priestess and her coven had a chance to wrap their minds around what had just happened.
Zara nodded and shifted into a small blue butterfly. She disappeared into the hallway and up the stairs.
The silver ritual dagger clattered against the stone as it dropped from the priestess’s hand. She stared at the lifeless body of her most cherished daughter.
Her arms shook and her mouth opened. Her face twisted in rage and misery as the horror of what I’d done soaked into her evil brain. She dropped to the stone floor and scre
amed, her hands reaching up to tear at her fiery red hair.
Crawling, she clawed at Sophie’s body, pulling the girl into her arms and violently rocking her back and forth. Sobs choked her as she wailed, blood soaking her robes.
The room erupted in chaos. Some witches ran to console their priestess, while others turned their eyes to me.
The footsteps of an entire army pounded on the narrow staircase leading down from the kitchen. Rend and his vampires came first, their shadowed forms flying across the room in every direction, descending on witches of the Order and sinking their ivory fangs into flesh.
The witch who had ushered us downstairs earlier grabbed the ritual dagger from the floor and rushed toward me with wild eyes, screaming.
Black smoke coiled around her feet and she dropped to the floor, her head landing on the stone with an awful thud. Blood gushed from her, spreading out through the cracks in the floor like a maze of gore. I searched for the source of the smoke and met eyes with Jackson’s sister, Illana. She nodded slowly, pulling smoky tendrils of power back toward her body.
She shifted easily and reappeared next to me. Her hands closed around the iron shackles at my wrists and they popped open.
“Thank you,” I said.
She touched my wrist, and though she didn’t speak, everything she wanted to say was there in her eyes.
She shifted again and flew toward the cage that held Jackson hostage.
I ran to help and just as I reached them, Andros called my name. I turned and he held up my father’s sword, admiration in his dark eyes. I wrapped my hands around its hilt, grateful for its weight and power.
Jackson climbed out of the cage and pulled his sister tightly to his body. His eyes met mine, grateful tears shimmering in the light of the spells that clashed and erupted throughout the room.
“Find Eloise,” I told him. “She’s here somewhere. I can feel her.”
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