The stone started to slowly change from a colorless clarity to an opaque void as the nearly translucent liquid turned a murky gray before deepening further to a true black. Quinn shook her head as another blade slid into her abdomen, and she doubled over so rapidly her head nearly went under as the dark water turned ravenous. She squirmed, gasping as the pain mounted. Her flesh felt as if it were being peeled away layer by layer as invisible magic siphoned from her, swirling around her body while she remained in the center.
Magic began leaking from her limbs, beyond what was being pulled. It drifted from her mind on its own accord. Fleeing from her with the same strength of a riptide. With each passing moment, Quinn’s body began to sag, and her breaths grew ragged. Aches cramped her sides as she used the last of her strength to remain standing. Despite the fire burning her, Quinn shivered as if cold. It was as if she had been drained of her blood, the very essence of life leeched away.
A bite of something sharp sliced open her insides and Quinn jerked one hand—the one that had inadvertently pressed against her last invisible wound—out of the water only to see that she hadn’t, in fact, been cut open. Her guts weren’t swirling in the inky shadows surrounding her, though the pain in her flesh told her otherwise.
She choked when it came again and again and again—attacking every part of her.
Quinn sank her nails into the edges of the stone, trying to keep it with her as the agony became too much. Her lips parted in a silent scream as fire licked up her spine and then curled around her throat. Eyes wide, Quinn met Lazarus’ indomitable gaze across the room. He stood on the very edge where she’d left him. Just a mere hairsbreadth from the actual water. He appeared, for all intents and purposes, as though he were merely waiting for her to stand up and get out. If it wasn’t for the flash of fire in his eyes, she would think he simply didn’t care.
Black dots filled her vision. She gasped, seeking air, but too weak to inhale with her lungs. Her limbs were weak … too weak. Quinn pressed her back against the rock to keep herself upright. She couldn’t sink, because she knew deep down she wouldn’t come back up if she did.
She was so close to the end, she could feel it. Taste it. But it wasn’t enough.
Because there was something else going on here … something she hadn’t seen for what it was. Not until this moment. Not until it was too late.
Quinn didn’t even realize when her eyelids had slid closed. She no longer had the energy to keep them open. Her awareness had whittled down to one single point. The Servalis stone that held the entirety of her being … and then some.
She had to keep going. She had to survive. She had to know she could survive and come out stronger. Squeezing the object between her two palms, Quinn silently demanded the truth.
And the stone answered.
A tendril of something dark reached from the stone and into her chest, wrapping a vice around her life force. Her essence continued to rapidly drain away and Quinn felt it like a sword through her stomach when it started to pull more than just magic.
It was wrong. It was twisted—an aberration.
Her eyes shot open and she dropped the stone to the base of the spring whirlpool, but it was too late. Her arms wouldn’t lift. Her legs gave way. Quinn’s mouth opened but no sound came out as she was swallowed up by the black water and sank below the surface.
As her consciousness dispersed into oblivion, in her final thoughts, Quinn wondered … was dying really this easy?
Basilisk’s Sacrifice
“Ordinary beings rarely make history. It is the abnormal, the aberrations, that change the world.”
— Lazarus Fierté, dark Maji, heir to Norcasta, Master of men
Lazarus moved to the edge of the water, the toes of his boots barely skimming the edge of the still surface as he stared across the cavern. Leviathan’s eye illuminated Quinn, transforming her pale skin to something otherworldly as she held the Servalis stone to her chest. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips pinched in agony.
Darkness leaked from her skin, staining the waters, churning them. Even as far from Quinn as he was, he could feel the sheer power that exuded from it. Concern began to fester inside his chest, eating away at his calm facade. Sparks of awareness prickled along his nerves, sending his senses into overdrive. He could hear every sharp inhalation of her breath, every shift she made to try and ignore the pain rapidly overwhelming her. He could smell the faint hint of salt on the cave walls mixed with the floral darkness of the moon flowers that stretched over the vines. There was something tainted about the scents, like a hint of rank blood was seeping from the petals.
Lazarus was fixated, his entire being focused on the woman across the space of water and stone. Quinn opened her mouth in a silent scream, her back bowing. Lazarus fought to not go after her. To not walk through the waters and pluck her from this nightmare—because he could not. Quinn would survive this. Despite the sharp gasps emerging from between her lips and the labored, sluggish movements of her body as she struggled to keep herself up, Lazarus would not accept any other answer. She would survive this and therefore, she would later survive her ascension. He couldn’t doubt her. Not here and now when it would be too late.
And then the Servalis stone slipped from her fingers, splashing down into the oblivion of dark waters surrounding her. Lazarus frowned, his sharp eyes assessing Quinn’s pale cheeks as she slapped her hands against the stone. She didn’t appear to be aware of what she was doing. Her entire focus preoccupied. Is she … trying to get out of the water?
Lazarus took a step forward, the clear water of the lower pool nipping at his ankles. Dread bloomed inside of him, reaching long tentacle like fingers up to squeeze around his heart and throat as doubt took form despite his best wishes.
Quinn looked up, her eyes meeting his. They were so hazy, so clouded, and he was no longer confident that she could even see him beyond that curtain of pain. Her lips, now nearly blue, parted and then she collapsed.
Lazarus cursed under his breath as she sank down beneath the surface of the opaque waters. He waited, hoping that she’d reappear within the next few moments. But when she didn’t, he cursed again, turning and throwing off his cloak immediately.
Despite of Thorne’s warning, he was going to have to take his chances and enter the pool. Quinn may not die from the pain, but she could certainly drown in the meantime, and Lazarus could not allow that. She was too important. Claudius had made it clear that without her this would all be for nothing. His entire future—his empire—his throne—depended on her.
And so even if no one had survived two people entering the pool before, they would now.
Because he would not let her die. No matter the price.
Lazarus dove through the lower pool, his muscles pushing him, his limbs cutting through the liquid with ease. His head resurfaced as he neared the higher spring and he took the stairs at the base to the top of the small well.
Pressing his palms on the ledge, Lazarus peered over into the blackened waters as they sloshed and churned. With a frustrated scowl, he reached down—trying to keep the rest of his body from the enchanted waters as much as possible. Already he could feel the strings of the stone’s magic reach for the new energy source. It hungered, violently stabbing at his arm as he felt for Quinn.
Lazarus clenched his teeth and jerked his arm away. He reached for the one creature he possessed that could survive this magic and buy him some time. He needed to get her above the water so that when her magic returned, it wouldn’t be trying to reenter a drowned corpse. The basilisk answered his call, sliding from beneath Lazarus’ skin, the creature became tangible in the form of a long body with mauve scales. Stygian eyes met his gaze as the animal dipped its head. Lazarus sent a mental command and the creature curled its body around him like a shield, so that it moved with him as Lazarus heaved himself over the edge.
The siphoning that had assaulted him before remained, thought it was muted by the basilisk’s natural resistance to magic. Lazarus
knew the creature wouldn’t last long in this, but it was the more expendable of his possessions. Reaching down, Lazarus found a slender wrist and gripped it between his fingers. Quinn’s head emerged over the surface of the water as he dragged her up from the depths. Her limp body clung to the waters as he pulled her to him, fighting the waves that threatened to pull them both under.
Her lips were dark blue, the color of bleeding midnight. The same color was starting to sink into her cheekbones and under her eyes. She was cold to the touch, her skin a veritable frost. Lazarus lifted her, feeling for a heartbeat at her throat. It was there, but so weak and fragile, only a single small thump against his questing fingers every few moments.
He couldn’t remove her from the spring. To remove her would be to remove all possibility of her magic responding. It needed to return to her body before he pulled her out, or else she would die all the same.
The basilisk curled tighter around Lazarus’ muscles, letting him know that it was beginning to feel the pain of the Servalis stone eating at it. He had to find that stone. Heaving Quinn’s prone body closer to his own, Lazarus angled down and searched for the floor of the spring. His fingers met and curled around a sharp point. What had caused the stone to change form, he didn’t know, but he wasted no time jerking it back above the water’s surface and pressing it against Quinn’s naked chest.
“Breathe, Quinn,” Lazarus ordered as he held her to him and pressed his back to the stone walls of the spring to keep them both up. The basilisk squirmed around him, sliding between Quinn and himself as it shrunk to better suit its environment. The creature flicked its tongue out and hissed as a fresh wave of magic-depleting energy besieged it.
The pool began to settle as the churning and whirling went still. After several moments of calm, the water’s surface became a mirror, reflecting their image back at him. Lazarus hoped that with the waters calming, the end of the ceremony would soon come. Quinn’s magic would be returned and despite Thorne’s warning, they would both survive. He refused to believe otherwise.
And then came the burn. Like fire in his veins, that dreadful magic shot down his spine. Sharp spikes of flame stabbed in a curved motion along his back, causing the basilisk to cry out in pain, its agony echoing up to the ceiling of the cavern. With wide eyes, Lazarus watched as the basilisk’s scales grew pale and began to fade. He did not need to look at his back to know that the tattoo of the creature’s soul was doing the same.
It was dying. A true death.
Flurries of dark purple ashes lifted into the air as the water’s cleared in an instant, the absolute opaqueness of the Servalis stone began dim slowly. The darkness returning to Quinn, crawling up her front like a cloud of smoke, into her nostrils and mouth and ears. As it did, her color began to return. The ivory of her skin, so unnatural before, began to pinken. The blue sheen to her eyelids and cheekbones diminished.
Lazarus bit the inside of his cheek as he waited. The magic needed to return completely, but the longer he remained in the water with her, the faster the basilisk deteriorated. Its cries teetering out into pathetic mewls and then only silence as Lazarus scooped handfuls of the still dark water and brought it closer to Quinn, letting the darkness lift away from the liquid and slide back to its home inside of the woman he held.
Lazarus’ eyes narrowed as her hair began to soak up the darkness as well. He had heard rumors of the body changing when undergoing a trial such as this, but nothing compared to seeing it with his own eyes. Where her power was such a pure darkness, her hair was not. The silver strands slid against his palm as he reached up and shifted the locks to the side, pressing a hand to her face.
Her hair was still silver at the roots, but a faint purple color had bled into the ends and was steadily climbing. He smoothed her slick strands back as he watched the rest of it turn lavender. Her eyebrows followed suit.
He reached for the basilisk’s presence, though its corporeal body had long since gone. It was there somewhere … but like smoke in the wind, not something he could truly grasp.
Lazarus shook his head as his eyes drifted down to the sleeping woman in his arms as the last of the dark water turned clear. But it wasn’t only her magic she’d taken.
His basilisk was gone, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that her magic had consumed it—she had not only taken back her own power, but she had devoured a piece of his as well.
Along his spine, Lazarus felt the emptiness, the lightness of being one soul lesser than he had been before. His muscles tightened as he lifted Quinn into his arms and out of the water, her legs over one arm and her back against his other. Her weight was slight by comparison to his own, but still, he took his time carrying her down the steps and through the lower pool. The translucent waters slid against his hips as he strode onto the rocky shore and placed her on the ground.
Lazarus bent over Quinn, pressing his fingers against her throat and sighing with relief as he felt the strong rhythm of her heartbeat returning. Then he backed up, waiting to see if she would wake up now that her magic had been restored. After several tense, quiet moments, Lazarus realized that was not happening.
He leaned forward, tapping her cheek lightly. Quinn’s eyes drifted open, their depths murky and unfocused.
“Quinn? Can you understand me?” Lazarus asked. Her body shuddered, shivers skating up and down her flesh as her lashes fluttered. “Quinn?” Lazarus repeated her name and once again received no verbal response.
Instead, she jerked forcefully as she turned her cheek and her back bowed. Water shot from between her lips, everything she’d eaten on the ascent up the mountain followed as it emptied on the cave floor. Lazarus attempted and failed to help her sit up, but shudders racked her body and she curled tight into herself before pressing against him—her mind obviously unaware of who she was touching as she sought out the only source of heat in reach.
Is this a result of the test? Lazarus wondered. He knew she was strong, that much was clear. The once smooth stone had turned pure onyx and grown crystals that still remained in the absence of her power—and what a magnificent power it had been.
As Lazarus lifted Quinn into his arms once more after retrieving her clothes and wrapping her in his dry cloak, he looked back over his shoulder. The waters of the spring had calmed, reflecting a now serene surface when just minutes before it had been a dark frenzied whirlpool. He had already known it, but this only served to establish and confirm Lazarus’ suspicions. Quinn was no ordinary Maji.
She was so much more.
And true to his word—he was never letting her go.
The In-Between
“Sometimes the difference between real and fake is simply a change in perspective.”
— Quinn Darkova, vassal of House Fierté, fear twister
Smoke and shadows surrounded her. Vastness and night. The pain had consumed her so wholly that she’d lost everything to hold on to, and yet still, she clung to that tiny scrap of presence inside her. That ember of life. She wasn’t ready to die, no matter how fearlessly she faced the possibility.
There was still so much she had to do, so much she had to fight for. When everything was stripped away, she hovered on the edge of oblivion. There was only one thing that would save her now.
Spite.
Quinn had survived a childhood with monsters—not just with the creature that lived within her, but those that had raised her and then abandoned her in the worst possible way. She’d lived through her adolescence as a slave and eventually found freedom. She’d only tasted the briefest moments of independence before Lazarus had found her—and discovered that what she’d had wasn’t freedom at all. Not like what she was gaining by being with him. An old woman not long for this world had told her that no one and nothing was ever truly free, but that they—people—could pick and choose the things that caged them.
Quinn was finally starting to understand, and she refused for her time to be up. No. She would hold on, because nothing in this world had yet to break her and not
hing would now. Her vengeance for those who had attempted to destroy her still simmered in her veins, and one day, if she played her cards right, Lazarus would allow her the retribution she deserved. He would have no choice, because to be his vassal was to be protected from all, including the law. All but him, and he wasn’t someone she needed protection from.
So, she held on and she waited.
The coils of black smoke drifted toward her, slipping beneath the skin. Dark shadows clung to her like droplets of water, seeking, searching for a way back in and she welcomed them.
She pulled and she plucked until every essence of darkness that surrounded her had been torn from the air and returned to her, because if she was going survive—she was going to have to take it. All of it. Every last bit was hers to consume. She needed it if she wanted to live. And she did, more than anything.
Breath filled her non-corporeal lungs as the invisible cuts sealed and the pain faded.
There was something more, something that hadn’t been there before. It slithered inside, having been absorbed along with the darkness.
In the void of her own mind, Quinn’s lips parted as she whispered, “Who’s there?”
A hissing filled her ears. A presence brushed against her mind.
She felt the cool hardness of scales sliding against her calves and when she looked down, she stared and blinked. A snake, easily twice the length she was tall began to curl around her feet and legs. Though there was nothing under them, no ground, no forest, no world to speak of—it still moved as if it did—much as she did here, in this place in the in-between.
Fortune Favors the Cruel Page 20