Gathering Darkness (30 page)

“
I'm
dangerous too, in case you've forgotten.”

She needed to see reason, but there wasn't much time to convince her. “I'm going to just go ahead and say it. I've been worried about you ever since your escape from the palace. I don't want to jeopardize your recovery. I know what happened. It—it was rough for you. And your brother . . .” His jaw tensed. “I know that you'll need to take time to heal.”

She stared at him. “I'm fine.”

“You're not.”

Her face flushed and her eyes flashed with anger. “Yes, I am. I'm
fine
. Stop treating me like a delicate flower, because never, not once in my entire life, have I been one. You don't need to protect me. I can confront Felix with you, by your side. And if he makes any move toward you, I'll kill him.”

She was so beautiful when she got all riled up like this. “You never stop arguing, do you?”

She groaned with frustration. “I'm not going anywhere else and you can't make—”

He grabbed her face between his hands, pushed her back against the wall, and pressed his mouth against hers. His emotions were running high tonight, and just then she'd looked so fierce, so gorgeous—

He couldn't resist. He'd wanted to kiss her for ages, actually. And it was just as good as he'd imagined it would be.

She grabbed hold of his shirt as if ready to shove him away from her, but instead she slid her hands over his shoulders and pulled him closer, returning the kiss, and, for a moment, made him forget everything but the salty-sweet taste of her lips.

When they parted, he was panting, certain his face was as flushed as hers.

“Didn't expect that,” she whispered.

“That makes two of us.”

“Well, it doesn't change a thing. I'm not leaving you.”

“Fine.” He slid his fingers through her long dark hair, his mind spinning. “We'll confront Felix together. Two against one, better odds.”

“Will you, now?”

The words cut through their shared moment like a knife. Lysandra stiffened against Jonas and they both looked toward the entrance. Leaning against the frame in the now open doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, was Felix.

“So confront me,” he said, without a trace of humor in his voice or eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

Rage returned, bright as fire before Jonas's eyes. “Where should I begin?”

“You can save the recap. I heard everything through the door. Realized that both of my friends had suddenly disappeared into thin air, so I went searching for them. And here you are.”

Jonas stepped away from Lysandra, cursing himself for letting his guard down. The walls here were paper thin; he should have been more careful.

“You lied to me,” Jonas growled.

“I never lied. Withheld the truth? Maybe a little.”

The smug look in Felix's eyes was enough to incite Jonas. He attacked, grabbing hold of the boy's arms and shoving him backward out of the room and into the hallway.

Felix broke loose easily and smashed his fist into Jonas's face. Jonas stumbled, falling to the ground, but Felix grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him back up to his feet.

“I'm going to kill you,” Jonas snarled.

“I'd like to see you try. For all those rumors about you, I've never been too impressed by your combat skills. Me, on the other hand? Professional level.”

“I guess that's why the king keeps you in his back pocket.”

“Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“Stop it,” Lysandra snarled. “Both of you.”

“No,” Felix said, flicking a cold glance at her. “Jonas started this and I'll finish it. Couldn't be any other way. I'm surprised it took this long, really.”

The smugness was gone, replaced now by what Jonas saw as pained disappointment.

Without another word, Felix shoved Jonas down the stairwell. He stumbled and fell, unable to right himself until he landed with a crash on his back on the floor. He pushed up and staggered into the tavern, with Felix right behind him.

Jonas grabbed for his dagger, but Felix was there first. He knocked it out of his grip and backhanded Jonas across his face as he tried to get to his feet, then punched him hard in the gut. Jonas spit out a mouthful of blood and found he could barely breathe; the air had been completely knocked out of his lungs.

Lysandra ran down the stairs, a knife in her hand, but Felix turned, grabbed her by her throat, and shoved her backward, sending her crashing into a table.

Jonas tried to get up, but found Felix's knee pressed to his chest and his blade to Jonas's throat.

“So here we are,” Felix said. “My little secret's now out. Too bad, I like to keep my secrets secret.”

“I trusted you.” Jonas growled.

“Trust goes both ways, friend.”

“So kill me already.”

“Did you consider, for one damn moment, that I'm not as bad as you suddenly think I am?”

“You work for the king.”

“I
did
work for the king. I did a lot of bad things for the king, actually, and got paid well for all of them. Ever since I was only eleven years old, I've killed for him. I was a cute kid. I could get into a lot of places his other assassins couldn't. Kept Limeros running nice and tight, no problems. But things have changed since the war.
I've
changed.”

Jonas stared up with disappointment—almost heartbreak—at the boy he'd come to consider a friend. “Really.”

“I told you how I grew up, just not where or who my boss was. I never had friends. I was raised not to trust anyone unless they were part of my clan. I came to hate those people.” Felix's expression grew haunted. “Got my latest assignment from the king, which was to track you down and infiltrate your little group of rebels. Lo and behold, when I found you, you had no group. You were as alone as I was. Call me crazy, but I decided to make a change right then and there. Felt like the right time for me to start down my path of redemption.”

Jonas frowned, uncertain what to believe.

“That's right. I wasn't planning to betray you or kill you.” Felix voice was thick with conviction. “But the moment you hear something you don't like,
you
betray
me
,
you
decide to kill
me
. Without a second damn thought. Doesn't sound like a real friend to me.”

Jonas shot a glance over to Lysandra, and was dismayed to see that she was lying unconscious on the floor. Felix followed his line of sight. “I didn't mean to shove her that hard. But sometimes we hurt the people we love. Life's like that.”

Then he plunged his dagger through Jonas's shoulder, pinning him to the floor. Jonas screamed.

“Don't worry, it won't kill you. It just feels like it will.” Felix ripped the leather pouch off its ties around Jonas's wrist and pulled out the crystals. He held them as if weighing them to determine their value in gold before curling his fingers around the moonstone.

“My blood, my crystal. It's only fair.” He tossed the orb of obsidian at Jonas; it landed heavily on his chest and rolled off to the side. “We're done here.”

Jonas watched through a curtain of pain as Felix turned and walked out of the tavern without a backward glance.

Lysandra groaned and began to stir. Galyn emerged from behind the bar and ran over to help her up to her feet.

Jonas lay still, literally pinned to the floor, until Lysandra helped him remove Felix's dagger and patch his wound.

“It's all right,” she told him, her expression one of anguish. “We're better off without him.”

Jonas wasn't so sure about that. Trust was a fragile thing. And in that moment, he couldn't even trust himself anymore.

He'd learned a few important, but very painful, lessons tonight.

The first was that he'd screwed up.

The second was that true friends were rare. And those with dark pasts didn't always yearn for dark futures.

He could have given Felix a chance to explain, given him the benefit of the doubt after he'd shown his loyalty time and again.

It seemed that Felix wasn't the only one now ready to earn his redemption.

ALEXIUS

LIMEROS

W
hile many of Alexius's memories had grown foggy since Melenia applied her obedience spell to his flesh, one had remained crystal clear. It was of a starry, moonlit night in Paelsia when, in hawk form, he'd watched two sisters use magic enhanced by blood and death to steal a newborn child from her cradle.

He'd watched as they slipped away into the dark forest, the tiny baby swaddled between them. Then, soon after, he watched one sister betray the other in order to deliver the child to the man who'd given her the mission in the first place, a man she believed she loved—a man who would one day be king.

The witch was young and stupid and willing to do horrible things for love—even murder her own sister.

But what Alexius remembered most vividly was the moment he had gazed at the baby's face, wondering if what the witches said could be true: that this innocent child was the sorceress reborn, after all of these years they'd waited.

In his heart, he'd known it was the truth. It was why he'd continued to visit the child for so many years, so he could watch her grow up into the beautiful, powerful, and dangerous girl she now was.

The night Lucia was taken from her birth mother, Alexius had silently pledged that he would always be there to protect her. At the time, he'd meant it with all his heart.

Now, they were together in Limeros. Lucia's hand tightened on his as they drew closer to the temple.

“Oh, Alexius.” Her breath froze before her in the cold air as she spoke. “I've missed it here so much.”

Alexius didn't have many good things to say about Valoria, so he kept his thoughts to himself. Valoria had believed her opinions were better than anyone else's, never mind that nobody ever shared them. She frowned upon anything that would make a life, either mortal or immortal, more interesting, even reading fables or singing. Cleiona had been the exact opposite: a frivolous, vain creature who cared only about her own amusement.

It was no wonder the kingdoms they'd founded evolved to prize their respective values.

Rising up at the temple entrance was a statue of Valoria, wearing an expression of judgment upon all who entered. Her arms were raised at her sides, and etched into her palms were the symbols of the elements she represented, earth and water.

While this location paled in comparison to the grandeur found at the Temple of Cleiona, which was easily six times the size of this one, it was still very impressive. It was all clean lines of smooth granite blocks, exact angles, sharp edges, with nothing gaudy or out of place. Nothing extra or unnecessary or ornamental. The temple was pristine in all ways, and was open all hours of the day and night to anyone.

But Melenia had sensed great power here—as she had at the three other locations.

He'd thought it would be months, not weeks before he came here.

It had all happened much quicker than he ever would have imagined.

Inside, in the center of the black granite floor, a massive fire roared. This was in some ways ironic, since Cleiona was thought to be the goddess of that element. But in Limeros, one simply needed fire to keep from freezing to death.

The fire, Alexius noted, burned in the center of a long, rectangular pool of shallow water, and was regularly tended by temple attendants dressed in red robes.

There were very few people here tonight—a likely result of both the snowstorm and the late hour. He and Lucia had already secured a room at an inn close by, while keeping her identity well-guarded.

Once the clouds had cleared and the bright moon lit the frozen landscape almost as well as the sun, she had practically dragged him here, excited to show him what had been such a large part of her life before moving to Auranos.

He tried to walk quickly, but, even though the wound Xanthus gave him was healing nicely, his leg still troubled him. It was a harsh reminder of his mortality.

Lucia pulled him down the aisle toward the altar at the front. There she grasped hold of his hands and looked up into his eyes.

“This is where we'll be married,” she said, a wide smile lighting up her sky-blue eyes.

“Here?” He raised his brow as he glanced around. “I'm not sure if eloping princesses should be wed in public places like this if they want their secrets to remain such.”

“Maybe I don't want it to be a secret. Maybe I want everyone to know . . . even Father.” She kissed him, throwing her arms around him and pulling him close. “He'll understand. He
will
.”

He wondered if the king was so committed to finding the Kindred that he'd approve this marriage to ensure it. He wasn't so certain. His last meeting had gone well enough, but the king was anxious and impatient about the lack of progress and time.

If only he knew the truth.

“What about your brother?” Alexius asked.

“He might pose more of a problem.” But her smile was still intact when she drew back from him. “Magnus will have to accept that I love you. He understands love, whether he'll admit it or not. He'll see in my eyes that this is true and nothing will ever change it. I was always meant to be with you.”

His heart a dead weight in his chest, he touched her cheek, trying to sear her image into his memory.

Lucia finally frowned. “Why do you look so sad?”

He shook his head. “I'm not sad.”

“This is your happy look, is it? I must say, it has me a little worried. You're not having second thoughts, are you?”

Second, third, fourth . . . millionth. Every decision he'd made, every secret he'd kept. “Not about you.”

“Good. I know how different we are. And I know I haven't known you very long at all . . .”

I've known you all your life
, he thought.
Watched over you. Protected you from the others. Almost seventeen years now I've waited.

“. . . but this is right,” she continued. “I've never been surer of anything in my life.”

Alexius took her hand, rubbing his thumb over the large amethyst in her ring. He remembered seeing the same ring on Eva's finger. In the end, for all its power, it hadn't helped the original sorceress against her greatest enemy.

In the first dreams they'd shared, Alexius told Lucia that Eva had perished because she'd fallen in love with the wrong boy. But that had been a lie. Love—at least the love that Eva herself had experienced—had had absolutely nothing to do with the sorceress's demise.

It was such an ironic thought now.

Lucia looked up at the arched ceiling and at the few worshippers filling the hard wooden benches. Then she turned to gaze at the fire that burned to keep visitors warm from the constant chill outside. “Can we claim the crystal here? Now?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

She frowned. “What do you mean, ‘not yet'? Is it because there are witnesses?”

“No. It's because one last step must be taken here. There's been no blood magic, no elemental disaster. It won't be done in the correct order, but it still must be done. This place”—he gazed around with trepidation—“is the anchor. This place is where it shall all end. And the end will trigger the beginning.”

She smiled at his enigmatic speech. “I don't understand.”

“I wish I could have explained everything to you, but it's impossible.” He rubbed his chest. “But here we are. Here is where destiny has been waiting for us for all these centuries.”

She watched him patiently, as if his ramblings amused her. “What do we have to do, then, to accept this destiny?”

She was so curious, insatiably so. He wondered what it would have been like to truly be her tutor—to help her with her magic for years to come. “It's all about blood, princess. Blood is magic. It's the key to everything—the key to life, the key to death, the key to freedom, the key to imprisonment.”

She laughed, surprising him, and leaned forward to kiss him. “You're so serious tonight, aren't you? Don't worry, a little blood doesn't scare me.”

He wished he felt the same. His chest hurt more with each moment he hesitated—the invisible markings binding him to Melenia's will, controlling him, day and night. “She's making me do this. Please know . . . this is not my choice.”

Her smile faded and her expression became cast in shadow. “It's all right, whatever's troubling you. I'm here.” Then she hugged him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders to pull him closer. “We'll figure all of this out together and—”

She gasped the second he sank his dagger into her stomach.

“I'm sorry, Lucia,” Alexius whispered. “This isn't me. This is something more powerful, controlling me.”

He pulled the weapon out. She staggered back and dropped to her knees, touching her wound and staring with shock at her bloody fingertips. Blood flowed from the gash, soaking into her gown and pooling before her on the floor of the temple.

At the other locations, it had taken a great deal of blood to trigger the necessary effect—a tornado, an earthquake, a wildfire. The blood of slaves spilled on the road they were forced to build. The blood of rebel battles in a temple and in the mountains. Blood spilled from scores of mortals, three separate times, to trigger three elemental disasters.

Fate. All of it.

But the blood of a sorceress was more powerful than that of one hundred regular mortals.

Melenia had waited a thousand years for this moment. With Lucia's blood spilled—here, now—the veil between worlds would finally dissipate enough for someone as powerful as the elder to escape her prison and claim what she wanted most.

Through his fog of horror, Alexius heard the screams of those who'd witnessed his violent act. They ran from the temple, leaving him and Lucia alone.

There were no heroes here to step in and save her.

Only a once immortal villain clutching a dagger.

Under Melenia's spell, every rebellious thought he had or word he spoke caused him pain—but all of that was nothing compared to the pain he felt seeing Lucia suffer like this, enduring pain that went deeper than physical.

“What . . .” Lucia gasped. “What are you . . . why did you do this? Alexius . . . why?”

Suddenly, an ice storm gathered, triggered by Lucia's blood, unleashing itself above the Temple of Valoria and shattering every window. Icicles as sharp as swords and as fast as lightning hurtled through the open windows, some impaling the floor and others shattering into a thousand pieces on contact.

Alexius just stood there, silently shaking as he watched Lucia bleed. She stared up at him with pain and confusion etched onto her pale face.

No fury or accusation, only confusion.

All the while the violent storm battered the temple. He had no doubt that anyone who'd set foot outside was already dead. There hadn't been enough time for them to find shelter before the gales struck. Their bodies would be found around the temple, frozen and riddled with ice shards.

But their deaths were meaningless. Only Lucia's blood mattered.

Melenia had been right about so much. But not everything.

Lucia could destroy him with a thought, but she didn't use her
elementia
against him in defense. Right now she was just a girl who'd been betrayed by the boy she loved.

He knelt next to her and took her by her shoulders, struggling to speak past the pain that threatened to block the truth. “That wound won't kill you, but the next one will. You must defend yourself from me while you still have a chance.”

Her agonized gaze searched his. “Alexius . . . stop this . . .”

“My mission is carved into my very skin, Lucia. Melenia has compelled me to obey her commands and I can't stop this, I can only delay the inevitable.” Each word was a knife in his throat. “Melenia wants you to die, here and now.”

“Why?”

“Your blood holds the same magic as Eva's blood—powerful enough to trap her, powerful enough to free her. She doesn't want the Kindred returned to the Sanctuary. She wants it for herself and she's planned this, waited for this, for millennia.”

Her eyes grew wider with every word he said. “You lied to me.” She drew in a ragged breath. “How could you? I trusted you!”

It took every ounce of his strength to resist the faraway command to run his blade into Lucia's heart and steal her life completely. Melenia's obedience spell burned within him, but he resisted. There had to be another choice . . .

He clutched the blade, his hand trembling violently. “You need to kill me.”

She shook her head. “What? No! You . . . you said this wound won't kill me. I'm still alive, I'm here. Please, whatever spell she's put on you . . . you have to resist it!”

“I'm trying,” he bit out through clenched teeth. But it was an impossible task.

Melenia would win, just as he always knew she would.

His strength was gone, his small grasp on control slipping. Everything inside him screamed for him to end this, to kill her and be done with it. But he still held on. “She'll do anything to free him,” he said. “She believes she loves him and that justifies everything to her.”

“What? Who—Melenia? I don't care who she loves. I love
you
. No matter what. I love you, Alexius.”

“Why won't you do as I say and defend yourself from me?”

“Because this isn't an
elementia
lesson,” she hissed. “And you're not my tutor right now. You're the boy I love and I'm not giving up on you!”

She thought there was still a choice to be made, still hope for a future together.

He wished she were right.

She was so beautiful, this young girl who'd stolen his heart. So beautiful and brave even after he'd done so much to make her hate him. “You still don't understand. She already has won. Now it's just a matter of who will survive until tomorrow—you, or me. And I swear, it will be you.”