Emre shook his head, drooping in sorrow. She hated him then, forever.
“Two deaths do not go quickly. Nor do these rebels.”
The Strix was now openly growling like an angry firedrake in her mind. Bonded they were, linked since she was twenty-one. Mind, body, and soul. One in the same.
“But of course.” Lu Har’s wicked lips parted in a smile, voice melodic. Face smooth as fired clay, impossibly beautiful. And hateful all at once. By the Pentax, why did They grant such a beautiful face to such a daemon? This was why she never trusted the word of the gods. They didn’t care for such things. “I don’t like delays, Cadrianna.”
It took the torturers grabbing her before Emre finally gave in, by this point, her beloved husband had been tortured, his arms were gouged and sliced by aetheurgic rends. Blood covered him from head to toe. This ‘Seal’ as the man called the item, Emre told them where to find it. In Drenth’s desert. The mines held the Temple of Mother Marrow. As was the Forgemistress of Life’s sacred Hammer.
And the beautiful man thanked him, smiling like it would all end, they’d be free Cadrianna had thought then.
But it was not to be.
The elfir snapped his fingers again, and the orcirish torturers cut her beloved’s throat. Blood spotted her face. Tears of copper and salt went unchecked down her cheeks as she howled.
Then came a woman, a shade within the arches, holding her child, Brynn. Pale as a Kanjan blizzard, the woman’s hair silver, pointed elfirish ears, dozens of bracelets affixed to her wrist.
“Master Lu Har,” the woman said. Her gaze moved toward the chained Cadrianna, and she gasped despite herself. The woman had two different colored eyes; one entirely white, the other black as pitch. A bikrome, a seer of Bliss and Brio. A marked contrast to the darkness all around them. “What of the babe?”
Brynn, no, not her daughter.
She learned his name then, the beautiful man. Lu Har. The Fallen.
“Bind her,” Lu Har said as his fingers roamed Cadrianna’s face as she cried when the woman nodded and took Brynn from the room. “Take this one for my flock.”
For seventeen years she had lived among the murderers of the Nightingale line, her familial heritage. They had given her a choice: live and kill or die. The hatred in her heart burned black even then. She had been a devout believer in the Pentax, but that day her devotion had shriveled. She would live only to seek a way to kill Lu Har and save Brynn. Cadrianna had slain dozens, if not hundreds in the name of the Fallen. She’d murdered men, women, and children all in his name, for his coven. It had been duty, her training, her art. She’d done it all without conviction, no remorse, only two things drove her.
For revenge. For love.
But her vengeance had to wait, for they had taken Brynn to make her compliant. Locked deep within the Fallen’s tower, in a dungeon Cadrianna had never found on her own, only when guided blindfolded. Brynn was constantly tormented should Cadrianna refuse to obey. Her daughter was dying and alone, grown into a woman forever bathed in hurt. For seventeen summers her poor daughter had suffered, and that had only steeled Cadrianna further, added logs to the raging fire within. She would get her revenge. And she would free Brynn. The moment would come, she knew it by the Pentax, it would come. That much she believed.
But only if she could shove the disgusting love within her breast aside. She was drawn to Lu Har, bewitched by him. Yearned to please him in any which way.
Gods, she hated herself for it. For loving him and the monster he had made of her.
Cadrianna’s glare cut through him as if it was made of blades. “I’ve been compliant since the day you brought me here.”
She shouldered past. Not many dared defy the Fallen, but she’d spent the better part of her life silently fighting him, waiting, biding her time. Loving him. She would endure his demands, her heart’s demands, even though she was disgusted by herself, by the pangs of desire. Bear it in the knowledge she would one day stick the Strix into his daemonized heart, the blade he had gifted her.
Many feared his magic, his mastery of aetheurgy. Of Lu Har’s control of daemons borne of Nocturne’s Pit. His army on the precipice of being unleashed upon the free lands.
But not her. Never her.
She wouldn’t allow herself to be driven to fear by him like many others were. He would die by her hand and then, only then, would Brynn be free. She would use his magical blade upon him, feasting on his blood. She would kill that love she bore, that hateful thing that she couldn’t be rid of if she tried. The Pentax had cursed her. Love and revenge.
Until then, she’d stay true. For her daughter.
She didn’t look back as she marched toward her personal chamber on the lower levels of the Fallen’s tower where all the scourges laid their heads. Under the main level of the tower were rooms that filtered into the innerbelly of Gargantua like an ant nest. Hundreds of rooms were stacked upon one another, an endless maze if one wasn’t familiar. Torture, training, meeting, laboratories all were there. Rooms housed poisons, weapons, money for bribery, clothing and silk. Everything the Fallen’s scourges might use for a contract and stores for his army. Others for Solanine’s scientists to create more deadly weapons.
Her chamber was the size of a prison cell. A bed filled with straw, a chest for her personal items, a wardrobe tailored for her to be worn while on contract, and a nightstand with an aethecite-powered reading lamp. It was all she needed, unlike the citadel of Thestile.
Cadrianna unclasped her cloak and tossed it on the bed. She unhooked her belt and cast it down as well. Pulling off the black-painted, firedrake scale cuirass, she untied her brown-black curls, letting her hair fall to her shoulders over her thin undershirt.
Drawing a thin, golden chain that held a small key from around her neck, Cadrianna unlocked the lid to her chest and pulled out a silver hand mirror and an ivory comb that had belonged to Emre’s mother. It had been one of Regentress Alandy’s most prized possessions, given to her upon Cadrianna’s marriage to Emre. One of the few things she had been able to retain after the conquest.
Mirror in hand, her thoughts turned toward killing Thestile as she ran the comb through her hair. “Death comes for everyone,” she taunted her reflection in the mirror.
“It does. Mors expectet,” the Fallen said as he pushed through the door of her chamber. “Richtel’s and the betrayer’s bodies were just discovered, and word is already starting to spread. Soon the rest of the Houses will agree to free my army against Kalderim.”
“Get out.”
Instead, Lu Har sat upon the bed, his legs sandwiching hers as he looked up at her. He put a hand upon her thigh and rubbed it. “You’ve grown since I first took you into my flock.” His fingers traced the contour of her hip. “Do you remember when you were brought to me?” He smiled, handsome and inviting. “Do you remember the nightturn your family was killed before your eyes?”
Blood dripped from her face, her beloved’s blood. Sprayed from his throat in grand fonts. O Zenith, she hated Emre for what he wrought her, but by the Pentax, she still loved him. Always would.
Loved and hated. That was the lie she lived now.
“Yes. I can see it on your face. You remember every painstaking minute of it.” His hand roamed higher. She didn’t move, she wanted his blood, wanted to see it shower her room. To lay bare the truth. Wanted him. “You live that moment in your head every day. Every moment, every detail.”
She trembled inside, truly trembled with the resounding hatred, undeniable love. Why now? Why today?
“Do you remember why you were taken?” He inched closer, knees touching, his face level now with her bosom. His hands ran up her taut stomach, grazing the bottom of her left breast, near the scars of her Void Form he himself had cut into her. Burning fire ran through her, burning desire for that’s what fueled the void. Desire. “You’re so beautiful, my Cadrianna.” His fingers pinched her nipple through the undershirt. He licked his lips. “Do you know why I spared you?”
“CAD, DON’T.”
She held still; she would not break. She would endure so she could kill him. But also to kill the love she bore for him. How could she love such a monster? Why would the Pentax curse her so?
“You look just like her. Jensa Nightingale was the most alluring woman I’d ever met. Most of Thullyr are. More titillating than Regentress Alandy Benld.”
