Storm of the Seven Sins, page 21
“Dinner, Eva,” the Executor says, and retreats.
Warily, I approach the food. This close, the combined scents of honey, cinnamon, and roasting meat are irresistible. But I go for the water first, desperate to slake my all-consuming thirst. I let my wolf come forward, sniffing it for tampering, and when she finds nothing, I snatch up the cup. It tastes of metal, but I don’t care. I drain every drop.
When I’m finished, I set the empty cup down and pick up the plate. It’s all I can do not to lower my face and eat directly off it, like a pig from a trough. But I force myself to eat slowly, with my fingers, since he hasn’t given me any utensils. This is rich food, and the last thing I need is for my stomach to reject it.
My mother waits until I take my first bite. Then she does the same, wielding her knife and fork with the same exquisite manners Sebastían and Layla possess. Her impeccable etiquette is eerily at odds with the bruise on her face and her chafed wrists.
The meal is interminable, but finally it ends. The Executor re-cuffs my mother and leads her back into her cell. He wheels the partition out of the way, whistling as he does it, and bids us both good night. Then he stalks from the room, Larisa following in his footsteps, leaving the candles guttering on the table.
The moment the door slams behind them, my mother edges as close to the bars as her chain will allow. “Eva,” she whispers, even though the Executor is no longer there to hear. “You’re real, yes? This is real?”
The longing in her voice is unmistakable, as is the doubt. I know, better than most, the drugs that the Commonwealth has at its disposal. How has the Executor tortured her? Has he made her hallucinate? Pity sweeps me. “It’s real,” I promise.
“I can’t believe it. I wish I could hold you. Touch you, just so I could be sure it’s not another one of his tricks.” She exhales, the sound heavy with frustration. “You’re so close and yet… Gods, I’m sorry, Eva. I’ve waited to see you again for so long. But I never wanted it to happen like this. It’s a nightmare to have you locked up beside me. To have to watch him hurt you.”
“Where are we? Is this where the Executor lives?”
“It’s my quarters. He has another place. I’ve never seen it.” She huffs, dismissing my questions. “Tell me, Eva—I want to know—”
“You’ve never seen where he lives?” I interrupt. “Have you been trapped in these rooms, for twenty years?”
There’s a long silence. Then my mother says, “I’ve never left this apartment, from the day he brought me here.”
The full horror of it breaks over me. “You haven’t been outside? Not at all?”
“He would never take such a risk.” The scorn in her voice is unmistakable. “But I’m all right, Eva. I’ve made do. I have books. Clothes. Food. And I’m not always in this cage.”
She’s so clearly trying to reassure me, it breaks my heart. “How did you get that bruise on your face?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says impatiently. “Tell me about you. Are you all right? What has he done to you?” Before I have a chance to say a word, she rushes on. “I have so many questions, Eva. I want to know everything about you, and not through his eyes. Who you are. What you love. Why you’re here, now. And I need to know—my home—”
Pity rushes through me at the realization that she’s been cooped up here for two decades, without sunlight, in the care of a monster. “One thing at a time,” I say, my voice as gentle as I can make it. “He’s told you about me, you said. How much do you know?”
“I know you became a bellator. That you hold the forms of four beasts, which—oh, Eva. It’s miraculous, yes. But what a burden to bear.” Her gaze is heavy with sympathy.
“You know I escaped?”
“Of course. Armand was furious. And then he left. And I was so scared…” She breaks off, her head dropping to her chained hands. “Where were you, Eva? Where did you go?”
“To Vik. With the Brotherhood.”
My mother’s breath speeds up, coming fast and shallow. “Did—did you make it there?”
“I did.”
“And it still stands? It hasn’t been destroyed?”
“Destroyed? Why would you think—” Then it dawns on me. I will burn the city you loved, and stand laughing in the ashes. “He told you Vik was gone, didn’t he. That everyone you loved was dead, and the place you fought to protect had been razed to the ground.”
The silence that falls is answer enough. “He’s vicious,” she says at last. “He takes pleasure in hurting me. And what could hurt more than that? But—are you saying it’s not true?” Her voice trembles. “That my home…that Dev…” The chains clank, her feet sliding against the stone floor as she strains to get as close to the bars as she can. “Devereaux Adelman. He was a guard. Do you know him? Does he live?” Desperation and hope leak from every word.
At least there’s something I can give her, a gift that will hopefully bring her light. “He does. All this time, he’s thought you were dead. Once he learned you were alive, he—” I think of Councilor Adelman’s face when he crashed into Ari’s room, the morning after I learned the truth about Cordelia. About the white-knuckled grip he had on the table in the Great Hall, the scent of grief and rage that baked off him with every word he spoke. “He’s the head of the Council of Nine now. And suffice it to say, I’m sure he’ll stop at nothing to find you.”
Cordelia falls to her knees. “Dev.” The syllable is a broken whisper. “Oh, gods, Dev.” She presses her chained hands to her face and begins to sob.
Hatred for the Executor flashes through me anew. What better torture than to tell your prisoner that she has nothing left to live for? That everyone she cared for is gone, that she has no home to go back to? To strip away all that she was, all that she hopes to one day return to, and make yourself her whole world? So that, in the absence of an alternative, she may one day turn to you, abandoning her dreams and swallowing your lies whole?
I grip the bars of my cell, wishing I could reach through them and touch her. To offer comfort to this woman who’s been tried, tested, and abused but didn’t shatter, until she learned that the boy she loved twenty years ago still lived. “He never forgot you. His whole life is dedicated to finishing the work you started. To bringing the Commonwealths down.”
My mother’s sobs fade to hiccups. Her breath hitches. “Dev is alive,” she repeats, clearly fighting to pull herself together. “Alive, and the head of the council. That’s quite the meteoric rise for a baker’s son. Do…do the rest respect him? Do they listen to what he says?”
I draw a deep breath, then tell her everything, hitting the highlights from the moment I left Vik until my arrival in this cage. It takes a long time, and when I’m done, my mouth is bone-dry again.
My mother gives a short, sharp inhale. “I thought perhaps Larisa was…an exception. Someone he’d captured and tricked into doing his bidding. But the Mages have risen? And they’re in league with the Commonwealths and the exiles? Oh, by the gods.”
“I should have listened when Ari told me meeting them in the woods was a terrible idea. But my beasts…” I sink my head into my hands, unwilling to articulate how my very self has become untrustworthy. “Now Erdahl is probably dead. And any rescue mission they’ve mounted is walking straight into a trap.”
“This is not your fault,” my mother says firmly. “You wanted to help a child. The fact that you didn’t, in fact, manage to save him is beside the point. Your intentions were good.”
“You know what they say about the road to hell,” I mutter into the dark space between my palms. “And now…now Ari…”
“We’ll figure it out,” my mother says firmly. “We’re together now, and that’s all that matters. It’s more than I ever dared to hope for.”
“Together in cages,” I point out.
“Together, alive.” Her voice falls to a whisper, so quiet that a normal human wouldn’t be able to hear it. “He’s lying to the Mages, Eva. He’s using them. It’s what he does. We have to find a way to convince them of that and turn them to our side. It’s our only chance.”
I slide down the bars, hugging my knees to my chest. “I’ve tried. It didn’t work. Their leader just drugged me and knocked me out again.” My self-disgust rings in every syllable.
“You’re powerful, Eva. But you’re not omnipotent. It’s one thing to fight the bellators. But magic that you don’t understand is something else again.” My mother sighs. “I’ve heard the old stories of what the Mages used to be. If even half of them are true, then you’re dealing with a formidable force. You couldn’t have anticipated what happened in that stone circle. Nor could you have protected yourself against it.”
Lifting my head, I stare through the bars at the luxurious chamber beyond, at the crack in the floor and the candles guttering on the table. The room is windowless. Soon, when the candles die, it will be full dark. “I should have known better than to go. I should have listened to Ari, when he warned me.”
“You love him,” my mother says softly. “And he feels the same?”
I think of how angry Ari has been with me. How frustrated. He’ll come after me, regardless. But just because he’d risk his life for me doesn’t mean he still trusts me with his heart. “He loves me,” I say, willing this to still be true. Even if I never get another chance to tell him I feel the same, Panther of the West or no. That I regret our last conversations more than I can say.
“I’m glad. When Armand took you from me—when he pried you from my arms—I worried you’d never know love.” Her voice breaks on the word. “The Commonwealth is a cold, cold place; I’ve learned that well enough, even if I’ve never left these chambers. I feared for you, raised here. I feared what you would become. But despite everything, you and Ari found each other. You escaped this dreadful place. And your love is strong enough to sustain him as your familiar. That, alone, is a miracle. Eva, I’m so proud of you.”
After what she’s been through—imprisoned, tortured, and forced to bear the child of a predator—it floors me to hear her speak to me with such kindness. “How can you stand to look at me? Why don’t you hate me? You have every right to, after what he did to you.”
“Oh, Eva.” Tears lace my mother’s voice again. “You’re a gift. Half of you may come from him, but half of you is mine. You grew up brave and brilliant and strong. You’re all I could have dreamed of. You’re a miracle. And I could never hate you.”
Tears clog my own throat, and I fight to hold them back. If I start crying, I’m afraid I’ll never stop. I draw on the control I was taught as a bellator, slowing my pulse, focusing on the candles’ flames until I can speak calmly once more.
“Ari will come here, Cordelia, to the Mages’ stronghold. I know it. They’ll let him penetrate their defenses. And then, as soon as he’s close enough for our bond to work again, they’ll use me to power whatever horrific offensive they have in mind. I can’t let that happen. I can’t let them hurt innocent people.”
My heart thuds, steady and sure, as I share the cold conclusion that I came to while I was bound to the beam. “I’m the reason the Mages’ power has been awakened. I’m the commodity the Executor is so desperate to get his hands on, he traveled across the Empire, lost the remainder of the Thirty, and nearly died in the process. I am too dangerous to live.” Not to mention, I refuse to be responsible for Ari losing his freedom and being forced into servitude.
Her harsh intake of breath resonates in the space between our cells. “Don’t say that, Eva. Don’t even think it. Please. Not when I’ve just found you again.”
I twirl the ends of my battered braid around my fingers, like I used to do as an anxious child in the Nursery, alone in my bed in the dark. “I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s deaths—can’t you understand that? And I’m tired of being a pawn. If I take myself out of the game, they’ll have to find another game to play.”
“You’re more than a pawn, Eva. You’re a symbol. You represent hope. Take that away, and this resistance has nothing.” Her voice trembles with intensity. “Why do you think I’ve survived this long? I believed if I endured, I would find a way to see you again. To escape. And here you are.”
“You think I can help you escape? I can’t even save myself!” Disgusted, I kick my empty plate. It skitters across the floor and crashes into the bars on the other side.
“But you will.” There’s not a shred of doubt in her voice.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” she says, “you’re a survivor. And that is what we do. Don’t even consider sacrificing yourself. We’ll find another way.”
I want to believe this, badly. But— “He’ll torture us to hurt each other,” I whisper. “Like what he did to me with the prod. I…I can’t be used to make you suffer. I won’t.”
“That wasn’t your fault, either. It was his.” Her voice is steel. “Don’t make yourself into a martyr for the cause, Eva. You’re a fighter. So am I. We’ll fight, together. We’ll bring this whole place down.”
Her certainty feels like a lifeline, and within me, a spark of resistance flickers, coaxed into flame. But on its heels comes a choking sense of claustrophobia at the thought of losing my one hope of escape. We’re underground here; I can sense it. I’m in a cage inside a room beneath a building within the Commonwealth behind a fence—
“I have to get out of here,” I blurt. “I can’t be here, not trapped like this. Not again. I fought so hard to escape, and he just dragged me back and now he wants to use me and make me watch as he tortures you, and I can’t help Ari, I can’t help anyone, and I—”
Dimly, I’m aware that my mother is talking, attempting to soothe me, but her words are a meaningless blur. My breath comes shallow, faster and faster. The words tumble over each other as I grip the bars of my cell, shaking them, trying to rend the metal. Within me, my beasts are in chaos, growling and hissing and scratching at the surface of me, desperate for release I can’t give them. “I can’t be here,” I gasp, clawing at the bars. “I have to get out, I—”
“Hush!” my mother snaps, and the urgency in her voice is so strong that I actually comply, shocked into silence.
And then I hear the same thing she must have: footsteps padding down the hall, toward our chamber. They’re light and quick, as if the person is in a hurry.
Or as if they don’t want to be heard.
I swallow hard, trying to bring my breathing under control, as the door eases open and another red-robed Mage steps through, clutching a silver tray of syringes. She shuts the door behind her and stands in the shadows, regarding both of us from beneath her hood.
“What do you want?” my mother says, her voice brusque. “We’re hardly a danger to ourselves or anyone else, locked up like this. Did he send you back down here? Well, you can trot back to him like a good little lackey and report that we’re behaving. Go along now. Shoo.” She flicks her fingers at the Mage, sounding every bit like the royalty she was born to be.
But the red-robed figure doesn’t move.
I peer at it more closely, trying to make out the face beneath the hood. Maybe it’s my imagination, but something about the way the figure stands is eerily familiar.
My anxiety is gone now, subsumed by curiosity. Inside me, my wolf raises her head, snuffling the air. Not pack, she informs me. But friend.
Friend? This makes no sense. No one wearing one of those robes is on my side. “Take off your hood,” I demand, a hint of my wolf’s growl thickening my voice.
The red-robed figure lifts a finger to her lips, adjuring silence. Then she pushes back the hood and steps out of the shadows, into the wavering candlelight.
And shock reverberates through every fiber of my body.
Chapter 33
Ari
Sebastían lands in the fallen leaves and comes up swinging. One look at the way he’s going after Jaxon, who’s giving as good as he gets, and I know there’s no hope of me separating them alone. Putting two fingers in my mouth, I whistle, the high-low-high pitch of the Bellatorum’s distress call. Fifteen seconds later, Kilían materializes out of the darkness, Ronan right behind him and Adrien, Fade, and Councilor Adelman on his heels. Kennett follows them, rubbing sleep from his eyes but alert nonetheless. I suppose a medic is trained to wake instantly, just like a soldier.
It takes our combined efforts to pull the two of them apart. Jaxon is hampered by the absence of his gun and his tender shoulder; Sebastían’s sole impediment is his unwillingness to kill Jaxon outright. He’s pinned Jaxon to the ground and closed his jaws around the latter’s throat by the time we drag him off, spitting curses every inch of the way. Disgusted, he shakes us off, growls in Jaxon’s direction, and stalks off toward his tent, his back ramrod straight.
So much for getting a good night’s sleep, I think as Kennett kneels next to Jaxon, checking him over for damage. Luckily, most of it seems to be to his pride.
“What happened?” Ronan demands.
“He happened.” Jaxon sits up, gestures at Sebastían, then locks his jaw and refuses to say another word. He looks every bit as wrecked as he did on that damned beam, and my stomach churns. Then, I saved him because he was fated to be Eva’s familiar, and because it was the right thing to do. Now, he’s my friend. And I protect what’s mine.
Getting to my feet, I follow Sebastían through the camp, ignoring the guards who’ve emerged from their tents, roused by the commotion. Ronan can tell them whatever he wants; my business is Sebastían and the secret he’s hiding, along with the nasty sadistic streak he chose to take out on Jaxon. It’s clear to me that whatever Tobias got caught trying to steal, Jaxon had no idea about it. And yet, Sebastían didn’t hesitate to try to use it as blackmail.
