Hearts Cursed, page 14
Even after losing his memory, he had still travelled, sharing his skills and good fortune where he could, even spreading the joy of this ridiculous time of the year with his Christmas trees and food and drink and endless cheer.
But even with all his goodness, his kind intentions, he didn’t understand the true evil of blood magic.
He came to stand in front of her, stopping her pacing, and took her hands. Looking deeply into her eyes, he said, “Blood magic isn’t any more evil than what I do with my blood.”
“But it is. It’s very different. What you do brings life. Blood magic just brings misery and darkness.”
He sighed. “Korinna told me you’d feel this way.”
“She did?”
He nodded. “In the last week, she and Tamuel have filled me in on so much. Including what you’ve been through.” He let go of one of her hands and touched her cheek.
She couldn’t help but lean into the gentle caress as she gazed into his beautiful eyes with their crystal green depths and long dark lashes.
“I’m so sorry for all that was done to you. For all that you’ve lost. And I truly don’t want to ever ask you to do something you’re not comfortable with.” He snorted a self-derisive laugh. “It seems stupid now that I thought I could somehow win you around to allowing me to drink of your blood by showing you some Christmas spirit. I thought the joy or family bonds or something might be enough to convince you. But I didn’t know. I didn’t understand, until what Loki said, how you were kept trapped and used. And I’m so sorry for it.”
“You are?”
“Of course. That only happened to you because of me. Because you are the answer to my current problem. We might not be responsible for what Tiberinus did originally, but there is no denying that the Fates ensured you could be here, ready once again to be used. This time, by me.” He let out a shuddery breath, the expression on his face filled with so much regret, shame and pain. “And I wish right now that I could just set you free of it all. I wish that I could say it’s not necessary, that you don’t have to do this. I want to be able to do that. You deserve to be free. But …” His gaze returned to the image.
At his sucked-in breath, she turned to see that things had become worse with Dawn.
It was now dark, the glow surrounding the two bodies on the bed lighting the room, showing clearly the little body lying limply beside them, her parents kneeling beside the bed, hands grasping their daughter’s, Korinna, Tamuel and Violetta standing behind them.
“How much time has passed?”
“A week since you fell unconscious,” Loki said.
“A week! But you said she only has until Christmas.”
“I did say that, didn’t I. Which means, if we take much longer here, it could be too late. See, even as we stand here, time passes and things become more dire.”
The image shifted to show all the adults in the room next to the bed, hands out, pumping power and their own life-forces into the baby, trying desperately to keep her alive. But they were weakening. Two demi-Gods, a demi-God-witch, a normal witch and a witch with Goddess-given powers did not have the life-force energy to keep them going indefinitely. Only a God or Goddess, with their full connection to the Eternal Well, the well-spring of all Godly powers and life-energy, could do that.
But they were trying. They wouldn’t stop trying. They would all give their lives for Dawn.
As would she.
She glanced at Loki and Trip. Both looked so grim, so … grief-stricken. They didn’t want to bind her or use her for evil or their own selfish machinations, but still … How could she trust they all wouldn’t end up paying some even worse price? Although, right now, she couldn’t think of a worse price than losing Dawn.
As they watched, Violetta passed out, falling to the floor, having given too much of herself to keep going. Hells. Was she dead? Had she already made that sacrifice?
“Loki. Stop this!” she pleaded, gripping his shirt, shaking. “Please. Make it stop.”
“There’s only one way. You must allow Triptolemus to drink your blood. When he does, the link between you should prove stronger than the one between you and Dawn, severing the current one in favour of a new one, and the baby will be free.”
“She will survive?” She yanked at his shirt.
He frowned down at the hands crumpling his costume. “And so will you. And Trip will have all his memories back.”
“But she will be tied to me?” Trip asked.
“Of course. You will be sharing your life-force with her. You will be the one keeping her alive.”
“So, you’re asking me to leash her to me? How is that any different from what was done to her when she was used to power that gem?”
“Because you are soulmates,” he said, as if that was obvious. “You are already tied together by the Fates and destiny and the Eternal Well in a way that cannot be undone by any other. But if it truly bothers you, I’m sure you can keep looking for a way to free her life-force from yours in the years ahead. That is, of course, if we manage to defeat Perses. Which, if you remember, is the point of all of this.”
“That baby should never have been endangered to get us to here.”
Loki winced. “I have to admit, that was never a part of my plan. But it’s not easy to wrangle the threads of fate into submission. You try it sometime.”
“Don’t you even care she’s dying?” Ilia asked.
“Of course I care. That’s why I brought you here, to bring it to your attention and make you see what must be done. Because if I’m sure of anything, Trip’s silly plan wouldn’t have worked.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me show you some possible futures. Maybe then you’ll decide.”
Chapter
Seventeen
Loki waved his hand over the image. It changed to show what was obviously Christmas day, given the wrapping paper strewn around the base of the tree and the half-eaten meal on the table beside it. But nobody was at the table, they were all standing around it, an argument in full swing.
“Where are Daphne and the boys?” Trip asked.
“Who?” Loki asked.
“My friends. They work with me on the farm.”
“Oh.” Loki shrugged. “Dunno. Tam probably spelled them to stay away from all the magic going on. Good thing too, given what’s about to happen in this version of the future.”
As they watched, the argument got more and more out of hand. Ilia couldn’t believe the look on her face – betrayal mixed with an anger so deep it burned.
And the glow! It was coming out of her chest, expanding, growing brighter and brighter as Trip argued his case, and Korinna and Tamuel – the people she’d thought of as friends; the two people in all the world who’d always backed her up; who’d never let her down – took his side. The fury that lived inside her, fuelled by a total and utter need for retribution and revenge that had carried her through the ages, grew in the image. But now it was fuelled by the betrayal playing out in this version of the future.
It grew and grew and then exploded out of her, felling them all in one, horrifying burst.
Ilia stared, unable to blink or breathe, as her power, the power she’d never thought was much of anything, had thought was lost when she was freed from the HeartsBlood Gem, killed everyone in the room.
Humans. Witches. Demi-Gods. Goddess-gifted witches who were as strong as Gods. Even Trip was gone. Wasn’t he supposed to be unkillable?
By all the fires in all the Hells, she was a God killer. The God Killer.
That was her.
“Oh Gods. Dawn,” Trip whispered.
Ilia’s gaze searched the image until she found what brought that broken sound to Trip’s voice.
Attached as she was to Ilia, Dawn had been spared death. But death would have been better. The burst of power had pulled nearly everything the baby was from her, making her skin crack and bleed through terrible burns while she slowly withered as her life, her soul, was sucked from her and into Ilia. Feeding Ilia.
And the most horrible part of it all was that Dawn was still conscious, feeling all of it. Screaming. Such terror, such pain!
“No. No. Do something!” Ilia cried.
“There’s nothing to be done,” Loki said. “This would have been the future if I hadn’t brought you here.” He made a humphing sound, his expression flat as the scene played out before them. “If you think this is bad, wait until you see what happens next.” He shuddered.
In the image, as the dust settled from her firestorm, the future-Ilia stared around her, tears flowing down her face to drop and sizzle on the still-burning embers of Trip’s house. Slowly, so slowly, she moved towards the blackened, bleeding husk that was little Dawn.
She carefully knelt down beside the baby. Then holding out her hands, gripped a hold of the gossamer thread that was the link between them, and tried with everything in her to give back what she’d taken.
Some of the blackened skin around where the link joined them over Dawn’s chest began to turn red, then pink. It was working! But not fast enough. The baby’s breath was a slow shudder, her screams now mere whimpers as Death laid its foul hand upon her.
She felt future-Ilia’s pain and grief, the guilt and desperation, as if it was hers now. Felt the need to do more. But she could also feel that there wasn’t much more inside her – so much had exploded out of her with the fury that had caused this. There was power all around her though – in the remnants of what was left of those who’d been her family – and yes, she knew now they were her family. She’d been so stupid to deny the truth of it before.
And with that truth, she fell into the vision; became future-Ilia.
She looked around, eyes bleary with unshed tears she couldn’t let fall until she’d done something to fix this. But there were no answers in the devastation around her.
Until her gaze fell once again on the bodies of those she loved with everything in her.
Despite the fact they were dead, their spirits had not yet departed and their power still buzzed in their flesh.
Power that was no longer of help to them, but it could be of help to her.
Bile filled her mouth at what she was thinking, but she was all out of options. Something had to come from the violence and death she’d wrought with her uncontrolled power.
Heart breaking, she flung her hand out, using the links she had with every single one of them – links of love, of friendship, of family – and then pulled from them. She took and took until first one, then another and another, was sucked dry and turned to dust, everything they were now inside her.
But it wasn’t enough.
The baby was still dying.
Sobbing, desperate, she flung out her hand again and created a link with the greatest power around her – Gaia. She was only able to do so because of the power she’d taken from Trip and Korinna. It allowed her to tap into something that was sacred, divine. And she took and took and took.
And as she did, everything died around her; the light was sucked from the world and into her to power her guilt-driven furious misery as she desperately tried to save Dawn.
The baby slowly turned from blackened char to healthy pink, but still, she didn’t wake.
She had to wake. She had to. Ilia couldn’t stand it if she lost another baby.
But as she held Dawn, the baby took her last breath and passed out of this world.
Ilia screamed to the Heavens, her fury so great now that time and space split open under its force. In that split was the pulsing grey of the Void, and the fullness of evil that waited there.
With a shriek of victory, something huge and black and terrifying spilled out, tendrils, like fingers, gripping the edges of the tear, pushing it wider, wider. Then as the sky rent in two, the evil oozed down to cover the land, sucking up all the souls she hadn’t already managed to destroy.
Ilia screamed as the evil drank her soul.
And then she was standing once again in the place Loki had brought them to, watching the mirror-like surface fog once more, hiding the image she’d been sucked into.
Her cheeks were wet, her breath coming in great heaving gasps, Trip’s arm around her shoulder, holding her up. She swiped at her eyes and managed to say, “That … that can’t be true! I’m not the one Perses can use to get out of the Void.”
“If you let your power take over you and then you take every other bit of power from this world, then you are.”
“But … I wouldn’t do that!”
“You would,” Loki said sadly. He tapped her chest where the glow remained even now. “You almost let your fury get the better of you multiple times since I brought you on this journey. If Trip or I hadn’t stopped you, it could have been disastrous.”
“But … I … I don’t have that kind of magic. I can’t take power from others.”
“Of course you can. Why do you think the ghosts ran from you when you used your power to repel them? Why do you think they kept away?”
“Because my repelling spell worked?”
“No, because the magic you were created with, the birth magic for lack of a better word, is being twisted by your bitterness and fury. It can give and create, but it can also take and tear apart. You didn’t just repel the ghosts, you started to undo them, taking the essence of them into yourself. They ran from you to save themselves.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Of course you didn’t.” He waved his hand at the image. “Just like you won’t mean to do this either. But the fact is, if you don’t come to terms with allowing Trip to drink your blood, then this is the future we face.”
“But … if I know this is what lies ahead, I can avoid it. I can just say no.”
“You can. But then this happens.”
He waved his hand, showing another image. This time, rather than allow her fury to build, she simply refused them and walked out. Time sped forward to show her friends battling the evil that was Perses as he exploded from the Void and used Trip’s and Korinna’s blood to power himself, destroying all before him.
“I wouldn’t leave them to fight alone. I’d be there to help.”
“Yes. But without your blood giving him his memory, and you and Dawn being dead because you didn’t find another way to separate from her, they fail. Even if you and Dawn are still alive, you are both too weak to be of true help.” Another image showed her refusing, but staying to fight – and die – by their side as Perses once again drained Trip and Korinna of their blood and destroyed everything.
Before she could protest that possibility, another image followed, and another and another, a rolling horror of futures where she said ‘no’ and all of her friends died; and Hells on earth was born because of it.
“But … but … this can’t be all on me. I’m nothing. I’m unimportant,” Ilia said weakly as fresh tears streamed down her face. Her mind was in turmoil, a pain in her chest so bad it made it hard to breathe.
“We are all unimportant … until we aren’t,” Loki said.
“That isn’t very helpful, Loki,” Trip said, glaring at the other God.
“I’m sorry. I’ve used up my quota of helpfulness in getting you to here. The rest is up to you.”
“But …” She cast around for some argument, some alternative. However, the only question to ask was, “How do I know that the future will be any better if I allow Trip to drink my blood and tie my life-force to his?”
“Good question,” Trip said. “Show her that future.”
Loki raised his hands. “I can’t. Because of the blood magic, that future is uncertain. The only certainty I can show you is this.” He waved his hand.
Jules was placing Dawn on the bed beside where Ilia sat. She was sobbing and couldn’t seem to let go of her daughter’s hand, stop touching her head. Ilia leaned over and said something to her, then Bas added something else. A short conversation passed between Jules and Ilia, ending with Ilia smiling, tears in her eyes. Then Jules kissed Dawn on the forehead before rising to stand by her mate’s side, supported by him, her family at her back.
The Ilia in the vision took a deep breath as she lay down, then turned to Trip, muttering something.
He nodded, cupped her face and whispered words that made her eyes widen, then before she could respond, he bit down on her neck and began to drink.
A desperate kind of hope filled all their faces alongside terrified grief as the link – suddenly visible – between Ilia and Dawn began to fade. The baby’s lips became a little less blue, her skin a little less deathly pale.
Within a few minutes, the link was so thin and tight that when Dawn’s eyes snapped open on a wail, her arms flailing, the movement was enough to snap the bond completely.
She was free.
Her mother and father grabbed her up, their cries of relief and joy obvious even though there was no sound.
Loki waved his hand again; the image disappeared.
“Wait! What happens next?”
“That I can’t show you.” Loki turned to face her, a look of triumph glowing in his eyes. “But as you can see, the only clear option to save Dawn is to allow the blood magic.”
“But we don’t even know if doing that will ultimately save everyone.”
Loki frowned at her. “Never happy are you? What about the fact you just saw yourself saving Dawn? I thought that would be enough.”
Ilia’s lips trembled. He was right. It was wonderful. She didn’t believe it before, but she couldn’t argue with what she’d seen. She could free Dawn if she allowed Trip to drink her blood. Still, the very thought made her skin crawl and her mind scream – and caused the power to glow in her chest once more.
Lip trembling, she said, “I want to do this. I’m just … I’m afraid the fear …” She gripped at her chest, scrunching her t-shirt up in her hand, the glow getting brighter. “It burns inside me, wanting out. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to stop it from doing just that the moment you begin to drink.”
