Ember and Eclipse (A Coven of Ruin Standalone), page 16
“I understand, Imperator,” he murmured. But his gaze didn’t leave hers as he caught her fist and lifted it. Reaching up, he pulled down his mask just enough to expose his mouth.
His lips brushing against her skin felt like another trap that was set and sprung.
Another lie.
Long after he left, she felt the ghost of his kiss and the phantom warmth of his fingers enclosed around hers.
Chapter XXXI
The music faded, and guards were already moving the crowd to create ample space in the center of the room. She and Asear, some of his advisors, and members of his kingsguard were on one side while the rest of the assembly was on the other.
She searched that crowd, convincing herself she wasn’t looking for a tall, silver-haired hunter. Regardless, she didn’t see him in it. He probably left already. And though that thought shouldn’t have led to the next, it did. She had not a single ally. Not a single person who would do anything to help her. Calliope may feel bad for her, may treat her with kindness, and remind her to keep her wits, but when it came down to it, she wouldn’t go against Asear.
And she didn’t blame her.
Asear motioned to someone, and there was a flurry of activity that she couldn’t quite see. Then, letting her go, he stepped forward.
Clearing his throat, he launched into a well-planned speech. “Romul has survived due to the ethos that anyone who dares to stand against us, attack us, threaten our families and great nation can know that we will always respond in kind. Our victory in Dornstrum proves that. Our very greatness proves that. We are, after all, the greatest nation this realm has and will ever know.”
There were murmurs of assent.
“I know that, as an Imperator, my tactics are often questioned. And though I have to be able to drown out the noise of the masses in order to do what I know is correct, that doesn’t mean I don’t truly hear you. Your concerns of not only the witches in the north, but in the south as well, have been heard. As rumors circulated about Witch Country having their eyes set on bringing Romul down, I can understand these fears.”
Did anyone even have concerns about the witches in the south? But that was the thing about Asear Othonos—he was likable, charismatic, and had an undeniable presence and strength to him. The people loved him, they trusted him. He was telling them he’d heard their concerns, and even if they didn’t know it was something to be concerned about, they were grateful to have such an impressive leader who listened to them. That, seemingly, cared about them.
It was hard to make a villain out of someone like that. They were being manipulated and, in the end, would thank him for it.
“Witch Country and Romul, we thought, had an unspoken arrangement. Our military and borders don’t push south of Heigar’s Pass, and they don’t enter Romulan territory.
“I have a regiment positioned in Heigar’s Pass, methodically taking the mountains and pushing the brutes that live there out. They may not be our enemy, but they are unwilling to cooperate. A thorn in our great nation’s side that we have long let fester.
It isn’t about the Monsos, though. I did not do this out of hatred or greed, but because two moons ago, witches from the south, from Witch Country, were sent here to try and end my life.”
There were gasps and muttering coupled with brusque orders and shuffling feet. Rel moved to see what was happening. They led them out, their bare feet shuffling across the smooth dance floor. Black cloths covered their heads, and witchsilver bound their hands behind their backs. They were filthy and bruised on every part she could see. Guards forced them to their knees in a line before those gathered and revealed their faces. They were gagged, and their features haggard and grim.
Rel didn’t recognize them, but dread spread through her with a dawning realization. The middle witch looked like her. Her hair was a darker red with less orange, and her skin was paler than hers, but there were similarities that she couldn’t ignore.
This was not only an execution, but it was also a threat.
The chamber’s sounds became drowned out by the dull roar of her blood rushing in her ears. She looked around the room at the sea of masked onlookers, searching for a single ally, anyone that would see through what Asear was doing. The masks were garish, warping and shifting to make them appear like bloodthirsty beasts. She understood the reason for the masks now. They were displays of loyalty of all the people that the Othonos’ rule had made rich with their conquests and crusades. There were more of them than she ever realized.
But more importantly, it was for this—they could participate, little by little, in violence and brutality, all while feeling like someone else. Anonymous. Faceless.
Not one person flinched or was bothered as they brought blocks for the prisoners to place their necks on. Some even stood on their tiptoes or whispered excitedly to their partners.
“I’ve heard your concerns, and I want you to witness firsthand the might of Romul. If you care not to see this display, I bid you to leave now.”
Rel watched as only a couple of people left, apologizing as if they were leaving the theater in the middle of a show.
The executioner, dressed in black with a red hood, stepped behind the first prisoner. He was a mage, and she could easily envision him being her father, her brother, her friend. Had they committed any crimes? Or were they just part of Asear’s agenda? Were they even witches?
The first strike hit too low, digging into the mage’s back as he let out a bloodcurdling scream muffled only by the cloth in his mouth. Rel took a faltering step forward, but Asear grabbed her arm to hold her in place. “Watch,” he hissed.
It took three more hacks before the mage’s head rolled.
The executioner lumbered toward the woman next, the one who held an eerie resemblance to her. The witch trembled, her neck outstretched, hoping it would be a clean blow. But she wasn’t looking down—her head was turned to the side, staring at the mage beside her. And he was looking at her, speaking around the gag.
Lovers? Family?
Something came over her, and Rel was moving before she could think better of it. She grabbed a knife from a nearby guard’s waist and dodged him as he tried to grab her. Asear caught her upper arm, but when she turned, dagger raised threateningly, he let her go, his features hardening.
The crowd let out gasps and cries. Rel had just threatened their leader’s life in front of them.
Well, if she was going to die this day, she might as well make it worth it. She dashed to the center, but the executioner blocked her path before she could get to the witch.
He paused, looking from her to the Imperator.
“Rel,” Asear warned from somewhere behind her, barely containing the rage she knew too well.
“Release them,” she bit out through clenched teeth.
“They are enemies of the Empire.”
“I don’t give a damn about the Empire, let them go.”
Asear gestured to someone, and she had a split-second warning before they grabbed her around her midsection and yanked her back. But she was ready, dragging the knife along the arm that held her. They dropped her, and she moved toward the executioner with the intent to kill before more came for her.
He lifted his ax but was frozen by Asear’s command to halt. The dagger was too large to throw, and she would die before she could get within range to stab him. Instead, she spun and worked to cut the mage free of his witchsilver even as someone attempted to pull her away. When she freed the mage, he immediately stood, already wielding his magic like a weapon—the color the deep orange of a setting sun.
Rel was restrained and hauled away. But even as she raged and grieved, the sight of the mage fighting with his magic, no doubt his last act, filled her with satisfaction.
Chapter XXXII
It took two heartbeats for her to feel the pain in her skull. The light was not in the room, merely behind her eyes, a product of being hit violently over the head.
It was a wonder that she hadn’t been permanently damaged at this point.
When she came fully to, her eyes snapped open and she thrashed reactively but quickly found that she was chained. The metal links were short, keeping her close to the floor. All she had accomplished was a jolting ache in her arms.
She slowly repositioned herself instead, coming to her knees as she maneuvered against the chains. Perhaps she could crouch and pull the metal ring up. Then she took in exactly where she was at—crimson and gold carpet.
“Now I see it, how feral you’ve become.”
She whipped her head around to look at the Imperator. He lounged, legs spread out, in a chair not four paces from her. She glanced around the room, but there were no others.
“It’s just you and me, like old times.” He stood up and stepped closer, his lean frame casting a shadow over her. He was dressed simply, and she knew the reason.
No point in soiling expensive clothes with her blood.
He crouched directly in front of her. She could see more clearly now where her fire had mottled and twisted his skin. The ruined flesh disappeared into his collar on the right side of his neck, and its path went all the way up his cheek, causing the outer corner of his eye to pull down slightly. His lip was still scabbed where she’d bitten him, too.
“We could have taken the world together, dominated until every corner of this realm was considered Romul. It’ll be mine either way and so will your magic. You belong to me, Rel.”
“You could carve all my skin from me, and I’d still never be yours. I belong only to myself,” she hissed.
He ignored her. His only response to her declaration was the tightening of his jaw. “You wrecked my face,” he said as he unhooked something from his waist, “perhaps I should do the same to yours.” Belatedly, she realized he had been pulling out the curved knife he used to cut into her back. He grabbed her jaw in a crushing hold, forcing her to tilt her face to look at him. He pressed the blade into her cheek.
“What do you say?”
Gritting her teeth, she struggled to get out of his grasp. “Release me, and I will show you just how feral I am.”
His grip tightened painfully on her jaw, keeping her from any further fight. She looked into his cold brown eyes and saw nothing but malice.
She spit at him, the glob splattering across his cheek and nose.
As he pushed her face away, his laugh was mirthless, dark.
He moved out of her line of sight. And after a long moment of silence, he said, “The only way to tame a wild animal is to break them.”
He left her on her knees over a hard stool under her breasts to keep her upright.
“—interested to see if, when the process is complete, she survives and in what state. Since she is not a full witch, her magic may not be fully entwined with her lifeforce as we have seen in others.” The Maester’s dull and nasally voice entered her awareness.
“Imperator Asear said—”
“I know what he said.” The Maester cut off whoever else was speaking with a droning annoyance coating his tone. Rel didn’t recognize the other male voice. “However, if this plaything of his has run her course, then so be it. The essence is what’s important.” His voice faded, and she wasn’t sure if he was getting farther away or if her mind was trying to protect her by blocking them out.
Her arms were spread out in front of her now, chained to an object that pulled her magic from her. She didn’t remember being moved, which meant she had lost consciousness at some point during his punishment. Now her magic leaked from her with sharp, clawing lashes. It was being forced out, even as it clung to the walls of her being and dug its nails into her heart.
The constant pressure on her knees and chest and the weighted stretch of her bowed head were all painful. Not to mention, her exposed back bore new marks where Asear carved away pieces of her flesh.
But it all mattered very little. Death was coming for her. It lingered in the room, standing just out of sight. And it wouldn’t take her quickly.
Sometimes she saw him, a shadow within a shadow. It was Hades, or maybe it was Charon, his ferry prepared just for her. Except she had no coins to give to him. She would go with him, though, even if it meant she was cursed to stand on the shores of the Underworld for eternity. She hadn’t belonged anywhere in this life, and it would be no different in her afterlife.
The only mercy was that the pain became so overwhelming that she passed out often. When she wasn’t unconscious, the constant agony and hunger had her drifting between reality and other realms.
One minute, she would be floating in the swamp, Aloysius trailing alongside her. The next, she was being dragged through flames, blood on her hands.
And she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming it when the scent of marigolds and herbs surrounded her. Or when soft fingers danced over her neck, leaving behind the touch of cool metal. Nor when wetness dripped into her hair. She knew that perfume, that gentle touch. “Mother?” she wanted to ask but couldn’t speak.
Minutes or hours later, she opened her eyes to find a green jewel hanging from a delicate chain around her neck. The emerald. The fenty vines were still wrapped around the chain, curled and drying out. Had the necklace been there the whole time? Was it even actually there, or was she just imagining things?
The jewel manifested visions of the hunter moving her around a crowded tavern. That night’s music became a symphony in her mind, along with the laughter and cheers. She let herself be transported and stayed in that tavern, dancing as if she were free.
Until Asear dug his fingers into her back, reopening the wounds he’d left. They must have been beginning to heal. She wasn’t sure if she made any sound, but she cursed him all the same. Afterwards, her back torn and peeled open again, her magic stopped draining from her.
“Give her water and something she can keep down. If you have any other concerns, come directly to me. I want her magic and her.”
“Yes, Imperator.” Not the Maester. She wondered, vaguely, if Asear had found out that he’d gone against his wishes.
But before she could care too much, she was floating in the swamp again.
Chapter XXXIII
They forced food and water down her throat, and she was pretty sure she bit someone’s finger, though not hard enough to do too much damage. Even with water, food, and the brief respite from having her magic drained, she knew she was dying. Asear could only prolong the inevitable. The knowledge that with everything he took, he couldn’t overthrow her death was comforting.
It was hers for the taking.
Devdan had said that he made a revolution out of his life. Death would be hers.
When footsteps sounded in the room again, she was too exhausted to even tense. Too weak. Too broken. She imagined that, at this point, they could peel all of her flesh from her, and she wouldn’t react.
So, it was a complete surprise to her when the chains clanged to the ground, and her magic receded, no longer being drained. The ache in her shoulders and elbows sharpened into a crescendo as her arms fell several inches. A whimper left her lips, but she wasn’t strong enough to look up.
It came as more of a surprise when strong, calloused hands shifted her gently.
She cried out as she went from kneeling over the hard cushion to being turned over on her side.
“I know.”
That voice.
“Rel, I need you to stay with me.”
Another reverie, then.
She was moved again, jostled, lifted.
“Fuck. I’ll kill them all,” Death declared in a rough voice.
Rel wasn’t sure why Death would feel the need to kill anyone but didn’t question it. The only thing she was acutely aware of was that she suddenly didn’t feel any pain. She could barely feel anything. The only thing she could identify was an inexplicable feeling of want in her chest. She supposed it was her body’s way of letting her know she was dead or dying. It was good to know that at least this part of dying was painless.
“I don’t have coins to pass.” She wasn’t sure if she actually said the words aloud, but he didn’t answer either way.
There was a long pause, and she faintly heard a heartbeat before she was jostled again.
“What is this?” The Maester. “Who are you?”
She was lowered to what she assumed was the ground.
“Guards!” the Maester yelled. She loved to hear the tremble of fear in his generally monotone voice.
His shout was cut short. A thud and wet, garbled choking followed.
When she managed to open her eyes, the world pieced together in fragments that didn’t quite connect. Blinking was a colossal effort, but she did it until her vision cleared. Her head was tipped to the side, and the first thing that came into focus was the Maester, his hand trying to stop the flow of blood coming from his throat. He was pale, too pale, and even as she watched, he collapsed to the side, falling parallel to her. His blood poured onto the red and gold carpet in slowing spurts.
Death had come for him, too.
The sound of approaching footfalls came soon after. She tried to right herself but barely twitched from her position. The only thing she managed to do was lower her chin to watch the scene unfold before her.
Three guards poured into the room, noted the dead Maester, and then looked upon Death. With their weapons already drawn, they made no warning before attacking. The clashing was muted, and her sight went in and out of focus, but Death, a black hood over his head, fought mercilessly.
When the last guard was felled, his head landing far from his body, he came for her again. She held no fear, just an aching need within her. Being lifted and positioned in strong arms made her momentarily dizzy, but when the world righted itself, she saw his face.
Looking down at her with concern glowing in his silver gaze, was the Wolf of Romul.
