Page 60 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

I glared at him. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing here,” I grumbled.

“I wasn’t really trying to hide it. Look, I’ve watched Gabriel for years. He’s quick to retreat from the battle, but he’s real stubborn when it comes to the war. He’ll be back once he’s had time to lick his wounds.”

“Mixing your metaphors a little,” I muttered under my breath, nowhere near quiet enough to get past vampiric hearing.

He rolled his eyes.

“What do you even know about all this?” I said snippily. “Do revenge quests leave you with a lot of time to date?”

Damien looked me squarely in the eye. “No, and it’s been miserable. You deserve better.”

“I hate it when people deflect my quips with emotional sincerity,” I mumbled. “And yes, I know that was another quip. Let me have it. It’s been a shitty da?—”

Without warning, the world went burning gold and agonizing. I was cooking inside my own skin. I was outside myself, being dipped into lava, waterboarded by the flow of magic all around the shred of matter that made up my fragile body. I couldn’t see, couldn’t think. Pain radiated through my chest as I came back to consciousness. My throat felt raw from screaming, and I was panting hard.

Damien hovered over me. “What the fuck was that?”

“Magic buildup,” I gasped out. “Got too much in me. It’s getting worse.” I threw up four of the most complicated, power-draining wards I knew in quick succession, and the pain started to fade until I could catch my breath.

“Why isn’t your familiar balancing this out?” Damien asked sharply.

“Pothos isn’t actually my familiar,” I said. “Every time I’ve tried to do the ceremony, he’s wandered off. I took the hint after the third time.”

“Pothos wouldn’t be enough to help with this if it’s that severe,” Damien said. I was about to ask who died and made him the expert, and then remembered exactly who had and shut my mouth. He’d been raised by two of the most powerful magic users in the world, after all. “You need a much stronger creature.”

“I don’t really have time to go out and find a helpful monster,” I said.

“You don’t need to,” Damien told me. “You know that isn’t the only way.”

I glared at him until he raised his hands in surrender. “I’m done talking about this,” I told him.

“I mean there are ways aside from… that. Morgana had a ton of familiars. Basically anyone particularly powerful got press-ganged.”

“I said I’m done talking about this.”

“Right, of course. Now, are you good to keep going, or do we need to go back?”

“I’m not going back,” I said firmly. “Let’s go get that weapon.”

21

GABRIEL

My arrival at the citadel was a flurry of activity and orders that overwhelmed me. Once I’d done everything I had to—or, more accurately, once I’d done everything it was suitable for me to be seen paying attention to—Gwendoline had gotten me out of the scrum and up to my new office.

The office had changed. The citadel had its own background magic, just like most of the old buildings in the city, and like those buildings, it had its own personality. It was discreet and not quick to change, like an elderly and professional butler. Someone—either the building or, more likely, one of Gwendoline’s people—had done good work on the office that had, until very recently, been my father’s.

His office had been a foreboding thing of carved gothic furniture, heavy red velvet curtains, and large oil paintings of hunting scenes with frantic animals being pursued through darkening forests by dogs and men with spears or guns. Everything in the room had been designed to make my father appear larger than life and to make everyone else feel extremely small. The desk chair had practically been a throne on wheels.

There was no sign of the blood-red fabric now. Stormy but soft blue-grays were in its place, and the paintings had been swapped out for tasteful black-and-white photographs of Eldoria landmarks, as well as the forests and mountains around them. The furniture now tended toward pale wood and shining metal. All that remained of the old furniture was the massive desk, which had been enchanted so that now, instead of ebony, it was a creamy wood. The gloom and heavy-handed intimidation tactics were gone, but the bones of the room were the same. It was still meant to make the occupant’s authority unquestionable, just less blatantly.

I was hardly an expert on set dressing, but the messaging was clear. Here comes the new boss, not quite the same as the old one.

A portrait took up the wall behind the desk, looming over the room. I stared up at it, quietly aghast. Vampires famously don’t see their own reflections, but we do show up in photographs. Because of this, most of the images of my own face that I’d seen since the advent of home photography had been taken of me by my friends. Lissa often insisted on taking pictures of us before we left for a night out, so everyone could make sure they were happy with how they looked. In those pictures, I was generally happy or relaxed, especially since she kept taking photographs as the nights went on.

The version of myself who stared down from the portrait was neither happy nor relaxed. He was austere and grim, with perfectly groomed hair, and an impeccable suit in an old-fashioned style. He looked unfamiliar with the concept of laughter and wouldn’t have approved of it if someone had taken the time to explain it to him.

He looked like my father.

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