Page 53 of The Illuminated
I suddenly remembered our training session back in the cabin, where Daelon had forced me to practice my magick while imagining the worst possible scenarios. He made me imagine Lucius killing him as I lit a candle at the same time. He wanted me to be prepared to use my magick constructively even when my emotions were at their most volatile.
I had to gain control. For him.
Amos was suddenly at the corners of my mind, and I let him in as I gathered my strength.
It will feel like jumping into an invisible river. And you must let it carry you away.
“You fucking liar,” Lucius yelled, and his magick took tangible shape all around him like a cloud of black smoke and pulsating electricity. Everyone could see it now.
I could feel the razor-sharp talons of his anger from here, and I knew that Lucius wasn’t going to be able to stop himself. He was going to kill Daelon with his rage.
“All this time?” he asked. “Answer me!” His deadly power inched forward through the space between them.
“Don’t,” I burst out. I channeled everything I had, and soon the windows at the far end of the hall had burst into a million shattered pieces. Someone screamed.
Daelon glanced at me, and I struggled to break free of Lucius’s binding curse. “Yes. All this time. We’re in love. But we couldn’t tell you because I knew you would become convinced that we were plotting against you.” His voice was surprisingly calm and steady.
“Stop lying to me!” The room went dark, the chandeliers above extinguishing with a hiss as the whole castle braced. “Youareplotting against me. But that’s over now. It’s all over. The coronation is happening tomorrow. Áine is mine and will be for all of eternity, and she will experience a kind of pleasure you would never be able to give her. You should’ve seen us together just moments ago. The passion was quite real.” He grinned at me, but the action was robotic and cold. Then he turned back to Daelon. “And you,brother, are going to the dungeons where you will rot forever. Maybe we’ll visit you sometime,together.”
Daelon stiffened, a frightening look of resignation riddling his features. “Fine. Might as well let it all out first, then. The coronation will never happen. I’ve made sure of it. You’re angry atme,but I’m finished withyou.You are not my brother, and you are not my King. You’ve made me do horrible things for your sham of a reign, and I will never do your bidding again. So do whatever you want, but know that I didn’t betray you because of her.I betrayed you because of what you’ve done to me. And what you’ve done to this realm. You disgust me,” he spat, his emotions overtaking what was usually so carefully guarded.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. I understood why I’d been given the map to the Akashic Records, and why I’d been shown the road to freedom by the ancient coven, both at exactly the right moments. I understood why it was time for Lucius to discover our affair. I understood why I was called to unlock all of those memories for Daelon—to push him to his limit—so that when this exact moment came, he would explode at Lucius in a way that was fatal. I understood Amos’s cryptic message. Each piece fell. There was just one more thing left to do.
Daelon’s words built his coffin, and Lucius’s rage was dastardly. He exploded like a nuclear bomb, his cloud of dark energy gathering into something monstrous. I broke free from my bind and teleported, and Amos’s words rang through my mind like a call from the heavens.
Lucius lost control, and the perfect storm finally settled into place. I shoved Daelon away just in time to receive the full force of Lucius’s power. All of my nerve endings lit on fire, scorched with pain as I suffocated in the thick black smoke. I fought it at first, a deeply ingrained struggle against death that was primal and instinctual, but soon a peace overcame me, and I felt nothing at all. I was in this blissful dark void for what seemed like hours and seconds both at once. Then a crack of light extended toward me, a scene at the top of a deep well that was filled with sound and color and life.
It will feel like jumping into an invisible river. And you must let it carry you away.
I surrendered.
My body fell as my soul became freed from its physical tethers.
But I wasn’t the only one who hit the floor.
Chapter17
When the dust settled, I was still in the throne room. I brushed myself off and glanced around, but everything looked and sounded like a dream. No one looked my way. Because I wasn’t there.
But my body was, albeit across the room. I watched Daelon scream at everyone to get back, to get away from me. He lorded over my lifeless body like a feral animal, with so much guttural devastation I had to look away. I watched as guards moved like shadows to a second body lying on its side, his hand outstretched and his piercing blue eyes wide open and void.
Lucius.Why was Lucius dead?
“Good fucking question.” Another Lucius manifested beside me. “We aren’t really dead though.” He shook his head, his eyes wild. “We can’t be. We’re immortal like our power.”
I rolled my eyes. This wasjust my luck. I tried to reach out to Daelon, to let him know that I was okay—that this was always the plan—but he was as unreachable as a character on a television screen. I hovered next to him, surprised to find that Lucius’s magick had barely left a mark on my physical form other than some ugly darkened veins along my arms. My long copper hair fell around my shoulders, my eyes closed in a peaceful surrender. My lips and cheeks were a soft pink, my features relaxed.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Taryn said, her eyes welling up. “You were supposed to tell him.”
“You don’t have to say your every fucking thought aloud, Taryn,” Daelon spat, his voice raw and shaking.
Lucius bristled. “What are they talking about? What have you done?” He raised an accusatory finger.
“I haven’t done anything! You think I want to be trapped here, or anywhere at all, withyou? You’re the one who caused all of this.”
I was surprised to find that Lucius’s power was barely perceptible in this space. Whether that meant he was truly less powerful here in the astrals, I wasn’t sure. I knew the other planes had rules of their own, but it was still strange not to be able to feel the full brunt of his rage any longer.
Daelon began to sob, and Taryn wrapped her arms around him as he held and rocked my lifeless body.
