Page 66 of The Illuminated
Stay inside where it’s safe, and do not under any circumstances help us. Don’t let Lucius know that you are allied with or support Daelon and me in any way. I will need your help when I return to the castle. Lean on each other. Have faith. Never lose hope. I am with you always.
Energy returned to me quickly, and it felt like unconditional love, warming me up from the inside out. Daelon continued to stare at me like he still didn’t believe I was really there.
“I’ve been dreaming about running away with you from the moment we first met,” he said.
I smiled, giving his hand a quick squeeze before we were in motion once more. I saw we were being watched from the castle windows, candles and sparkling chandeliers backlighting the figures of curious elites and servants. I had never felt more exhilarated, my feet colliding with the ground in a frenzy of thumps in line with Daelon’s. The silky blue dress I’d died in billowed out all around me.
In a whooshing of shadowy darkness, Lucius and the guard arrived, and we were forced to halt as they surrounded us. I recognized Simon, the only kind guard I’d encountered during my time here, and Harry, the man who’d wanted to taste my power after Nathaniel’s bragging. The rest were a collection of faces I’d never matched to names, their power fortified by Lucius’s, their faces blank and stony. There was a fair share of curiosity mixed with fear in their eyes. Lucius’s expression, on the other hand, was racked with a rage that tasted like the cruelty of a supreme commander at war eager to sacrifice thousands of souls to achieve victory.
“You have one opportunity, little witch,” he snarled. “Give up now, and Daelon will be spared. You have ten seconds before the offer is off the table.”
“Get fucked,” I said with a cold smile. I felt the full brunt of Daelon’s shielding wrap around us like a cloak, and I began to channel like I’d never before. “You’re going to wish you’d killed me when you had the chance.”
I became one with my magick in a flash, my sense of self completely melting away as witches long passed took up residence in my mind like benevolent possessions. I understood my power now—why I could tap into so many gifts that didn’t belong to me—and why it all came naturally, in languages I’d never spoken and spellwork I’d never learned. I not only had access to all natural, universal power, but I also held all destroyed covens’ magick and ritual built and perfected over the centuries. Inside me was the army of thousands, andthey had never been more ready to unleash hell upon Lucius and his minions.
I screamed in a voice I didn’t recognize as my own as power moved through the crown of my head and spread through all of my limbs. In an explosive blast I sent all men but Lucius flying through the air, their curses bouncing off our shields like bullets against steel.
Lucius hailed a tornado of shadows that sounded like the screams of the dungeons, and I knew it was intended to cause us just as much pain as I’d felt when I nearly killed myself. It bore down on Daelon’s shield like the pelting of hail against a windshield.
I was done playing defense.
Daelon shot me a look as I stepped forward, in front of him and the shield. In a grunt of exertion, I dispersed the cyclone into a cloudy mist, letting it fall to the ground in a pool of murky water. Everything inside me suddenly felt hot, and my vision became a dark tunnel of precision. From my outstretched arms came fire, spraying like water from a hose toward Lucius as he shielded to deflect. I was barely exerted, channeling from my attachments not only to covens long passed, but also to the one in the castle made up of witches from all over the realm, and I saw their place in the grand tapestry of interconnection, felt it wrap around me like a quilt made from fate and divinity.
A guard teleported, tackling Daelon to the ground as his hands glowed black with electricity that sparked and buzzed. With a casual twist of my wrist, I broke his neck, warning the rest to keep their distance.
I watched as the remainder of the guard looked to their leader in a frightened plea for guidance. Lucius breathed heavily as he glared at me, patting out the remnants of flames from his shoulder. Through his power, I sensed confusion. All this time he’d thought I was so much weaker than him. But I’d only grown stronger since I’d come to the castle and found my allies—and even stronger now that I’d been to the Akashic.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? For us to be equals?” I asked, the release of so much power clouding my head and brimming my skin with tingling pleasure. “Or was that not really the objective?”
I laughed, and the darkest part of my power rose like specters from the grave. It picked Lucius up off the ground and shook him through the air as he wrestled and fought.
Natural magick had a shadow of its own. It did not forget, and it did not so easily forgive. Not when the realm lay destroyed by greed and cruelty. Not when tyrants had broken the sacred laws of reciprocity and reverence for balance and magick.
In the world of Angelina’s manufactured shadows, there were lovers who would never meet, parents who would never live to see their children learn and grow or have children of their own, siblings who would never know each other, laughter and tears that would never be shared, celebrations that would never be had, and discoveries that would never be made. Under the rubble lay bodies, but also entire lineages of stories, myths, dreams, and art, built over generations and centuries.
The power I held was not just light and love. It was vengeful and scorned, hungry for retribution for stolen children, stolen land, and stolen futures. This was the side of my power I channeled tonight, and it descended like a torrential downpour.
Heavy raindrops fell from the sky, burning Lucius’s and the guard’s skin like acid. Lucius fell from the air like a fallen angel. I whispered to the earth, and it split down the middle like an opening to the Underworld, sending the remaining witches scrambling back and away. With a snap of my fingers the lights in the castle went dark, heavy clouds eclipsed the moon, and we were bathed in a kind of utter darkness that was maddening to all who resisted. I conjured spirits of hallucinatory horror to plague Lucius and his guards, high pitched wails to drown out all other sound.
I grabbed Daelon’s hand, and we ran. Footsteps appeared before us like imprints from the future, lighting our path with faintly glowing outlines. We stepped into them, and we did not look back, not when Lucius promised to put Daelon’s head on a stake, and definitely not when he let forth an animalistic howl into the darkness. I could hear the witches’ screams as they wrestled with demons in the dark, tasted their fear like it was a ripe fruit against my tongue.
Across Daelon’s old training field, where Gregory first taught him how to kill, I whispered that I loved him, and I hoped it was enough to pull his attention away from his traumatic memories and lead us both into our future. When we reached the forest, it opened up to us like we were honored guests, tree branches linking back behind us in a kind of natural fortress, preventing anyone from following us along the same path.
“Simon spoke to me telepathically during our escape. He wanted us to know that Lucius was calling in soldiers and assassins to hunt us,” Daelon said as both of us caught our breath, now deep into the woods. The moon was no longer covered, and I held a dimly lit orb in my palm for more light.
“I always thought he was different.”
“Not different enough,” Daelon murmured. “But he owed me one.”
“Whoa. Can you hear that?” I asked, my eardrums suddenly assaulted by lyrical whispers.
Daelon shook his head. “What is it?”
Come,the voices said in an ethereal echo.Rest here for the night. You will need your strength come morning.
“The trees are… um… speaking to me.”
Daelon raised his brows and then shrugged. “I would expect nothing less.”
