Page 70 of The Illuminated
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a soldier approaching Lucius, something wild and strange in his eyes. His aura was marked by that of a vampire, like a lion in sheep’s clothing, and I was the only one in the crowd who seemed to see it.
Lucius stared at me as if he’d already won. “Just one word from me and the chain around Daelon’s neck will tighten enough to take his head clean off. For him, death will be gloriously permanent.”
As cool metal coiled around my second wrist, my power began to drain. The sun was long gone, obscured by heavy clouds as tumultuous winds flew around us like angered spirits.
Lucius made a beckoning gesture as I wrestled with the captors who held me firmly in place, and soon some of his men had thrown Daelon at my feet, who was still struggling for air against the cursed metal.
I could hardly believe any of this was happening. I yearned to wake up back in that cave and start the day over.
My power was fighting a war of its own against my binds. I knew I was stronger than this spell, but it was hard to concentrate as Daelon’s life lay in Lucius’s vengeful hands.
“Are you ready to surrender? If not, that’s okay. But your weak, ill-fitting lover won’t be around to witness when you finally succumb to the inevitable.”
I looked to Daelon, his face starting to lose its normal color as his supply of oxygen thinned. Did I have enough strength to break through the binds, kill the guards beside me, and also save Daelon before Lucius could murder him?
I couldn’t bear to admit the answer.
The disguised soldier that hovered close to Lucius met my eyes, his lips forming a smile. His eye was twitching, his energy hungry with the need of someone in the deep, dark pit of addiction. But there was more to him… something almost…
“Nah, cause fuck the King, man,” he said suddenly, laughing with a jarring kind of madness and bravado. In a quick burst of jerky, frenzied movement he reached a chain around Lucius’s neck from behind and pulled sharply as Lucius flailed in confusion and panic.
Soon the other energy vampires were turning on Lucius’s real soldiers. I didn’t understand why or how but I used the opportunity to channel like I’d never done before.
The world fell away, and all I could see was the rocking of waves against an ugly metal dam that spread across the ocean floor. I dove underneath the surface and saw my mothers swimming toward me. I saw the grandparents I’d known only from stories. I saw the High Priestess, reaching for me in billowing white. We all held hands and we chanted, and I could feel that our hands were connected to thousands. Thousands of witches who could never be silenced, could never be bound, and could never be rendered powerless by the shadows again. The metal groaned and braced, cracks growing in strokes of blinding white.
The dam exploded, and I rode the flood back into reality. Magick burst forth from my palms and melted the cuffs into nothing but clear water, and the droplets slid from my wrists and back to the earth from which they came.
I grabbed Daelon’s hand, forcing my power into him as his own binds melted away.
Leave me. Do not lose your second chance,Santana said.
In the commotion of fighting, I’d lost track of her, but her voice in my mind rang clear. It was firm and resolute even as she was consumed by indescribable agony.
I took both of Daelon’s hands in mine, and he somehow shielded us even as he gasped for the air he’d been deprived of for too long. My power flooded through him so vibrantly that I could see it through his shield.
I chanted in a foreign tongue, calling out to the waves to carry us away. Through the grunts and punches and bursts of magick and curses we held onto each other, letting ourselves become blind to all the rest.
The last thing I saw was Lucius slit Santana’s throat, her blood reaching toward us like a flood of its own.
Chapter23
Tomas’s psychic map dropped us smack dab in the middle of a blizzard on a gently sloping mountainside. The shattering cold of the icy tundra was enough to halt my grief.
“Fucking hell,” Daelon summarized for us both through chattering teeth. He used the remnants of the power I had lent him to conjure warmth, pulling me to his chest as he channeled an invisible blanket to shield our skin from the elements.
I manifested us snow boots, but it was too draining of an act to make anything more. I crumpled into his embrace, tears sliding down my cheeks that felt like liquid fire in comparison to the cold.
“They keep dying… for me…” I choked out over the roaring wind.
“Not just for you,” Daelon said fiercely, grasping my chin and staring into my eyes. “We are all fighting for the future of Aradia. Those witches aren’t just pawns inyourgame. They’re doing this for themselves—for their own people and lands.”
I wanted to argue, to convince him that I might as well have slit Santana’s throat myself, but I had no more words left to say.
“Focus, Áine,” he said, soft but insistent. His eyes held mine in a trance, leaving nothing in the world but his voice. And that was exactly what I needed to snap out of it. “Take us to the witches of Iciera. Take us to freedom.” He wiped the tears from my cheeks.
I took a deep breath, looking away from him and into the blinding snowstorm. Just like in the astrals, I began to move instinctually. I followed the invisible path, the snowfall thinning out before us in welcome.
Save Daelon and I, it was as if the world were a blank canvas, nothing but white on the ground, on the horizon, up in the sky, and through the air. As we trekked, my mind began to wander, and each time it got stuck on Lucius’s face, contorted in rage, as he slit Santana’s throat. And each time it did, I gave Daelon’s hand a slight squeeze that he returned with silent reassurance. I clung to our love amidst the grief, like Hecate’s torch lighting our escape from Hades.
