Page 63 of The Illuminated
There was only one goal, from here on out: to eradicate Lucius and his power and to restore balance. There was nothing else. Lucius wasn’t getting a redemption arc, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to tell Daelon or me what to do or how to act,ever again.
“I’ve fulfilled my purpose,” Katherine said softly. “The truth-binding spell has been broken, and the mist over history has been cleared. It’s time I move on.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at her son, whose face remained rigid and impassive. She gripped my hands. “Good luck, Áine”
“You too. And I’m sorry for everything you’ve lived through.”
“And I you.” She smiled. “But I still have hope. Maybe because it’s the only thing I’ve ever had.” She looked to Lucius, who appeared nothing but annoyed by all of this. “Goodbye, dear son. Maybe one day you’ll let Áine light your way out of the darkness.”
Lucius made a noise that sounded like something between a snort and a grunt. I had to admit I shared the same kind of sentiment. Saving Lucius’s decayed soul wasn’t in my job description.
The wind whistled through the looming trees, and the faintest sound of windchimes blew toward us. Katherine flickered out of the astrals, leaving nothing but the smell of floral perfume in her wake.
I turned to Lucius, who broke free from his binds with ease.
“You could escape this whole time?”
He raised his brows in a silentduh. “Of course.”
I looked at him in an unasked question. He faltered under my gaze, and I could tell whatever his mother had done to him had affected him more than he let on. It just wasn’t enough. And it never would be.
“I wanted her to feel like she’d done all that she could, so she could move on and leave me the fuck alone.”
I was still puzzled, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to the living embodiment of evil any more than I had to. The way he could absorb all of that suffering and treat it as if it were merely a nuisance… it made my blood turn cold.
When he stepped closer to me, his eyes thirsty for blood, my guard bear lunged and roared. The beast knocked Lucius to the ground. He wrestled with her for a moment, but with a sickly cry, she soon fell. I winced, clenching a fist.
Lucius pushed the limp bear off of him and stood, snarling. “I hate animals.”
“Of course you do.” I crossed my arms, my eyes widening as more creatures began to step out into our little clearing—bears, wolves, and all manner of animals I’d never seen on Earth. I somehow knew they posed no threat. To me, at least. “It would seem that they don’t much like you.”
Lucius huffed. “It’s just your heretic energy. Influencing the fluidity of the astrals.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” I exhaled slowly through my teeth. “How do we get back, then?”
“I guess we find where those horrid eagle creatures escaped from,” he replied curtly, barely glancing my way as he met the angry eyes of each woodland creature. A branch suddenly sprouted up from the ground and grabbed his ankle, then another, pulling him down into the earth, no doubt to Hell where he belonged.
I stood and watched for a moment, wondering if it was really true that I had to take him with me. But the voice from the Akashic Records still rang through my mind, warning of the impending collapse. And the Akashic couldn’t lie.
“Áine,” he bellowed.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.” I sent a burst of magick into the earth, chasing the branches away with fiery green light.
Lucius scrambled up to his feet, glaring at me. “Earlier… you said youknew. How? Who told you?”
Giant wolves stepped toward us, baring their jagged teeth. The entire forest seemed to shift with Lucius’s anger, sending a warning that he was not welcome here.
“You did. And your mother. Your father. Angelina.” I listed off the names of the six elite members of the Order that Gregory betrayed, the truth of them imprinted into my mind from my Akashic knowledge. I watched with satisfaction as Lucius paled.
“How?” he spat.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head,” I responded, and Lucius sent me flying into the air with a curse, the air leaving my lungs.
Immediately after, a pack of wolves and other animals pounced on him, gnashing their teeth. I fell back down to earth, which was as soft as a pillow in preparation for my landing.
“You—fucking—”
“Bitch?” I finished for him as he struggled against the astral defense squad. “You’re going to want to call me a lot worse when I’m finished unraveling your Kingdom, thread by thread, and I’ve squeezed out every last drop of your stolen power.” I walked closer to where he struggled. Wolves bit into his astral skin as he yelled and fought. “But we need to call a truce for now. Until we return to Aradia, at least.” After that, it wasgame on.
I stretched out a hand to him, and at first, I thought he might refuse it. But it seemed like regaining his ability to feel pain in this dimension made him more pliable.
