Page 126 of The Demon's Discovery
Ris frowned deeply, shaking his head. “I would never have abandoned my responsibilities here, Vos.”
“But you would! You did! You have no idea how many nights your father prepared me to be the one to take the crown.”
“You’re wrong. I know. I always knew. My father and I spoke at length about it, many times. But none of that makes youworthy.” Ris looked almost sad. “You hurt people to take what you thought you were owed. We have ruled here peacefully for thousands of years. What you did… it’s unspeakable. You’ve tainted everything the Everwood people stand for.”
Vos descended into mindless rage, babbling incoherently about what he thought he deserved.
I dug around in my skirt and pulled out a vial. It was one of the rarest I’d made. The ingredients had been so unique, I’d only been able to produce the one little vial, but I finally understood what it was for.
“What’s this?” Vos chuckled as I removed the cork. “A gift from my new bride?”
“We never married,” I told him.
“Of course we did, I was there, remember?” Madness flashed in his green eyes.
“No, we didn’t. The vows were never finished, and I never said the words. The only man I am now or ever will be wed to is him.” I nodded at Vassago, who gave me a soft smile. I allowed myself to feel all the anger that had become buried by fear and snatched at Vos’s hair like he’d done to me, pouring the elixir down his throat. “My gift to you. For your hospitality.”
He tried to thrash but had no range as he sputtered and choked on the liquid. Magnus held his jaw shut so he had to swallow it.
“What was that! What have you given me?”
“Nothing so terrible as the compulsion potion you gave me,” I told him, Vassago’s eyes tracking me as I stepped back. “What’s made can be unmade.”
Ris’s head tilted, a question in his face. Seir and Rylan were positively joyful, the meaning having already become clear to them. Magnus and Vassago figured it out moments later when Vos began to scream. Rylan and Seir moved away and Magnus turned his head as the false king’s new wings began to turn to ash. The bones charred and the scaly flesh peeled up as it burned. The orange haze around him turned black, then disappeared altogether.
Whatever power had been leant to him from the Elixir of Naming was rapidly burned away. The process was efficient but clearly painful.
“No. No.” He chanted the word several times, still trying to thrash despite the way the iron chains bit into his skin.
Vassago straightened his vest and approached him again. “That curse stole more than a hundred years away from me. My will. You stole hers as well, and that is unforgivable.”
“You should be thanking me! I made you better. Without that bloodlust you’re just another demon.”
Vassago clenched his jaw, his fist. Then he smiled. A terrible grin, one that set a chill in my spine and sent the whole room into an unnatural quiet. His fangs had descended and his eyes shone a violent ruby. “You will never steal from me again, Vos Quille. Not Lilith’s grimoire, not my wife, not even my time.” I flinched as Vassago’s blade moved with stunning speed, severing one finger at a time and then his hand. He repeated the process on the other side as Vos hollered, the sound choked. Magnus grunted and tightened his grip on the chains. “My curse is gone, for the record. I do this of my own free will, and with great joy.”
Vassago moved so quickly I barely saw the shift. His mouth latched viciously onto Vos’s throat. He bit down hard, dragging in deep mouthfuls of blood as the false king tried in vain to scream. Vassago paused for several long moments, then pulled back and spat all the blood and gore out in the false king’s face.“Disgusting,” he swore, wiping his mouth with the pocket square from his vest as he crossed back over to my side.
With no hands to staunch the gaping wound in his throat, blood pumped idly down the man’s chest.
Seir looked positively joyful as he approached the weakened Vos. “King Van wouldneverhave let you take the throne.” He reared back and hit Vos in the face as hard as possible with the book.
Vassago made a motion to snatch the grimoire from him, but Seir just laughed as he stepped off to the side with the book, completely unrepentant.
“Where is my sister?” Magnus rumbled, leaning down right next to Vos’s ear. Magnus tightened the chains, spinning Vos so he was facing him. “Where. Is. Rowan?” Ris shifted his weight, anxiously listening for the response.
“Gone!” Vos gagged on the word, pain evident in his face.
“Gone where?” Magnus demanded, giving him a shake.
Vos’s teeth clacked together and his whole body swayed like a rag doll. He could only gurgle over the blood on his vocal cords, the sound scraping along my bones in a way that made me want to scream. “You’ll never find her.”
As I sat there, numbly staring at Vos, who Magnus had tossed to the floor in disgust, Belmont called out loudly. I turned to see what he was upset about and found the guard we’d assumed was dead had crawled close and reared up, raising his sword high above my head. Vassago called my name, his mist caressing my face just as I thrust my dagger out and up like he and Magnus had taught me, making my body as small as possible. The guard fell on my blade as he swung down, his sword tip catching on the floor. It fell from his hand and clattered to the side as my dagger drove into his middle and then up, courtesy of his weight and gravity. The way the blade vibrated in my hand, cutting through flesh and catching on bone made my stomach roll.
His one bloodied remaining eye stared down at me in condemnation and surprise as he slumped over, and I pulled the blade free of him again. I pulled hard enough it swung to the opposite side of my body, nicking Vos in the shoulder. He’d wriggled closer to me in an attempt to get away from the men, though how he was still breathing was a mystery. Realizing he was that close, I pressed the blade in, making him jerk away.
The guard tried to prop himself up on one elbow, all of us watching in horror as the effects of the Dark blade worked rapidly on his body.
“What… is… this?” he asked, hands useless as he groped at the bloody wound, black streaks working their way across his skin with every beat of his heart. They reached his face before ten beats had passed, and the veins of his eyes before twelve. His whole body writhed, and then he went still, the black streaks covering more than half of his skin.
