Page 317 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
She didn’t reply, instead trying to take in everything else. The glass walls overlooking a city where a battle raged beyond. The Faven Palace. They were in a room in the palace. A room he’d never brought her to, and now she knew why.
In the center stood a mirror. The stone frame was etched with symbols, and in the back of her mind, she wondered how in the fuck he’d gotten a mirror gate into this room. She wasn’t surprised that the mirror was in his palace. She should have known. He’d never risk it being found by anyone else, especially not with who stood next to it.
One of the most beautiful females she’d ever seen was watching her. Golden hair a few shades lighter than her own. Golden skin. Pristine wings. High cheekbones. Eyes the color of a clear sky. Ethereal and radiating with power, her floor-length white gown was sleeveless with metal clasps at her shoulders. A gold belt was slung around her waist with gold sandals on her feet.
Dagian’s mother.
She watched Tessa with apathetic features, wings rustling at her back. The bargain with Dagian was that they left her out ofthis, but Tessa wasn’t sure how they were going to do that when she was standing in this room.
Then again, that bargain was with Theon, not her.
Tearing her gaze from the seraph, her magic yanked at her restraint. There was so much power in this room. Rordan. Theon. The seraphs. The mirror.
She shook her arms out, still taking in everything until her focus landed on another heap across the room. A broken body, she realized. A body that looked like…Elowyn?
“She failed in her duties,” Rordan said, and her gaze snapped back to him, finding him watching her now. His hands behind his back, his head tilted towards the heap. “She was useful for a time. Creating the tonic to keep your power hidden, and then altering your tea so we could…enhance your visions.”
She arched a brow at that.
He smiled, chuckling to himself. “The one of Ms. Davers carrying Theon’s child was a particularly brutal one. Pushed you right into our arms.” The mirth fell. “Then you had to ruin everything.”
She had… That hadn’t been a real vision? Which ones had been real? Any of them? Had she been running around these last months trying to change visions that weren’t even real?
No.
Yes.
They couldn’t affect her from so far away, right?
She suddenly understood on a whole new level why Cienna insisted on not focusing on the visions. How trying to change a potential future could bring about that very future.
“Once we lost control of you, her usefulness had run its course,” Rordan continued, coming closer. “But we couldn’t just let that power go to waste, could we?”
“You took her magic,” Tessa murmured to herself, staring at Elowyn’s broken form. Is that what happened when your magic was forcibly taken from you?
Another roar sounded, followed by claws dragging on the glass. Rordan snarled in annoyance, lifting a hand and sending another wave of light to the ceiling. Luka roared in defiance as he was forced back yet again.
“Dragons and their godsdamn tantrums,” Rordan muttered. “They’ll be taken care of soon enough.” He was before her now, reaching out to finger her hair.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Theon growled, his darkness snapping out, but a Hunter stepped in front of the attack, absorbing the magic with a sickening grin of too pale lips. Another Hunter drifted closer, inhaling deeply.
“Blood of death,” he hissed, that ethereal voice grating on her bones, and her magic writhed, dragging her down a little further.
“Don’t worry, Arius blood,” Rordan gritted out. “We’re preparing for you too.”
He nodded at the beautiful seraph, and her gaze flicked to Tessa. “You know my son?”
“We do,” Tessa answered cautiously.
“He spoke of you. Uncontrollable.”
Her words were jilted and selective, as if she wasn’t sure she was using the right ones. This clearly wasn’t her native tongue.
Tessa flashed her a sharp smile. “Some call it uncontrollable. I simply call it madness.”
“We are not here to speak of my traitorous son,” Rordan barked. “Begin.”
“Here?” the female questioned, gesturing around them. “With a child of Achaz?”
