Page 3 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER TWO

DATHAN

It makes so much sense now that I think about it.

By all accounts, the Nox Sirens were extinct.

Then Lysithea shows up, the last of her kind, but really the only one of her kind.

Born from a scream from the void. This changes the game.

It means she’s not just the last of a species.

She is the species. An entity forged for a purpose.

A key, designed for a very specific, very old lock.

And that pisses me off. No one gets to use her.

The irony of that rage also pisses me off. We used her to get what we wanted, but that has changed now. She is ours.

I watch her stare at the wall, her eyes vacant, lost in the abyss of her own creation. Evren’s cold hand is still wrapped around hers, a silent, useless comfort. Verik just stands there, his jaw a hard line, probably redesigning the whole fucking situation in his head.

They’re not helping.

I cross the room in three strides and crouch in front of her, forcing her to look at me. Her violet eyes are shattered glass.

“So what?” I say, my voice a low growl. “You think that makes you a fucking puppet? A tool?”

She flinches but doesn’t answer.

“Look at me, Thea.” I wait until her gaze locks with mine. “I don’t give a shit if you were screamed into existence by some cosmic cunt. You are here. You are ours. And no one, not a book, not some ancient fucked-up court, is going to use you for their fucking endgame. We won’t let them.”

I see a flicker of her fire return to her eyes. Good. Rage is better than emptiness. Rage is something I can work with.

“We protect our own,” I say, my voice dropping lower. “And whether you like it or not, you’re ours.”

Her glare softens, the fire banking low but not extinguished. She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t have the strength.

“He’s right,” Verik says, his voice a low rasp. “You’re the foundation of this entire shitshow. Whether you were designed or born, the function remains the same. We’re the load-bearing walls. We fail, you crumble.”

It’s his version of a fucking pep talk.

Evren moves silently. He raises a hand, and a single black rose unfurls from the shadows at his fingertips. The petals are solidified despair, the thorns tiny, sharp regrets. It’s the most morbidly romantic thing I’ve ever seen. He offers it to her.

She takes it, her fingers brushing his. The rose doesn’t wilt. It seems to draw strength from her, its impossible darkness deepening.

“So what now?” she whispers, her gaze fixed on the flower. “We just wait for them to come for us?”

“No,” I say, a savage grin spreading across my face. “We don’t wait. We prepare. We tear this fucking academy apart looking for answers. We get stronger. When they come for us, we’ll be the nightmare they never saw coming.”

“If only it were that simple,” she says. “We have no fucking idea what is coming. Blackgrove probably doesn’t either. All he knows is we’ve been chosen to end this or end ourselves. One way or another, his academy is caught in the middle of this shower of shit.”

“If the academy is the board, we flip the fucking table.”

Lysithea looks at me, a flicker of something like hope in her shattered eyes. Or maybe just surprise that I’m not suggesting we start killing people. Yet.

“We can’t fight the Arbiters,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “Or Blackgrove.”

“Not head on,” Verik agrees. “But we can learn the rules of their game. Find the exploits. Every system has a weakness.” He’s already in architect mode, seeing the flaws in the grand design.

Evren nods, the black rose still perfect in Lysithea’s hand. He points a finger at the Tenebris Vinculum on the desk.

“It knows things,” I say, understanding his gesture. “It’s a manipulative cunt, but it’s our manipulative cunt now. It needs us to succeed. We make it tell us what we need to know.”

I walk over to the book. Its eye snaps open, watching me approach. I slam my hand down on its cover. “No more secrets. You want completion? You start talking. What’s the first trial?”

The book doesn’t write. It doesn’t blink. A cold wave of pure, undiluted terror washes over the room. My power. Directed back at me. A warning.

I grit my teeth, feeding on the fear it throws at me. It’s a feedback loop of pure malice. I grin. “Wrong move, arsehole.”

The terror it projects thickens. The air grows cold enough to see my breath.

Lysithea’s black rose shivers, its petals curling as if touched by frost. Verik’s hands are wreathed in hellfire, a silent threat.

Evren just watches, his expression unreadable, but I see the shadows around him coil tighter.

The grimoire doesn’t just push fear at me.

It invades. It shows me a future. Not Lysithea’s death.

Something worse. It shows her choosing. Her hand in Verik’s, a life built from his designs.

Her face is soft with a love for Evren that has no room for anyone else.

It shows me a world where they have her, and I have nothing.

An eternity of watching from the outside.

The one nightmare I’ve never let myself have.

My grin widens. The agony is exquisite. I drink it down, savouring the bitter taste of my own deepest dread. “You’re getting warmer,” I tell the book. “But you still don’t get it. I’ll take any part of her I can get.”

Lysithea steps forward, her hand covering mine on the book’s cover.

Her touch is a jolt of pure, undiluted reality.

The nightmare vision shatters. The psychic pressure vanishes.

I’m left panting, the ghost of my own terror a sweet aftertaste on my tongue.

The book’s cover is just a book again, the malevolent intelligence behind its eye retreating.

I look down at her hand on mine. Small. Pale. Stronger than any fucking psychic attack.

“Enough,” she says, her voice quiet but absolute. She’s not talking to me. She’s talking to the book. “We are your only way to completion. Stop trying to break your tools.”

The grimoire seems to consider this. For a long moment, nothing happens. Then, with a soft rustle of parchment, it flips to a fresh page. Bloody script bleeds into the paper, forming the words.

Tell the truth.

“That’s it?” Verik snarls. “That’s its fucking advice?”

“It’s a command,” I say, my hand still under Lysithea’s.

“What truth? We already gave it our truths,” Verik says.

“It wants more,” I say, staring at the page.

Just her.

I look at Lysithea, she gulps and pulls her hand back. “What truth? You already know my biggest shame.”

It slams shut and eyes her with disdain. It knows she’s lying. She knows she’s lying.

“No,” she says.

“This isn’t the test,” I say quietly. “This is for the book’s perverted glee.”

“We don’t know that,” Verik says, coming closer and glaring down at the tome. “We don’t know jack shit. This thing is pulling our strings, and if we don’t dance, Lysithea gets hurt.”

I step between Lysithea and the desk, a wall of pure defiance. “This isn’t about the trials. This is about you getting off on her pain.” I stare into the single, unblinking eye. A challenge.

The grimoire doesn’t write. It acts.

Lysithea screams.

It’s a raw, ragged sound that rips through the room. She collapses against me, her body convulsing. I catch her, holding her tight as she trembles. Through the thin material of her dress, I see the Soul Scar on her back glowing, a network of white-hot fire beneath her skin.

“Stop it, you fucker,” Verik roars, slamming a fist of hellfire onto the desk beside the book. The wood scorches, but the grimoire is untouched.

“I’ll tell it,” Lysithea gasps, her voice shredded with agony. “Just make it stop.”

“No,” I grit out, my arms tightening around her. “Don’t give it what it wants.”

She pushes away from me, stumbling but staying upright. Her face is a mask of pain, tears streaming from her eyes, but her gaze is pure, undiluted hatred. She glares at the book.

“You want my truth?” she hisses, her voice shaking. “Fine. You want my deepest, ugliest secret?”

The brand on her back pulses once, a final, vicious reminder of who is in control.

She takes a shuddering breath. “I was tortured. For so many years of my life at the orphanage, I was tortured by being forced every day into a magical branks that cut off my ability to utter a single sound. Day in, day out. They held me down, forced it on me. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink, I couldn’t swallow without a searing pain.

At night, they’d take it off. Four blissful hours, but I was too fucking tired to talk.

And if I tried, Clara, the witch from hell, would punish me.

My first words for years were uttered when I stepped into these halls.

Is that what you want to hear? Is that what you want them to hear?

How pathetic I was, how weak? Does it get you off?

Are you thriving on this?” Tears prick her eyes as the three of us stand stock-still, horrified by what she has gone through.

Even Evren, who has admitted things I wish he hadn’t experienced, appears shocked and sickened.

“Thea,” I murmur, but she stumbles back.

The words are shards of glass, and they slice through the silence, through all of us.

I want to kill someone. I want to find this witch and feed her with her own fucking entrails.

I glance at Verik. His face is a mask of cold fury, hellfire burning low and deadly in his eyes.

He’s already designing the bitch’s personal hell.

Evren moves. He steps behind Lysithea, a silent, menacing shadow. He doesn’t touch her. He doesn’t have to. The air around him crackles with a killing frost, a silent vow of retribution so potent I can taste it.

Lysithea sways on her feet, the confession finally draining the fight from her. She’s empty. Hollowed out.

The grimoire flips a page. The map. A new section to what we thought was the completed map, draws itself in blood-red ink, a reward for the agony it just inflicted.

I don’t give a shit. I catch her as her legs give out, pulling her against me. She’s trembling, a quiet, violent shudder that goes right through to my bones. I hold her, my hand tangling in her white-blonde hair.

“I’m going to find her,” I whisper into her ear, my voice a promise. “And I’m going to make her scream just for you.”