Page 14 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

13

SILAS

Every day and night is a new hell as confusing as the last, but at least I’m coherent right now.

As coherent as I ever am, anyway.

So shamefully weak , my father’s voice growls. This cage is your own making. You should just leave.

He’s too weak to leave now! another voice echoes. He needs blood.

He needs death, another argues.

Yes! more voices giggle. Death for the weakling.

The voices have only multiplied—but as always, the worst voice is like an iron needle through the center of my forehead.

My handsome lunatic , my keeper's voice whispers. They’re right. You’re too weak. You were an idiot to think you ever could have saved me.

“I tried,” I mutter to the absence around me.

Not enough. Even with sacrificing your magic, you were never going to be enough. I deserved better than you. You should have accepted my rejection, but now look what became of our quintet. Our fates are your fault.

My head rolls from side to side as I lie trapped in the iron chamber, confusion pounding through my skull. I try to blink away the blurriness to observe the dark room around me, but it’s no use. The iron shackles have weakened me for months, just as I intended. When I am more myself, I can get out of this coffin-like chamber and move about the barren, rune-etched room—but physically and metaphorically, the shackles stay on.

Something clangs nearby. It’s the same sound I hear whenever the blond, curly-haired human arrives to check on me. Or when that oversized, tattooed leprechaun comes here with orders to force-feed me through magic.

I wish the big oaf would stop that. It’s merely prolonging the misery.

Yes! Let the misery end! a voice screams at full volume inside my head, making me wince.

“Shh,” I tell it.

Darkness tinges the edges of my blurry vision as the voices grow louder. As usual, I black out for an indeterminable period of time, but when I open my eyes, I notice someone has lit a few candles inside my prison to ward off the darkness.

And then I hear her again, somewhere off to the side.

“If I didn’t know better, I would think you’re a masochist for doing this to yourself.”

I love and loathe that voice. It’s been nothing but cruel to me for as long as I’ve been in this hell, but it would be far crueler if it ever left my mind.

Even now, you can’t let me go, her voice hisses in my head. I reject you, Silas Crane. Leave my memory alone.

“Is there room for me in that…whatever that is?” she asks.

“Leave me alone to rot,” I slur in half-English, half-fae as the ringing in my ears increases in volume.

“Riamh sa’vita so, no gach ni vivit leanas,” that voice replies smoothly.

Meaning, Never in this life, nor any lives that follow.

It’s such beautifully spoken fae, but I know it’s coming from my head just like everything else. I’m momentarily distracted by a madness that seems to submerge the world around me. Everything is warped and false, twisting inside my brain to torment me.

This is all your imagination, voices agree. We can help you, weakling.

You only deserve one kind of escape, my handsome lunatic, my keeper’s voice agrees. The permanent kind.

The only thing I know to be true in this hell is that none of it is. Then again, sometimes I forget to remember that truth, just like I forget myself and all I’ve ever been.

Letting myself forget would be easier. Fading like my sanity would be a simple thing.

Let go, my father’s voice agrees. All you’ve ever been good at is failing, after all .

“As if you know. You only knew me as a child,” I defend myself in garbled fae.

That irresistible voice says something nearby me, but it’s drowned out as someone in my head snarls, Who cares about your past? This is the time to escape . Break free while you still can, before this one hurts you.

This invader is here to kill you! another hisses. Use her to fuel your death magic, and you can end this.

“If only I could threaten the voices in your head,” her voice sighs nearby.

My breathing grows labored as horrifying paranoia skitters across my chest like a large arachnid, its needle-like legs leaving body-wracking shivers in their wake. My head continues to throb, so I try to bang it against the iron frame I lie upon, but remember the blond human put a pillow behind my head to stop me from doing just that.

“I think I know how to snap you out of it.”

Death , the same voice agrees as an echo in my skull.

Snap out of it! She’s about to kill you! Fight!

“Fighting is pointless,” I drawl before realizing I used all the wrong words.

But then a familiarly breathtaking scent implodes the space around me.

My lungs constrict violently through the vicious burn of thirst in my throat. The voices in my head break into choruses of screams, the ringing in my ears intensifying as I instinctively struggle against my rattling iron chains. My fangs have descended on their own as blind need takes over.

That blood .

I know the scent of that blood.

I can’t fucking think clearly enough to figure out where I’ve tasted it before, but I need it. Crave it. Desperately.

This scent is a lie, like everything else. I’ve had fits of insanity with daydreams exactly like this—but never has it felt so real. Never has my body reacted so viscerally.

When the scent of blood draws closer and something warm drips on my cheek just beside my mouth, I struggle against my chains once again, trying to lick at it.

“Closer,” I rasp in fae as anguished thirst consumes me.

And finally, glorious blood drips into my mouth.

Holy gods above .

This flavor—the sheer power of the intoxicatingly singular magic gracing my tongue–sends my entire system into frenzied need unlike anything I’ve experienced.

I need more. Now.

Use your magic! my father shouts in my head.

Use this power and free yourself! other voices chant, drowning out my every thought until?—

Magic explodes from my bound hands, breaking the shackles on my wrists and ankles. The fact that everything is blurred around me doesn’t stop me from rolling out of what’s left of the iron enclosure to tackle the source of this searing need.

My fangs puncture through a warm neck, immediately finding the carotid artery as the shrieking inside my head increases. I ignore the voices and drink heavily, squeezing my eyes shut and moaning at the flavor.

It’s fucking divine . So much stronger than I remember, though I still can’t pinpoint where I’ve had this delicacy before.

I want more. All of it.

I release this artery and drag my lips to a new place, biting down hard to get more of what I want. Again and again.

There’s a sharp inhale.

“So greedy,” a voice whispers in fae, laughing breathlessly.

How strange. It’s her laugh. But her voice hasn’t laughed in my head in this hell, not even once.

And now she's…humming a song. A very off-tune fae lullaby. It tugs at a memory, drawing me out of the damnable haze of madness that’s trying to suffocate me as I draw deeply again from this perfect neck.

It’s a lie! the voices in my head shriek defiantly. The telum is dead! Kill her before she kills you!

All the voices are panicking. But why are they so afraid of this daydream?

I’m too far gone to reason out the answer as I move to bite somewhere else, reveling in the flavor that renders me incapable of thought.

A hand brushes through my curls, and I realize I can make out softly labored breathing beneath me. I would know the rhythm of that breathing anywhere, mad or not.

“Silas. I doubt I’ll revive from expiring anymore, and Everett would never forgive my stupidity if I die like this. That’s enough. Let me go.”

As the fog of insanity inside my brain begins to thin slightly, a sudden realization sets in, hard and fast. I’m drinking blood. Her blood.

I could never imagine a taste this all-consuming and potent, so it must be real. This isn’t another one of my mad daydreams.

Gods above.

I immediately release her and scramble away, licking residual heaven from my lips as I blink through the frantic confusion and see her face in the dim light of the candles.

Maven.

She’s covered in blood and my bite marks.

Somehow, she’s alive.

And I hurt her. Again.

No, no, no, no?—

Kill her! the voices scream. End your pain! Free yourself once and for all!

“Shut up!” I snap at them, my head reeling.

Dark insanity rises from somewhere deep inside me, trying to drag me away from this moment and back to the oblivion of my broken mind. For the first time in months, I fight it for all I’m worth, ripping at my hair as I stare in shock at my impossibly alive keeper.

“ Thanafluir?” I whisper.

Maven’s gaze turns to amusement as she cups a hand around her bleeding neck.

“Death blossom?” she translates. “For once, a nickname I don’t mind.”

I didn’t mean to call her that. I can’t speak clearly, much less detangle the mad thoughts feeding off one another inside my head. She’s here in front of me, the taste of her blood igniting every cell within my body, yet…I don’t understand.

She died. Her soul was reaped. I saw it all.

She’s meant to be dead , someone snarls inside my skull. She is worthless to us. Get rid of her.

The demons in my head have always despised Maven, knowing she would end them along with my curse. That should have been my first clue that she is truly here with me, but I missed it, and now she’s bleeding everywhere. I scramble back until I encounter the stone wall of this enclosure as dangerous hunger continues to hum through my system.

I’m out of control. Treacherous. My keeper shouldn’t be in here alone with me.

Let her be alone with you. You have the power to destroy her now , my father’s voice insists. End her before she uses the scythe!

My attention drops to the ground beside her and I realize that surely enough, to feed me her blood, she cut her hand with a fucking scythe.

And I’ve seen this scythe before. The tip is clear etherium, the snath decorated in runes. It belongs to the goddess of reaping, who used it to collect souls right before my eyes months ago. Just the memory of Syntyche is enough to have fear curdling my gut, but–

Wait.

I look back at Maven, who brought that scythe into this prison and has mysteriously returned. Though living again, she emanates a tantalizing aura of death as she approaches me with determination in her hauntingly beautiful eyes.

Despite the ravaged terrain of my mind, things begin to click together. The overwhelming flavor of sheer power in Maven’s blood that is unlike any other magic I've tasted. Her ability to survive things that the other mortal children taken into the Nether could not. And when my old mentor saw her for the first time?—

I didn’t believe that eccentric wizard when long ago, he told me that he sees the face of Death herself almost nightly as she comes to observe his possible demise during the worst hours of his curse.

The fact that he so easily recognized my keeper can only mean…

Maven must understand what I’m trying to puzzle out, because she quirks an adorably uncomfortable smile.

“Do me a favor and don’t treat me any differently.”

My gods.

I’m face to face with Syntyche’s daughter.

No! What chance have we against a demigoddess? This is too cruel, too cruel! the voices in my head hiss and swear, livid about this realization as my surroundings spin.

Throughout known history, demigods and demigoddesses have rarely appeared thanks to the nature of the gods and their inability to conceive easily with mortals. My keeper’s origin is miraculous, but I’m far too fractured for this life-changing realization to sink in fully.

“You shouldn’t be alone in here with me,” I rasp, unable to stop my gaze from slipping back to the delicious red color dripping down her throat. “Keep your distance, sangfluir . My mind can’t be trusted with you.”

She ignores me. Of course, she does. My stubborn keeper’s very existence seems formulated to aggravate me, yet I can’t stop the exhale of relief that escapes me when she comes close enough to touch the scarred place on my wrist caused by my shackles.

Her attention is clinical as she examines me. I can only imagine what she sees. I know Everett makes that bounty hunter magically feed and clean me now and then, and Lillian tries to help me on my better days, but whenever I’m not simmering in lunacy, I black out.

Sometimes I wake up covered in my own blood. Other times, I find I’ve etched dark runes into the floor or walls of this room. The entire place is proof of my disjointed mania, so I’m sure I must look only more wretched.

But if Maven is bothered by my unhinged appearance, it doesn’t stop her from kissing me.

It’s quick. Soft. More a reminder of her affection than a true kiss.

And still, it melts something inside me. I pull her against me, desperate to have her close. The scent of her blood all around us makes mine boil, and suddenly, I realize how much she’s lost.

She needs healing.

No. Let her bleed out. It is the swiftest way of dealing with this bitch , a voice in my head growls.

I’m about to snap at the voices, but metal creaks sharply just before the entire door into my self-imposed prison is broken down. Blood magic flares to life in my fingertips as I prepare to protect Maven, but ice crackles across the ground at lightning speed, encapsulating much of this prison in thick ice as Everett steps into the room.

The utterly furious brutality on his face is surprising.

So is his scar. I thought I was imagining that, the few times I’ve been able to make out his face when he came to visit me in my isolated hell.

“A scarred Frost. Now I’ve seen everything,” I manage.

Judging by the ice covering the door, he dropped the temperature of the metal to make it brittle enough to kick it down himself. That’s an impressive display of power to display on a whim. Was he always this strong, or am I just imagining this, too?

“What the hell are you waiting for?” Everett seethes, storming into the room with frost swirling behind his every step. “You’re the one who nearly ripped her neck open— heal her.”

Yes! Use magic. We know just the spell she deserves , the voices in my head titter as darkness seeps into the edges of my vision.

Realizing my internal tormentors are just under the surface of my mind, I quickly disengage from Maven despite her protest. Stumbling to my feet, I put distance between us as my heart pounds painfully. She gets up, too, but I don’t miss the slight sway in her legs.

I took too much.

“I can’t,” I rasp, swallowing down the shameful bile trying to crawl up my throat. “My casting can’t be trusted right now.”

In my current condition, if I try to heal Maven, I’ll end up killing her instead.

Think of the suffering you’ve gone through because of her. Do you really want more of that? Killing her now would grant you peace , a voice in my head tries to reason.

Everett moves to our keeper’s side, gently removing her hand from her neck to see the damage before he shoots me a surprisingly intimidating glare. Maven lets him fuss over her, but her dark eyes are fixed firmly on me.

“Ground artemesian blossoms and a blood amulet.”

I can’t tell if her words don’t make sense or if it’s just my insanity keeping me from understanding again, but one glance at Everett tells me he’s just as confused.

“Snowdrop, what are you?—”

“Is this the most present he’s been in months?” she checks.

We both nod, but I immediately prop myself up against a wall as the world spins. I could swear that dark, snake-like vines are slithering across the stone floor toward me, but since Maven and Everett aren’t reacting to the ominous tendrils, I decide it’s another trick of my frayed mind.

I can’t tell reality from the demons in my head.

“My blood helps him.” Maven looks back at me, and gods above, I’ve missed her face. She’s so viciously determined, it puts my stomach in delirious knots. “An amulet can be made with my blood and blessed with holy magic for extra strength. Artemisian blossoms can be spelled to help ward off evil spirits. It might help soothe the voices until I can figure out how to fix things.”

Fix things?

I want to ask what she means by that, but Maven speaks again, cold and angry.

“You’re too weak right now. If I can’t strengthen you, you’re useless to me. You’ll end up getting me killed, or hurting me yourself. Again. ”

Pain cuts through me at the reminder of my shortcomings, making my voice a violent rasp as I lean against the wall.

“I swear I won’t hurt you,” I insist miserably. “I’ll make myself useful this time.”

My keeper frowns at me in confusion before sad understanding crosses her face. “Silas, I didn’t say anything about you hurting me. Whatever you just heard, it was in your head.”

Damn it.

I was certain it was her truly speaking, but before I can apologize, I’m deafened by the shrieking and wailing of voices inside my head. Their cacophony of fury sends me to my knees before I black out, swept back under the inky asphyxiation of my curse.

What feels like moments later, I blink my eyes open and find myself lying on the bed in the corner of my prison, which is lit dimly by candles to ward off the freezing night. The absence of the iron shackles around my wrists and ankles is bizarre until I catch the enticing scent of Maven’s blood still lingering in the room.

It wasn’t in my head. She’s back—no longer in this room, but I’ll find her.

To end her , my father’s voice suggests excitedly.

“No,” I snarl. “To protect her. I don’t care if I have to crack open my fucking skull to rip you out—if she’s back, she deserves every godsdamned effort I can make for her safety. So long as she allows me in her presence, I will find a way.”

“There’s no one else in here, man,” someone grunts.

It's the giant leprechaun, voices in my head inform me.

I realize the giant leprechaun—no, the redheaded bounty hunter is in here, magically repairing the door Everett broke. It takes me a moment of blurry confusion before I can pick his name out of the veritable alphabet soup that is my brain.

“Douglas.”

He stops repairing the door long enough to appraise me. “You’re actually in your own head for once. Not bad.”

The fact that recognizing someone I was once hunted by warrants that reaction is just proof of how pathetically far I’ve fallen. I sit up, focusing on him and pretending there isn’t a monstrously large blob of psychedelic goo dripping from the ceiling overhead.

Once again, if he isn’t reacting to it, it’s obviously all in my mind.

“I need spell supplies,” I tell him, managing to pick out the correct English words in the correct order this time.

He nods his chin at a brown-paper-wrapped parcel near the new door, which I didn't see because of the dim lighting.

“Already brought it. Also, your freaky-ass keeper handed me a bowl of blood before Frost hauled her out of here. Turns out I’m supposed to make it into a couple of strong blood amulets for you, but did she explain that before handing me her zombie blood? Nope. I swear, it’s like she enjoys being disturbing.”

For the first time in gods know how long, my lips twitch. “She does.”

I’ve bitterly missed her streak of sadistic amusement. I’ve missed all of her so much I can’t put it into words, but knowing that I didn’t imagine her return or her delectable blood has my heart pounding.

Six months and still so smitten? That she-monster will be the death of you , a voice in my head huffs.

Free yourself! Run from her! That fucking Undead bitch ? —

“Don’t call her that ever again,” I snap in fae, swatting at what I’m certain is a winged imp beside me, but it turns out to be another figment of my mad mind.

Douglas stares at me, mutters something about needing a raise, and picks up the spell ingredients. But just as he’s handing me the wrapped parcel, some unpleasant sound begins blaring outside this cell.

I realize it's not in my head when Douglas swears, his eyes glowing slightly green. He pulls back one coat sleeve to reveal a scrying brand on his forearm. The focused frown on his face is evidence that he's magically communicating with someone.

They’re colluding against you, my father's voice warns in my head. He’s receiving an order to kill you. And why shouldn’t he? As a necromancer, you’re no longer allowed in the mortal realm.

That’s true. All this time, my prison has helped to protect me whilst protecting others from me. But now that Maven wants me to get out of here, perhaps other people have decided my death would be better.

Perhaps Douglas is about to carry out an assassination order.

I have no bleeding crystal, but magic still begins to hum at my fingertips, eager to unleash my strongest defenses as the strange alarms get louder.

Instead of attacking me, the bounty hunter lets loose a string of curses, scrubbing his face before pointing a finger at me.

“Sit here, play with your spell ingredients, and don’t walk out that door until I have time to come back and fix it. It's the only thing protecting everyone from your crazy ass.”

I narrow my eyes, still suspicious. “What’s going on?”

“I don't speak whatever the fuck that was,” he mutters, walking to the door.

Damn it. I spoke in befuddled fae again. I try for English once more. This time, Douglas understands, pausing with one foot out the door to look back at me.

“Urgent message from one of my men. We’re under attack. Looks like I get to deal with another one of you Oakley quintet assholes tonight. Lucky me.”

Leprechauns are particularly lucky, the voices in my head agree as he slams the door on his way out.