Page 17 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

16

MAVEN

It turns out the collar Del Mar put on Baelfire to prevent him from shifting wasn’t the only one he brought to Everbound months ago.

Asher Douglas heals my broken arm and bite marks, but Everett doesn’t notice the caster is using holy magic, since he’s busy trying to throw a blanket over Baelfire’s nakedness. He has to re-freeze the dragon shifter when Not-Baelfire immediately tries to burn his face off.

“His ass is still out,” Asher points out.

Everett mutters something about shifters being naked idiots before he glances at the mercenary. “Get a message to Commander Decimus. Let her know the feral dragon has been found and contained here. Tell her I’ll update her if necessary if she has follow-up questions.”

Once Douglas leaves Hearst’s old headmaster’s office, Everett shows me the other enchanted collars in one of the desk drawers. All I can think about is how humiliating it was for Baelfire to wear one in public like a common animal.

He’s sexy as fuck wearing a collar for me in the bedroom, but the idea of putting it on him right now, when he’s not even himself and he is actually like a mindless animal makes my stomach churn.

“It’s either this or keeping him frozen. Unless you have a better idea,” Everett says quietly, slumping into the chair beside the headmaster’s desk.

We’re both exhausted. The entire castle smells like smoke. It was difficult to sneak into the frozen-over headmaster’s office without any Reformists seeing me while they were cleaning up the aftermath of the dragon attack.

Baelfire is now frozen from the neck, ice sealing his mouth shut to keep him from spewing more fire. His eyes are still draconic slits that gleam with primitive insanity.

If he shifts back, he’ll be a bigger target again. Hunters may still be looking for him.

Keeping him in this form gives me a better chance to get through to him.

I grab one of the leather collars and study it. I don’t see runes, but since we couldn’t remove it the last time he wore one until I used revenant magic to destroy it, I suspect it has the age-old monomei locking charm on it. That charm is simple but ironclad and makes it so that only the one who locks an inanimate object can unlock it.

Meaning, unless we find another revenant wielding unlimited destructive magic, only I will be able to remove this collar once it’s on him.

“Unfreeze his neck,” I mutter.

Once it’s clasped firmly but not too tightly around Baelfire’s throat, Everett and I lead my feral shifter to a spare apartment in the western wing. It’s tedious to drag the resisting mass of muscle there, and even more tedious to fireproof the stone room. Everett finally melts the ice encapsulating my mate after we lock him in for the night.

After several more minutes of sneaking through the castle to avoid anyone else seeing me, we make it to our old quintet apartment, since Everett’s rooms were ruined.

As we step inside, I stare at the quarters I shared with my quintet. Gods, it feels like forever since I was here. The last time I saw it was just before my quintet and I went on the run.

Before we were all bonded together and then promptly ripped apart.

Knowing my immaculately tidy match, I should probably step into the shower before touching anything. But when I step toward the bathroom in one of the hallways, Everett scowls, scoops me up, and takes me into the bedroom with the quintet-sized bed. He lays me gently on the sheets, adjusting the pillow under my head.

I only have time to remove my etherium knife from my hidden pocket, so it’s clutched in my hand instead of digging into my side before I drop into merciful unconsciousness.

Nightmares tease at the peripheries of my deeply exhausted rest until a sudden current washes over me, dragging me back into another Paradisiacal memory.

Syntyche stands before me. Or…maybe she hovers. Her movements are so fluid that I’m not sure if she walks underneath the shadowy cloak obscuring much of her, which makes me question her considerable height.

The goddess wears no expression, but her scythe is propped up on her shoulder as she observes me with pitch black irises. It’s still odd to realize I’m nearly a copy of her, minus her unnaturally pale skin and other minor differences.

Apparently, she’s just as atrocious at small talk as I am, because it’s a long time before either of us says anything.

“No matter what Arati says, I’m not staying in Paradise,” Memory Me finally blurts.

“So you’ve mentioned.”

“I have a plan.”

Observing this memory once again, I realize that my plan is to annoy the hell out of the gods until they tell me the way to return to the mortal world for good. They’re set on me staying, which is a big no. I’m currently compiling a long list of ideas to irritate them in my head.

Syntyche says nothing. A few more moments tick by.

It’s official. We’re the worst at conversing.

“My sister is inordinately proud of her golden armor,” the goddess muses suddenly. “It was a gift from our brother before he left the pantheon and took up permanent residence in the Beyond.”

I stare at her, confused.

“If something were to happen to that armor, it would invite Arati’s considerable temper. Finding where she keeps it should be an easy task for you.”

She’s clearly guessed that I plan to annoy the gods, but…

“You're helping me?” I ask.

“You’re surprised.”

“More like skeptical. Let’s not pretend like you’ve done me any favors in the past.”

Syntyche considers that, twisting her scythe to examine the etherium blade. “Gods cannot see into the Nether, so I did not observe you grow up. You needed no coddling by the time you emerged into the mortal world, but perhaps my aid could benefit you now. Beginning with inciting the wrath of my sister to learn the one way to expunge your soul from this plane of existence so that you may fall from Paradise and reunite with the clingy male mortals you are so partial to.”

She summed that up nicely.

I squint at her. “Is this what they call…mother-daughter bonding?”

“Let us call it anything but that.”

“Then we're on the same page.” I pause. “Can’t you just tell me how to return?”

“Only one immortal being has ever successfully become mortal to live in the mortal realm, eons ago. Arati helped him learn a way to mortality, but she guards that secret carefully. Convincing her will be difficult.”

Difficult has never stopped me before, and it means nothing to me now that my quintet is on the line. I look out over a seemingly endless sea of clouds, my scarred, emblem-less chest aching.

“Galene hinted that there may be a way I can watch over the mortal realm from here. A way to see my quintet.”

“It is possible, depending on what gifts you inherited from me.”

I look at her, determined. “Tell me.”

The memory shifts and changes, and for a moment, I can’t understand what I’m looking at. It’s a view of gliding over a grayscale landscape high above. Wintry wind batters me on one side.

After several moments, I realize I’m seeing the world through the point of view of a bird.

Not just any bird. A raven.

The raven finally perches on a ruined temple in an abandoned, sprawling city. The massive temple is overwhelmingly ornate and magnificent, with fire symbols worked elegantly into the architecture now encrusted with ice.

This is unmistakably one of Arati’s temples, but like the rest of the city, it’s sapped of color and abandoned.

At first, I can’t tell why the raven is showing me this. Then it slips through a broken window near flying buttresses and hops forward to peek down into the temple. It’s dark and empty—except for a leather-jacket-clad figure lying motionless at the foot of the altar.

Crypt.

With the raven’s sharp vision, I can make out concentric circles of intricate dark runes circling my Nightmare Prince. Layers and layers of magic have entangled him in a brutal malediction as he lies still, his eyes shut as his chest rises and falls slightly.

It’s almost like he’s sleeping.

But he can’t sleep.

The memory is fading along with this precious glimpse of my incubus. Before it disappears completely, the echo of my own furious voice returns to me.

“What did you do to him?”

“Far less than he deserved,” Syntyche’s cold tone replies in a multifaceted echo. “We gods have laws by which we must abide. Destroying holy things must breed consequences. Would you rather I let my sister, the goddess of vengeance, dole out the steward’s punishments? She would have done far worse. If his mind survives and if he doesn’t starve, consider this another favor.”

My eyes flash open. I bolt upright, my empty chest burning again. Everett is right behind me, jolting out of sleep and immediately dropping the temperature of this room several degrees as he pulls me close.

“What is it? Are you hurt? Is it a wraith?” he asks, eyes flicking to every dark place in the room despite the morning light trickling through the quintet bedroom windows.

I shake my head, releasing the handle of my etherium dagger when I realize I’m squeezing it so tightly my knuckles are white.

“I know where Crypt is,” I breathe.

Everett bundles blankets around me as he frowns. At least it looks like he slept a little last night. “How?”

I explain that portion of my returned memories to him—how I could somehow watch them through ravens while I was in Paradise, and how Crypt is under a malediction in one of Arati’s temples in a colorless city.

He listens to all of it before nodding slowly. “Give me an hour.”

“I don’t want to leave Silas and Baelfire behind,” I add.

Everett nods again. “That’s why I’ll need an hour, to sort out a few things before we all go. With the recent attack, I want more Reformists watching the stronghold while we’re gone, since Asher Douglas will have to transport us. Give me an hour and we’ll go.”

Gods, I love this elemental.

Nearly twenty minutes later, Lillian hands me a bag packed with random supplies and food as I wait with Everett and Not-Baelfire in the western library, which is lit warmly by a raging hearth.

Lillian glances at the frenzied animal occupying Baelfire’s body. He’s in his collar, and I added a leash in case he tries to get away. He’s currently perched on top of the big front desk, dressed only in a pair of shorts that Everett and I managed to wrangle him into, although we both ended up with a couple of bites and scratches.

He growls at her, but she turns back to me with a smile. “All your matches are so handsome.”

“Ridiculously so,” I agree. “He’s actually a charismatic social butterfly whenever he’s not feral. You’ll love him once…”

Once it’s him again. If he’s still in there at all.

Lillian can see my doubt and frustration and offers a reassuring smile. “I can’t wait to meet all of your matches officially. It will happen, little raven.”

I never realized how fitting her nickname for me was until now. But then, she’s known my true identity all along. With everything going on, I haven’t had the chance to spend much time with her—which is frustrating, because I’ve missed her for what feels like forever.

“A chess game,” I blurt. “We should find time for a chess game, once we’re back.”

We used to play so much chess together. She’s the only person I’ve ever played the game with.

Lillian lights up. “I would love that. I look forward to winning once you have your quintet back and things have settled down.”

I grin at her subtle trash talk before the door into the western library opens. Asher Douglas joins us, adjusting his excessive amount of winter clothes.

“Nothing like strolling through your collection of frozen people right before breakfast, Frost. Ruins my appetite every time.”

What’s this now?

I look at Everett, who won’t meet my eye as he repeatedly adjusts one of his sleeves. “You have a collection?”

“Haven’t seen them?” Douglas grunts. “It’s like dozens of upright tombs of ice. Fucking creepy . ”

“I want to see,” I declare, morbid fascination leading me out the door they just walked through and toward the nearest courtyard.

Everett keeps up with me, looking around quickly to make sure no Reformists are in this area of the castle. “It was just a few people who annoyed me.”

A few? I stare at the rows of immaculately frozen people, monsters, and ravens gleaming in the cold sunlight. Small piles of powdery snow gathered atop the unmoving displays.

My gaze lands on a frozen winged, tailed incubus nearby. When a shiver of familiar, telling apprehension rolls over my spine, I raise my eyebrows.

“Are they all…alive?”

Everett nods, looking like he doesn’t want to talk about this. “Most of them deserved it. Some of them will be kept like this until they can stand trial, once a judicial government of some kind is formed again. Others are just…decorations. Until I decide otherwise.”

How cruel.

When he sees me smirking at him, he sighs. “I know, it’s really fucking creepy.”

He says that like it’s a bad thing. I stroll through some statues before noticing a corner of this courtyard is filled with misshapen frozen spheres.

"What's over there?"

Everett adjusts his coat sleeve a few times, grimacing. "Crypt's contributions from before he went missing.”

I walk closer and pause when I realize they're all…heads. Disembodied heads, dropped carelessly to the cobblestones and left to freeze, including the skull of the lich who scarred Everett during battle.

As in, the one I told Crypt to bring to me. He didn’t let that go.

Aww.

"Of course, you're smiling," Everett sighs.

"From where I'm standing—namely, in the living frozen collection of anyone who even mildly pissed you off while I was gone—you have no room to judge."

“She has a fair point,” Silas’s voice agrees from behind us.

My pulse spikes. I turn, a smile breaking across my face when I see my blood fae necromancer dressed in a sharp winter coat and an amulet made from my blood peeking out from under a red scarf.

He’s been cleaned up, but he’s still not okay. I don’t miss that his red eyes flick between all the frozen figures before he takes a step back. He flinches and swats at something that doesn’t exist before trying to focus on me again. The shadows of dark circles under his eyes and his more prominent cheekbones and thinner build remind me that he’s been slightly emaciated thanks to his self-imprisonment.

Still, he’s finally outside. Progress is fucking progress. I’ll take it.

“Is the amulet helping?” I check.

“I would not have chance threat left wrong you.” Silas’s words slur at the end. He flinches before trying again, except fae creeps in. When I still can’t figure out what he’s trying to say, he takes a centering breath and finally manages, “If I felt I was a significant threat to you, I would have stayed away longer.”

“Third time’s the charm,” Everett grumbles.

Here we go.

These legacies love being assholes to each other, as if they haven’t gone to extra lengths to help each other in secret in the past. They annoy the hell out of each other to disguise how much they care.

Silas gives the elemental a withering once-over. “Is it safe for you to stand so close to Maven, or will you freeze her like you have everything else?”

“It’s safe,” I cut in decisively, getting ahead of more bickering.

Luckily, Asher Douglas picks that moment to join us in the courtyard. He says something quietly to Everett, who is testy about leaving my side, but goes off to ensure everything will run smoothly when we leave the stronghold.

I’ve been aching to see Silas again. I step toward my fae, wanting to be closer and smell the spiced bourbon scent always lingering on him.

But he takes a step back, swatting at nothing again as his blood red irises remain trained on me. “Only trust me as far as you can throw me, thanafluir.”

Again, he’s calling me Death Blossom. I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it.

Not that I mind that nickname.

“Considering the permanent alterations my body went through to become stronger and faster, that’s still pretty far,” I remind him, trying to lighten the mood.

He’s not amused as he studies me. “I know your parentage, but where were y—I said stop fucking calling her that ,” he suddenly snaps, gripping the side of his head and clenching his teeth.

Godsdamn it. I hate seeing him so…

Insane.

Checking to make sure we’re still alone, I move closer so he can lean on me slightly.

“This is my fault,” I murmur.

He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “No. It was not your fault. Tha fios anima aih’leat, thanafluir.”

Meaning, My soul knows yours, Death Blossom.

Then he reaches down to tip my head back until I can see the feral, murderous gleam in his blood-red gaze. “I know you did not leave us willingly, so tell me who took you from us.”

Right.

Bertram.

Considering that he was working for Amadeus, I haven’t spared that vampire much thought. My so-called “father” has the brutal but efficient habit of permanently killing off anyone he no longer finds useful, unless he decides to make them Undead instead. I’m a prime example of both those preferences.

Still, I should see if I can learn what happened to Bertram. If he’s dead, I’ll spit on his grave. If he’s alive, I’ll have the honor of spitting on him before I bury him for being the one to put the final nail in my coffin six months ago.

I focus on Silas again. “That’s not our priority. Right now, our priority is getting Crypt back.”

He pauses, eyes growing glassy as he tries to think through whatever riot is chipping away inside his head. “Crypt…Crypt. He appeared in my prison. While I was mad. He was asking whether I could dèanamh alta facere sum…”

‘Make extra high?’ I can’t understand his fae.

“Try again,” I suggest gently.

Silas groans. “I hate fucking.”

I barely manage to keep a straight face. I’m pretty sure that’s the only lie he’s accidentally ever told. “You mean, you fucking hate this?”

“Yes. That one.” He sighs and concentrates harder. “Crypt brought me a strand of your hair and asked for a tracking spell on…something. It was…”

He cuts off to snap at the voices in his head again, tearing at his hair as his breathing picks up.

I consider what he said. Many tracking spells call for DNA, so that doesn’t help much. But why was he trying to track me when I was already dead?

“ Pìos ostentaoth ,” Silas blurts.

I don’t translate quickly enough. “What?”

“Something on display. A part of you.”

On display like?—

Oh, gods. My heart sits on Amadeus’s mantle in his chambers within the citadel. Fuck, I forgot I told Crypt about that. If he was trying to track that down…

I need a heart, but going to Amadeus’s citadel to get that one back for any reason would be insane.

“Where were you, ima sangfluir?” Silas murmurs, and I realize he’s been studying me while I’ve been thinking. He reaches up to touch the blood amulet around his neck, as if that helps him maintain coherency. “Your body vanished as revenants do when their purpose is fulfilled and they pass to the Beyond. No one returns from the Beyond, yet you’re here. Aren’t you?” he checks with a genuine frown.

“I went to Paradise,” I explain simply. “And then I came back. I’m here, and I’m staying.”

Silas absorbs that before suddenly flinching to one side as if avoiding a blow. He swears and rubs his face. “Forgive me. I see things. No, I wasn’t talking to you. Shut up.”

He’s talking to the voices in his head again as Everett strides back into the courtyard. My elemental slows his approach, taking in Silas’s obvious bout of insanity before he sighs and looks at me.

“Are you sure you want to bring them? It might be dangerous where we’re going.”

He’s right. I know that. Silas and Baelfire’s conditions are rough to see, but gods, I just got them back. The thought of going somewhere where I won’t be able to check in on them easily is an immediate no. I just can’t.

“Good thing we’re all dangerous, then,” I reply.

Everett accepts my answer with a simple nod before he turns to face the courtyard, rolling his shoulders back. He concentrates, lifting his hands before the ice surrounding the couple hundred frozen ravens in the courtyard cracks or melts away.

Some of the ravens begin crowing and freaking out as they wing quickly away. Others slump dead out of the ice, and a few immediately flutter over to me, tipping their heads and checking in on me with their beady black eyes.

“There. You have your spies back,” Everett mutters, shooing one of them away from him before fixing me with a serious look. “But if any of them shit on me, they’re dead.”

When one of the braver ravens flutters to land on my shoulder, Silas squints at it. “Is there a raven on your shoulder, or is that in my head?”

“It’s real.”

“How do I know if you’re you?”

I can see that he’s starting to slip again, but his question is fair. Reaching up, I brush his jaw with my fingertips and hold his blood-red gaze.

“You’ll know I’m me because nothing will stop me from keeping you. Not even the tricks in your head. Whenever you’re not sure, just ask and I’ll remind you that… tha galeath.”

I love you .

I expect saying it to be awkward, but it’s surprisingly right.

Silas’s pupils dilate as he lets out a breath. “You, saying that…this is in my head.”

“ Nach ,” I shake my head. “ Tha galeath.”

“Which means?” Everett prompts with a frown, looking between us.

Silas ignores him completely as his voice drops to the barest whisper. “ Tha ba’galeath thu semprah.”

I have and will always love you.

Despite the madness plaguing him, this moment feels pure as we stare at each other. It’s a lifeline for him—a way that he can know this is real. And for me, it’s what I wish I had told him before I fell on that battlefield months ago and left my ruthless necromancer to the hellscape of his own mind.

“Okay, that’s it,” Everett grumbles finally. “I’m learning fae.”

“By all means, scútráche, ” Silas replies without taking his eyes off me.

“Hey!” Douglas calls from the archway leading back into the castle, tapping a nonexistent watch on his massive, puffy green coat. “How about you gaze into each other’s soulless eyes later? Your pet dragon is wrecking the library and we don’t have all day, so let’s get a fucking move on.”

Silas frowns past me at the bounty hunter before looking at Everett. “You hired him? Why?”

“He’s loud but useful. He’s also right, this time. Come on, let’s go get Maven’s unhinged freak.”

Gods, I can’t wait.

Whatever Syntyche did to him, I’m getting my Nightmare Prince back.