Page 97 of Lustling

Cassiel moves slower, all the more terrible for that calm. He kneels over the faint trail of ash, lifts two fingers through it, and breathes. The movement is small and careful and precise. “She did not struggle,” he says. The words are quiet but they fall like judgement. “She went willingly.”

Bastion snarls and paces, hair matted, eyes like flint. “No. She would never—not like this. Not alone.”

“She would,” I say, and the sentence breaks me. “If she thought it would save us. If she believed she could stop him from taking us.”

For a long instant none of us speaks. The truth sits heavy between us. We have taught each other what she will give. We have watched her give and have told ourselves it was brave. Now the cost has been paid and it tastes like iron.

Cassiel stands. His face is a mask. The evenness in him is not comfort. It is an engine. He looks at Bastion. He looks at me. When he speaks, his voice has no softness left.

“Then we go to war.”

His words are a blade. In them is the unspoken next: we take her back. We burn what stands in our way. I feel something cold and fierce uncoil under my ribs, a promise made of fury and vows. I swallow it down, and the fortress answers with the sound of three men becoming a single thing bent on one terrible aim.

SIXTY

Istep through the door and into a world that has been built to take my breath away. The air changes on the instant. It is heavier, saturated with smoke and spice and something sweeter that slides along the tongue like rot in sugar.

The chamber is enormous. Black tile veined with gold spreads underfoot. The walls seem to listen. The light is all false fire.

Behind me Deimos calls once, low and raw.

The tug of the bond is there, frantic. I feel him like a hand on my spine, pulling. For a heartbeat I think I can answer. I shape the thought. I gather Cassiel’s ribbon. I will the basalt plates into my shoulders. I will be a weapon before he knows it.

Then a finger brushes the hollow of my neck. The touch is small. It is careful. It is ice and silk at once.

A voice folds into my ear. Smooth. Repetitive. It says my name slow enough that each sound seems to unlace a knot inside me.

I do not have time to be afraid. I do not have time to strike. The room yawns and closes and I awaken.

The sheets under me are red silk. Heavy velvet covers my legs. The bed smells of strangers and perfumed smoke.

He is seated at the foot of the bed, casual as a man waiting for a delayed guest. He watches me with a smile that fits on no honest face.

Zepharion.

Up close the skin on his cheek catches the light like burnished metal. His hair falls dark and glossy. His eyes are pools without a shore. When he speaks the sound goes all the way down into the hollow of me.

“I thought you would be more stubborn,” he says.

My throat works. I force the words out before the fog thickens. “Where am I.”

He stands. He crosses the floor without a sound. There is a predatory grace to him that makes my bones tense. He takes my hand and helps me up as if I were fragile. His fingers find the place beneath my collarbone where Bastion’s mark still nestles. He brushes it with the gentlest of touches. A collector admiring a rare thing.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “A chosen marking.”

The hum at my sternum answers like a caged thing. I pull at it because habit is stronger than fear. I try to call on Cassiel’s thread, a small ribbon of warmth and white. The thought is thin and somehow distant.

Zepharion’s smile narrows to something private and pleased. “Petal,” he says.

He leans closer until his breath is a soft ache against my skin. His voice becomes the rope that tugs at me. He repeats a word. A cadence. He says it and the world slackens. The part of me that wants to fight does not go away. It dulls. It thickens. It becomes a sound in another room.

Attendants arrive. Two women appear in the doorway without noise and without question. One carries a robe. The other holds trays of contents that glimmer. They move like shadows taking shape.

I try to move my arms to push them back. The impulse is sharp and useless. My limbs feel woolen. My hands want to close into fists. My mouth wants to bark Cassiel’s name, to demand Deimos, to drag whatever this is off my skin. The words spread like cotton in my head and never reach sound.

Zepharion’s hand finds the nape of my neck again. His touch is patient. He speaks and his voice is not quite a voice. It is command wrapped in a lullaby. He says that I will sleep. He says that I will listen. He says that I will not remember how easy it was to obey.

An electric cold presses at the base of my skull. The last bright thread of resistance frays. I feel him place something around my throat, cold metal biting my skin. A gold choker, thin and finished with filigree and a small dark stone at its center. His fingers close the clasp.