Page 46

Chapter 46

A RIPPLE OF AWARENESS MOVES through me. It draws my somnolent attention to a quiet but steady droning noise. My mind nudges me to do something about the grating sensation, but the rest of me is warm and content and not so eager to abandon sleep. I nuzzle into the sturdy warmth blanketing me and try to drift back to oblivion. Shockingly, my blankets start to move. A pair of arms tighten around me, and the comfy nest I’m lying on sleepily mumbles something.

I wake all the way up, confused and disoriented.

Floor pallets aren’t supposed to move.

My eyes adjust to the dark room. The slight change in the angle of the shadows tells me I’ve only been out for a couple of hours. I look down and see that the bedding I’m lying on isn’t a sheet or blanket at all, but a commander. I’m splayed half on top of him like he’s my own personal body pillow.

So much for not being a cuddler.

Embarrassment plumes through me, but I wave it away.

No one has to know.

I shift so I can roll over and put some distance between me and Aeson, but then I notice that strange hum again. I keep myself still, drowsily trying to figure out what it is or where it’s coming from. For a split second, I wonder if it’s the Fae Gate outside, but when I try to zero in on the sound, I realize that it’s coming from me.

Understanding pistons adrenaline through my system, and I sit up and immediately start scanning the shadows. There’s nothing there, and yet my blood continues to buzz in that unexplainable way that tells me there’s a Relacour nearby.

The first time it ever happened, I didn’t recognize the sensation for what it was. I thought it was the high of the hunt, the intoxication of finally getting answers that was buzzing through me. But after the third and then the fourth time, I began to recognize that something odd was happening. It wasn’t the euphoria of trying to reclaim my destiny that was singing in my bloodstream, it was Relacour magic.

I could feel the Relacour Blood Crafters, sense them.

All of the Syphons could.

It was proof that our hypothesis about the Relacours was right. Our blood recognized the Blood Crafters because it was their magic that was polluting our veins, it was their blood dripping down the bars of the cages trapping our dragons.

Carefully I untangle myself from Aeson and move to get up. He grunts his displeasure and reaches for me.

“Where you going?” he sleepily murmurs.

“Bathroom,” I whisper.

He mumbles something incoherent and wraps himself around my pillow, shoving his face into it and breathing deeply until he’s out again. Warmth settles in my chest as I watch him succumb to sleep.

I eye my weapons as I move, debating what to take. I don’t want to wake Aeson up by strapping everything on, and I don’t want to put the Matron on the defensive right away. Silently, I swipe four daggers. My frilled lizards and my bone blades. I press their lock sheaths to the skin of my back under my shirt, concealing them as best I can.

The polished wood floor is frosty against my bare feet, but it thankfully doesn’t creak or do anything else to give me away as I pad silently across it. I hold my breath, cracking open the door and only daring to exhale when I’m safely on the other side before I quietly close it. I take a second to scan the dark hallway. There’s probably a Wing member on patrol somewhere, but I don’t see or sense anyone.

The buzz of my blood remains steady despite the way my heart is hammering. My quick breaths match my quick steps down the corridor. I reach the main room and instantly feel the all too familiar staticky sensation that indicates a magical barrier is nearby.

I go eerily still, my eyes darting around the room in search of the source of the magic. I don’t see her, but the buzz in my blood is even more insistent, and I know the Relacour Matron isn’t just close. She’s here.

I’m surprised that she decided this introduction should take place inside the dragons’ temporary quarters. It’s audacious as fuck, but that tracks when it comes to the Relacour sorcai. They always think their magic is unbeatable, but I’m counting on that.

I fill my lungs with a fortifying breath and try to talk my adrenaline down, but it’s not budging. Everything the Syphons have been working for hangs on this moment, and every cell in my body knows it.

Wasting no more time, I step through the barrier, quick to shake off the uncomfortable way the magic crawls across my skin. As soon as I’m inside, the dome of magic all around me hardens into a thick transparent blockade perfect for keeping me in and everything else out. Cautiously I scan the dark rec area, running my gaze over the dining tables and benches, the chairs set out for lounging, and focus on a dense swatch of darkness directly opposite me.

Just as soon as I clock the anomaly, a svelte form separates from the shadows, and a cloaked figure steps forward.

“Now what do we have here?” a husky yet melodious voice asks.

She pushes back the cowl of her hood, and I’m met with dark eyes, platinum hair, and a face that looks entirely too smooth and dewy to belong to the leader of an entire coven, or someone as old as I know the Matron is.

Her eyebrows dip with confusion.

“You’re not sorcai,” she observes, surprise registering across her features. “And yet your blood sings for me.”

Anticipation surges through my limbs at the sight of her, but I keep my cool and offer the sorcai a casual shrug. I pretend like I haven’t done this song and dance a ridiculous number of times with all the ones that came before her.

“I don’t know if I’d call it singing,” I tell the Matron as she continues to survey me. “It’s less melody and more of an incessant buzzing to me.”

Surprise flickers through her features. “You can sense me as well?” she asks, her head canting to the side as she tries to solve the puzzle that’s been placed before her.

Her eyes dart to my ears, but they’re covered by my mussed hair. I don’t know why the Relacours always look there when they’re trying to piece things together, but it never fails.

“I must admit, it’s been ages since I’ve been this stumped. I can feel my people’s magic, but you’re not one of us. I don’t sense dragon, although you keep company with them. Wyvern is off the list,” she declares, her face scrunching with distaste. “And you’re not one of them ,” she murmurs as she fills her lungs with a deep inhale.

My brow furrows at that.

One of them ? What does that mean?

She moves silently closer, pausing mere feet away. I force myself to stay calm and relaxed despite the overwhelming urge to move that floods me. The Matron stares intently into my eyes like she can enchant me with just a look. If I were anyone else, it might be possible; some sorcai possess the ability, some vampires too.

“Would you bleed for me, child?” she asks, her eyes roaming over me like I’ve already agreed and now she’s deciding the best place to draw from. Avarice alights in her dark eyes and she draws even closer. “I’d love to see what creation your blood confesses to,” she whispers covetously.

Blood Crafters are so fucking creepy.

Why do they all do this?

I fight the instinct to step back and put space between me and the predatory look in the Matron’s eyes, and stop myself from reaching for my knives. I need to time this perfectly.

“I’ll tell you what I am,” I offer politely, my smile wide and sweet. “Technically you had a hand in my creation, so it’s only fair.”

I extend my hand offering to grasp forearms in the customary greeting often exchanged between sorcai. I relish the moment her brow twitches with confusion.

“Hello, Matron,” I greet in encouragement.

After a moment, she steps forward and grasps my arm. Her eyes dart back and forth between mine as she continues to search for hints as to what I am, which is when I reach behind my back and unsheathe a dagger. Her eyes flare with concern when my grip suddenly tightens on her forearm and the friendliness in my face dies, but she doesn’t retreat.

“I’m Ever Tenebrae,” I offer, my voice low, my eyes boring into hers, suddenly heavy with decades of hate. “I’m one of the Syphons that’s been hunting down your bloodline. It’s so good to finally meet you.”

Alarm detonates across her face, and she rips her arm from my grasp, tripping over her feet in an effort to get away from me. Impressively, she doesn’t fall, but she does quickly cast a red barrier between us. Her hands lift sharply in the air as bolts of magic flare from her palms. The power disperses through the air like a cloud of glittering pollen until it forms a new protective dome around the Matron.

“Impossible,” she gasps as she watches me within the confines of her own power.

She doesn’t attempt to run, which is too bad, I always like it when they try. Then again, it’s probably best we keep things contained within the lovely soundproof barrier she previously erected around the room.

I begin to circle the Matron. Absently, I tap on the power encasing her, like I’m looking for weak spots. This new barrier is roughly ten by ten and see-through, just like the outer barrier still encasing us. However, this cast is fresh and the magic still has a red tinge to it.

“What do you want?” the Matron snaps, more annoyed than genuinely concerned as she tracks my slow circuit around her.

“What all the Syphons want—our dragons back,” I tell her simply, and I welcome the bloodlust as it starts to build in my veins.

I’ve been at a disadvantage since I was collected by The Horde. I’ve been playing catch up with the Noctises from the moment I met them, always on the defense. But not anymore, because this—hunting the Matron, drawing things out so I can get the answers I need—this is what I do.

This is what I’m good at.

Too bad for the Matron, I don’t need any more answers. I’ve found exactly what I’m looking for. She’s standing right in front of me.

“Your dragon?” the Blood Crafter huffs, like I’m some whiny child demanding something I’m not entitled to. “I can’t lift the curse on your dragon. It would have to be done by the sorcai who cast it, and they’re all dead.”

I tsk and stop pacing in front of her barrier like some caged lion. I level her with a look so loaded with loathing and steeped in vengeance it makes the hairs on her arm rise with alarm.

“Wrong,” I snap, and then I walk through her barrier like it was nothing more than a soap bubble and wrap my hand around her throat.

She gasps in surprise and tries to fire off another defensive cast at me, but I brutally slam her back into the hard magic of her red barrier. In a panic, she shoves raw power into me. It sizzles and scorches, and pain blasts through me as she breaks my hold and then works to incinerate me from the inside out. I grit my teeth through the electric shocks she feeds through my system. I’ve had one other Blood Crafter capable of doing this, but the bite of the Matron’s power is truly unmatched.

Good thing I’m no stranger to pain.

Her dark eyes fill with hate and satisfaction as she pours even more power into me, but it all bleeds into shock and then fear when I start to laugh.

“How are you still standing?” she shrieks at me, both shocked and outraged. My only answer is to spring for her.

I split her eyebrow with a well-placed hit, and we start to grapple, slamming one another back and forth against the walls of her protective dome. I get in a few more hits, and she tries to kick my feet out from under me, which makes us both start to lose our balance. She presses a hand to the red barrier to keep from falling, and I slam a dagger through her palm, pinning her hand to her own magic.

Except it isn’t her magic anymore, it’s mine, she just doesn’t realize it yet.

The Matron’s scream is music to my ears. Crimson magic pours out of her hands like blasts of boiling water, and she tries even harder to fry me where I stand. She coats me in what should be a lethal amount of power and then watches in horror as my body absorbs the magic, and I’m left standing without a mark on me to show for her trouble.

Horror-struck, she quickly abandons the fight and starts trying to escape. She attempts to yank the dagger out of her hand, but it doesn’t budge. She tries to drop the red barrier around us once again so she can dislodge herself that way, but the magic in the barrier doesn’t respond to her.

“How are you doing this?” she cries, pure panic now bright in her eyes.

“Didn’t you know?” I purr. “Thanks to the curse the Relacours put on us, your magic now runs in my veins,” I inform her casually as I pull another lizard dagger from behind my back. “It lets me do fun little things like this…”

I grab her other hand and press it back against the barrier, and then I slam my other dagger through it, pinning her with her arms outstretched as tears begin to drip down her face and she screams with all of her might for help.

I grab her throat and press her hard against the barrier at her back. “My kindred screamed that night too. When your people stole their dragons and helped slaughter them. Nobody came to help them either.”

“I can’t break your curse, you stupid bitch!” she snarls and tries to spit at me.

I dodge the glob and smile viciously at her. “Now, now, Conduit , yes you can,” I cluck, and her eyes widen with pure unadulterated terror. “Oh yeah, I know all about that little loophole. Only the sorcai that casts a curse can break it, right? Wrong. There’s one exception you magical fucks like to keep to yourselves, isn’t there? If you kill a bloodline’s Conduit, everyone in that line dies, and when that happens, their magic dies with them.”

“You can’t,” she gasps through panicked breaths.

“Watch me,” I snarl in her face.

She starts screaming and thrashing, but just like all the others that came before her, it’s not going to do shit to stop what’s about to happen. The other Syphons and I have been hunting the Relacour Conduit from the moment one of the other Blood Crafters confessed what it was, or rather who it was and why they were special.

Turns out sorcai are kind of like vampires. They’re all linked back to a sire or a creator. Kill the master vampire, and all of their progeny goes with them. Kill a Conduit, and they take out their coven in exactly the same way. It’s a closely guarded secret, one offered in exchange for a life that I ended up taking anyway, because no Relacour will ever find mercy at the hands of a Syphon again.

Out of nowhere, one of the daggers pinning the Matron’s hand to the barrier goes flying away. My head snaps to follow the trajectory of my blade, and I find Herm on the other side of the first barrier with his hand outstretched. My lizard dagger flies toward him like he’s a magnet.

I guess I know now how he stole my butter knives.

Fucker.

Aeson’s Wing comes streaming into the room, spreading around the rim of the outer barrier. I watch them shouting orders at each other, the two sets of magical domes between us blocking the sound, but I don’t need to hear them to know my time is running out. Herm holds up his hand again, and I turn to see my other lizard dagger start to tremble like it’s fighting the force of the Stormer that’s trying to steal it.

Shit.

The Matron’s shrieks and wails become louder as she sees the scramble of activity around us. She starts begging for help as tears and blood spill freely down her face and off her hands. My remaining lizard dagger loses its fight against Herm and goes flying out of the Conduit’s other palm and out of the inner barrier. I hurry to unsheathe a bone blade while keeping the Matron from crumbling to the floor.

Done with drawing things out, I line up my new dagger so it can enter between the Matron’s ribs and pierce right into her heart. In one swift and practiced move, I sink half the blade into her chest before she grabs my hand with surprising strength and fights me from delivering the final blow. Warm blood spills from the puncture and coats both of our hands, and she slowly starts to lose her grip.

“Wait,” she begs, tightening her grasp on my hand when I win another inch. “Don’t you want answers?” she rasps, her eyes desperate as they flick between mine.

“No,” I growl. “Your death is the answer.”

I gain another inch.

A thunderous boom sounds off around me, and my gaze whips in the direction of the sound to find Aeson. His face is filled with rage and he pounds on the outer barrier, intent on getting my attention. He shouts something angrily, pointing at me and then the ground. I can’t hear him, but I’m pretty sure he just ordered me to drop my weapon and step away from the sorcai.

I glare an unmistakable not a chance his way and then focus back on the Matron. Aeson punches the barrier again with a resounding bang that sends a chill skittering up my spine.

“If you kill me, you’ll weaken the Fae Gate,” the Matron gasps, her mouth filling with blood as I shove the dagger even deeper, drawing closer and closer to her heart as her strength wanes and mine prevails.

“I wouldn’t believe a word out of your mouth even if every Thrasher in existence vouched for you,” I snarl at her, and she whimpers.

Despite my declaration, I consider her words for a millisecond. She is here at the Fae Gate for reasons I don’t know, but Aeson himself said that it wasn’t the Matron specifically that had something to do with the gate, so fuck her mind games and stalling tactics.

Suddenly, a pulse of power tears through the room with a thunderous clap of sound. I’m thrown away from the Matron, and she crumples to the ground. I sit up, a steady ringing now in my head, and I work to shake off the momentary shock of whatever just happened.

Aeson is suddenly in front of me, tinged in red from the only magical barrier that still separates us. He and his Wing must have just ripped through the other one. The Matron coughs, choking on her own blood as she tries to crawl toward her hopeful saviors.

“No you don’t,” I croak, grabbing her leg and pulling her toward me.

“What the fuck are you doing, Ever?” Aeson shouts at me, and I’m surprised I can hear him now.

I look down and find my bone blade still lodged in the Matron’s chest. Blood pools underneath her, and she’s pressing a bloody hand to the barrier next to me like she’s still trying to drop it so Aeson and the other drakes can get in.

She doesn’t understand that the minute I touched her protections, I seized control of them. I have no idea how it works, but the Relacour magic in our veins allows the Syphons to withstand Relacour casts, null their control, and claim their protections at will.

I reach for the handle of the dagger that’s sitting in the sorcai’s chest.

“Ever, stop!” Aeson commands, pressing a hand against the barrier like he can will me to obey. “You need to listen to me, you can’t kill her!” he shouts, and I hear the fury and betrayal in every word.

I close my eyes for a moment to help stave off the rush of emotion I unexpectedly feel from the hurt in Aeson’s voice. He calls my name again, and I press my hand against the barrier where he pounds his fist.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this, but there has to be another way,” he growls at me, and I bow my head because there isn’t.

I know he’s furious, that he doesn’t understand, but there’s nothing I can do. The Relacours started this, and now it’s time for the Syphons to finish it. If there were a way to belong to both Aeson and my people, I would take it. If I could fix what was done to us without hurting him, I would. But it’s not possible. I won’t choose him over the Syphons. I won’t choose him over me.

“Claws, listen to me, I need you to trust me,” Aeson tries again, calmer this time, like he’s hoping he can talk me down from the ledge since he can’t order me off of it.

Resolved, I drop my hand from his and wrap it around the dagger in the Matron’s chest. Aeson starts frantically pounding on the barrier again, shouting and barking orders as I unsheathe my final bone blade from behind my back with my other hand and press it against the Matron’s throat.

She’s on the brink of death, blood pouring freely from her chest, mouth, and hands, but she still manages to look up at me with pure malevolence. “You think this will save you, but it won’t,” she rasps, choking on vitriol as it spill out in time with her lifeforce. “The fae will come for you, and I don’t mean the ones on the other side of the gate. I’m talking about the ones that are already here.”

Ice spills into my veins at her words, but I’m already drawing my blade across her throat while I shove my dagger into her heart. Aeson roars and it echoes all around me as death finally claims the Matron, her coven, her bloodline, and her magic…forever.

Sixty-two years of suffering, planning, hunting, and clawing our way back from the brink of annihilation, and it’s done. The Syphons are finally free.

Tears spill down my cheeks. Relief and sorrow churn in my chest as I sit back on my knees, wiping the blood from my blades on the matron’s cloak. Aeson’s face is a mixture of rage and betrayal. I’m whole again, a Syphon in every sense now that the curse is broken, and yet the way he’s looking at me threatens to shatter me all over again.

I open my mouth to explain, to help him understand, but my blood all at once flash boils in my veins, and my bones become molten. My dragon pushes against the bars of its cage…but they suddenly fracture and crumble. Power surges through me, filling every cell in my body and purging every drop of foreign magic from my blood. The inferno in me builds, and blinding pain is quick to follow. My body bows, a silent scream pouring from my mouth, and then the well of power that’s rising and expanding inside of me…explodes.