Page 53 of Wings of Darkness (Daughter of the Seven Circles #2)

Chapter

Thirty-Four

LUCILLE

F irewings swarmed the ancient, vined arches, their otherworldly orange glow muddied by the purple ring around my vision. I turned, cringing from the sharp, dry grass digging into my feet. With a single thought, I imagined boots and crunched my way through the moonlit clearing.

I frowned, finding Aspen’s spot beneath the oak empty.

“Aspen?” I called out.

No answer.

I searched the area, and something dark flickered in my peripheral vision, right behind the trunk’s shadow. But when I looked directly at the tree, nothing was there. I twisted my head again with the same result.

Creeping toward it, the hair on my arms stood on end .

“Aspen, where are you?” My nerves danced as my voice carried over the quiet. “We need to talk.”

I needed to ask him about Lilith and what he presumed her plans were with me. There was a missing puzzle piece in Lucifer’s theories. I just couldn’t get past why she’d want me in the Immolation Circle after everything Aspen went through to get me to her.

What if Lucifer was wrong? What if Lilith wasn’t behind the demon infection or trying to kill me?

But if not her—then who?

The oak taunted me with its ominous darkness, only showing me what it hid in its shadows when I turned my head.

I shouldn’t even be able to see it at all, not with the oak’s large branches halting the light of the moon.

But my dream-walking haze distinguished the difference between the shadows and the pulsating mass.

Something invisible brushed against me at the same time I smelled it.

The cloying sweet scent overwhelmed the air, shoving down my airways and making it difficult to breathe.

I wheezed and stopped in my tracks, then took a few steps back until fresh air filled my lungs, landing at the halfway point between the arches and the oak.

What was that?

Frozen with apprehension, I waited to gather the courage to investigate further.

Something latched onto my hips, and I screamed, the ring around my vision eclipsing my eyes and drowning my surroundings in purple.

“Gotcha,” Aspen whispered in my ear, arms encircling my waist .

I would’ve whipped around to hit him, or chastise him for making my heart murder my sternum, but the purple-hued blob was no longer a blob. It looked almost like a figure.

“Is someone else here?”

He tightened his hold, placing a kiss on my neck. “Not that I know of.”

“You don’t see that figure behind the tree?”

He attempted to twist me, but I wouldn’t let him. I wasn’t about to turn my back on the figure-like dark void that suffocated me the closer I got.

Aspen sighed. “No, sweetheart. I don’t see it. Is that even possible? This is my dream.”

“Yes, it’s possible.”

Ronen had somehow managed to come into a dream with us, most likely because he had power over the mind.

But this wasn’t Ronen. The pulsating shadows weren’t wispy and curling.

They didn’t give me a sense of peace and solace.

No, these were heavy and unsettling, devoid of life—a soul-sucking blackness with a barrier of smothering air.

“You said we need to talk? Did you finally find a way out?” he asked hopefully, stepping in front of me and blocking my view.

I frowned at his dismissal. That wasn’t like him.

“Why—” I stopped short and raised my hand, brushing it along his full beard, then trailing up to the wavy brown locks almost covering his dull eyes. “You look… different.” It hadn’t been that long since I last saw him… had it?

He rubbed the side of his face, smiling with no lips. “Haven’t had time to shave. Did you find a way out? ”

That question again? The figure didn’t concern him at all?

“No, we’re still looking,” I replied, peering around him and toward the trunk.

It wasn’t there. Nor did it lurk in the field or behind the ancient arches. But I still picked up on a whiff of that terrible smell.

Aspen framed my face, stopping any head movement. “No progress?”

I opened my mouth, hesitating. My gut wasn’t playfully nudging me anymore—it was screaming.

He dropped his hands and grazed a thumb over my palm, his eyes tightening. “Still floundering, sweetheart?”

That damned word pressed against the cracks in my belief—one breath from breaking. I shut my mouth, analyzing him as he rubbed my scarred palm. Just the one, sending a tingling shockwave of dread to my heart.

“You always think I’m floundering.” I pulled my hand to my chest.

“I have a lot of reasons to believe you are.”

“Because I was betrayed and locked in your cuffs in Elora?”

It wasn’t the question I wanted to ask. It wasn’t the question burning like acid at the back of my throat.

He shrugged, giving me a once-over. “Among other reasons. But yes. That wasn’t that long ago.”

I rubbed my thumb over the palm he had been touching, not sure if I was trying to take away his tingling touch or press it into my skin. My thoughts descended to a dangerous place, twisting my stomach into knots. A stinging pricked my eyes, making me blink rapidly.

I had to stay strong.

“There will be a day when you will no longer be able to think of me as a damsel in distress.” I reached up, cupping his face, a lump rising in my throat from the tingles of our bond.

“I’ve been practicing my powers every morning.

And today in the Shard Field, I’ll learn even more.

” I ran a thumb across the dark bag beneath his eye.

“If you saw what I could do now, I bet you wouldn’t call it floundering. ”

He held my drilling gaze before lowering his mouth to mine. “I hope you’re right,” he mumbled against my lips, then he gripped the nape of my neck and crushed me in a tingling kiss, pressing his body into me.

I refrained from pulling back, from falling into the words that screamed in the back of my mind.

Helpless. Helpless. Instead, I took my hurt and desperation out on our kiss, biting and slamming my mouth against his.

He met every angry nip with his own, trying to take control.

But I wouldn’t let him. I grabbed his long, greasy hair and yanked him back.

“Have you found Melanie?” I demanded, already knowing the answer.

He shook his head, breathing hard and gripping my waist in a way that’d leave bruises.

I nodded. I didn’t want to be here any longer. I couldn’t. And like my dream-walk heard me, I woke up.

I ran a hand through Rune’s fur, soothing myself as the tears I’d held back slid down my cheeks. This couldn’t be love. It wouldn’t hurt this much—would it? Would it make you go out of your mind, questioning every single moment together?

Because that was what I did. I forwent sleep to tear apart my dream-walks and every moment we’d had together.

The guys and I ran our circuit in the early morning. Snow fell from the dark sky, and our boots filled the quiet with our crushing steps. Oliver made jokes, Alexei gave it back, and Ronen tolerated it. But I couldn’t concentrate on their words when Aspen consumed my thoughts.

At the end of our run, Oliver flung out a leg, and I went flying into a pile of snow right before the arena doors. I landed on my forearms, preventing a total face-plant and tensing at the immediate cold melting down my back.

“Oliver!” I heaved.

He hunched over his knees, gathering his breath. Alexei and Ronen stood near him, both breathing deeply but more composed.

“Out with it, Luce,” Oliver said, waving his hand expectantly.

“Out with what?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he deadpanned, straightening. “Whatever has your panties in such a twist that you’ve ignored my joking, Alexei’s flirting, and Ronen’s scowling questions?”

I brushed off my uniform and stood in my snow crater. “Nothing.”

At least, nothing I wanted to explain to any of them. I could already hear what Oliver would say. I could already see the judgment in all their eyes. I was barely holding on to the tiny ball of hope I had. No, I wouldn’t say a thing until I was sure.

“Seriously, it’s nothing. Just reliving all my Michael memories did a number on me.”

It was a lie. As hard as it was to face every time I was abused by him, afterward, I felt purged of my past and even more determined to train and kill him.

I touched Oliver’s arm. “Really.”

Oliver pulled me in for a hug and nodded. I glanced at the other two. Alexei stared at me with sympathetic eyes, while Ronen’s face remained unreadable .

I gave Oliver a small smile. “Go on with Alexei. I need to talk with Ronen.”

Oliver quirked a brow, and I shoved him when he didn’t move.

Alexei unsheathed a dagger and started to flip it. “Now we’re more than intrigued. You’ve been silent and dazed this entire run, and then you want to talk to Ronen?”

I groaned, dropping my head back to the pre-dawn sky. “You two are insufferable. I’m not going to say a word to him while you’re here.”

I should’ve thought that over better. Of course King Nosy and Ronen’s loyal second would want to know, but I didn’t have the time to wait to ask Ronen, not when we were almost back inside the castle and I was about to train with my father.

“Leave us,” Ronen commanded.

Alexei sheathed his dagger and snatched Oliver’s arm. He had to be dragged through the doors, his head flopping back over his shoulder with a pout. I would’ve laughed, but all my energy was holding up my glass ball of hope on a shrinking needle.

I turned to Ronen. “In twenty minutes, I’d like you to meet me in the Shard Field. Lucifer and I are practicing there after this, and I’d like you to come watch, to critique me.”

Lie after lie, I couldn’t stop. But I also couldn’t tell the truth.

At least this way, if nothing happened, he couldn’t question why I wanted him there.

Then my hunch would be wrong, the stinging that continued to threaten my eyes would subside, and the fissures slowly spreading through my heart would stop.

But if something did happen, I’d want Ronen by our side. My father struggled in our last session for whatever reason, and I didn’t want to take chances if he was in a similar state this session .

Ronen quietly watched me in that unnerving way of his, like he was analyzing my every word. I fidgeted as the silence dragged on. Did he understand the power he held over me with that gaze? Could he hear my heartbeat?

“I figured a second pair of eyes would benefit me,” I added, needing to fill the silence.

After the longest moment of my life, he finally nodded.

My father stood in a fearsome armored uniform a few yards away.

Spikes protruded along his arms, gaining length at his slouched shoulders.

They were red-tipped, as if decorated in the blood of his enemies.

A black skull sat at the center of his breastplate, red paint dripped from the eyes and mouth, seeping into the interlocking armored plates beneath like a gruesome ribcage.

The color bled into the armor at his legs in long drip lines, as if the skull had ruptured his heart and pooled down his body.

Red for blood and black for death—Hell’s colors.

I stood straighter, glad he didn’t have a helmet or mask that went along with his gear. Without one, he wasn’t as intimidating; in fact, his hunched form made me wary. He looked worse than yesterday.

“Are you sure you don’t want to move our session to a later day, or we could have Ronen take over?”

“General Ronen,” he snapped, his eyes flashing.

Wind whipped around us, creaking the Veil Forest’s branches, pulling my hair loose from its bind, and swirling fresh snow at our feet.

“General Ronen,” I replied slowly, my brows furrowing .

“Shield,” he demanded, raising his arms.

A whirlwind of ice and snow gathered in front of him. Shards glinted in the hazy light, threatening me with pain. He directed the storm at me, and I felt a cold finger scrape across my mind.

I had seconds to both solidify the fiery barrier surrounding my thoughts and defend myself against an ice storm, so I sank into my powers, asking my Infernus for help. It responded without hesitation, adding layers of fire to my mind. Then, I coaxed my Glory to protect me.

I thought it’d be easier after yesterday, but I’d only intentionally wielded my Glory on my hands. Now, I’d need to use more of it.

I gripped the humming strands of my Glory, feeling no pain, only sweat sliding down my forehead from the effort to drag them to the surface. A piece of ice sliced against my cheek just as my Glory flamed across my skin, stopping me from becoming hamburger with a sizzling hiss.

The cold pressure against my mental shield abruptly stopped as the tornado of ice and snow picked me up and threw me back.

I tensed, my heart beating out of control as I laid all my energy into my Glory, eliminating my mental shield as I waited for the impact with the Shard Field.

Two long seconds ticked by, then I felt a moment of pressure before I slammed into a hissing puddle of water.

Breath punched from my lungs. The steam scalded the back of my neck as my Glory flickered. I jerked up, tugging harder on the humming strands, but not before the whirling ice picked up speed and nicked my face.

When my white flame fully covered me again, the storm eased .

I squinted through the twirling snow and ice. My father knelt on the ground, with one shaky arm thrown up. Concerned, I shot up and jogged through the gentle snowy wind.

“Lucifer?”

“I’m fine.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and held his stance for a moment more, then dropped to his hands and knees. The wind disappeared, and the snow and ice plopped to the ground.

I released my Glory, and he exhaled slowly. Frowning, I realized—besides the sweat trailing down my neck, the ache in my head, and my uneven breaths—I felt like I could go again, just like I had yesterday.

Could I be?—

No.

Testing a theory, I called to my Infernus. Purple flames erupted on my hands, but my father didn’t react like I thought he would. He remained on all fours, taking deep breaths.

“Are you sure? What’s?—”

Shadows flickered behind the crooked trunks at my father’s back, cutting off my words. I froze, my gaze zeroing in on the moving figures gaining length and width, coming closer.

Was it Rune and Ronen?

I hoped it was. I hoped my hunch was wrong.

But the shadows split. Instead of two, there were four. Then six.

“No,” I whispered.

The needle balancing the last of my hope tipped, shattering it—and my heart.