Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ZEVANDER

Z evander strode up to the iron-embellished door of Eidolon’s keep, the ancient castle that’d belonged to his bloodline for centuries. Gargoyles perched at either side of the staircase, their wretched faces illuminated by torch sconces that blazed below them. Situated on the summit of Insidian Ridge, the black stone castle overlooked the vast darklands of Nyxteros and served as a monument of his cursed name. Whatever life had once pulsed through the veins of the stony castle had withered inside its cold, gray tomb walls.

Rykaia lay passed out in his arms while the clank of chains rattled, and the door swung open into the grand darkness housed within. Halfway back to the manor, he’d had to place a sleeping spell on his sister to keep her from screaming and trying to escape.

A biting cold swept over him, the castle lacking in warmth and welcome. The flame of a candelabra drew his attention to the staircase, where Vendryck, loyal servant of the manor, descended toward them. Lanky as he was, he lifted Rykaia from his arms with ease, her long silvery hair caught in a tangle.

“Lock her in,” Zevander ordered as he handed her off.

“Yes, My Lord.”

Zevander slipped his hand into the pocket of his leathers and retrieved the vial of vivicantem Dolion had given him, which he handed off to the servant. “She will need a dose when she wakes.”

“Of course, Master.” Vendryck gave a nod and carried her up the staircase toward her room. Having denied her the stimulants meant she’d likely go through her fits, as he called them. The last bout she’d suffered had nearly destroyed half of the castle’s east wing. She could be as violent as a tempest, and sometimes Zevander had to restrain her to the bed. Other times, keep her confined in the dungeon, if she’d really gotten on a kick. He hated having to do that to her, but he’d always made every effort to keep her comfortable.

Groaning, he rubbed a hand down his face and followed after them, toward his own chambers. It’d been days since he’d last been home, with his hunts taking him to the farthest reaches of Nyxteros. He longed for a good night’s rest.

Down the great corridor, he passed numerous portraits of ancient ancestors–going all the way back to the primordial Lunasier, the first of his bloodline. Unlike most Aethyrians, whose powers required the sun, theirs derived from both moons. Those cold luminous rays that ordinarily bathed his bloodline’s powers failed to rouse them from their slumbered state in Zevander. While he could still feel his bloodline sigil when the moons were high, he’d never be able to summon those powers, not after they’d been corrupted by his curse. His father had destroyed the proud Lunasier in both Zevander and Branimir, by offering up the blood of his only two sons like family heirlooms he’d been entitled to barter with, forever tainting their once honorable inherited magic.

He kept on toward the room at the end of the corridor and opened the heavy iron door that led to an elaborate bed with finely embellished silk dressings–a far cry from the stone bed he’d been forced to sleep upon in his youth, while enslaved to the Solassions. For reasons he couldn’t quite grasp, he sometimes longed for the hard and sturdy surface over the softness and comfort of his bed.

Right then, though, he didn’t give a damn where he slept, so long as he rested.

He removed his cape and cuirass from over the black tunic beneath, which was also made of leather, peeling the garments away and tossing them onto a rack built of anacitine–a bulky metal that attracted the magic in blood. En route back to the castle, he’d tossed away the stone of his shadowed attacker into the bog, and the scant drops of blood that remained on his clothing slithered over the leather onto the metallic surface, which absorbed it away, cleansing the garments of any evidence. The anacitine would contain the magic held in those drops of blood, effectively voiding its powerful charge.

From the satchel at his hip, he emptied the milk-white stone he’d gathered from his prey into his palm. Ten times the potency of what Dolion had given him in liquid form.

He strode toward an alcove in the wall and knelt before a small iron door, about a quarter meter in height, decorated in rusted silver. The Golvyn door. He knocked three times, as was expected, and the door was swung open by a pocket-sized being–half man/half rodent, with a long snout and beady squinty eyes. Though hairless, his ears, half the size of his face, and two long incisors gave him the rat features. He’d lived inside the walls of the castle since before Zevander had been born, through channels burrowed in the concrete that led to every room. Most castles included a Golvyn, though they were rarely welcome and often subjected to extermination spells.

“You called, My Lord,” he said in a nasally tone, gnashing his incisors. While mostly docile, Golvyns could easily snap if threatened.

Zevander handed him the vivicantem stone. The Golvyn had no use for it, as they didn’t require vivicantem like mancers, which made them perfect safekeepers.

With a nod, the Golvyn tucked it under his gangly arm and scampered back through the door, which slammed behind him.

Zevander pushed to his feet and made his way to his own private bathing room, a vast expanse of arched, stained-glass windows and dim moonlight. From where it’d been built, wedged between the west tower and the great hall, if the sky was clear and both moons sat high, he could see the caps of the Veritian Mountains in the distance.

He reached out a hand, and curls of black flames fell from his palm, dancing over the water’s surface, agitating the clear liquid beneath. Moments later, steam rose up from the flickering crests, and Zevander removed his trousers before stepping into the warm bath.

He leaned back against the curved, marble basin, letting the heat loosen his tense muscles, and closed his eyes.

Mor samanet, a whispered voice said through the darkness of his mind. Death awaits .

He shot upright with a splash of water and glanced around for the source of it, ears perked for the slightest sound.

Nothing.

What had happened outside the tavern, earlier, wasn’t the first time he’d been targeted for a revenge kill. While those who’d attempted it had so far been unsuccessful, Zevander wasn’t foolish enough to assume the ward he’d placed around Eidolon was completely unbreakable.

The same ward designed to keep Rykaia safe, as well, as much as she hated the castle.

And him.

At no further sound, he settled back in the water once more, the engulfing heat loosening his tense and aching muscles. He’d traveled to the northernmost reaches of Draconysia to Veneficarys in the south, in search of King Sagaerin’s prey, dispatching him swiftly before receiving word from Dolion that the sixth stone resided in Costelwick. His battered body needed recovery and rest.

As he lay breathing in the thick steam, his body hardened with a need he forced himself to ignore. One he hadn’t longed to entertain since he was an adolescent. Eyes closed, he exhaled and reached through the water, but at the nauseating twist of his stomach, he hesitated to stroke his hand down over the ten rods that pierced the underside of his cock, each one holding its own sordid memory. A time when he was forced, at too young an age, to entertain the appetite of the Bellatryx–a band of female warriors, half Solassion, half Zephromyte, who answered to the same Solassion king that’d imprisoned him and his father. The same king who’d ordered his father murdered in front of him when he was only a boy. The Bellatryx were violent women who enjoyed sadistic pleasures, and Zevander had been one of a dozen boys used for their entertainment.

His fingers skimmed over each steel bar, the metal carrying an enchantment to ensure he could never remove them. A promise that he’d never know anything but agonizing pain without them. As he’d grown into his manhood with each new decade, a new bar had been added. Ten piercings. An entire century of enslavement.

He’d been assigned to General Loyce, a brutal woman who’d been responsible for the deaths of three previous slaves before she’d gotten her hands on Zevander. The day she’d forced the first piercing, she’d sat fucking her own fingers, watching him scream in pain. Though each Bellatryx had had their own personal slave, a gift from the king, Loyce had enjoyed sharing Zevander.

Their moans echoed in his head, the phantom memory of their claws at his back, their teeth on his flesh raking over his skull with a vicious enmity.

Even years later, when the commands of those vile women were nothing but a distant memory in his ear, he still couldn’t bring himself to stroke his cock. Not even when it begged for relief.

It was especially difficult during the merging of moons, when his body naturally craved sex. A time when all Lunasier men, in particular, hungered for a hearty fuck, and their women ended up pregnant as a result. Those were the times when he’d find mindless release with sexsells. Emotionless sex that had him grinding his teeth to finish. A quick release.

Harmless trysts, because there wasn’t a chance in seven hells he’d ever settle down with anyone. Even if he wanted the headache of a mate, and he didn’t, no Letalisz had ever been granted permission to marry. It didn’t matter that he was King Sagaerin’s most skilled assassin. His loyalty was merely the price of living without exile. Otherwise, he’d have suffered the same fate as his father.

Zevander released himself and exhaled, tipping his head back to the edge of the basin and closing his eyes. While he’d never bond with a woman, he did long to enjoy the pleasures of one without the memories of his past destroying it all.

Willing himself to banish the thoughts pounding at his skull, he let his mind drift into the empty black void. Sleep he so desperately needed, but which had eluded him as of late.

From the silence, a voice called out to him.

Zevander! Zevander! It belonged to his mother.

The surrounding blackness lifted to a bright light that Zevander squinted against, as he placed the scorpion he’d just fed onto the grass. He watched as its stinger pierced a pea-sized spider in the abdomen, then gathered it to its mouth with pincers. Unbeknownst to his mother, he often played with the deadly critters that were known to kill with a single sting. While vicious toward their prey, they never stung him. Not even when he held them trapped in his palms.

“Zevander!” His mother called again, her voice impatient, and he turned to the vines of roses that charmed the outer stones of the castle, climbing the wall to the window from where she peered down at him. “Come. I need you in the kitchen.”

“Yes, Mother.” The boy pushed to his feet and entered the castle, winding through rooms, and as he passed his young sister playing with her dolls, he paused to kiss the top of her head and kept on.

In the kitchen, his mother stood at the wooden chopping table, adding bits of raw meat to a plate already piled high. Blood dripped over the edge of it, and Zevander frowned at the thought of its copper flavor on his tongue.

“I need you to take this to Branimir for me.”

Dread stirred in his gut. While he enjoyed seeing his brother on occasion, the dungeon had always terrified him. And those spiders. Ghastly spiders that watched him from the shadows of Branimir’s cell.

“Can Rykaia come with me?” the boy asked, despite not wanting his mother to think he was weak at ten years old.

“No, love. Branimir’s condition worsens, and I would not want her to become ill, as well. Besides that, she was nearly bitten last time.”

“Branimir would never allow her to be bitten, Mother. He loves Rykaia.”

One of Branimir’s spiders had bitten their cat, Gwinny. Two nights later, she’d lay moaning, convulsing. She’d thrown up all over Branimir’s cell, and Zevander had to retrieve her skeletal carcass, a task that’d left him retching the whole time.

That had been the cat, though, not their beloved sister.

“I’m sorry, darling. You’re the only one who can do this for me.” She sighed and ran a hand through his already mussed hair. “Your father should return soon. Perhaps Branimir will be better when he does.”

Zevander gave a solemn nod, and his mother kissed the top of his head. She handed him the dish of bloody meat, and the boy began his trek down to the dungeons.

The air turned cold as he descended the stone staircase, and puffs of white expelled with each breath. His arms trembled, and he wanted so badly to drop the dish and run back up the stairs, but Mother would only make him return with another. When he finally reached the bottom stair, he stole a moment to catch his breath, then kept on, past the statues of his ancestors, and the cells at the end of the corridor, beyond them, to the wooden door of the dungeon floor.

He stared at it a moment before setting the plate of food down while he lit the firelamp sitting beside the door. Once aglow, he carefully lifted the door on a creak of its rusted hinges and held the lamp over the gaping hole, below which he could see a dirt floor about two meters down. He reached down and hooked the lamp on a nail of the ladder and climbed down the first couple of rungs. Holding himself steady, he leaned over the edge of the hole and grabbed the plate, balancing it with one hand as he stepped down one rung at a time. Halfway to the ground, he unhooked the firelamp with his free hand, letting it slide to the crook of his elbow, and made the awkward descent the rest of the way down.

Chittering noises and the sound of something scampering over the dirt sent a chill down the back of his neck. He raised the firelamp up high, illuminating the expanse of the space and the shadows that hung on the fringes of light.

“Branimir,” he whispered. “I’ve brought your supper.”

The shadows shifted, and a pale white figure crawled toward him on hands and feet. While his form was grotesque and terrifying, the sight of him brought a smile to Zevander’s face.

“Zevander,” Branimir rasped and smiled in return. His black eyes had sunken deeper, and what should’ve been the muscled form of a eighteen year-old adolescent was instead a thin and skeletal body that hadn’t been properly nourished.

Not because his family hadn’t fed him, but because they couldn’t afford the amount of vivicantem it would’ve taken to improve his health.

His brother grabbed a handful of meat, shoving it into his mouth like an animal, and as he ate, Zevander looked over the space, catching sight of an enormous spider’s leg and eyes that watched him from the shadows. So many eyes. He lifted the lamp higher and gasped. An entire wall of webs showed thousands of spiders–some small, some medium. “Bran … are there more of them?”

A quick glance over his shoulder, and Branimir shoved more meat into his mouth. “I think they came from Gwinny. I saw them crawl from her body before you discarded it.”

“They were inside her?” The thought of such a thing had his own stomach twisting in disgust.

“Yeah. They didn’t actually kill her, though.” He lowered his gaze as if shamed. “She turned wild. I was afraid she’d hurt Rykaia.”

“You killed her?”

“Broke her neck. I’m sorry. Is mother mad at me?”

“No. Just scared, I think.”

“She should be scared. You should all be scared.” He stared off, then crammed another handful of bloody meat into his mouth.

“Why do you prefer that it’s not cooked?”

Branimir chewed slowly, as if contemplating the question. “It isn’t me who craves it. It is them.”

“You share it with them?”

“They taste what I eat. They feel what I feel.” He ran his hand across his skull, where small patches of baldness showed he’d ripped out his own hair. “I have thoughts … very bad thoughts.” His eyes shifted as he spoke, brows pulled tight. “I pray they are not my own, but I can’t be sure.” Branimir let out a whimper, and the spiders behind him shifted on the web as if nervous. “I don’t want you to come down here anymore, Zevander.”

“But you’ll starve.”

“I don’t care. Let me starve. The silence of death would be welcome.”

“Bran … you don’t know what you’re saying. I won’t let you starve. I refuse.”

Not a breath later, his brother lurched, knocking the boy onto his back. An intense pressure struck Zevander’s throat, as Branimir gripped tight, his eyes feral with rage. Spiders crawled over his shoulders and head.

“I could feed on you for weeks …”

“Bran …” Zevander rasped, clawing at his brothers hand. “Bran!”

Zevander shot upright on a gasp, every muscle locked with tension. He looked around to find himself surrounded by water that bubbled like a cauldron, boiling hot, though the heat of it had no effect on him, at all. Black fire licked the air in sporadic bursts that mirrored the twitching of his muscles, and he pulled the rogue flames back into him, cursing his lapse in consciousness.

He ran a trembling hand down his face, his breaths heaving. The day Branimir had held him by the throat was the day his scorpion sigil had first appeared. While the air had waned in his lungs, and the spiders had sank their poisonous teeth into his flesh, he’d thought of something bigger. Faster. Impenetrable. From the darkness, a venomous beast had risen and struck with no fear.

And from that moment on, the spiders kept their distance from Zevander and his scorpions.

The memory faded, the image sharpening to the rippling water beneath him, where his reflection stared back. Deep black veins branched from a black crevice that ran along his cheek, the unsightly black scar he’d had since he was a child. The branches crawled over his jaw and down his neck, to his collarbone and left shoulder. The curse that’d corrupted his blood. It longed to eat his heart, to turn him into the same vile creature that’d claimed his older brother.

How much longer before that day? He couldn’t say.

Branimir’s physical changes had developed immediately after the ritual. It was his mind that snapped without warning. In a single moment, it seemed as if he’d lost himself, giving in to the dark madness.

The thoughts clawed at him, sending a cold sensation across his chest, as if his lungs were crystallizing.

From the holster lying beside his leathers, Zevander unsheathed his dagger and carved a long wound into his thigh. The pain seared through his muscles as the poison on the blade’s surface swam deep into his veins.

The fucking hypocrite in him. That he could chide his own sister for what she did to herself, then turn around and contaminate his blood with deadly toxin, but he’d had the visions before. Knew the power they had over his mind. How quickly they could trigger an episode.

Branimir had always served as a source of unrest for Zevander, torment, unless he had something to pull him out of it, to distract his mind from the black vortex that threatened to pull him under. The more his attacks had evolved over the years, the stronger the poison required to break him of it, and the more Zevander began to believe his brother’s fate could very well be his own one day.

No. He’d sooner cleave out his own fucking heart than risk what’d happened to Branimir.

He needed to track down that final bloodstone, or gods be damned, he’d take matters into his own hands.

He let out a hiss while the vicious toxin worked its way into his gut and up to his ribcage where it spread across his chest, swallowing the icy sensation. He grunted and groaned and trembled, as white hot pain devoured his muscles. Hands balled into fists, he let the poison tear his insides open in splitting agony that had him arched out of the water, until, teeth grinding, he shook with violent convulsions, his consciousness thinning.

Slowly, by the gods, the ghostly presence in his mind faded under the wild flame of suffering, and finally , Zevander could think of nothing more than bleeding it out of him.