9. Nine

Nine

“Was anyone alive?”

I stomped down the sidewalk. Luckily, my apartment was only a few more blocks. The guys on my heels wouldn’t stop throwing questions at my back. After I’d returned to Sabrina’s office, I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. We’d been too late.

“Were they still there?”

My fingernails bit into my palms as I picked up my pace. I couldn’t face them. We’d barely gotten to Earth, and already we were losing the fight. I needed to find a way to get ahead of the attacks.

“Enchanter, what happened?” Cyrus asked.

I shook my head. Unshed tears blurred the sidewalk.

A trio of druids stepped out of an alley, right into my path.

Cyrus’s sunny aura heated my arm as he came to face them. “Step aside.”

A druid with long, dirty blond hair smiled at me. “Well, if it isn’t the Aegis traitors and their hunter whore? They even have the useless Raven Priest with them.”

“Get out of my way,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m fresh out of time for idiots today.”

They didn’t move. I blinked the moisture from my eyes to better see the three men standing in front of me. The mark of the Heretic decorated the sides of their necks. But now that I saw the mark closer, I could see that it wasn’t paint or a tattoo. The flesh was blackened and raw. It was a brand. A recent one.

The bald druid sneered. “Too busy fucking the entire Aegis?”

Magic surged all around me. Ari stepped out of the darkness beside me, unglamoured. His lilac eyes burned with purple magic and dark promises, and they were locked on the druids. The sight would put the fear of the Ancients in any man, but these assholes stood their ground.

The blond even stepped closer to Ari. “The undead monster must be a pity fuck.”

Ari flinched. His aura shuddered.

Hell, no. They could mess with me all they wanted, but no one insulted my men.

Darkness surged and my vision dimmed, as though clouds had suddenly blocked out the sun. Corrupt magic poured from my fingers, unbidden. I raised my hand, summoning life from the earth. Black vines burst from the concrete and wrapped around the druids.

A purple bubble formed around the druids and me, pushing my men away. Wards. My wards, though I didn’t know how to cast them.

Panicked yells filled the air, muted by my wards, but I was only focused on my prey, writhing in the thorns before me.

“Don’t struggle.” I wiped a drop of blood from the blond druid’s face and licked my finger. His mana tasted like fresh citrus. “You’ll only make this more fun.”

Arsyn. The raspy voice in my mind was familiar, but it faded into the darkness.

My vines wrapped around the blond druid’s neck. Thorns bit into the mark of the heretic, coloring it red with blood.

“You shun the Ancients.” The words came from my lips, but they were not my own. “You’re not worthy of their gift.”

My gaze narrowed on his druid mark, a spiraling line on his forearm. My vines wrapped around his hand, forcing it to stretch out towards me. I ran a finger over the lines.

Scales met my fingertip, and a hiss tickled my ear.

“A snake.” I smiled. “How appropriate.”

I reached for it inside him and caught the spirit with my magic. The druid screamed as I tore his spirit from his soul. My shoulder blade burned, and the druid sagged in the grip of my vines.

That’s enough, Arsyn.

My magic snapped back into my body. The ward fizzled out, and the black vines slithered back into the fissures. The blond druid hit the concrete with a wet sound, and the others ran away, limping and bloody.

Oh, gods.

My stomach churned. Corrupt mana clawed at my insides. My hand automatically searched my pocket for my choker, but I stilled. The choker was cold against my throat. I was already wearing it.

I swallowed thickly. The corruption was getting stronger.

I was losing control.

Dozens of horrified faces met my frantic gaze. The people of Haven stared or ran. I didn’t care about them. I had become a monster to them the moment they found out about my blood. But now my men stared at me like I was the monster the others believed me to be.

I closed my eyes. My father taught me about power. I couldn’t show weakness. If I couldn’t get the people of Haven to love me like those on Draqaar, then they must fear me. And now I’d given them a real reason to.

I lifted my chin and met Cyrus’s icy blue eyes. “He deserved it.”

“She has a point,” Quillon remarked.

Skye scratched his chin as he looked at the deep cracks in the concrete. “That wasn’t normal earth magic.”

Shael’s eyebrows drew together. “Your eyes were black.”

I swallowed the bile that burned my throat.

“You have to tell them,” Ari said, gesturing to the others with a gloved hand.

I shook my head. I could handle it on my own. I had to handle it on my own. There was nothing they could do to help me.

Ari said even death hadn’t released him. What good could the Aegis hope to do?

“Tell us what?” Cyrus’s aura whipped around him.

The corruption rose inside me again. I’d lost control when it responded to the druids. I was volatile when my emotions were intense. Like now.

I had to get away. I couldn’t risk hurting them. I pushed mana into my teleportation rune.

I collapsed to my knees on the bricks of the flat rooftop. The Qaanir city docks were busy below. Qaaniri dockworkers carried crates and bags between ships, oblivious to my inner battle on the rooftop.

My frustrated scream evaporated into the late morning mist. I couldn’t survive like this much longer.

Corruption gripped my insides, twisting my stomach and clawing at my barriers. I grasped my choker with both hands, desperately searching for the nullifying power of the bloodforged iron.

Finally, it responded, slamming my barriers, but the corruption was still inside me. I was simply trapping it there.

Everything was fuzzy. Like my mind was no longer my own.

I sat on my feet and let my head fall back. My fingertips traced my neck, feeling the two raised bumps, scars from when Sebastian bit me. He’d first infected here on this rooftop. He’d already had the darkness inside him, but I’d been too distracted, too blinded by the light I wanted to see in him to notice.

He’d always had an edge of darkness, even when we were teenagers. It was one of the things that drew me to him. Maybe that’s why he sought out the corruption in the first place.

I should have recognized the monster in Sebastian. The same monster that now grew inside me.

I needed to get rid of it. Already the corruption was controlling me, pushing me to do horrible things.

That druid hadn’t deserved that. I wasn’t sure who that was back in Haven. It was me, but it wasn’t. I wanted to do it. I wanted to make the druids pay.

Was that why Sebastian had changed so much? The Sebastian I’d known as a hunter would have never hurt so many people.

He’d been sweet. Compassionate. He’d had love in his heart. Now all that was left was darkness and obsession.

I wrapped my arms over my stomach and curled into myself. My choker burned against my skin. I wouldn’t be able to keep it under control for much longer. Ari said there was no release from the corruption, but that couldn’t be true. It had to have a weakness.

Hunter weapons.

We’d used one against Sebastian before, and it had weakened the corruption inside him. The black mana of his aura had dimmed, leaving more silver. My fingers found the hunter knife at my left hip and drew it from its sheath.

With the corruption, I was a danger. A liability. I’d get rid of the corruption. Even if it killed me.

I slid the sharp edge across my wrist. I hissed through my teeth at the sting, but I’d endured worse. Dull, gray blood welled around the blade, the normal pearlescent shimmer gone. The corruption sizzled as it met the blade. Fire shot up my veins, burning away the corruption like the fuse of a bomb. My hunter blood was unaffected. Already, I felt the shadows dispersing.

It was working.

I lifted the knife and pressed it to my forearm.

Gloved hands wrapped around my wrists, pulling the blade from my skin.

“This isn’t the way.” Ari knelt before me. His cloak spread out at his feet like a pool.

“It’s the only way.” I struggled against his hold. My gray blood leaked from between his fingers as he pressed them against my wound. “You said it yourself. Even death didn’t release you.” I swallowed, and my voice came out in a whisper. “But maybe it will release me.”

Ari’s lilac eyes narrowed on my face. “This is the corruption speaking.”

I shook my head. “My mind is the clearest it’s been in weeks.”

“The hunter blade may destroy some corruption, but it hurts you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Even yourself.”

“What else can I do?” Tears welled in my eyes again. What the hell was happening to me? I went years without crying before the Aegis showed up in my life.

Ari sighed. “The more you use it, the greater control it gains over you, and the more you’re reliant on it.”

As he spoke, the darkness stirred again, and hot rage filled my belly.

He was the one trying to control me.

I shook my head, but the thoughts were getting louder, drowning out Ari.

He was afraid of my power.

No. I bit my lip. Hard. Pain would ground me.

I was nothing without my power.

The coppery tang of blood filled my mouth, but tingling numbness spread through my body. It was taking over again.

Arsyn. A sigh escaped my lips as Ari’s magic filled me, pushing away some of the darkness. Our magic helps you .

I nodded, unable to form words on my numb tongue.

Warm fingers slid through my hair, and Ari pushed more magic into my mind. He’d taken off his glove. Images flickered to life in every corner, like a dozen screens playing at once.

It’s time I showed you my price.

The images coalesced into one, and it enveloped me, pulling me into Ari’s memory. I stood in a small brick room, devoid of furniture save the rickety chair a tall daeva man was currently throwing at the wall.

A boy clutched a young girl in his arms as the chair splintered into shards. The two shared the same wavy brown hair. Tears streamed down the girl’s sunken, dirty cheeks. Her lilac eyes seemed to focus on me.

“Don’t worry, Kayla,” the boy whispered. I’d seen him before when Ari had pulled me into his mind as I dispelled his curse. The boy was Ari before he became Ari, or even the Wraith. When he was just a child. When he was Samir. “I’ll always protect you.”

The daeva man picked up a bottle as the room fell into the darkness of a familiar scene. Samir pressed himself into the corner as his mother stood on the other side of the iron bars.

“You’ll be returned to us in a few years once you’ve worked off your father’s debts. Zentiir is a good Daevasi man.” She smiled, but it was empty. Samir hid his face in his hands. “Just do whatever he says, and you’ll be home in no time.”

When she walked away, another form entered the room. Wait ... no. He’d appeared. Teleported. The silver caps of his pointed ears reflected the warm torchlight.

“I’d listen to your mother, boy.” The bennu man regarded Samir with a curled lip. “If you please your master, you’ll return home. Zentiir may even send them a salary for continued service if you impress him enough that he decides to keep you.”

The stranger stepped closer, nearly touching the bars. Even though it was a memory, I could sense the corruption in him. It oozed from every pore and from every activated rune on the man’s skin.

“But Zentiir has enough household servants, and you won’t survive long in the gladiator pits. You’ll die, and your father will continue his habits. How long do you think it will be until your sister meets the same fate?”

Samir shuddered, but his jaw was set as he pushed himself from the wall, finally looking this man in the eye. Samir’s voice was strong as he lifted his chin and said, “What do I need to do?”

The man smiled and slipped his hand through the bars, holding it out to Samir.

I believed him, so I took the corruption he offered. Ari’s rough voice echoed in the room as it melted away into the balcony of a stone mansion. It made me undetectable. No ward could keep me out. No daeva magic could overpower me. It let me walk the veil between worlds. It made me a ghost. It made me the Wraith.

“ Master.”A teenage Ari came up to a Daevasi man clad in purple and gold. Ari’s voice was smooth and low.

Zentiir watched the rows of men and women sparring in the yard below, but Ari just watched him . Ari’s face and arms were bare. Fresh red cuts crisscrossed a few old white scars on his pale skin.

The Daevasi man pulled a rolled piece of parchment from his sleeve and handed it to Ari. “Go, Wraith.”

Ari bowed his head and shadows wrapped around him before everything disappeared.

Ari’s rough voice filled the darkness. I was Zentiir’s personal assassin. But as I used the corruption, it used me. And corruption wants nothing but blood and darkness.

Ari emerged from the shadows wearing the cloak and mask I’d come to associate with him. He surveyed the crowd until his gaze landed on the man he’d called master, standing atop a raised platform overlooking a fighting pit below. Ari slipped through the crowd, concealed in his glamour. The crowd parted around him, as if they knew to move out of the way of a predator they couldn’t see.

“Yes, she’s my newest addition,” Zentiir said to another Daevasi man beside him.

Purple mana gathered around Ari’s and Zentiir’s heads as Ari climbed the stairs of the platform.

“Lovely, isn’t she?” Zentiir flicked his wrist, dismissing Ari. “Strong-willed, but I doubt she’ll survive the week.”

Shadows began to gather around Ari’s body, but he froze as his gaze drifted to the bottom of the pit. A young woman wearing worn leather armor fought a man twice her size. Her brown hair had been cut close to her scalp, and her wide lilac eyes swam with fear and determination.

“Kayla,” Ari whispered, barely audible above the noise of the party and the fight below.

I reached out to him, but my hand went through him. I was a passenger here. A witness to the memory of events that had already passed.

Shadows shifted, bursting from Ari and swirling around his head like a dark halo. His eyes turned black as he dropped his glamour and turned on his master.

Ari didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask for answers. He didn’t wait for Zentiir to plea for his life. He simply drove his dagger to its hilt into Zentiir’s chest.

Zentiir clutched weakly at the dagger. Blood trickled out of his mouth as he collapsed.

Whispers and gasps spread through the crowd. Then screams.

The sky seemed to darken with Ari’s power as he descended the stairs and approached the pit. Guards intercepted him, but his magic reached for them, slithering into their mouths, ears, noses, eyes and seizing their minds. He dispatched them with quick slices across their throats.

The corruption was no longer just mana. It was solid like the creatures made of raw mana that brought Felix’s visions.

Blood spread from fresh wounds on Ari’s body, soaking through the dark material of his clothing. The daeva curse. But he didn’t slow. He didn’t even seem to register the pain or the curse.

The shadows spread to the rest of the guests, wrapping around their heads. Infecting their minds. I covered my mouth as a woman picked up a marble bust and smashed a man’s head before plunging her face into the pool of a fountain, already running red with blood.

Ari jumped into the gladiator pit, his cloak billowing out behind him. He landed between the combatants and drove both daggers into the man’s stomach. Over and over again.

“Stop!” Kayla lifted her heavy sword and swung it in a clumsy arc. Ari dodged and whirled on her, blood and rage swimming in his shadowed eyes. I gasped as his blades ran through Kayla’s leather breastplate.

“Kay?” The black drained from Ari’s wide, lilac eyes. “No …”

The shadows snapped back into his body, and a guard recovered enough to throw a looped rope. It caught Ari around his neck, and the guard pulled, yanking Ari from Kayla as she dropped to her knees in the sand.

“Sam?” she gurgled through the blood that filled her mouth and trickled from her lips.

“Kayla!” Ari screamed. The rope went taut as they hauled him up the side of the pit. He grasped the rope, trying to pry it from his throat. “Kayla!”

I turned away. Bodies littered the elegant garden. I covered my ears, but the haunting screams drilled through my hands. Ari cried his sister’s name as his voice grew hoarse.