Light Wielder (Fire & Metal, #2) — Chapter 49

Chapter 49

ACKER

The dungeon is fucking atrocious. There’s no light. The only sound is the prisoners stalking back and forth within the tiny confines of their cells, which shakes the chains bolted into the walls. There are only wails when the madness of their captivity becomes too great to bear. During the summers, it’s usually as hot as an oven down here. In winter, it’s bone- chillingly cold. No matter what season, it’s always wet. Rain and melted ice seeps through the ground under the paved stones of the courtyard, and drips in steady rivulets down the walls of the dungeon.

And holy fuck, the smell.

Light from the oil lamp in my hand barely allows me to see more than a few feet ahead. The cells are laid out in rows, some of them have four and five men per cage. Their expletives bounce off the stone walls, creating a cacophony of hatred echoing all around me.

“—saw your father in here earlier…” one of the men taunts.

Another continues the jeering in the next cell. “Such a small man, it’d be

such an easy kill.”

Yeah, I’d like to see it.

But it’s not the angry voices that bother me the most; it’s the pointed stares of the quiet ones that bore into the side of my head that have me averting my gaze. The women and, gods, the children. None younger than their teens, but still too young to be subjected to this nightmare.

My stomach roils as I maintain my steady gait, focusing on my mission.

I finally lay eyes on the woman I’m looking for; Irina sits in the corner of a cell by herself, arms banded around her bent knees, head tucked into them.

“Beau,” I call, bending down to her level.

She peeks over her knees, eyes squinting against the little bit of light my lamp gives off before they’re able to adjust. Setting down the lamp, I retrieve the apple from my pocket and extend my arm through the bars toward her. Leaning forward, she takes the fruit from my hand, still angling her head away from any onlookers from the cells beside hers. I want to tell her something encouraging, but some of the prisoners are here by my sister’s hand, and they’d love to sell a lie if it awards them an inch of freedom. She bites into her apple, and I know without a doubt she won’t last long if I don’t find a way to get her out.

Taking my lamp, I continue down the row of cells until I reach the end, then I take the turn onto the next row. My father will know I came to speak with Zion regardless of his warning, so as I pass one of the guards making his rounds, I dip my chin at him in a show of respect.

I find Zion in a corner cell, shackled to the wall by all four limbs. He recognizes me instantly, sitting as far forward as the chains will let him.

Dried blood has matted the hair around his temple and the gash over his eye looks like it’s going to scar.

“Ace,” he says, but there’s an iciness to his voice.

Rightfully so. Guilt clogs my throat as I struggle to find the words to say. Just as I’ve done with Irina, I’ve royally fucked everything up when it comes to him. There’s nothing I can say that will suffice. Not after I pleaded for his father to take a seat at the council. Tyreek was a good man, and that’s the exact reason I petitioned so hard for him. It’s the very same reason he’s dead right now.

“I was away,” I tell him, unable to voice the rest: that I would have prevented his father’s death if I could have. I suspect my father waited for my departure on purpose.

He doesn’t respond, eyes masked in shadow, but the anger in his gaze is felt nonetheless. I turn the dial on the lamp, lowering the wick and its flame with it. Removing the blade from the lowest strap on my chest, I slide it under the bars of the cell and sling it across the floor toward him. He’s able to hide the weapon under the sole of his shoe.

I give him the same warning I did Irina. “Soon.”

He’s cautious, but gives a single nod, letting me know he understands.

He doesn’t trust me, though. Not yet.

On my way out, I slip the apple I had originally intended for Zion to a young girl in one of the first cells I saw upon entering. He wouldn’t eat it, with how little he trusts me, out of fear of it being poisoned. The girl is just as hesitant to take it, but the woman who I suspect is her mother grabs it quickly, hiding it from sight. She gives me her thanks with a clipped nod, understanding the transaction needs to be quick.

The sky is fading to dark when I ascend the stairs and come face to face with Hallis. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“Don’t worry,” I say, stepping into the courtyard. It’s been cleaned, but the smell still lingers. My father always had a penchant for public executions but doing them en masse makes bile coat the back of my tongue.

“My father already knows I intended to speak with Zion.”

He lets out a breath. “And?” he asks.

I shake my head. “He doesn’t trust me.”

“Your father or Zion?”

“Both.” He falls in step with me. “Were you looking for me?”

“Yes,” he says. “Your father requests your presence in the sitting room.”

Fantastic.

I stop him before the place doors. We didn’t get to talk last night, not wanting to give the soldiers outside my room too much fodder when reporting back to my father, but I need to ask, “Are you good?”

He’s taken off guard by my question before he sobers some. “I’m good, Ace. We’ll figure it out, just as we always have.”

Nodding, I slap him on the back as we part ways when we enter the palace doors. I cut under the stairs, taking the winding hall toward my father’s sitting room, and I steel myself for what I’m walking into, stopping outside of the door when I near it. Nothing good is going to come from this meeting. I finger the string of mangi stones around my throat.

My father calls as soon as I step inside. “Ace.”

He’s standing among the members of the council in front of the fire. The majority of them, anyway, minus a few. Tyreek’s absence was to be expected, but there are more missing. The last of the common-born men remaining on the council is Johannes, and he’s pouring himself a drink from my father’s bar cart. When I look at him and meet his eye, he’s quick to look away.

My father waves me toward the seating area in front of the hearth.

“Come, have a drink with us.”

I accept the glass of dark liquor from the maidservant, taking a tentative sip as I sink into one of the empty chairs. My back is to the room, and I can’t help but feel it was intentional. Chryse sits to the left of me and he barely spares me a passing glance.

There’s one notable absence, however. “Are we all in attendance?” I ask.

“If you’re inquiring about Wren,” he father remarks, the glass in his hand already empty. “He has been asked to step back from court proceedings for the time being.”

Lord Draken continues. “False messages were being spread across the territories that made his presence at court a little … uncomfortable.”

I cross an ankle over my knee, balancing my glass on the arm of the chair. “What kind of messages?”

“The kind I don’t take lightly,” my father says. “And the council agreed it was best he took a leave of absence. At least, until the rumors die down.”

“Is he still part of the alliance?” I ask.

“Of course,” my father declares, as if my suggestion that he might not be was silly. “He’s currently readying the battalions we have stationed closer to the city after we received reports of Evelyn and her men encroaching into our territory from the west.”

Well, shit. “Not ideal,” I say, noncommittally.

My father smirks, sharing looks with some of the other men, an inside joke passing between them that I’m not privy to.

“I actually have a present for you,” my father announces, gathering everyone’s attention.

“What is it?” I ask, deadpan. “A new crown for your favorite child?”

My father nods to Lord Draken, who stands. “You’ve gone above and beyond to help us secure Beau. She’s an important asset, and because of that sacrifice, the majority of the territories will be united once again under one law.”

This is interesting. “But…” I draw out the word, prompting my father to continue.

He grins. “But your return with your Match has set off an additional conflict in a war we were preparing to end, and that makes the council

nervous.”

“As well as my own council,” Chryse interjects.

“Hm,” I hum, watching Lord Draken cross the room to the door. “You said ‘present,’ but this kind of sounds like a reprimand.” He knocks on the door—a signal.

“Oh, no,” my father says, eyes alight with something I don’t like.

“You’re going to like this gift, I promise.”

Two soldiers carry a man through the door. Or more like drag, as he’s unable to get his feet underneath him long enough to successfully walk. A bag has been placed over his head, his clothes nondescript and threadbare, and his hands tied before him. When the soldiers heave him to his knees in front of me, he groans in pain.

Planting my feet, I sit up, looking to my father for direction.

“Go ahead,” he says with an encouraging nod.

I reach out and grip the burlap sack with my hand, yanking it from the man’s head, and I’m met with the face of someone I’ve wanted dead since I

was thirteen.

Vad.

The member of my training battalion who gave away our location to the Roison encampment. He’s the very reason we were ambushed. All but six of us died. Myself and five other soldiers in training, not including Vad himself. He’s also the man who put a wooden arrow through my Match’s

heart and nearly killed her.

“Well?” my father prompts.

Leaning back in my seat, I swallow the entirety of my drink. “Where’d you find him? He’s evaded me for over a decade.”

His eyes slide to the man to my right, and Chryse fidgets in his seat. “He is my contribution.”

My father sees the question in my eyes. “Each of the leaders must provide a person of interest as a symbol of their loyalty to the new alliance.

Chryse wanted a particular gift, and I wanted Vad. For you.”

I don’t like this. Either the way the room is eerily quiet as they watch me, or the way Vad is cowering before me. I’ve had enough run-ins with him to know the man is as arrogant as they come. But now, kneeling before me, his eyes are lifeless when he looks up at me, as if he’s already accepted his fate.

“How gracious,” I say, dismissing him with a wave of my hand. “Put him in the dungeons.”

Chuckles sound from around the room, and my father smiles indulgently as he leans forward. “That’s not how it works.”

He crooks a finger and the soldiers jerk Vad away, pressing him across the low-lying table before us, making drinking glasses rattle across the surface. Only then does fear register on Vad’s face, head hanging off the side of the table, eyes wide as he looks at me. He throws his gift at my mind and I startle at the unexpected pressure as he tries to get inside. He’s weak.

I’ve struggled to keep him out when he’s tried in the past, but this is a pathetic whisper in comparison.

My father stands. “Millenia ago, Heirs were worshipped as gods,” he says, striding toward the hearth. “The bloodlines were pure and cross- breeding with the giftless was considered a crime against Mother Nature.”

He lifts a hearthstone dagger from the mantle. A long blade with an ornate handle carved from an elk’s antlers. “And the more diluted the blood became, the weaker the gifts when they awakened. As magic became more and more common, Heirs weren’t held with the same regard as the rulers of the past.” He turns and looks at me. “We’ve become so fixated on fighting among ourselves, we forgot who we are.”

Vad’s gift continues to slam into the barrier of my mind. “Heirs,” I

clarify.

“Kings,” my father says.

I lift a brow. “Are queens not allowed?”

“Absolutely,” he answers, as if my question is ridiculous. “Of our choosing, of course.” He moves around the table toward Vad, sitting on the table beside him as a soldier keeps a hand on the back of Vad’s neck. “You see, when Heirs reigned, their magic was the ultimate currency.”

Someone hands my father a bowl and he places it beneath Vad’s hunched form. Vad’s magic claws at the outside of my mind, desperately

digging to get inside.

“A trade of gifts,” I say.

“Yes,” my father answers, pleased by my deduction. “But by our design.”

He produces a stone from his pocket that fits in his palm, a mineral I don’t recognize. There’s no metal in it that I can identify. Then the light hits

it just right, and the green swirls luminate in the otherwise gray object.

There’s only one place I’ve seen the same colors and patterns before. It’s the same mixture of green that was in the slab the healer in Roison forced me to hold Jovie to when she was bleeding out in the middle of her awakening. Somewhere deep in the forest of Roison, under the illusion of the healer’s husband.

“This is a slatstone,” my father says, rotating the rock in his hand. “The most valuable and rare stone found on this earth.”

I’m careful to remain stoic. “Doesn’t look like much.”

My father’s smile is wicked. “It can draw out someone’s magic if you know where it’s at.”

No one would give up that information unless … “Torture?” I ask.

He nods. “Usually.”

“He wouldn’t give up that kind of information easily,” I say, motioning to Vad with a tip of my chin.

“No, he wouldn’t,” my father agrees, holding the tip of the dark blade to the side of Vad’s neck. “But thanks to your sister, she was able to tell me exactly where to look.”

Horror settles in my bones at the realization of why, exactly, my father wanted Beau. Only she has the ability to identify the location of a person’s magic, as evidenced when she told Jovie where to aim her own hearthstone blade during their betrayal.

But I didn’t hand over Beau. I handed over Irina, and she has no such ability.

My heart skips a beat when my father pierces the skin of Vad’s neck, the edge slicing across his jugular, sending blood spraying from the laceration.

It splashes across my shins before the pressure reduces to a steady flow to the ground, pooling inside the bowl.

With a sickening horror, Vad continues to fight to get inside my mind, all the while knowing he’s going to die. It terrifies me enough that I let him in. Not all the way, just enough to know what he’s so adamant to tell me as

he spends his dying breaths.

And it’s an image.

Wait. A memory.

His own as he looks up at Beau. She’s chained in the dungeons. But he, too, knows it’s not my sister but Irina, his gift as an oracle able to see the

truth inside her mind. The guard yells at her to hurry as my father stands to the side, watching. She flinches but doesn’t look away from Vad’s stare. In quick succession, her thoughts reveal our plans to him. Our intentions to kill them all. Which, apparently, was Vad’s plan all along. He had seen the depravity in the mind of one of the commanders when we were children.

When he escaped to Roison, he didn’t mean to give away our location. It was an accident.

All the while he’s projecting the truth to my mind, I watch as he struggles to breathe, the blood gurgling in his throat, and I know there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I swallow the knot forming in my throat, the burn of emotion I work to keep down as I watch him struggle through his last breaths.

How did we get here? Why didn’t you show me then? Why now? I ask him from my thoughts.

He answers my unspoken and pained questions with an image of me at camp. Standing next to my father who I was staring at in adoration. Then again, as an adult, in the wood with Jovie when I wouldn’t let him into my mind. Then we’re back in the dungeons, and it was there, on the soaked ground of the dungeons, that he made the decision to tell her the truth, knowing what would happen to her if he lied … … and his hope that we can do what he’s been unable to achieve, and that’s kill every bastard in this room.

I promise him that I will. Swear it on my life from my mind to his. And it’s as if he finally relents to his fate, shoulders caving into the flat of the table. But there’s one more memory he sends me.

This time it’s mine. The memory he had plucked from my mind years ago, when we met in the woods and he asked to have access to my thoughts in exchange for directions to a healer nearby to save Jovie. He chose a memory following my mother’s death, or, rather, what I believed was her death. When my father called me into this very sitting room, having never done so before, and offered me my first drink.

It’s that memory that flickers through my mind until Vad’s heart begins to slow and he can no longer afford the energy to use his gift.

My father moves forward, motioning for the glass in my hand. I hand the glass to my father and he holds it underneath the flow of blood. Vad’s eyes droop closed, each breath slower and longer than the last, and I never

thought I’d feel sick to my stomach watching the death of a man I’ve wanted to kill for nearly half my life. It’s not until my father holds the stone over the wound, the drops of blood slowing in the crystal of the glass, that I catch the glisten in the light. My breath catches at the beautiful tendril of essence flowing from the gash toward the stone like a living entity. It encases the stone, swirling and pulsating with life.

Vad’s features begin to wither. Skin and muscle decaying and turning gray as the magic continues to be pulled from his body until there’s nothing left. Only then does his chest finally still, never to expand with breath again, the last drops of blood fall into the glass.

My father holds up the writhing magic covering the stone in his hand.

“This, my son, is what separates the ones who make the decisions from those who abide by them.”

He drops the stone with the glistening flow of magic into the glass. He swishes the blood around before plucking the stone from the glass, now magicless. Then holds the glass out to me.

“I have no desire to hold the gift of an oracle,” I say, panic-stricken, but somehow emotionless. “I’d rather gouge my eyes out than read people’s minds.”

“Like all things of this world, it just takes practice,” he says, glass still suspended in his hand between us. “You’ll master it in no time.”

I don’t move. I try to conjure any excuse or way out of this, but this is very obviously an initiation of sorts. Every man in this room is waiting for my decision. If I don’t drink it, the consequences will be far-reaching. The tamest thing would be the dungeons. The worst … is chained to the bed in my godsdamn room.

Leaning forward, I take the glass from my father, and it’s as if he releases the tension in his body with a sigh of relief. I inspect the glass, half a finger full of blood. “Was wine not sufficient?”

There’re a few chuckles, my father’s grin when he tells me the magic won’t release from the stone without a host. The blood tricks it into letting go. I sniff it and my face contorts from the foul scent. More chuckles ignite around the room, the mood getting lighter as I accept the inevitable.

Fuck it.

Placing the rim of glass to my mouth, I toss the contents to the back of my throat and swallow, clenching my teeth to stop it from coming right

back up. But after a few breaths, the same warmth that I’m used to accompanying my own magic makes my head spin.

They applaud.

They fucking applaud as they stand around to take turns patting me on the back, to congratulate me on my newfound power. Vad’s body seems forgotten where it leans over the cocktail table. I’m off-kilter and my father tells me it’s the effect of the magic entering my bloodstream. It’s not long before they drag in another man. The source of Chryse’s requested gift, I realize, and I watch as they hold the man to the same table beside Vad’s body. I watch as Chryse digs the hearthstone dagger into the man’s chest and uses the stone to remove his magic. It’s the correct location and I surmise it must have been given under duress. I think I ask to be excused and somehow get my feet beneath me before I stagger out of the room.

The next thing I know, I’m puking behind a bust.