Mud (Chromatic Mages #1)

Chapter 14

Rosabel La Rouge

Present day

Nothing looked real around me anymore. Not when the car stopped—I’d had my head against the window and had gotten used to the constant vibration that numbed my mind and cleared it somewhat. When it stopped, I felt strange, like I was there but not; like I was burning but shivering, too; like I was floating but hopping on one leg at the same time.

It didn’t even sound real when the driver, who hadn’t said a single word (that I heard) to me during our trip, told me that I’d paid him too much money—but what the hell did I know how much I paid him? A miracle I managed to get the bills out of my pocket and put them in his hand. I couldn’t have counted if my life depended on it.

I got out of the car.

The hill was not an actual hill like I’d imagined—it was a hotel that the driver found all by himself when I told him about the blue house I was looking for. He said there were no hills in this town, but he did find The Hill Hotel in Darville on his map app, so that’s where he took me. Easy enough to find—it was the tallest building in the small town, on the outskirts of it, and the blue house was a good distance behind it, half hidden away by big oak trees.

It wasn’t an actual house, either.

Turns out, the Blue House was something of a walled-in community with big wooden doors and a sign blinking blue every few seconds on top of them. I had no idea if I was in the right place or not, but I kept on moving because where else could I go now?

Music came from the other side of the yellowed wall that was maybe a head taller than me. The ground underneath my feet kept changing and twisting, sometimes trying to push me to the sides so I almost fell, sometimes steadying me so that my good leg held me straight. I can’t quite recall if I fell while I walked those fifteen feet from the asphalt to the doors, but I think I did at least a couple of times because my clothes were a bigger mess than I remembered.

But could my eyes, my memories really be trusted right now? I’m dying, I thought. I’m really, really dying. So, who cared if I’d fallen or not?

I touched the tip of the boot of my bad leg to the ground just to help me keep my balance for a little bit until I caught my breath, and the pain that shot up my entire body made black dots come alive in front of my eyes.

Not yet. I couldn’t pass out yet. I needed to get inside first, just until my limbs stopped pulsating the way they were doing, and my heart stopped beating like it wanted to free itself from my ribcage, and my skin stopped producing so much sweat, and my mind cleared enough that I could decide whether this was real or I was only dreaming.

Maybe I never really made it out of that interrogation room. Maybe all of this was really in my head. Maybe Cassie never put me in an Uber, and maybe that music in the air was only in my head.

Maybe I’m not really ? —

I couldn’t think it. I couldn’t even think that word.

But tears still came out of my eyes, even if no sound left me. Composed. Always fucking composed.

So, I started to move forward again, toward those doors, dragging my bad leg behind as best as I could. By Iris, the pain was incredible. There were no words to properly describe it. The best I can tell you is that it felt like walking barefoot on hot coal while being sliced open with a really sharp knife.

One hop and those blue doors seemed to move a bit farther away from me. It was my imagination, I knew that, but it didn’t change the fact that I was about to collapse on my face any second now.

Another hop.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I reached up to wipe the sweat from my forehead. It kept slipping down to my eyes, mixing with the tears, and they stung like hell.

When I was close enough to touch the blue doors, I thought I would have to slam my fists on them to knock—I didn’t. I just leaned against the wood to rest for a second, and the door on the right slid inward instantly.

Somehow I was able to keep myself from falling on the ground.

Somehow my eyes were still working.

Inside of those doors was nothing like I expected.

Houses, a lot of them, on either side. Benches, trees, small lights hanging from the branches all over an open area with tables and chairs and music and people, eating and dancing and singing together like the world out here didn’t exist.

So strange, so… messy, but beautiful all the same.

I made it a couple of steps inside, confused, not entirely sure of what to think yet. All those people, more than a hundred men and women and children that I could see, were inside those walls, and the music was loud, and the colorful lights were on— so much light.

Then they saw me.

Only a few at first, men with cigarettes between their lips, closer to the edge of the row of houses to my right. They took a couple of steps closer to me, four of them, then one turned and went toward the crowd sitting at those tables.

Excuse me, I said in my mind, except my voice didn’t quite work and those three men refused to come closer. They only watched me, and then more of their friends approached when they noticed me.

Everything was moving too fast and too slow, tilting out of focus.

My eyes closed—was I still standing or had I fallen? I wasn’t sure, but I was burning. I was sweating.

And my audience kept their distance. They didn’t come closer to ask me what I wanted or who I was looking for. They just watched.

It was up to me to go to them.

I knew I wouldn’t make it, that as soon as I attempted to move forward again, I was going to fall. I knew that, but I was still going to try because what else was there to do?

Closing my eyes again, I took in a deep breath and I prepared myself to hop—to hell with it all. I was just going to hop, and if I fell, so be it.

My resolve was strong, so when I opened my eyes again, I was ready.

Then someone ahead of me moved in a way I knew well, coming through the crowd, closer to the men who were watching me. They stepped to the sides to let him through until he was under those small lights that hung on the branches of the trees to my sides.

The shock was the only thing keeping me frozen and standing right now.

… I’ll find you eventually, he’d said.

And now there he was.

At this point it was useless to try to determine whether this was a dream or not. Either way, it made no difference. I was here and I was looking right at him and he had changed so much and had remained exactly the same.

I couldn’t stop crying—in silence, of course.

His hair had grown so much the ends touched his shoulders. His face had gained more sharp edges, and the bags under his eyes were darker, and he’d lost a bit of weight so that I bet I could trace the shape of his cheek bones with my fingertips if I tried.

Please let this be a dream crashed with please let this be reality inside me, shaking me to my core.

And the way he looked at me wasn’t helping—like I was a ghost, like I was the monster that had been hiding under his bed all his life, like I was an impossibility wearing the clothes of the possible that didn’t quite fit me right, but I pretended that they did.

He opened his mouth to speak, and the music in the background faded to allow me to hear him better.

“What…” His voice was slow, a whisper, barely ca ressing my ears. He said the word, then shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe his eyes any more than I trusted mine. “What are you doing—what…”

Again, that shake of his head. He didn’t say here though. So, I answered.

“I-I-I came to the blue house behind the hill.” Because I was alone. Utterly, completely alone.

He acted like the sound of my voice assaulted his senses—flinched and leaned his head slightly back. Disgusted.

My eyes closed and more tears fell all at once, all that had pooled in my eyes in the last few seconds.

“I had nowhere else to go.” And wasn’t that the saddest truth to have ever left my lips?

Words I hadn’t wanted to admit to myself. Words I hadn’t even wanted to think about at all until now—who wanted to have a truth so raw, so painful? Who wanted to be me ?

Not me.

But the words were out now. They were free of me, out there in the world, and I had nothing else to hold me up anymore.

My body let go.

I expected to make impact with the ground any second, but I didn’t. Instead, arms wrapped around me, strong arms I’d once lived in, really, truly lived in, and then I wasn’t falling anymore. I wasn’t putting pressure on my bad leg at all.

Blink, blink, blink, and Taland’s face came into view again as he looked down at me, thick brows narrowed as curse words spilled out of his lips in a hiss-like whisper. He went on and on while he grabbed my chin in his hands and looked at me like I was a problem he didn’t want. A problem he didn’t need .

I was so sick of being people’s problem, I realized.

“What happened? How did you get here, Rosabel?” he urged, and my neck no longer held my head properly, so he had to keep his hand around my chin.

“I…I’m…” I swallowed hard, prepared to say it. “I was turned to…I’m…”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t think it and I couldn’t say it.

“Uber,” I ended up choking. “Uber brought me.”

Another string of curse words that sounded like a different language.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” he whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear. “You shouldn’t have come here, you shouldn’t have come…”

I wanted to smile, but I no longer had the energy. My eyes had closed, too, and I hadn’t even noticed. I wanted to hold onto him for one last time before I died, but I couldn’t get my arms to move at all.

“It’s okay,” I thought I said. “I will never blame you.”

When he killed me today, I wouldn’t blame him. I just really hoped he made it quick.

“For fuck’s sake, sweetness. Hold on,” Taland whispered, mad as all hell. “Just hold on and don’t make a sound.”

Funny that he thought I could.

But it was okay, much easier to let go than I thought. Taland was dragging me—forward or back, I couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter. Good call, I thought to myself. This was most definitely the best way to go.

Before unconsciousness took me, I realized two things that gave me some semblance of peace for my tormented soul. I’d come to the blue house behind the hill because I would rather die at the hands of someone I loved than at the hands of my grandmother .

I’d come to the blue house behind the hill because death was a price I’d eagerly pay just to see Taland Tivoux one more time.

“Wakey, wakey, Miss La Rouge. We’ve been waiting a loooong time to meet you.”

Sleep was reluctant to let me go, even though I could have sworn that I heard those exact words coming at me from somewhere far away.

I had no clue where I was or what was happening to me, and the last thought I had was that I was finally at peace where I’d come to die. I remembered the relief of realizing I’d made the right choice with the last choice I was ever going to make, and that had felt mighty fine, too.

I remembered Taland’s face as he looked down at me, shocked and concerned and disgusted at the same time, how he’d cursed and how he’d told me that I shouldn’t have come to find him in the blue house behind the hill.

Back then I thought I knew why—because he’d kill me for betraying him the way I did.

Now, I wasn’t so sure because that voice that was calling for me to wake up was not Taland’s.

It was someone else’s, and I did not like the sound of it one bit.

Like a single drop of water falling on the surface of the stillest lake, thoughts and memories expanded in my mind like ripples. Images flashed before me—of that text message, of that footage, of catfairies and Michael and Madeline, of the Uber driver who’d brought me all the way here—almost three hours away from the IDD Headquarters .

My eyes opened and my body came alive, and I realized I was really breathing. My heart was still beating. My leg was no longer throbbing in pain the way it did the last time I was awake. Not healed, but it was healing. The sweet taste of the last of the pain coated it from my knee down to my ankle, and I was a hundred percent sure that I was not bleeding anymore.

Someone had healed me—with magic.

And my wrists were secured with thick chains behind my back.

A muffled sound left my lips involuntarily when I moved my head and realized I was sitting up, chained to a chair in a dark room, and even though my leg was no longer bleeding, it had bled plenty. That blood was no longer in me, and I hadn’t eaten, and I was exhausted, and my magic?—

“The little bird is finally awake.”

My heart became heavy as a rock when I followed the voice and found the face of the man who’d been calling me to wake up for a while now.

Instinct took over and I tried to get up, tried to move away from him, forgetting momentarily that I could feel the cold metal of the chains around my wrists.

My failed attempt at freeing myself made the man laugh his heart out. It was a warm laugh, straight from the soul, and it vibrated throughout me, made my eyes captive to his face until his met mine once more.

He looked familiar, though I had never seen him before. He was tall, wide shoulders, big hands that he rested on his hips as he looked down at me. His square jaw and long dark hair secured in a loose tail behind his head, his dark eyes and those thick brows…

Taland’s brother, though I had no clue which one. This man looked like an older, bigger, deadlier version of Taland, and I found I was having difficulty drawing in air.

“Apologies for finding yourself in our basement, chained to a chair, Miss La Rouge. But I’m sure you understand, what with being Madeline Rogan’s granddaughter and the IDD’s very own Golden Girl and all,” he said, but I had no chance to reply if I’d wanted.

“The girl who betrayed our little brother.”

Once more, every inch of me froze at the sound of another voice, this one coming from the darkness that surrounded me—darkness that wasn’t all that dark now that the fear of finding the other man had me focused.

He was there all right, stepping away from the shadows with his arms crossed in front of him, completely at ease as he looked down at me. He was slimmer than his brother, but with the same jawline and the same eyes. His hair was short, more salt than pepper, and wrinkles decorated his face, mainly between his brows like they remained narrowed most of the time.

And he wasn’t the only one in the room.

A bit farther to the right was another Tivoux, younger than the first two, with muscled arms and a big head that looked bigger from the buzz cut he sported. He was sitting on a chair half hidden in the shadows, elbows on his knees and a wide grin on his face as he watched me, bloodthirsty. Mad.

On the left was Taland.

I almost missed him standing there at the corner near an empty table, playing with something in his hand, legs and arms crossed, head down and a sneaky smile on his face as he watched me from under his lashes.

The way my heart beat like it wanted to shake my entire body could have been funny .

Fuck me , it wasn’t a dream. I hadn’t imagined any of it. I’d really come to the blue house behind the hill, and I was in the same room with Taland Tivoux again.

“Would you look at that. Prettier than you look in the pictures, little birdie,” said the eldest one—Radock Tivoux.

The youngest one, just three years older than Taland, who was sitting there in the darkness was Seth, and the one who’d woken me was Kaid.

Yes, I’d heard all about them from Taland. And now I was meeting them face to face.

“Tell us—how did you find us? Have you been looking for us, is that it? Because we’ve been looking for you,” Kaid said, leaning down until his face was right in front of mine, and I had nowhere to go. The chair must have been screwed to the floor because it didn’t budge even when I tried to push back with my whole body.

My strength was minimal, too. I was sweating like a pig even if my leg no longer hurt as much, and my magic…

“Speak,” said Radock from behind his brother, raising his chin so he could better look down at me. “Why did you come here, alone and bleeding?”

“How did you know where we’d be?” Kaid continued.

“Does the IDD know where Taland is? Did they send you here?” This from Seth as he slowly stood up from his chair and came closer.

Then all three Tivoux brothers were standing around me, smiling and telling me with their glistening eyes exactly what awaited me in the near future, possibly within the next few minutes. That’s when it occurred to me why Taland said that I shouldn’t have come here.

It wasn’t just because of him— it was because of his brothers, too .

Fuck, I’d been stupid to think he’d be alone here, that he’d see me, shoot me, and be done with it.

That had been all I’d wanted—a quick, clean death at the hands of Taland.

But apparently, the fates had decided that that was too much to ask. So now I was screwed even worse than I could have imagined.

What a day. What a fucking couple of days , in fact.

Things had gone south so, so quickly ever since I got that text…

“Does the IDD know—” Kaid started again, his voice louder, ringing in my ears.

“No,” I choked, surprised that my voice worked, eyes closed and head down. “Nobody knows I’m here.”

A second of silence followed.

“Then why would you come here—especially in this condition?” asked the eldest—Radock. His voice was so well seasoned, a lullaby to put you to sleep—if he wasn’t flat out threatening me with his tone alone.

“Is this some kind of a trap?”

“Were you hoping to capture Taland alone?”

Laughter.

“Our little brother was foolish once. So young to have trusted a female ,” Radock again.

Iris, he sounded so angry.

“But he’s older now. And wiser. And he’s specifically demanded that he be the one to kill you,” Kaid.

My eyes popped open, and the brothers were all looking at Taland, so they’d moved their bodies a bit to the side, and I saw him, too. Saw his face. Saw that cruel smile on his lips, the dark look in his eyes.

All this time I’d told myself that when I saw him, when I saw how he hated me, I’d understand. I’d never hold it against him.

After all, I deserved it—his hatred and contempt. I deserved it.

But now as I looked at him and felt all of it just as clearly as I felt the chain around my wrists, I realized it wasn’t so easy. It was hard to admit that this was Taland, despite everything. Hard to understand that I hadn’t really known him, not half of what I thought did, because the Taland I knew would never stand there and smile like that, demand his brothers let him kill me.

It was hard to digest all that disgust I found in his eyes, and when he leaned away from the wall, put his hands in his pockets, and started walking toward me, I saw it clearer with each step.

“I allowed it,” Radock said. “It’s only fair. He suffered in prison because of you, after all.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t call that suffering. It was more an… enlightening experience,” said Taland with a shrug, his voice flowing with such ease, thicker than I remembered.

And he still hadn’t stopped smiling.

“I always say people need an internship in prison before they can take on life,” said Radock with a laugh, slamming his hand on Taland’s shoulder. “You make me proud, little brother. And you shall have her when we’re done. Alive, just like I promised . ”

Every inch of my body was covered in goose bumps as I looked at Radock first, then Taland.

He looked at Radock like the man was his god, and his smile only widened.

Then Taland nodded his head deeply. “That’s all I ask.”

Despite everything, despite knowing who I was and who he was and what he’d done and what I’d done, where he’d been in the past year and eight months—I was still shocked at his words.

That’s all I ask. All he wanted was for me to be alive when his brothers were done with me. When they tortured me and Iris knew what else—he just wanted me alive so he could see the last of my light die down in my eyes.

Alive—that’s all he wanted.

“Stand back,” Radock said, and Taland didn’t hesitate. Walking backward, he kept his eyes on me, his smile on, his hands in his pockets until he was back to that corner and leaned against that wall.

“All right now, Miss La Rouge,” said Kaid, unbuttoning the sleeves of his black shirt, and rolling them up slowly. “Let’s try those questions again.” When he was done with his sleeves, he reached for his pocket and pulled out a big, shiny raven feather. He brought it to his lips, licked the hairs on one side quickly, and his fingers ignited in black flames at once.

My heart fell all the way to my heels.

Please , I wanted to say. Please, spare me. Please let Taland kill me.

Of course, I didn’t.

“How did you know to find Taland, and how did you make your way here?” Kaid raised his hand toward me, his raven feather between his fingers, and the black flames of his magic danced their way in the air toward me.

I tried again, in vain, to push myself back, to knock the chair over, to do anything it took just to get away from the Blackfire that was no doubt going to hurt a lot—even more than my leg. My mouth opened and part of me wanted to talk, to tell him the truth, but I didn’t dare.

Taland had given me this address, but he apparently hadn’t told his brothers that. And I’d already betrayed him once, had cost him everything. I was not going to betray him a second time.

So, I clamped my mouth shut again, and when the Blackfire slowly wrapped around my neck, ice-cold and heavy, I instinctively searched my surroundings to try to find a way out. Foolish, I know, but one hopes even in the face of the end. Especially in the face of the end.

Unfortunately for me, there was no way out of this place.

The room had a tall ceiling—possibly over two stories. There was a set of metal stairs far to the left that led to a door in the wall—the only one there. No windows, no other lights except a round one hanging from the ceiling by a long wire in the middle of the room, straight over my head. I couldn’t tell exactly what hid in the shadows the light didn’t reach.

“Well? Don’t you have any words for us?” Kaid said, moving his fingers as he worked his magic lower down my back, under my soaking wet shirt and lower. Goddess, it felt awful, his magic. So filthy. So cold. So deadly.

And no matter how hard I was trying to unchain my wrists, it wasn’t working. All I did was make the brothers laugh. Make Taland smile wider.

I deserve it, I deserve it, I deserve no less —yet I still didn’t feel even a tiny bit better. Or less betrayed, which was absurd. My own audacity astounded me, but I blamed it on the fact that I was going to die soon.

No—I was going to hurt soon first, then die.

“It’s so crazy to me that someone like you would come all the way here, regardless of how you managed it,” Kaid continued, slowly stepping around and behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders just as his magic that had wrapped around my torso like a second skin squeezed .

The pain burst inside me like it had been there all along, just waiting for the right second to begin torturing me. Impatiently waiting.

A scream came out of me before I could bite my tongue because I didn’t want them to hear what they were doing to me. It was enough that they would see—but it was too much. I couldn’t keep it in.

Then Kaid was in front of me again, a big smile on his face, a proud smile as his magic retreated a bit, let me breathe without feeling like I was drowning on air.

“Wow—that was amazing,” he said. “It works so much better—can you tell? My Blackfire works so much better!” Laughter, then he abruptly stopped. “Oh, wait. Was that why you were shot and not healed? Did they try to kill you, too? Your own people?”

Tears, tears, a lot more tears, these angry ones.

No, I wanted to say.

My people wouldn’t turn on me , I wanted to say.

But I couldn’t because they had, and they would no matter what became of me.

“I don’t see why not,” said Seth from a few feet away. “She’s worthless.”

“Nah, nah, she’s not worthless,” Kaid said. “She’s just Mud.”

The ceiling, the house—the entire fucking sky could have fallen on my head, and I’d have been less surprised by something that I already knew.

Something I hadn’t been able to think about.

Something I hadn’t been able to say.

But Kaid said it. He said it loud and proud, and now they were all laughing, and I was crying, shaking, such a fucking mess.

There it was .

I was Mud, stained just like Madeline said. My magic was gone, my colors mixed, useless. I was no good to anyone for anything anymore—now for real.

Iris, I felt so small. So unimportant. So eager to get this over with. I blinked the tears away and my eyes found his again even while his brothers laughed, and Taland still smiled as he looked at me. He still smiled and played with whatever it was in his hand, and he enjoyed the sight of my pain. He enjoyed the sight of his brothers laughing their hearts out, of me shaking, crying, begging him with my eyes to just get this over with already. Kill me so I didn’t have to endure anymore.

I was Mud. My life was as good as over now. Please have mercy and end me now.

He didn’t.

“Tell us—c’mon. Tell us how it happened? What did it? Was it an accident, or did they mean to actually drain you?”

“Did they put you in the furnace ? I heard the IDD has one in the Headquarters—is it true?”

Yes—yes, it is. They have a room made of bones that they use to drain the worst of criminals in—but that’s not me! They would never!

They would never, ever, ever…

My eyes closed again, both because I was ashamed of myself for ever having believed that thought and because I couldn’t watch. I refused to see what they did to me next. I refused to focus on the sound of their voices, and I tried my damned best to go to the good memories that I possessed, that I saved with such care in the corner of my mind just in case someone accidentally saw them. Someone like Madeline.

I tried, but it didn’t work because the brothers kept asking me, how, how, how ?

“Oh, how the tables have turned. You betrayed us , just so your own could betray you—what a happy day! Tell us, we’re so curious. Tell us, pretty birdie!”

The tables have turned, indeed, I thought.

But even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t know what to say to them because I didn’t know the answer myself. Had Erid and Michael fucked up my magic on purpose? Or had I done it myself when I instinctively let it all out without my anchor or a spell, opening myself up to the outside world?

Was Madeline right and the catfairie had done it somehow, before it ended up dead on the ground?

Or did others do it when I fell unconscious, maybe?

Too many possibilities.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve cost us?”

Radock was suddenly in front of me, leaning down so we were eye level. The way he hated me was so clearly pictured in the dark of his wide eyes.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve cost the world ?”

My heart jumped.

“Do you know what you did when you stopped Taland?” His voice became darker. “Do you even know what it was that we were after, what that thing is capable of?”

Taland was after an artifact, I wanted to say but didn’t. They never told me what it was or what it could do…

My thoughts were a mess . An even worse feeling settled in my gut.

Radock came closer and closer until I saw all of him in perfect detail. “Do you know that you’ve put it in their hands yourself?”

These words were whispered. Those words weighed a million pounds on my shoulders.

“Who was it?” asked Radock. “Give me the name of the person who sent you to that school. ”

I wanted to shake my head— what do you mean, who was it? The IDD—it was the IDD!

“A name,” Radock whispered, and the magic coming from Kaid squeezed me once more as he whispered words of a spell. “Give me a name—who sent you?”

“The…the IDD.”

Suddenly Radock’s cold fingers wrapped around my face. “Don’t lie to me, birdie. It wasn’t the Department. The mission didn’t exist on paper. You were never hired by the IDD, and Taland was never a suspect before his capture.” His every word rang true. “Tell me the name of the person who sent you there.”

David Hill, I thought. His name is David Hill and he’s the director of the IDD, and of course, the mission existed! Of course, Taland was a suspect—of course, of course, of course!

I said nothing because he was holding my face so tightly, and because my instincts were on high alert.

Like…like they believed him.

“Was it your grandmother?” said Radock. “How did she know? Who gave her the information? Or was it someone else?”

No, it wasn’t Madeline.

I have no idea where Hill got the information—please, please, just let me go…

“If you speak now, it will hurt less,” Kaid said from where he was standing behind Radock.

But Radock finally let go of my face and straightened up. “Last chance, birdie. Talk. ”

Again and again, they asked. The same questions worded differently. One first, then the other.

I didn’t exist. The case didn’t exist on paper. The mission I was sent to was never a mission. Taland was never recorded as a suspect .

That’s what they said, and that’s what all my instincts wanted me to believe.

Regardless of it, I bit my tongue and I said nothing because the most important thing still remained— nothing mattered. I was going to die soon, and nothing mattered.

Soon the Tivoux brothers figured out that I wasn’t going to talk, so they proceeded to hurt me.

Kaid went at it with all his strength, holding nothing back. The pain was insane, infiltrating every cell in my body, making me scream so hard my throat bled.

And I couldn’t stop it.

An IDD agent, trained to fight all kinds of monsters, all kinds of men, yet I was perfectly powerless in front of them because I was dirty. I was filthy on the inside and my ring was gone and all my training, all the ways my instincts were trying to free me from this chair, from this room, were useless. My magic was stained. Spoiled. Without it, I was nothing.

So, the brothers had their way with me without any interruptions.

I don’t know how long this went on, how long they laughed and inflicted pain on me with their magic, but every once in a while, I’d open my eyes to look at Taland, to both see if he was ready to end me yet and to beg him that he did so sooner.

He didn’t.

Once Kaid was done, it was Seth’s turn to take his raven feather where he kept it over his left ear, put it between his palms, and shoot his magic at me once. It came like a black, semitransparent blade, slicing my body into two right below my shoulders. Straight through my heart.

I screamed with the last of my energy, then passed out.

Taland never once said a single word.