Unblessed Witch (Phases of the Moon #4)

4. Aleksander

4

ALEKSANDER

“Did you know?” My voice boomed through the tent as I stormed in, locking eyes with my father. He was mumbling under his breath, his drooping head swinging back and forth. His body was tied to a post in the center of the tent, his weight having given out so that he was only being held up by the rope restraining him.

I would give him this—he was trying. But I didn’t buy his insane act for even a minute.

With our plan to leave any minute now, there was only one reason I needed to talk to the bastard, and it was to find out: did he know?

“Know what?” My father brought his head up, his gaze roaming to ensure no one else was present before he straightened himself. The cold, calculated energy that was innate to him filtered in, his features turning to malice. Everything about him disgusted me. From his facade to his actions to who he aligned himself with, all I felt was disgust. There was no loss associated with his imminent death.

“Did you know what the effects of the runes would be when you chose to experiment on me and then yourself? What made you decide to do it?”

“Why does it matter? It’s been years.”

I closed my eyes to gather patience before addressing him once more. “Answer. Why. Did. You. Do. It?”

If anyone other than Astaroth knew the mythos behind this type of magic, it would be my father. I had been out in the world long enough to understand that the ritual wasn’t done often, let alone by anyone but the bastard in charge. Which was one of many reasons people feared and hated my father.

Whatever he knew Astaroth probably was aware of as well, and I needed to know if Astaroth thought her dead or if he was awaiting her rebirth. The answer would inform our tactics.

My jaw clenched at the concept of rebirth. In order to be reborn, you first had to die. Deva and I had died several times over, but still. The thought of her being tortured at Astaroth’s hand had me seeing red.

Deva was absolutely perfect, and she shouldn’t be forced to transform into anything but herself. Shouldn’t be forced to shoulder the type of power that Boneclaw referred to. We would navigate the change together and I would help her in any way that I could, but I still hated it.

“Because Astaroth suggested it,” my father answered. “He wanted as many of his followers as possible to have power like ours. Unfortunately, very few took. It was fairly simple, and the fact that you’re still so caught up on it?—”

I left the tent, not needing to hear anything else from him. We were about to leave to get my zaya, and I felt secure enough that my father had no knowledge of the ramifications of the change we’d undergone in that ‘simple’ ceremony. Now that I thought about it, if he had known, he would have absolutely tried it on himself.

So would Astaroth, for that matter. Unless of course Deva was his test run…

Pushing past that thought, I tightened my fists in an effort to shake myself from the crawling sensation that had taken root under my skin. The new runes were begging me to infuse them with power, to take ownership of Deva’s gift. To activate them to the fullest potential.

But I resisted. While I may have felt super charged because of them, their patterns mimicking my own, I wasn’t positive how it would affect the others once activated. After all, the runes channeled all different types of magic, not just a person’s inborn affinity. I worried that it could have the same effect as a ritual. That it could end up killing them.

Although I’d yet to mention that.

I strode through the group of Society members still mulling around outside of our tent now that the hour-long strategy session had concluded. We hadn’t allowed the discussion to be about if we were going to get Deva, but how the Society’s actions would work around it.

After a heated debate, it was decided that a special operations team would retrieve her—the team being the five of us—going ahead of the group as our large-scale militia moved in on the compound. The compound which was currently on lockdown through the main three gates. We had until dawn before the Society of Shadows would be in position to make a move to help us— we had hours at most . And as far as I was aware, we still had no idea how we were getting in there.

I just wanted my zaya back. I needed her in my arms.

I had lied to her about being able to watch her from the shadows. She had become a fundamental part of me, grafted onto my skin—our heartbeats, which shouldn’t have existed, completely one.

Without her I felt absolutely nothing, including my own pulse.

Ducking into the tent, I made my way over to Oz who was now bound by shadows as the others packed light bags for the trip. We had tried to release him for the sake of the meeting, but he’d been halfway across the camp in a second flat, so now he was stuck in place with shadows. His lack of fight when we drug him back was the most concerning.

“We need to go get her,” I said, giving him a searching look. “Can you handle that?” I wanted to add ‘without slaughtering every single individual between here and there,’ but I let it remain unspoken.

“Untie me and find out.”

“Are we ready?” I asked the room. When they all signaled their acknowledgement, everyone secured with their weapons and packs, I released the shadows. I should have expected to be tossed back across the room, but the way I hit the ground and my head snapped back showed I’d clearly been unprepared. Fuck.

I had let my guard down around Osborn far too much.

“Restrain me again and I won’t hesitate to kill you,” he threatened all of us before leaving the tent.

“Shit, Deva is going to be pissed about that,” Lazaro murmured.

“I think our little siren will understand. I mean, she’s the one who loves him—I don’t think she’ll be surprised to hear how he reacted and what we had to do.” Cage shrugged. “Come on, we can’t let the bastard go in by himself. She would be mad about that. Plus, I have a feeling those runes have given him a physical boost. I can tell his heartbeat is farther than it should be.”

Damn if he wasn’t right. Maybe my concern about the runes being dangerous was unfounded. When we stepped out, Oz’s form was already across the camp, leaving us behind. Society members offered us wide-eyed expressions, one of the men pale and shaken. What the fuck had he done?

Over the course of the next hour, we had to move fast to keep up with Oz. But once we reached him, we were able to maintain the same pace. I wished we could shadow portal instead of walking the entire way—the distance between us and zaya could be closed in a fraction of the time—but we’d decided that was a bad idea in this case.

It was likely that Astaroth had put up protective wards, but there was no way to know where they were. On foot we’d be able to sense them once we got into range, but there’d be no such warning while shadow portalling. The last thing we wanted to do was portal into a ward and alert him to our progress and placement.

So instead the five of us traveled quickly and quietly, my brain spinning with thoughts and questions as we moved across Carmina.

Our bond had been severed. Cut off. My heartbeat had gone silent, and the only remnants I could feel were her runes under my skin. I knew Grim believed she was just blocking our bond, and if that was true, it was one of the best defense mechanisms I had ever seen. Even more so than one artificially placed, like wards. Even Lazaro couldn’t get anything from her now.

If the entire point of this process had been to die— small death , Boneclaw had called it—why did our hearts beat in proximity to one another? Had Deva’s bond with each of us pushed the boundaries of the normal process? How would that affect her rebirth? Or had it been fueled by the moonstone?

I wasn’t sure if we would ever have the answer to that, but I would lose myself if I lost my connection to Deva. I selfishly loved that her heart beat only for us—the solid sound telling me she was safe and near—but if that had to change for her wellbeing, that was all that mattered. As long as I didn’t lose her.

“How are we getting in?” I asked, the wind howling past us. The skies darkened to a midnight blue, the phantom lunar shapes that had hung in the sky for nearly forty-eight hours growing more visible. There was something in the air tonight, an energy that vibrated from the earth itself, but I had no idea if it was in reaction to Deva, Astaroth, or the battle ahead.

“Adalricus and Corbin have spent a large amount of time on the outskirts of the northern villages, subtly trying to gain information on Astaroth,” Cage said, referring to two of his eldest brothers that had arrived hours ago.

I’d never had the experience of having siblings, but the idea of having one, let alone nine, all brothers, didn’t sound appealing. I couldn’t tell how Cage felt about their presence, past telling them they didn’t get to talk to zaya . Something I didn’t disagree with.

“I can’t imagine anyone was eager to spill information,” I stated grimly.

“The opposite, actually.” Cage frowned. “The compound itself isn’t hard to get into. Well, the main entrances are, but the way most enter is not. The compound is essentially open to everyone and anyone. Once you enter, though, you can’t leave. The only direction is forward through a labyrinth of dungeons until you’ve proven you can be useful to Astaroth.”

“Or alternatively, you die,” Lazaro pointed out.

I nodded in understanding, not bothering to look for Oz’s reaction. He’d yet to talk this entire time, and I honestly wasn’t even sure he was listening.

“It’s a game to Astaroth,” Grim concluded. “A game for the poor to try and become powerful, to have a chance at something other than their life in Carmina.”

It was disgusting and absolutely unsurprising. If my father had the influence and following that Astaorth did, he would’ve absolutely done the same.

“So we’re going to use these entrances? Despite his confidence, I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t close and lock them down considering the circumstances.”

“Maybe. But apparently there are over fifty different entrances, and the dangers that lay within are enough that he’s probably not concerned,” Cage explained.

“Once we’re through the compound wards, I’m going to portal us to her,” Grim said. “Just have to get in first.”

“And if we have to make it through the dungeon, are we prepared for that?” I asked the question I knew that no one wanted to consider.

“We don’t have a choice—we aren’t stopping.” Oz’s voice rang out as I nodded, knowing that he was right. It didn’t matter what we were facing there, if it meant getting to Deva, we would survive it.

“Fuck,” Grimshaw growled after a second failed attempt to shadow portal while inside the compound. We’d been here for all of three minutes and we were already dealing with issues.

We’d looped to approach the compound from the west, managing to locate a door that you had to scale two smaller walls to get to. It opened onto a dark hallway that led down into the earth, which hadn’t been a problem in itself, but the magic that had silently rolled over us was. If Astaroth was paying attention, he would notice someone had arrived. No discernable alarms had gone off, though, so at least that was one good thing.

It was the only good thing.

The compound significantly dampened our magical abilities, preventing us from using anything like shadow portalling to quicken our search. It was inconvenient, but there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it. I was just relieved that we were in the same building as Deva, one step closer to finding her.

“We have to keep going. I think our best bet is to try to reach her through our bond,” Lazaro said, my brows going up at the surety in his voice. I couldn’t feel our bond at all, but I opened up my magic to that possibility.

Unfortunately, it distracted me enough that I didn’t realize we’d gone from the tunnel into a room until all the torches on the walls lit up in eerie green flames, our arrival clearly triggering something. The group of us automatically moved into defensive postures.

“What in the fresh hell is this?” Cage muttered as the ground around us lit up in symbols and concentric circles—a pattern that I’d never seen before. At the same time, the energy coming off of it wasn’t malicious. It almost seemed to call out to me, holding my attention captive.

“Move out of the circle—shit,” I hissed, realizing my feet were stuck to the stone as the room began to rumble, the floor shaking so much that I dropped into a crouch to stabilize myself.

“It’s going to collapse,” Oz called out a second before the floor gave way.

Knowing there was no use in fighting it, our bodies fell heavier than the debris around us. Haunted screams that didn’t belong to any of us rang in my ears as I felt the space around us warp to make it feel as though we’d been falling for hours?—

We hit the ground. Hard.

Pain shot through my spine, and my skull felt like it fractured against the rock-hard floor. My body felt paralyzed as the darkness above began to shimmer around the edges, my vision going black.

My vision speed-rushed over each body laid out on the cement slabs, some fresh while others were reduced to decayed bones, the scent of death thick in the air. The sound of water rushed around the slabs of stone, diffuse light rippling in the water. I could hear soft singing somewhere ? —

“Alek. Get up.” Grimshaw’s voice had my eyes opening, but the singing continued. The air around us shimmered with a black smoke that glittered within the shadows.

“Who’s singing?” I groaned as I sat up and tried to shake the pain from my body.

“No one is singing,” Oz said quietly as I realized they were standing around me.

My gaze darted around to see a dimly lit hallway in the distance, only for it to flicker out of existence all at once. When the others didn’t react, I hazarded a guess and tested to see if I was the one seeing things. “Any way out of here?”

“Can’t see shit down here,” Cage admitted.

“Even with lunar magic.” Lazaro tried to summon a lunar light, but it somehow couldn’t push past a radius of a foot or so around him.

My head pulsed as the singing grew louder, my eyes flickering shut.

Deva’s elegant hands flew over stones marked with runes as she continued to sing softly under her breath. Water surrounded her, flooding everything but the circle in which she sat. Her face was hidden and dark to me, but I could feel her, I could almost touch her ? —

Standing up, I didn’t bother to explain myself. I walked in the direction where I’d seen the hallway, finding that the wall of the room suddenly gave way to—more.

“How did you find that?” Grimshaw demanded.

“I can feel her. I can hear her singing, and I keep seeing things—like this hallway was lit when I woke up. I have no idea; I have to assume it's because of our similar magic,” I admitted, feeling like I was rambling, and began to make my way down.

The walls here held runes that were newer, ones that I could utilize myself. They cast a green glow around us, and I knew the others could see them as well from the confidence in their steps.

I stopped hard as the sound of her singing suddenly cut off, as if something had stopped her. We were so close, so close to finding her. I refused to let us hit a dead end, not when we’d made it this far.

Closing my eyes, I surged all the magic I had toward her, only for it to hit the severed connection of our bond. The loose tethers were unable to reach the other side, to reach her…

I pushed hard and tried to believe that the connection hadn’t been severed, that instead it had only hit a wall. Something I could break through.

As I pushed, it felt like the chamber around us shifted. The others gathered close as the groan and creak of stone against stone made my jaw clench. The scent of death grew stronger as the buzzing of flies began broke over the sound of singing that had resumed?—

My eyes snapped open.

“There,” I whispered, angling myself to the obsidian door that stood three stories tall, the runes on the wall lighting up its existence.

“I have no idea how you did that,” Oz murmured, “but you’re right. She’s in there.”

Suddenly, the sweetest noise in the world echoed loudly in the chamber, bouncing through the walls to reach us.

Deva’s heartbeat.