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He lifted his hand to her cheek only long enough to graze it before he went limp and his eyes rolled shut. Gwen let out a sob of pure terror. Sirus was still breathing. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t moving either. Desperate, she grabbed the dagger in his chest and yanked it out. He didn’t move. To her relief, it wasn’t black. Just silver. And it hadn’t struck his heart, she didn’t think.
“This has all grown rather dull,” Nestra observed with boredom as she strolled past Gwen. “Take her,” she ordered.
A large arm wrapped around Gwen’s middle, and she gasped as she was hauled up and away from Sirus. The firm grip was unyielding, and she knew immediately who it was. She would never forget him, or his sword, for as long as she lived. The man from the mirrors.
He did not hold his sword to her throat, but he held it near. A warning. She tried to fight him off, but he merely squeezed her tighter, constricting her ribs and her lungs.
“It seems I did not have to send you hunting after all, Aldor,” Nestra mused, coming closer to look at Gwen. “My destiny came to me all on its own.”
With what force she had, Gwen elbowed him in the gut. It annoyed him enough that he let her go long enough to spin her around and snatch her by the throat. Aldor’s grip tightened as he glared down at her, his mirror eyes reflecting her straining red face as she struggled to breathe. Gwen pushed his arm, but it did no good.
She’d failed. She’d done nothing. She was going to die. Sirus was going to die. The others?—
Guilt tore at her. It’d been all her fault. Everything. A few tears fell down her face, and she saw a small flare of dark blue in Aldor’s eyes as they did. His expression shifted. Softened. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but his grip loosened, and Gwen hauled in a deep, gasping breath of air.
“Bring her to me,” Nestra ordered.
Aldor dragged her closer, holding his sword against her neck this time. The dark priestess eyed her up and down before she lodged one of Sirus’s swords into the ground at her feet. “The day has finally come,” she said as she reached up to caress Gwen’s cheek with one of her ghostly fingers. She smelled like ash and rotting flesh.
Gwen squirmed under her insidious touch, but Aldor tightened his grip and pressed the sword harder against her neck. Nestra reached behind her back and pulled out a dagger. A black dagger. A jolt of fear shot through Gwen. She knew that dagger. Across its dark, shimmering surface were dull smears of dried blood. Sirus’s blood.
Gwen whimpered as Nestra brought the blade up to her cheek. “The Star will finally be mine,” the dark priestess declared, her wicked smile revealing blackening teeth.
“And you will make me whole,” Aldor added with a touch of desperation.
Nestra’s eyes shifted up to him, as if she’d nearly forgotten he was there at all and could speak. “Of course, my loyal pet,” she replied.
It was only a flicker, the tiniest twitch of her mouth. Gwen saw it out of the corner of her eye, and she sensed her opportunity. “She’s lying,” she told Aldor.
Nestra’s eyes shot to hers. “Silence,” she demanded, scraping the Dökk blade down Gwen’s cheek. She gasped in pain, and Aldor snatched his hand to her mouth to stifle her cry, his sword pressing harder against her neck until it almost cut her too.
Even though his sword was still, Gwen felt his body begin to shake as he held her flush against him.
“Pay her no mind, Aldor,” Nestra told him, her magicks clawing at the edges of Gwen’s consciousness. “The pitiful thing would say anything to live.”
Gwen would, but she wasn’t lying.
Nestra snatched her wrist and pulled it toward her. With the Dökk blade, she cut clean through her jacket and the sweater Rath had knit for her until her arm was exposed all the way to her elbow. The priestess ran her black nail over the jagged pink scar where Sirus had bit into her, and Gwen’s chest grew tight. “That vampire dog drank from her,” she told Aldor. “It’s how he survived my poison.”
Gwen desperately panted shallow breaths through her nose as Aldor’s hold tightened. She tried to think—think of anything she could do. Nestra scraped the dark blade down the length of Gwen’s arm until she reached the spot below the scar. There, Nestra pressed the tip into her flesh, and Aldor held his hand tight against her mouth as Gwen cried out in pain and writhed against him. The dark blade was searing and cold all at once as the evil woman carved into her, each cut burning like a hot iron over her skin.
She squirmed and tried to fight, to no avail, as fear and pain settled into her bones. When Nestra was done, Gwen looked down in horror to see symbols carved into her bleeding skin. Symbols she vaguely recognized. The priestess began to mumble under her breath, and Gwen’s skin sizzled as her magicks began to rise, blue light seeping from the marks in her flesh.
The language the priestess spoke was also familiar. It unsettled something deep inside Gwen. Something locked far away. She fought against it, but there was no use. Bit by bit, with each word of the priestess’s spell, the lock that protected it seemed to be undone. Gwen’s body began to burn as waves of energy spilled into her.
“Jacard thought himself clever to hide the Star inside you,” Nestra said, seemingly to herself. “A child who shared his blood. The blood of your ancestors.” She looked disgusted. “The Dökk were weak and their fall inevitable. Your pathetic, watered-down bloodline deserves to be culled from this realm, but you should be proud,” Nestra told her. “Your sacrifice will bring forth a new age of magick.”
The evil woman smiled with pure delight as she raised her hand and the knife over Gwen’s arm and drew the power toward her. It twirled up out of the symbols in her arm and braided itself around Nestra’s hand.
Gwen tried to turn to shadow. To free herself. The magick didn’t come, didn’t answer, and Aldor held her tight. Panic flooded her, pushing out the pain and the hum of magickal energy vibrating through her body. She managed to glance down at Sirus bleeding in the snow, barely alive. Her heart felt like it was being torn in two. She had to do something. Anything. She closed her eyes.
She’d felt Sirus’s shadows wrap around her countless times. The chill and comfort they brought in the darkness. In the shadows, she’d started to feel at home. In her magick, she’d started to feel connected. Gwen dug deep inside herself. To the part she’d been afraid to touch. The place where the source of her magick had been locked out of reach.
You are of flesh and power. Bone and magick.
Daughter of Darkness.
Child of Shadows.
