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“For now anyway.” Any warmth was gone from his voice, the sneer so heavy I could see it without looking. I looked anyway.
“What do you mean, Batian?” I didn’t want to know, but I also wasn’t a fool enough to think I could continue going on oblivious to whatever game I had been thrust into.
I had told my parents on the way to the Runturin that I thought something wicked was brewing there, that I had seen things on my last visit that were not adding up, moments when Batian didn’t look like himself. When he didn’t act like himself.
They told me not to worry. To play the game and take and bed the prince, to become queen and birth princes and princesses and do my part. I had agreed. Besides, I had been betrothed to Batian since I was a child, it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.
Looking at him now, I resented the agreement that had been signed so long ago.
“I mean, you won’t need her much longer, not now that we are bound.” He seemed so proud of himself, so smug. It was making my stomach twist.
Carry made a sound near a sob as I dropped my hands, my entire body shaking as I stood to face Bastian. Even though Carry being there had taken away some of the fog, the bone deep exhaustion still remained as I pulled myself up to stand before him, refusing to look away even as he smiled with a wicked grin was twisting everything the wrong way.
“A binding does not negate my Catalyst, Batian. I will always need her.” The snickering of the guards punctuated my statement in all the wrong ways.
“On normal terms yes,” he gathered my hands in his, his voice suddenly soft. Even through the change I still wanted to shirk away from him, but he held on tightly. “But our binding was special, Aeinya. My mother held the power of the Goddess in her hands as she bound us. When blood is bound like that it creates a soul connection, a connection so deep that I feel every inch of you inside of me now. Every piece. Every speck of your magic. I feel it, I control it.” He flexed his fingers, the ground beneath us trembling as in answer. The shake ran right up my legs, I would have fallen to my knees if he wasn’t holding my hand so tightly.
“Didn’t you feel the ground shake as your power was placed in my hands, when our magic was intertwined?” Batian squeezed my hands again, that twist of power from Carry’s arrival rattling in my bones. He squeezed my hands, as though he was somehow controlling it.
“Batian… I…”
“You don’t need your Catalyst, Aeinya. Not anymore. You never did. They have been stealing our magic for centuries, and it’s time we took it back. It’s time we took control.” Every word was a deeper stab into my belly, a deeper twist of something dark that I didn’t want to be a part of.
Nothing that he was saying made sense, but I didn’t need to understand to see the wickedness that had taken over him.
“It’s my wedding gift to you,” he whispered, clutching both of my hands in one of his as he gestured for one of the guards to come forward.
The sound of Carry’s cries drowned out the rest of the world, each whimper a roar in my ear as the black clad guard stepped forward. A long box held between gloved hands.
“Batian.” I tried to step back, but his hand was hot and tight against my own, that twisted smile making a return as the guard reached us, lifting the lid to reveal a long white knife. It looked more like a snake than it did a blade, but it didn’t matter, I knew what it was regardless. I knew what it was for.
I couldn't breathe, I couldn’t think. Carry’s whimpers turned to sobs as my own joined her. I tried to escape the grip of the man who was now my husband. All my training, all my years of fighting in the deserts and battling the Wyverns that come down to eat our crops and I couldn’t escape him.
I couldn’t escape the hell that I had willingly walked into.
“Batian! No!” The words were more of strangled gasps.
“Take your magic back, Aeinya. As future Queen, you must take your magic. This must be your first right.” The guard still stood there, his expression as twisted and sour as Batian’s. My husband took the knife from the box by the head of the snake, the sharp tail glinting as he held it out to me. “Kill the thief.”
“No!” My voice ripped as the word exploded out of me. The ground rumbled below me as my magic ignited.
“Please!” Carry gasped through her sobs, through her moans, her body trembling as she crawled toward me, those swollen and bruised hands not able to unfurl against the ground.
She didn’t make it more than a single shuffle before one of the guards rushed forward, his foot slamming into her gut and sending her rolling to her back.
“Kill the thief, Aeinya. Kill the dirty little Catalyst.” Batian’s hand jerked me closer, pulling me right into him as he placed the blade against my face, pulling my focus back to him.
“Don’t worry, Darling. It’s easy. A cut, some blood, and then all the magic will be yours. It’s a beautiful feeling, I promise you, you will experience nothing like it. Save to me.” He thrust his groin against me to prove his point, his erection slamming against my navel as that wicked grin contorted his face again. The true reality of what he said hit me.
“You killed… your Catalyst.”
“The night before your walk. A bit of fun, a bit of blood, and that power was mine. As it should have always been.” Light sparked at his fingertips, the power shimmering and illuminating the red eye on the knife of the snake, the glimmering speck like a single drop of blood.
“No,” the word was a sob, the sound mixed with Carry’s cries as his face fell.
“No?”
“I won’t kill her.” I was firm, well as firm as I could be with how my voice shook, with how my soul was screaming in panic as he slammed the knife back into the box, stepping away as he roughly shoved my hands away.
