Chapter 13: Valen - Bound to Ruin

My father’s red leather office chair rocks when I collapse on it. It knocks into his desk, sending pens and books clattering to the floor in a mess that he would frown disapprovingly at. But I’m too exhausted to care. I spent too long sitting with the magician instead of sleeping.

My gaze drifts to the far corner of the desk where the incoming mail tray sits. Responses to the letters I sent out last night to ensure my father is alive and well should be piled up this close to dawn. But there is nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Oh, arachnid gods, I can’t breathe. The sickly sweet smell of dark magic oozes from my pores, dripping down my skin, as a voice that is sounding less like Alasdair and more like my own won’t stop whispering.

… Even I didn’t believe she’d be so heartless as to keep your father’s death from you.

My hands shake violently as they lift to clutch my too-tight throat. It’s as if I’m being choked, and I gasp for breath, squeezing my eyes shut. A debilitating wave of pent-up pressure threatens to split me open at the seams, and my shoulders draw in, making breathing more difficult with the constriction.

I can’t keep it… I can’t… Oh fucking hell, I can’t do this!

My magic crackles to life, my heart stinging with the violent eruption of it, and a glowing shield wraps around me so thick that the room blurs. I roar, my vision flashing black with the force of it. I rip up to standing and slam my fists down onto the solid wood. The shield crackles and holds strong, and I do it again and again, my skin bruising and voice cracking as I bellow all my rage and agony in my isolated bubble. Safe and unseen.

I collapse on my forearms when my knuckles split, blood bubbling bright red on my perfectly smooth hands. My chest pumps, my lungs burning. I swallow and choke before letting my head hang heavy with the weight of all that was revealed and all that I’ve utterly failed to do.

My spine rounds, and a groan burns through my tight throat. Do not cry. I bare my teeth, my short nails cutting into my palms. Hold it together. He could still be alive. This could be an elaborate trap of Alasdair’s. Don’t fall apart.

Breathe, my sweet boy, just breathe… The phantom voice of my mother nearly cracks me wide open, but I summon all my remaining energy to wrestle my breath back into control. It’s hard, and my lungs and throat fight me, but slowly, I even my breath. With a steady exhale, the tension in my shoulders eases, and my fists uncurl. The splits in my knuckles stitch together, the bruising fading. The blood evaporates in a fine mist.

I need a drink.

The shield dissipates when I drag myself to standing to cross the office towards where the globe holding the good scotch sits. It twists open at my approach, and the decanter and glasses glitter in the wall sconce’s crystal light. The liquid sloshes from my trembling hands, and I barely touch the tumbler to my lips before I kick back the burning liquid in three mighty gulps. I gasp, chest pumping. I want to chug the whole decanter but getting drunk isn’t the answer. That will come later. I have whole decades of my long life to drink myself into a stupor. Alone. That’s such a wretchedly melancholy thought.

I collapse back into my father’s desk chair, and it swings slightly with the momentum.

I stare unseeingly ahead. My father can’t be dead. He’s too powerful. I would know. Surely, I would feel the shift within the estate.

Surely, Mother would sense it and return.

My heart keens painfully, and my vision blurs with those traitorous tears that try to rob me of my sanity. I snatch up the tumbler and take a large gulp. She wouldn’t return. She made it very clear that she would never return with Emilia. Otherwise, the Archweaver could track them down for desertion.

My mother’s tear-stained face that ruined her perfectly painted makeup flashes across my vision. Her hair was a frazzled mess, her twist crooked, and her dress wrinkled. She clutched at me with clawed hands while pleading for me to see reason and run with her. My memory of the way she crumpled to her knees and sobbed when I refused to leave with her slices deep into me.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the memories won’t go away. My sister comes to me now. Same blue eyes, same dark hair, same pale skin that sizzles in the sun if not carefully protected with magic. Emilia embraced me like I was accepting a death sentence before she left. She didn’t look back, and my father didn’t say goodbye, opting to lock himself in this office instead.

I tortured your father so slowly to regenerate my withered body. His agony was deliciously filling. And if it wasn’t for Astoria, I would’ve chosen someone else. Someone she cared about more, but then you would never see how little she thinks about you, just like when she left you to die under her curse all those years ago…

The tumbler crashes into the wall in a shatter of crystal and spray of amber liquid. My chest pumps, my hand curled in a claw. I have no recollection of throwing the glass, but looking at the mess feels good. I want to break more things. There are cabinets full of priceless heirlooms down in the kitchens that would be perfect for it.

My back smacks against the chair, and I pinch my brow. How could Astoria keep his death from me? My own father. Her mentor. Out of all the people in this wretched world, I thought Astoria would know how deeply my love for my family ran. How could she just let me wait forever for my father who would never return?

My teeth grind, my chest seizing. Of course she would do this. I’m a fool for being shocked after everything she’s done. She ripped out my heart and crushed it when I was nineteen. She abandoned me to her curse for seven years with no thought of how it would spread to me or my family as it jumped from each Order member. She chose her commoner life with her magician over me when I offered her the world. My love. My life. My family’s fortune. Everything. We could’ve had everything, and she said no.

The memory of Astoria kneeling in the Archweaver’s grand hall, staring at Viola’s crucified body, comes unbidden. My father and Astoria had spoken softly, but they might as well have screamed for how well that room echoes.

I remembered the way her green eyes glowed like two suns, and her face twisted in a snarl like a beautiful, feral creature of vengeance. Her voice was unnaturally deep with terrifying power as she hissed, “I’ll skin you alive like the snake you are.”

My breath catches, and I shake my head viciously to clear the memory. No, I won’t allow Alasdair’s dark magic to infect my mind like this. He put this voice in my head, something small and subtle to drive a wedge between Astoria and me so I won’t help save her. I won’t become another source of suffering for him to grow stronger on.

I can’t permit Alasdair to unlock every doubt I’ve had for Astoria. I know Astoria. She can be selfish and vicious, but I love her. I love her endlessly.

Even though she continues to break my heart and leave me behind.

My breath trembles as I suck it in, my vision blurring. I summon a new glass of scotch and rest my forehead on the crystal, but there’s no ice cube to cool the heat that burns across my skin. Alasdair is Astoria’s creation. All she had to do was not feed her curse for seven years. All she had to do was pay the cost of such dark magic.

All she had to do was not curse us all to this hell, and none of us would be in this mess.

The urge to throw this glass hits me hard, but I sip it instead. Magic vibrates the air from an incoming delivery, and I bolt upright, heart pounding, but the humans’ morning newspaper appears neatly in the tray on the corner of my father’s desk. It’s dawn. My father should’ve arrived by now. But he hasn’t.

My stomach spasms, sweat erupting over me, and I throw myself over the wastebin beside the desk just in time to throw up all the alcohol I drank. It burns worse coming up than when it went down.

I spit to clear my mouth, and the metal bin vibrates with a gentle thrum of magic when the estate empties it. I fumble the desk drawer and yank it open too roughly. The contents rattle, and I drag myself to kneeling as I hunt through it. There, hidden in the back, are little vials of the blue calming draft that my father hid there after my mother left.

The glass dropper rattles against the vial when I yank it free. I swallow rhythmically, keeping down any additional sickness, and carefully place two sickly sweet drops of potion on my tongue.

The effects are instantaneous. The sickness washes away from me, and my limbs grow steady. I place the potion back into the drawer and slam it shut before retaking my seat.

But a flicker of rage attempts to push through the calming draft.

Finding a way to exorcise Alasdair from my mind needs to become a priority. His magic’s hold on me is unusual, and I have no way of knowing how long I have before I lose track of what thoughts are my own and which are his poison.

Surely somewhere in this massive estate with all its riches and secrets there must be a grimoire explaining magic that alters the mind.

Even if I’ve never heard of such a type of magic before… except when it comes to corruption.

If Alasdair has corrupted me, I’m going to drag him down into the dark recesses of the Weave. I swear upon the Tapestry, I will find a way to take that bastard with me even if I have to make a deal with a demon to do it.

With that grim thought, I flick my fingers towards the Havenport Herald. My magic drags the paper over to sit before me on the desk and unfolds it to smooth it out on the ink blotter. I skim the headlines, half expecting to see “PROMINENT WEAVER COUNCIL MEMBER FOUND BRUTALLY MURDERED IN LOCAL BOOKSHOP” plastered across the front.

What I find instead has me sitting up and turning the chair towards the desk. The paper crinkles when I slide it closer.

NEW LAW ENACTED! GUILDLESS MAGICIANS NOW ILLEGAL WITHIN DELORNIA

Following the Magistrate’s shutdown of the illegal grimoire smuggling ring run by rogue weaver Aster Rosemont and Guildless magician Lucas Flint, Prime Minister Forbes has declared all Guildless magicians unlawful within all Delornian territories. Guildless magicians must either surrender to their guilds for registration or forfeit their magical tokens for safe transport back to the capital, where the Amur Guild has been declared safe-keepers of all unassigned tokens.

“The Amur Guild is the oldest and largest [Magicians’] Guild within Delornia,” reports Prime Minister Forbes. “They have worked tirelessly with the Magical Magistrate to ensure peace and have proven qualified to spearhead this endeavor to keep our country safe from lawless magical users.”

With the announcement, Prime Minister Forbes has named the Amur Guild Leader Dimitar Reagath the newly created High Guild Commander, under which he will oversee all other Guild Leaders to ensure that they follow Magistrate law. As High Guild Commander, Reagath can bring other leaders to trial as well as dismantle any Guild that threatens the safety of the country.

The Magistrate released this official statement: “Reagath will be instrumental in bringing magic users to heel and neutralizing the dangerous grimoires imprisoned within Peripetia Bookshop. Until the shop is cleared, Third Street will remain closed.”

No timeline for reopening was given, only that the grimoires are safely imprisoned while the Amur Guild gathers reinforcements in the upcoming days from other surrounding magician guilds.

I don’t bother reading more. Dimitar’s smug face shaking hands with the Prime Minister has my lip curling. Lucas’ quiet confession about why he left the Guild rings in my ears, and frost crawls up the sides of my glass in tendrils from my fingertips. Lucas was right. That snake wasted no time in taking advantage of the fear and chaos to gain more power. Now he’s bringing in reinforcements and collecting tokens.

Those terrified humans are too eager to give a man like Dimitar all that power with no thought of the future. It’s only a matter of time before the humans complete their army and come to purge the forest of weavers. Our civil war will only weaken us, and with Dimitar surging in power and numbers, he will overtake us. Then when he’s done, he’ll turn on the humans, which is exactly what they deserve for being so shortsighted.

My glass clicks down, and I scrub my face. Atticus will use this news to his advantage. He will argue for unity to face the threat of the humans. And with my father dead…

Cool sweat clings to me as the weight of all that is collapsing suffocates me. The civil war could be over, and I wouldn’t know until Atticus arrives to execute me for treason. The silence after my letters is horrifying. There is a very real possibility that it’s not only my father who Alasdair killed, but all the weavers that were with him. Or worse, our former allies betrayed my father to save themselves. Which means they could be heading here to gift me to Atticus.

Ice drips from the wall, my breath clouding before me. The tumbler reflects blue from my eyes.

Alasdair might’ve infected my mind, but he did me a favor. He showed me the weakness in the estate’s defenses. I don’t have much time to retrieve the signet ring from my father’s body and claim my birthright. Dimitar is already gathering reinforcements to storm the bookshop. The power any of those magicians will receive from communing with a grimoire is horrifying, but it’s overshadowed by the dread of them discovering my father’s body. I can’t permit my father to become a ghost if they improperly burn his body. It is my duty as his son to ensure he passes to the Weave.

I drum my fingers, eyes narrowing. Recovering my father from the bookshop basement is our first priority. Lucas will loathe this plan. He already struggles with believing Astoria is truly safe with Jinx in the Weave. Unfortunately, I need his assistance to get to the basement. Astoria is crafty, and I’m not a ward breaker. Besides, I’m sure the grimoires running loose will be hell to battle through alone.

I’ll need to carefully present this plan to make sure Lucas agrees to go along with it. After all, the power I will inherit from my father could make all the difference in our fight to save Astoria. Both Lucas and I have faced Alasdair and lost. Ensuring the next encounter ends in our success is the only way to free the woman we love.

Lucas should rest and heal for another few days, but we no longer have the luxury of waiting much longer. I’ll have to assess him after his next round of treatment.

Then, we’ll save Astoria and free us of Alasdair’s influence. If anyone can carve Alasdair out of my heart and mind, it is my vicious beloved. She just needs to hold on until then.