Chapter 18: Valen - Bound to Ruin

PERIPETEIA BOOKSHOP, HAVENPORT, DELORNIA

Astoria’s loft is dark and empty. I turn in a circle, scanning the above open bedroom and the books of Creation that sing softly, the vines pouring from their pages wrapping around the railing of the wooden stairs. How long has it been since I was sleeping in that bed above with Lucas and Astoria while we recovered? It might as well be years ago now for how heavy and empty I feel inside.

I turn my back to the stairs and bedroom above before the tendrils of memories suck me back. I don’t need the added torture of what could’ve been. Today is going to be difficult enough as is.

I follow silently behind Lucas as he leads the way to the loft’s front door. He eases it open slowly, checking to ensure no grimoire is waiting to devour us on the other side before opening the door the rest of the way to the iron staircase.

The shop below is like a black pit, with not even a flickering crystal to light the space. Lucas flips a dagger in his hold and goes to step forward, but my hand snaps out to drag him back. “Do try your best to contain your martyr instincts. I’d hate to break my promise to Astoria so soon.”

His eyes dance in amusement, and he sweeps his arm out. “By all means. After you.”

I step out before him. Magic ripples from me, a shield taking form. I keep my hands out of my pockets and carefully hold them away from the iron stairs as we descend. The metal reflects the blue of my eyes, and I carefully scan the shop below. Peripetia is utterly destroyed. Bookcases are turned over, some stuck together at odd angles. Loose, shredded paper litters the ground. A few books hiss and shrink back into the nests they’ve made. Darkness is all around, the crystals long gone from their holders to be snacks to the hungry books.

No grimoire creature emerges yet.

Lucas keeps his rings dark, apart from one that glints dimly so that he can see in the darkness, like I can. He needs to preserve as much of his magic as possible until it’s time to try to break the wards on the basement door. Though I doubt the reckless fool will be able to resist for long. I’m shocked he hasn’t unsheathed the sword yet. I was sure he’d be sprinting down the steps with it by now.

I pause at the last step. Vines coat the hardwood floor, twisting and crawling through the gloom. A treatise written by a potion master sits mangled among the tangled growth, looking like it had been constricted by green snakes until the hardcase cracked and pages burst forth. This must be the carnivorous plant sprouting from one of the books nearby that almost claimed Lucas the last time he was here. One wrong step, and the creature will either drag us into its papery lair or crush us until we pop like the treatise.

I scan the ruined shelves blocking the most straightforward way to the basement. There’s an odd flavor to the air, and I breathe more deeply through my parted lips to try to get a better sense of it. The subtle tang is overwhelmed by the physical pressure upon my tongue. I blink, catching flashes of distortions out of the corners of my eyes and realize what is causing this disturbance. Astoria created a pocket within reality for her grimoires to slip in and out of. The books have shredded their way out, and the tattered remains of the pocket drift through the shop.

I flex my fingers, my magic swirling around us. We agreed to remain as silent as possible to keep the risk of engaging with the grimoires at a minimum, but I take the necessary risk for four quiet words. “Step where I step.”

I don’t wait for him to agree. I step onto the floor, and the soles of my shoes glow with the power of Preservation that keeps the plant unaware of our presence. I don’t look behind me to ensure Lucas is following. It’s an exercise in trust, and I grind my teeth to keep my focus ahead.

We follow an easy-to-traverse section. It’s more of a roundabout way, but trying to clear the nests will agitate the grimoires and provoke an unnecessary fight. Besides, I don’t particularly enjoy the disturbing sensation from the distorted pockets. The edges ripple, like tendrils reaching forth.

The grimoires are watching us from the darkness, their magic humming just out of sight. Glints of the Soul Threads in their bindings wink at me, but I resist their lure of power. There is no book within this place that I would risk becoming distracted by.

I pause. Below us, vines lie limp where they have been ripped apart, like something clawed them free of the wood floor. There are pits and loose planks, but there is enough of the floorboards intact for us to walk upon. I step onto the cleared floor, pausing when I do to listen. No rustling of grimoires surges, and I take another cautious step before proceeding. Lucas’ boots thudding on the wrecked hardwood behind me is a relief, and he steps up beside me to perform his own scan. Our eyes meet once, Lucas’ jaw tensing, his glowing honey eyes taking on a tinge of blue from the light of mine. He withdraws his sword, and I nod in approval when his nine rings remain black.

Whatever cleared this path, it was something very powerful. The stacks cave in where the path originates. My fingers drum against my thigh as I ponder the source. It could be a grimoire. The bear monstrosity Lucas described chasing him could be carving out its territory, or perhaps it’s the work of the blade-legged thing that Lucas unleashed on the Magistrate’s officers.

I step forward, my senses prickling, Lucas close behind to guard my back. Even with the vines cleared, it’s a treacherous journey. The hardwood is a mangled wreck, and I can’t scan the darkness for grimoires while carefully stepping over ripped-up paper and black pits.

The path branches. The one on the right leads to the far back of the shop and the one to the left heads towards the front. I take the left path, but Lucas grabs my shoulder, stopping me. My magic surges, crackling along my fingers in little sparks that light up the darkness, but he shakes his head and points with the sword towards the path to the right.

I shake my head, silently saying, No, we need to head to the front. I nod towards the path I want. The basement where the body is can only be accessed through the back room behind the front register. Getting sidetracked will not help us. The Guild might show up any minute with their freshly arrived reinforcements to storm the bookshop. But Lucas is adamant, shaking his head and pointing more firmly towards the path to the right. His eyes are wide, like he’s trying to tell me something without using words. He keeps his hand on my shoulder and gently tugs.

The temptation to ignore him is strong, but if he’s delaying our progress, thus delaying saving Astoria, then this must be important. Besides, he is much more familiar with Astoria’s hellish shop than I am. He could know something I don’t.

With a sigh, I nod and step before him.

Lucas is close to me, his one hand remaining on my shoulder. The weight is an annoyance. It relaxes me too much when I need to be on edge and focused. And yet, I let him keep it there.

Lucas stops me. He holds out his hand, and his threads slither out.

I hiss, “Do not—” but I see why he brought me here.

A brick wall is utterly destroyed, the building’s framing exposed like a gutted stag. Shattered crystal pieces flicker and paint flakes off the fragments of brick.

Lucas whispers the suspicion within my heart aloud. “This was the heart of the shop. Tor’s pentagram.”

My heart thuds, a prickling unease crawling up my spine. I scan the perimeter, noting the absence of hiding grimoires. The stacks are mostly still upright and barren. I step closer to Lucas so we’re back to back, the warmth of his presence easing the prickling. “Was a grimoire trying to claw its way out?”

Lucas’ hair brushes my neck when he shakes his head. “There are better places along the wall that would be easier to try to claw through.”

I frown at the destruction. “There are no claw marks. It’s almost like an internal detonation. Is there a grimoire in here that could wield magic like that?”

“No, but I wouldn’t put it past Tor to ‘forget’ to tell me if there was.”

I snort, the corner of my lips lifting in a hint of a smile before I wipe the amusement from me. “Cover me.”

Lucas spins the black sword over one wrist while his other hand flexes to control his rings. It takes me a moment to recall the hand symbols, but I flip through the sequence and hiss the incantation into existence. Shadows of the brick lift, soaring back to where each originally lay along the wall in a reset of the space. The spell replays the demolition. The grout cracks, then dust rains down when it crumbles away. The bricks shift, then explode outwards into the pattern the pieces now lie in.

I pause the illusion and carefully step over piles of ruined brick to get a better look at the wall. I frown at it. “What was hidden within the pentagram?”

“Nothing?” Lucas crosses the destruction on swift feet. He scans the perimeter once more before stepping behind me to see what I see. “What is that?”

I reach my hand out and trace the illusion of the plain, unremarkable notebook that is coated in the dust of the grout, as if Astoria covered it in the cement before burying it at the center of the pentagram. My finger slips through the illusion to touch the slight indentation where the book once was. As I do, I murmur, “If I didn’t witness her giving her grimoire to the Amur, I would assume that this was it. When they’re young like hers was, they look like ordinary books.”

“Could she make a second one if she has two threads?” Lucas wonders.

I shake my head. “She said both of her threads were woven into her grimoire. Besides, burying a young grimoire would make it inert. It needs to be communed with regularly.”

I permit the shadow of the detonation to continue. The buried notebook is removed with no imprint of who plucked it from the hiding spot. My body tightens, and my gaze flits around the perimeter.

“No grimoire could’ve done this, not even the ones that can become creatures. This has to be a magic wielder, a skilled one at that.”

Lucas crouches, smoothing his hand over the wreckage, his threads slithering all around like snakes. The instinct to snap at him to preserve his magic is strong, but I hold my tongue in hopes that he discovers something that I might’ve missed.

The gold threads withdraw, and he frowns. “Whoever it was, they’re good at covering their tracks. I can’t catch any signature. But that could be because the lingering magic from the pentagram and the grimoires all around is making it difficult to decipher the subtle differences. Whoever stole the notebook could’ve gotten lucky.”

I shake my head, lowering my voice. “The spell I cast to replay the detonation should’ve picked up on some sort of magic signature from a wand or a Soul Thread. The fact that it didn’t means that whoever did this knew exactly how to cover their tracks.”

Lucas straightens with a sigh. “I can do it, but that’s because of my rings. I don’t know of another token that has the power or capability to do it.”

I don’t respond. I don’t need to. Our eyes meet, and the word passes between us. Weaver.

We need to move fast. If a weaver was here, they might’ve broken into the basement. Hopefully, luck is on my side; they were only here for the mysterious notebook, and are long gone. The way Lucas’ hand tightens his sword tells me he’s wondering the same thing as I am. Are we alone?

No more wasting time. I nod towards the path, and Lucas falls in line. We backtrack until we follow the path that leads towards the front of the shop. Destroyed grimoires coat the way, their shredded pages and mangled spines hanging from the shelves.

I step out of the stacks, carefully keeping an eye on a group of grimoires that are stalking us from along the top of the shelves. A soft crunch under my boot has me pausing. I step back, then freeze.

The front of the store is stained with old blood. Flakes of it have fallen, and the large, thick pool on the varnished floor has the crumbling layers of old congealed blood, the quantity of which meant my father was still alive when Alasdair brought him here. A chill drips along my insides, coating me in a tingling numbness. The healer side of my mind clocks the darkness of the blood, the amount of flaking, in a detached manner, offering useless tidbits of knowledge that I can’t quite process through the white noise in my ears.

Lucas sighs from a distance away. “Well, there’s the second book.”

I blink, dragging my gaze from the carnage to frown at him. He’s at the top of the three steps that lead to the front door. I can just barely make out the outline of a massive paper bear with a crocodilian mouth scattered along the steps, having fallen to pieces the moment the book’s spine was ripped from it, which sits discarded beside Lucas’ right foot.

All I can make out of Lucas is his profile as he examines the destroyed grimoire and the front door, which he points to in emphasis. “From what I can tell, someone slipped through the Magistrate’s seal on the shop, fought their way to the back there—” he points at two destroyed stacks closest to the front counter that are blasted apart “—then they circled around to retrieve that notebook and brought it back to the front by the path we took.”

I close my eyes briefly, trying to control my breathing. My mind roars with a pulsing of pain I’ve never experienced, and I clear my throat before attempting to be helpful. “Guild? Dimitar? Magistrate himself?”

I’ve never met the Magistrate, but I doubt he would appear to handle this personally. He is well guarded within the parliament district, and no magic users are permitted within.

I rub my forehead, my eyes squeezing shut. I’m being an idiot. We already determined it was a weaver. I add, “Alasdair?”

I keep my eyes closed, still rubbing to try to clear the fog from my brain, but it’s no use. The stale, musty stench of old blood is clogging my nose. I can barely manage a whole intake of breath without my throat convulsing, bile rolling in my gut. My skin crawls like the stench is a living miasma that coats me, filling each pore to ooze down my flesh. I shiver, twitching, trying to rid myself of the sensation, to clear my lungs from the rotting remains of my father’s lifeblood.

Alasdair’s voice hisses in my ear, the crawling on my skin transforming into a snake that coils around and around me.

I tortured your father so slowly to regenerate my withered body. His agony was deliciously filling.

My teeth click, my lips curling as I scream within my mind, GET OUT.

But it’s no use. His agony was delicious echoes over and over, mixing with Alasdair’s joyous laugh until his words shift, his voice changing. She knew… drums in time with my racing heart and no longer sounds like Alasdair at all, but my own voice screaming into the abyss of my torment.

My eyes snap open, and I gasp, but it makes it worse. The evidence of my father’s torture surrounds me. The dried blood coating the foyer. The smell of death that clings to this ruined shop. And worse, Alasdair’s poison sinks deeper and deeper into my soul.

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

I close my eyes again with a small whimper.

… so heartless as to keep my father’s death from me…

Lucas is talking, and it’s as if he’s a great distance away. I try to lock in on what he’s saying, try to unstick my gritted teeth to beg for his assistance. But I can do nothing but tremble while Lucas prattles on obliviously. “Alasdair is my bet, unless Dimitar has access to new magics, which I wouldn’t put it past him. Tor has sold him many grimoires over the years.” He sighs, and I manage to open my eyes to gaze at him pleadingly when he shifts his stance to face me. “I don’t know. Maybe—VALEN!”

My father would be so disappointed in me. I can see his frown, the twitch of his mustache, his blue eyes that mirror mine. Control. Vigilance. Two basic principles of using Bauer magic. There is no room for distraction. No excuse accepted for negligence.

My gaze meets Lucas’ wide and panicked one as he surges forward. His rings spark to life, threads shooting forward like deadly, magical spears. I reach for my magic, but my concentration is broken, and my mind is sluggish from the horror of witnessing my father’s blood splattered all over this shop.

Sloppy, Valen. His disappointed sigh echoes in my mind, and my eyes burn, the image of Lucas blurring.

Black mist from a grimoire surrounds me, shifting my hair to tickle my face. I suck in breath, my knees going weak as self-preservation initiates the instinct to dodge.

The impact collides with my left shoulder blade centimeters from my thumping heart and my soul nestled within. The bone shatters, my mouth spreading wide in a cry. Golden light blinds me, Lucas’ threads arcing around me to slam into the creature that is dissolving my flesh in deep, gulping draws. I spin from the momentum and crash into the ground.

I blink, numbness flooding my mind. Shock. It’ll rob me of my senses if I don’t do something. My fingers twitch, and agony pulses with each pound of my heart. My left is useless, but at least my dominant arm is still working.

My blood pours from me, my shirt partially dissolved from the impact of the grimoire. The red mixes with rusty, flaky remains of my father’s blood. How fitting. We’re both to die in this shop.

Crashing and flashes of a mighty battle around me begin to penetrate my daze. I suck in a breath, convulsing from the agony of my exposed bone.

Get up, Valentin, my father’s firm tone demands of me. Now concentrate. What did you learn from those healer books you were obsessed with?

I suck in a breath, flinching. My lung isn’t collapsed, but my ribs are bruised or cracked. I’ll take that. I shift. Clavicle intact. The grimoire was dissolving my flesh, but did it manage to take out my muscles? There are eighteen very important ones that cross through there. I put my right hand under me and push off the floor with a roar. My arm shakes, my vision flashing, but I don’t stop. I can’t. Sweat pours down me as I sit back on my heels. I clutch my useless left arm and blink away the black spots obscuring my vision.

It doesn’t take long to find Lucas and the smoky grimoire. He’s struggling with it, his threads barely able to keep it back.

I raise my trembling right arm, the image of my father prominent in my mind. My jaw sets, and my eyes flare bright. I snarl the incantation, my heart pulsing painfully and my soul screaming as my thread surges with power. It’s powerful magic that usually requires me to be at full strength and not injured and exhausted from holding my family’s estate’s wards together, but if I learned anything from Astoria, it’s fuck everything and do it.

Magic pulses, the room, the air, going completely still before sucking in. The power of Preservation blasts from my hand, coating my fingers in frost until blisters form. If I had claimed my father’s position before trying this spell, perhaps that wouldn’t have happened, but I don’t give a flying fuck anymore.

The grimoire screeches, the mist solidifying, preventing it from shifting in and out of reality as I trap it. My vision is dimming, but I don’t release my hold on my magic.

Thank all the nonexistent arachnid gods that Lucas isn’t incompetent. The enchanted sword arcs through the air and slices through the grimoire. The two halves of the cover fall apart, my magic starting to fade with my vision. Lucas draws back a fist and punches it with perfect form. The detonation from the gloves blasts the spine apart, the Soul Thread in the binding dissolving as it fades back to the Tapestry.

I release a breath and my body gives out. My skull smacks the ground in an explosion of pain, and everything goes dark.