Shadow Heir Chapter 25 and 26

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CW: Violence and dehumanization

My shoulders and arms burned from where they’d grabbed me with iron gloved hands. Red welts seared into my skin—their handprints marking me for all to see.

Look, a dirty Sylvan halfbreed.

I tried not to scream, tried not to struggle. This was for the best, wasn’t it? The only way out that wouldn’t destroy the world?

They pitched me into an iron bird cage with bars so close together I couldn’t do more than stick my fingers through. Metal burned the soles of my feet.

The door slammed shut, locked. The guards laughed and banged against something. The sound traveled up.

The entire cage moved with a jerk that threw me off my feet and pitched me into the iron walls. Agony slashed across my the back of my shoulder, my arm thrown out to stop the fall, my bottom where it landed against the cage.

Don’t cry. Don’t show weakness.

Stripped bare. No clothes, no dignity, no shelter from the pain—nothing. But I would not become the animal they saw me as.

Blackness wove between the bars of my cage. The world went dark and still the cage moved upwards—to where?

The amphitheater the Mercy had shown us. That’s where traitors were judged.

Almost, I hugged myself close, tried to conceal bare breasts and too much skin from their eyes. Surely they would be able to see in even as this spell kept me from seeing out.

Fine.

They wanted to see all of me, wanted me to mewl like an animal, wanted me to cringe away from their eyes. I wasn’t the one who had stripped my clothes off, I had nothing to hide. Their cruelty had nothing to do with me. Pain? I’d dealt with worse from Tel’garoph. Embarrassment? I’d frozen into a Popsicle in front of Serenity’s entire teenage population. If they wanted to be depraved, let them. I would not bend under their gaze.

Even as the cage rocked unsteadily with the force pulling it up, I reached out a hand and wrapped an already scorched hand around the bars. Bent my feet beneath me and stood.

If this was it, I’d face my death with dignity.

The cage jolted to a stop and whispers erupted in the darkness beyond. I could imagine all those seats filled with black-coated Justices murmuring to one another.

What would they have done if they’d been born like me? Would they have sought the Order out and asked for death? Would they have run? Would they have let Tel’garoph take their soul just to make the pain stop?

During your hearing, they will offer you a deal. Take it.

What deal, and how did Father persuade them to offer it? Could I persuade them I was worthy of it?

The thought of persuading these peacocks that I was worthy of anything made my belly twist. If they were the chosen few and they’d chosen to torture people doing their best to survive, then what would I have to do to convince them of my worthiness?

A voice, decidedly feminine, called for silence in a voice that cut through the whispers. Silence fell. I turned to face the voice.

“We are gathered to discuss the betrayal of a Fledgling of the Order.”

My eyes strained to pierce the darkness, searching for the figure who wielded that voice. Fingers curled in frustration. They called my power of darkness evil but cloaked themselves in the same.

Hypocrites.

Another voice from the same direction, male this time. Calm, almost bored. “The Virtues call forth our Mercy as the witness to this betrayal.”

Beyond the veil of darkness, a shape outlined in the brightest white moved. The motion was a lightening in the black, a shift in the swirls. Phillipe Pendragon, so-called Mercy.

The black swirled. One protrusion of light pierced the curtain. A finger stabbed toward me. “This Sylvan pretended to be human so that it could learn the secrets this Order keeps within its walls.”

And you told them to us. I couldn’t have left if I’d wanted to.

The whispers started up again. Phillipe talked over them.

“It got itself the skin of a human to complete the illusion.”

The cage jerked down and to the side, too fast. I stumbled forward. The bars caught me. Agony lashed exposed skin from neck to hip, a fiery line drawn over breast and belly.

Laughter tainted the whispers.

I picked myself up, clenched my teeth around venomous words as a tear trickled down one cheek. Obscene. Why would he do that? The hands already engraved in my skin proved his point. I’d been planning on turning myself in!

I scrubbed the wetness from my cheek and picked myself up. Whispers cut like knifes, filleting. I held my head high. This wasn’t a testament to my evil but his. See how he tortures a harmless teenage girl. See his depravity for what it is.

They wouldn’t. If Phillipe Pendragon exemplified their mercy, they would see only what he told them to see.

If I ever left this cage, I would ice them all.

“See how her skin burns? It looks like any human skin, but that is only illusion. Not an illusion made of magic, but of flesh and blood. And despite its best attempts to defy us, to contaminate our minds with pity, iron reveals all.”

A voice from the black—not from those thrones where the Virtues no-doubt sat, but from the stone carved stands. “How? How could they do something like that?”

The white outline that was the Mercy brightened. “I can tell you how they didn’t do it. They didn’t spin this thing of magic like a synthetic sylph. They didn’t birth it in the manner of the changeable ones from beyond time.”

“Then how!”

The whispers repeated that word. My lip curled in disgust. They hung on his every word.

“How do you think! The Unseelie King lured a mortal woman into his realm and contracted her to bear him a child. She betrayed her kind for wealth and magic and this shell is the flesh suit Tel’garoph will use to subjugate the mortal realm.”

A breath whispered from my throat. “No.” I would have never let that happen. I would have rather died.

Would have?

Would.

I would rather die.

But not like this.

The blackness hissed. Hatred, disgust, and fear mixed with gloating superiority, stabbed me.

Hypocrites.

I would kill them all. Every single one.

Phillipe continued. “And what should be done with a traitor to our kind like the thing that stands before us?”

Whispers turned to shouts, voices screaming for my death.

Kill it.

Death.

Die!

I shoved the feeling of sickness churning my gut down. I would not vomit in this cage.

The female Virtue tried to quiet the crowd, but furious voices overrode her.

The cage rocked. Something thrown at it? More of Phillipe’s cruelty?

I gripped the bars with both hands and pushed at the magic. These people screaming for my death would not have anonymity. They would meet my eyes while they did it.

Pain in my head barely differentiable from the rest of my hurts spiked. The cage swung with the force of that spell unraveling.

Darkness died.

As I’d thought. I stood in this bird cage suspended in the center of the stone amphitheater. Black coats filled every seat except for the three throne-like chairs in the far wall. The Virtues wore white rimmed in gold—as if they were any more pure than the people they reigned over.

I locked eyes with them. Virtues, huh? Did they have any? Or were they just as corrupt as their Mercy?

The crowd clamored, I ignored them. Stared at the woman Virtue sitting in the center. I didn’t have to get the Justices to listen, only these three. “You call me a weapon for Tel’garoph,” I said, the words slow and calm.

Her eyebrows rose. She could hear me. Good.

“Have you ever wondered what I was before Tel’garoph shattered my life? For sixteen years, what was I? Because he makes it sound like I was a monster.”

The man on her right tilted his head. His eyes flashed with anger.

“I always wanted to go to school, you know. Father wouldn’t let me. Still, I got a backpack and ran to join the stream of children on their way to elementary school. Children don’t know when they’re different. I didn’t—not then.”

The third Virtue may have been listening, but he didn’t look like it. Phillipe was basking in the crowd’s bloodthirstiness. Too bad. I had two of the three.

“I got older, realized that there was something evil inside me, and I controlled it. I shoved it down deep. I didn’t want that, didn’t want to know about this magical world you all take for granted. Ignorance was bliss. Don’t let the power out, avoid anything that would set off metal allergies like anyone else would avoid nickel jewelry.”

The whispers started to quiet.

I raised my voice. “You never asked me what I thought when the monster from my childhood bedtime stories forced his way into my house and laid claim to me. You never asked if I fought him or if I welcomed him. You never asked what it was like to see the man who raised me gutted in front of me. You never asked what it was like to know that a monster wasn’t just going to destroy you, but was going to take your body and use it to destroy everything you ever cared about!”

The room rang with silence. I was breathing hard. Sweat ran down my temple. Memories came hot and thick, repressed terror, repressed fury.

“You think that I’m a monster. Maybe I am, but I’m a monster who could have let go when your Mercy failed to contain Tel’garoph in a trap I set. I’m a monster who faced agony, who could have let go in the face of the Unseelie King’s power, who could have given up and let him destroy everything. I’m a monster who held on instead. And I’m the monster who’s going to destroy Tel’garoph to keep him from using me. Show me one other human being who could do that. Show me one person who has a chance against him.”

Silence.

Fabric rustled uncertainly.

Phillipe opened his mouth. Closed it again.

“Call me a monster. Call me whatever you want. I’ve stood between you and destruction, even knowing that you wanted me dead. And even now—” I dragged my fingers through the air, motioning at the welts that criss-crossed my skin, “—I won’t stop. Because punishing you by letting go isn’t worth it. There are good people out there and I won’t let them suffer because of your evil.”

Phillipe was choking. The weight of eyes lifted away. I pivoted slowly. They wouldn’t look at me. No longer an animal, I was a girl that they’d shoved naked into a cage and tortured.

Shame.

I turned back to the Virtues. The one on the left held rage as openly as he’d held hate. The one on the right looked at the air above my head rather than meet my eyes. The woman spoke. “There is a faint glimmer of humanity in you after all, brought out when the unnatural blood was suppressed in iron. Very well.” She twitched a finger. A suit of iron armor appeared between us. Spikes studded both shoulders. A black iron broadsword was welded onto the right hand gauntlet.

I’d seen that armor before.

Janaeus had confessed that he couldn’t see the future, but sylvans were good at misdirection. This was my future and that same armor hovered before me.

Chains of ice and iron—I’d slipped out of that fate. I would die before becoming Tel’garoph’s puppet. But the choice left wasn’t one between claiming my own power and serving the Order, it was between eternal torture encased in iron and death.

A piece of off-white parchment appeared with an X on one side next to a steady black line. There was no pen—only a small iron nail.

“Serve the Order as the Mercy’s Enforcer, subject to the words of this Council of Virtues. Wear the armor and become Unseelie King’s bane.”

My throat went dry. This was the deal. Father had said to take it. “How long?” My voice wavered. I hated myself for it.

But this was a way out. I had to take it—it would be stupid not to.

“Fifty years.”

I closed my eyes. Another wave of sickness fought to get out. This was the deal Father wanted me to take? Live in agony for fifty years inside that portable dungeon, killing without question whatever the Order told me to kill?

Certain death or a chance at life?

I peeled my eyes back open and stared at the parchment. The nail was sharp. All I had to do was slice the tip of my finger and sign it in blood. Whatever magic they’d imbued the contract with would take over, I’d move from this bird cage to that murderous coffin.

Father promised he would get me out of this.

Father told me to take the deal.

Father wanted me safe.

Father loved me.

Father wanted me to do this.

With a trembling hand, I reached out to take the nail. Certain death or a chance at life. The burning between thumb and forefinger was nothing compared to the fire in the soles of my feet.

The tip of the nail shimmered as I drew it toward my opposite hand. I held my breath.

Iron tasted blood.

I held that finger above the paper. Breath came fast and hard.

I had to.

It was the only way.

Father said—

The world faded and I sucked in a long, careful breath.

Kill for Tel’garoph or kill for the Order? What kind of choice was that?

Without Father’s words, would I have put myself in the Order’s control? How could I let these depraved hypocrites use me as their tool? They’d stolen Father from me, hunted me at every turn, taken my humanity, tortured me.

I’d already made this choice in front of Janaeus’s mirror. The answer hadn’t changed.

Fingers curled into a fist, sealing the bloody fingertip inside. I raised my chin and stared at the Virtue. “You have no right to confine me, no right to torture me, no right to pass judgment on me. Virtue? Perhaps you have the virtue of the devil, because you’re trying to do the exact same thing Tel’garoph is trying to do. No. Just as I won’t kill for him, I refuse to kill for you. I’d rather die.”

No matter what Father said, I would not sign my freedom away for a reward of blood and hell.

I thought I’d have more time.

Black cloaked faces stared at me under the noon day sun. No more time.

This was it.

Tel’garoph wouldn’t have me. Neither would the Order. I would go out on my own terms.

Phillipe Pendragon stood before me with his white iron greatsword planted between his legs. A slab of iron rested at the height of his knees. The execution block.

Iron manacles dragged on my ankles and wrists, making every movement torturous and slow. They hadn’t deigned to give me clothing. Guards gripped my shoulders and pushed.

I didn’t resist.

What was the point?

They shoved me forward. So close. Three more steps, the fall to my knees, the agony of putting my head on that iron so my neck would be within easy reach of the Mercy’s sword. At least my face wouldn’t burn for long.

I looked over the crowd, resolve cracking. Would Mr. Whiting be there? Charlie? Kalissa? Maybe I could make one last apology. This was—

—not for the best, but the closest thing.

Maybe I could assuage her guilt over turning me in. Maybe two wrongs could make a right.

Nothing. No one I knew. Only an unending sea of black.

Another shuffling step forward.

Cold grew in my gut despite the binding spells of the crown welded to my head. Only a trickle—like it reached out for one last connection, like it wanted to answer one last call.

I grasped that power. The one thing still with me at the end. Sweat rolled down my forehead. Could I reach out, give Kalissa one last apology in spite of the iron binding? Humans could use magic while in contact with metal, maybe I could too.

The ghost of a pattern whispered at my mind. Words from the past. If you ever require my service, my lady, you need only call my name.

Janaeus.

Could he deliver my message?

Could he do more? Get me out of this?

My fingers twitched. Such a dangerous thing, hope.

I formed the name on my lips, only to be stopped by a laugh in my mind. The sound echoed from far away. ::I can rip a hole in the wards and the realms, but I’d rather not arrive with my power drained.::

The pattern glowing in my mind brightened. I drew it with a manacled finger and hoped no one would notice.

No one did.

Muffled silence descended as the last line settled. Power—my power—built up inside like a dammed river. Cold grew.

I’d thought iron was painful, but I’d never touched it while wielding magic. The crown around my head drove a spike through my temple. Every nerve burned, obliterating thought, obliterating everything. Sweat ran down my naked body, between my breasts, down my legs, as every muscle went rigid in agony.

The guards dragged me forward, closer to death. I saw the Mercy’s self-satisfied grin through that red-black haze of pain. I couldn’t stop them, couldn’t even slow them.

The power built.

Ice sprouted from bare feet, anchored me to the ground.

Too much. This magic would melt me into goo!

I released it. Raw power exploded outward, ripping a hole in the space between me and my executioner. Black, ice cold, sinister—a hole in reality. Impossible, and yet I’d done it.

I had a third choice.

I didn’t have to be a pawn. I wouldn’t. This power wasn’t evil, it was mine. My voice didn’t want to work. I forced it into action. “Janaeus!”

And just like that he appeared next to me. The lace that bordered his lilac greatcoat fluttered in a ghostly wind. His scarf matched his pale blue thigh-high boots. He snapped his finger and I knew everything would be alright.

Softness enveloped me, soothed the burns, defended me from hypocritical eyes. I wore white. The stickiness of sweat-drenched hair plastered to the back of my neck vanished as my hair swept up and disappeared from my awareness.

The iron burning against my wrists, ankles, and forehead stayed, but fabric cushioned me from the pain.

Janaeus swept an elegant bow. “Ladies and gentlefolk, it might be time for that veneer of fashion to give way. Take a good, long look at yourselves. I don’t think you’ll like what your identity reveals.”

His voice in my mind. ::You’ll have to deal with the iron yourself, hon.::

I dredged up power. It was slow to come. I’d used so much—too much, maybe. But a hammer and chisel finally formed in my hands. I redirected the energy to freezing the metal. It didn’t want to take.

I pushed harder.

They would not force me into a corner, would not drive me to prettily worded suicide, would not make me their plaything. No one would.

The metal froze. I set the chisel against the seam where they’d welded the manacle together and lifted the hammer with magic.

Phillipe heaved his sword off the ground and lunged toward where Janaeus floated, his face screwed into a the very picture of hatred.

Janaeus spread his hands before him and a flash of light imprisoned the Mercy. A mirror appeared before him, held him motionless. Similar mirrors appeared before every Justice in the stands as they grabbed for weapons.

This time, he spoke to me aloud. “Any time, my Lady. Self-reflection will hold them all for a while, but the Order has never been prone to deep thought.”

I struck the chisel. The force of it shook my bones but the iron held.

Janaeus clicked his tongue. “Hurry, dear. You ripped a nice, clean hole in all of Castle Archdragon’s defenses. No telling what will follow me in here.”

I struck again, forced my ice deeper inside the iron, struck again.

It cracked.

Another strike and one hand was free.

Phillipe moved through the light emanating from Janaeus’s mirror in slow motion.

The Sylvan of Identity tilted his head. Another mirror appeared behind the first. The Mercy didn’t stop moving but he slowed.

The manacle on my other wrist dropped to the ground.

Too slow.

I redoubled my efforts. The iron around my legs shattered. I held my hand out to Janaeus. “Can you get me out of here?”

He pointed a manicured fingernail at my head. “That still binds my power. We are not nearly so robust around iron as you.”

I’d forgotten that stupid crown. I wrapped my fingers around it, started to yank. It wouldn’t come.

The temperature dropped in the space of a heartbeat. Ice—not mine—crawled across the cement pad the Order had picked for my execution. Summer gave way to winter.

Janaeus stepped back, eyes wide and sad. “Too late. He is coming now. There is still a chance—but only if you remember who you are. Cling to that decision.”

The words drifted through empty air where he’d once stood.

Gone.

He’d vanished and left me.

The mirrors evaporated with Janaeus and Phillipe stumbled out of Janaeus’s trap, sword held before him. His eyes widened in surprise as he stumbled forward, balance destroyed by whatever Janaeus had done.

The broadsword was still halfway through its earlier thrust, moving too fast to stop. I could only watch, frozen in place, as it moved.

Metal slid through flesh, colder than I’d thought it would be. No burning. Huh. I stared at Phillipe in shock. His sword protruded from my belly.

The surprise on his face turned to recognition and then grim satisfaction. He recovered his balance in an instant, put muscle behind the swing, drove his sword forward.

The sword widened as it approached the hilt.

A strange thing to notice as metal sawed through guts and caught on bone, but it stuck in my mind. A pinch in my abdomen widened. A different kind of cold grew there.

The breath clenched in my lungs whooshed out. I staggered forward. Looked down. Remarkably little blood stained the white shift Janaeus had gifted me. Only a little seeped from the edges where metal drilled into flesh.

Looked up.

His smirk filled my vision. “Finally,” he breathed. He smelled of evergreens grown on top of a rotting corpse. “The Mercy’s honor is restored.”

He twisted the sword.

Cold iron flamed hot in an instant. Coals dug deep inside me. Any breath I’d regained whooshed out alongside a moan as I fell to my knees. Blood ran faster now, spreading through the white.

Honor? “What honor?”

Phillipe put a booted foot on one knee and used it as a lever to start to pull his sword free. He stopped. Froze. His eyes stuck on something behind me.

Cold wind painted frost everywhere. Snow leaked from a cloudless sky.

Had I set off another eternal winter?

What a legacy to leave.

Phillipe’s finger’s tightened on the hilt of his sword and jerked, desperate to tear his sword free.

Cold extinguished the coals, froze my flesh. Every motion sawed.

Phillipe stopped moving. One last warm breath lingered on the air, condensed, fell as ice.

Cold fingers gripped my neck from behind. “Hello daughter.” His voice.

How?

He shouldn’t have been able to come here?

Wouldn’t have been able to until I ripped a hole in every protection Castle Archdragon had. No wonder they wanted me dead.

Tel’garoph’s fingers trailed down the back of my neck along my spine until the rested just above where the tip of the sword protruded from my back.

“Clever girl,” Tel’garoph breathed.

The sword shattered. Ice filled the slash where the sword had been. It grated as it moved, expelling shattered metal. A ring of red ran in rivers to the concrete floor.

Tel’garoph’s fingers brushed my cheek. I couldn’t move, couldn’t muster a speck of power.

No. It wouldn’t end like this, I wouldn’t be his pawn!

“You have more power than even I knew, destroying that ancient magic. Clever, clever girl.”

I couldn’t turn, couldn’t even shiver at his touch as his other hand appeared at the edge of my vision and swept toward the frozen audience.

“They will be punished.” He snapped his fingers. The ice shattered red. Rows of Justices disintegrated into a soup of blue frost, red blood, and shards of white bone. The ice coating Phillipe cracked. Lines of red appeared in his flesh, but he kept his form. Tel’garoph didn’t seem to notice.

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t gasp, couldn’t scream.

He’d killed them all like it was nothing.

Tel’garoph circled me, grinning. “That’s more like it.”

My lungs burned, demanding air.

The cold inside suffocated me. Not my power, his. The ice felt different. His was twisted, tainted, evil, but I couldn’t gather anything to fight it.

The iron against my skull froze in a flash and clattered to the ground.

“I won’t make the same mistake as before,” Tel’garoph said conversationally.

My vision swam. The peaks of his ears curved. His small smile twisted, swirled.

He placed a hand over my abdomen. The ice thawed. Blood leaked down my belly, warmer than the ice. It dripped down my hip, dropped to the cement.

A frost dagger thin as fractured glass appeared in his hand. He set it against the inside of my wound.

I couldn’t gag as he shaved flesh from the center of the cut, couldn’t even avert my eyes.

He stared as intently as a surgeon at the shavings of gut and muscle he made. They sloughed away with a slushy, icy texture.

The blood came faster.

The world darkened.

His words drifted up to me. “To take your mind, it seems I must first cripple your body. But not too much. No, this must be done carefully.”

Pain came with the rhythm of his carving strokes.

The drip of blood quickened to a stream.

Tel’garoph stopped long enough to grin up at me. His eyes flamed blue. “Asphyxiation alone didn’t do it before. Perhaps blood loss will be more effective.”

Three more slow, even strokes. The stream of blood tripled. It splashed around my ankles, soaked between my toes and the fabric Janaeus had given me.

The world was only shadow and pain except for the blue glow of Tel’garoph’s eyes.

The methodical strokes stopped. Something cold touched my cheek.

“Finally.” Breath laced with the sweet of decay filled my mouth. “The body I need to move my army from the Unseelie Realm to the Mortal realm is mine.”

I clawed at consciousness, tried to gather magic—

Spears of icy magic drilled deep. The world became pain.

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