“Itisbad,” he spat, and the angry bend to his brow made her tremble. She liked him much more when he held his features softly and called hermiss.
“Well, yes, maybe,” she snapped back, “but nothing bad is happening here anymore. My sister’s dead, and I’ve been trying to clean up this place. Now, I’d like to let you go—”
“And I would like to run you through.”
Celeste gasped, fingers flexing, and with them the chains tightened around the knight once more, this time turning his face red. She didn’t like how tempting it was to leave him like that, and felt into the arcana for a different solution.
There wassomuch noxscura, and it was well-trained—all that arcana could do something truly terrible. She shivered, sticking out her tongue. It had been some time since she’d been surrounded by such dark magic, but this…this was what Delphine had likely been looking for when she first sought out the place, the secret she’d never shared with Celeste. It was quite a special noxscura, but what was it doing in an Empyrean god’s temple?
She shook her head, no time to consider any of that. “I’m going to unbind you,” she said carefully, letting the magic loosen from around him. “But I need you to promise you won’t attack me when I do, all right?”
“I can make no such promise,” he said, lifting his chin.
“Why not?”
He again looked at her as if the answer were patently obvious. “I am a man of my word, and I cannot make a vow I do not intend to keep.”
“Holy knights,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Overzealous, all of you.”
“Devoted,” he corrected. “My cause, my destiny, is to cleanse the evil from this place, to reclaim it in the name of Valcord, and to do so, I must destroy, well…you.”
Her heart hitched at the look in his eyes. Moments earlier she had thought them so beautiful, and now they were filled with only vitriol. Vitriol forher.
Celeste may have been a hateful, disgusting thing—over that she had no power—but she wasnotevil.
She flexed her fingers once more and then pulled her hands gently through the air, feeling for the charms that had been laid into the chamber before, the ones she had to learn so long ago to sever them. Their remnants remained, and though she did not have power over this man like her sister had over the chamber’s previous captive, the holy knight had no command of noxscura so would make for a much-easier-to-detain guest.
With the reawakening of such well-crafted enchantments, she watched the noxscura once again fill the chamber, this time with purpose. The knight demanded to know what she was doing, but he would see soon enough. Dark arcana enveloped the windows, the ceiling, and formed a smoky barrier that ran from wall to wall. Then, when she was sure, she released the binds from around his body.
He blinked in surprise, eyeing her through the light haze for a long moment. Then he sprang from the bed, took up his sword, and charged, weapon brandished and glowing.
Celeste screamed, cowering beside the door and shielding herself with her arms. There was a jolt of magic, and the knight was thrown backward once again, away from Celeste and into the bed. At least he landed on something soft this time, but he didn’t move.
Gritting her teeth, Celeste eased herself off the wall and up to the noxscura barrier she’d reconstructed from Delphine’s original spell. It bowed under her touch, but it was still in perfect condition, like he hadn’t even tapped it.
The man groaned as he sat up much slower than the times before.
“I wouldn’t try that again,” she offered with a sigh. “Not if you want to stay conscious.”
“You cannot keep me here, witch.”
She scrunched up her nose—she was really getting sick of that. “Well, actually, it looks like Ican, not that I want to, but you’re forcing my hand.” She held up a palm to him, and noxscura danced across it.
The knight grunted, but he did not stand again.
“Now, can we please talk?” Celeste stared at him, and he stared back.
His fingers tightened around his sword’s hilt, and the coldness did not run away from his face. “There is nothing to say,witch.” As if he knew just how much it hurt her, he repeated the word with a gut-wrenching twist that made tears spring to her eyes.
Celeste turned on her heel, and she stormed out of the chamber. Taking the stairs so quickly she could barely keep balance, she made it back to the main hall before the first tear fell, but then they came all at once, burning her throat and eyes. Blindly, she leaned against the archway into the worship space-turned…whatever it was now. A lair, she supposed, since she’d imprisoned a Holy Knight of Valcord there with the darkest arcana she’d ever encountered.
Oh, gods, what have I done?
Plum came soaring through the temple, and she wiped away the tears, reaching out to catch him. “He doesn’t understand,” she whispered to the wyvern, and the creature nuzzled his scaley head against her thumb.
But the knight would understand, eventually, because he had to. She would make him see she wasn’t as evil as he thought. And if he didn’t? Celeste blinked out into the desolation of the temple around her. Well, that wasn’t really an option if he ever wanted to be free again.
CHAPTER 5
