I have no control. I havenothing.
The warlock leans up, his voice a dark whisper as he says, “The best way to defeat an opponent is to let them believe they’ve already won.”
Suddenly, all at once, the world dims to fathomless black, and I know I’ve lost.
CHAPTER FIVE
ARION
The most powerful warlock in five centuries should not be performing guard duty, but with a probable siren in our midst, the king refuses to take any chances. So I am here. Even though I have bigger problems about which to worry.
Lapis lazuli walls glow darkest blue in the prison beneath Tower Arcana, more than merely decorative as the elders enchanted the gemstone bricks to repel scent and sound. It’s like being underwater without the pain of salt and worry of merrow. No one outside the door can hear me. No one outside the door can hear anything that happens in here.
I glance at the archaic torture devices arranged in a neat row on the stone table before me. Pliers. Serrated knives. A rusted metal tube for bloodletting. Traditional. Unnecessary when you have magic, but the oldest forms of torment are often the most painful. I am not here for them, however. Although, I’d much prefer it to the alternative.
Shifting on my stool, I pick up another tome from a musty stack and open it with a careless flick of my fingers. The pages whip themselves into a frenzy, dust clouding the air as they search for the words I want, the words I’ve spent days seeking:Heart. Mortem.
Death.
My wings beat away the clouds of grime, feathers bristling with repulsion. I feel their movement like a dagger twisting between my shoulder blades. The right curls inward at the bend, furious, and shakes itself at me like a fist. I swat at it, but it doesn’t stop until I suck in an aggrieved breath and clear the air with a bolt of magic.
Wings are a pain in the ass.
Their surgical installation occurs before a warlock’s Rise. Ripped from a Pegasus and implanted in our bones, the wings are meant to challenge our fortitude, our ability to withstand torture under the most horrific circumstances, as well as grant us the ability to fly. But that pain never goes away. The wings never actually merge. We are forced to live, opposed and out of sync, for our entire shared existence.
It’s a test. One that most initiates fail.
Most initiates, but not me.
The elders said I would break the world and re-form it anew if I so chose. They said one day the king might bow before me. They said I just need to survive. Fucking laughable. No one has ever bowed to me. No one will ever have the chance.
More powerful than any other warlock infive centuries, and I’m stuck with these gods-damned books. I scan the tome impossibly fast and land on a single page of interest near the end.
Before the creation of the Fathoms, Mortem is said to have established Abysses, a utopian society for humankind. Though assumed to have been erected somewhere outside the four continents, there is no evidence of its true location or its history. In the year AF (after Fathoms) 335, pieces of strange ruins shrouded in algae washed up on the black beaches of the Kingdom of Fax’s eastern shore. They featured a crude design of man and merrow entangled in a blasphemed union.
Sensible historians believe these pieces to be a hoax and an attempt by Fax to sow discord among the Kingdom of Mortia. Whereas uncredited historians believe this is evidence that Abysses was not only real but alsoconnects the Fall of Mortem to the rumored utopia. In AF 337, a new historian, Dima Vasiliev, theorized, “Based on the recovered artifacts, I have concluded that certain men and merrow lived together in harmony. While Mortem’s Fall was not a true death, we know, thanks to some of Mortia’s earliest artworks, that a mermaid was responsible for the theft of his heart and thus, the beginning of the Fathoms. Abysses seems to be entangled with both our kind and mer-kind.”
Could this very Fall have occurred in a fantastical kingdom of legend and mythos? Could merrow and humans have once coexisted in peace and harmony? It’s an interesting hypothesis, but unfortunately, Dima Vasiliev died mere weeks after sharing it. Conspirators believe this to be the work of Cultus Mortis, a well-hidden group of Mortem’s most insidious followers, although historians agree the untimely death is more so linked to Vasiliev’s addiction to divinity salts.
None of Dima Vasiliev’s claims have ever been founded. No further evidence of Abysses or the Heart of Death have since been discovered.
Magic gnarls my gut, coiling like snakes round and round my organs until I release the pressure burning deep down. It slams the book shut on a dangerous gust, and I throw the tome onto the pile of others I’ve read since last night. A pile so tall, it nearly reaches the desk.Useless.
I’ve not found a single answer, and I’m running out of time.
“You can’t keep ignoring me,” the merrow complains from her cell. “I wantout.”
My wings bristle at the sound of her soft melodic voice behind me, both pulling and tugging as if they can’t decide whether they want to confront her or flee her presence entirely. I don’t blame them. Though she’s attempted silence since she first awoke—an ambitious goal for such a foulmouthed merrow—her pulse hasn’t stopped racing. I can smell her desperation from here, feral and all-consuming.
It’s disgusting.
“You will be released when it is time for you to die.” I pluck up another book from my unread pile and scour the pages for salvation.
Heart. Mortem. Death.
Heart. Mortem. Death.
Four hundred pages fly by, and there’s nothing. Nothing at all. A growl builds in my chest as I shove the tome to the floor and hurry to pick up the next one.
