“You could have gone for any number of books about, I don’t know, trepanning. Instead, you picked up the ones about dreams.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve noticed, but we’re experiencing a bit of anunprecedentedmoment in history—”
“Yes, well, if we’re ever to find out how in the hell D’Luc and the Children managed to turn the professors into living vegetables, if we even believe that…”
Ru let the sound of her friends’ argument fade to background noise. She had heard it before. She quietly picked up the nearest book, settled herself in a chair by the fire, and began to read. Rather, shetriedto read. She found it difficult to focus on anything for long. It had only been a few weeks since the revelation of Fen’s true identity, but every time Ru was alone, she thought about him. Every moment in solitude was a slow and subtle agony.
The recollection of Fen in the spectral city, holding the artifact, telling Ru it was his heart… it stole air from Ru’s lungs.She bit the inside of her lip where an angry sore had developed from her anxious tic. But where the artifact’s touch had once been so vivid in the past, its comforts warm, it now lurked at the distant edges of her consciousness. It was almost silent but for the occasional, distant thrum of energy to remind Ru of its presence.
She hated that she missed the stone’s loudness, the way it had always pushed past her emotions and made its presence known. And she hated that she missedhim.
Taryel, the Destroyer, a man who had flattened an entire city in a rush of dark magic, centuries and centuries ago. A man who had, inexplicably, survived the blast and become frozen in time, a twenty-six-year-old whose memories spanned centuries. No — she missed who she hadthoughthe was, Fen Verrill, the man whose heart had called to hers, who would have protected her, maybe even loved her, if given a chance.
When Archie and Gwyneth grew tired, when they were finished reading and concluded that nothing productive would be achieved that night — if ever — Ru would wait until she knew the Tower corridors would be mostly empty, and she would wander somewhere lonely. Somewhere isolated, where no one could ask her what she was doing, or exude disappointment when she failed. And with Lyr at her heels, she would try again.
She would try desperately, anguished and enraged, to sever her bond with the artifact. And she would, as she always did, fail in the attempt.
CHAPTER 3
Lord Hugon D’Luc had a depthless capacity for cruelty, but Ru was violently stubborn. And both were reaching their limit.
It happened in the morning, six weeks after that hellish night at the Shattered City. Instead of Lord D’Luc, Ru opened her door to see the staring, empty gazes of Inda, Ranto, and Nell. Lyr stood behind them, looking apologetic. “You have been summoned to demonstrate,” said Inda, her tone as devoid of emotion as ever, and that was all.
Ru followed the Children with a sick knot in her stomach. Lyr had been dismissed, and she was alone.
She hadn’t been asked to demonstrate these six weeks. She had thought that maybe Lord D’Luc had given up on it as a means of understanding the artifact. But she’d been wrong. She remembered how it had been before, how speaking to the artifact with her mind had led to a loss of control. But without opening that line of mental understanding between herself and the artifact, Ru could not make it do what Lord D’Luc no doubt wanted — destructive darkness.
The dungeon was horribly cold. Lord D’Luc waited there alone. He smiled when Ru and the Children arrived, holdingout a hand in a facsimile of a warm greeting. “Good morning, Delara.”
She walked to the small wooden table that stood, as it always had, at the center of the dungeon. On its surface lay a smooth black stone, slightly misshapen, the size of a man’s palm. Ru couldn’t help but move toward it, this beautiful thing that had brought her so much pain.
“Now,” Lord D’Luc said, “I’d like you to summon darkness from it. Like you did at the dig site, like you did here, once. Ranto, stand over her. If she loses control, if the darkness begins to spread unchecked, knock her out.”
Ru spun, her heart racing. “You can’t—”
But Lord D’Luc’s dark eyes flashed. “It was not a request.”
Ru swallowed hard and said nothing.
For the first time since learning what the artifact truly was, since losing Fen, since becoming a prisoner in her own home, Ru placed her palms on either side of the artifact. She closed her eyes. And she pretended to attempt to summon darkness from the artifact.
“You’re not trying,”Lord D’Luc’s sharp words cut her like jagged glass. It had been days since the first failed demonstration. Half a dozen Children stood in the dungeon, watching. “You’re useless, Delara. A disappointment. A failure, a joke.”
“I’m trying,” she gasped. A lie. Every day, she lied; every day, she made him believe that she was trying. But even that was painful, even that cut deep gouges into her psyche. The artifact was distant, almost petulant, and when she closed her eyes so close to it, she could feel it at the edge of her mind. Waiting.
“It’s no wonder Fen Verrill abandoned you,” hissed Lord D’Luc. “What couldyouhave given him? In what world could you hope to please a man?”
Ru choked back a sob. He was right; he was right. Fen might have stayed if she were better, if she were more. But he had left her.
A week into the demonstrations,Lord D’Luc hurt her with his hands. He came at her like a predator, his fingers tight on her wrist, as he spoke low and threatening in her ear: “Do not test me, Delara. I know you’re holding back. Accept that the artifact is your fate. You are no archaeologist. You are nothing. The artifact is all you have. Bring it to life.”
She held back. She refused to give him power over her.
The next morning, Ru woke to find blue-black bruises on her wrist, and she wondered whether she hadn’t already given up what little power she had.
Ru’s teethrattled in her head. Spots of white light burst in her vision. Lord D’Luc’s fingers were tight on her throat, her skull throbbing. He pushed her toward the dungeon wall and slammed her against it.
“You will not fail me again,” he said, his words cold like blades. Then he dropped her, and she crumpled.
