“Walter?” Rowan called when she found the butler by the doors in a daze.
It had only been four days since the assault—four days that Cornelius had forced her to stay in bed, refusing to let her leave her bed even for the briefest seconds.
“Hush, little one. Just listen to me for now, would you? The Keep may be mine, but not all who lives here are of my will. I can’t risk having you running off on your own again," he had said with a wry smile, taking her for a hatchling hidden in his nest of velvet. His breath warmed her skin and sent tiny shivers of flames dancing under it—of anger, embarrassment or both, she was not sure.
In return, he would share her his life magick—of which, really, she was grateful for—and bring her volumes after volumes of rare leather-bounds without fail.
At times when Cornelius had to step away, Alfredo would be there in his stead to watch her—and good lords, never had the wolf been as diligent in its task as it did over the few days. Rowan had her doubts that more than its loyalty to its master, the wolf was actually enjoying being her stand-in tormentor.
But despite the bribery of his life magick that continued to seduce her with its sweet serenades, Rowan was beginning to grow agitated with Cornelius. She was about to lose herself when the over protective Duke finally allowed her to step out of her bedchamber.
—where she found the Keep to be in a severe state of disarray.
Beginning with Walter.
No matter how she tried, the older Nyphillie made no attempt to move. Almost as if he was frozen under a spell.
“What is going on?” she turned to Cornelius, who seemed to be indifferent to his butler’s odd behaviour. “Why can’t he hear me?” Were they under an ambush? Had the King figured out what she meant to do? Was it Marie? Or had any of his lapdogs sneaked in while she was out cold?
“He is merely unconscious like the rest of them,” Cornelius mused.
How could he find anything about the situation amusing? Her enemies might be upon them soon. Or was that exactly what he wanted? It must had shown on her face as he continued, “They would awaken soon enough.”
“What happened to them?”
“Not them, you.” The Duke shook his head as he led her down a turn in the aisle. “As I said, you are an endless supply of surprises. Never had I thought that little frame of yours could drain me as much. Left nothing for me to spare for the others.”
She pulled to a halt, stopping Cornelius with her. “What do you mean?”
An amused grin lifted the corners of his lips. A grin too wide that caught Rowan by surprise. “You’ll see.”
Rowan glanced at the strange man walking a little ahead of her. His long legs could have eaten up the distance at a faster pace but he had been trying to match his pace with hers, keeping her within his reach but never reaching out.
He kept his distance, more out of courtesy than fear. From the way he glanced over his shoulders once in a while to check if she was still there, she knew. If it was fear he felt, it was the fear of her disappearing.
A string of fluttering stirred in her stomach, deepening her inhale.
Once upon a time, there was another man who had shared the Cornelius’s gesture. He kept his distance, a sign of modesty she had thought. But like all others, it had been a sign of fear, a sign of what was to come that the younger version of her failed to recognize in the face of false attention. She was just a child, too lonely, too foolish, too eager a moth who had just been given wings to leap into fire.
She could not help but wonder if Cornelius was the same. Was he trying to gain her trust just so he would get into her sister’s good graces? His life magick pulsing through her veins made it hard to think straight.
Mayhap she should had never allowed him to channel his influence into her.
So engrossed in her own thoughts, Rowan walked straight into Cornelius’s back when he stopped abruptly. She peeked over his shoulders and stifled a gasp. Of all the places, he had brought her back to the West Wing.
Under the glow of the dim morning moon, the damage done was even more prominent.
It was in ruins, only held together by branches of wood that were not there before. More than a handful of the gargoyles were gone. Those that were left, were only left with half the number of their limbs and faces, just as the tapestries were shredded, leaving stray strands of worn gold across the floor.
Yet, none could compete with the obvious change to the room that once held the creature of pure nightmare. Instead of the door of steel and lock, overgrown roots now sealed its entrance. Their branches thicker than her waist, burrowed their way through bared windows and reached up into the ceiling. Roots cracked the floor of marble, twisting at odd angles to trip careless feet.
A stern barricade that refused any intruder.
It was as if someone had snuck into the Keep in the middle of the night to place the cursed tree there in place of a guard. Whatever had stormed the wing after she had passed out, was not something she could comprehend.
“Why are we here?” Rowan asked, almost a whisper. The real question she had in mind hung silently in the air. Why did you bring me here?
She could still feel the creature’s dark gaze boring through her back, its minions of the darks lurking in the shadows nearby, beckoning in anticipation for her to lower her guards. Every shards of shattered wood that littered the floor reminded how close to death she was only days ago at the hands of someone who shared the same face as his.
Cornelius waved a hand over the structure, eyes glowing silver for the briefest second. The floor beneath them quivered as the roots curled into themselves, forming an arch that allowed passage for two. Rowan took an unconscious step backwards.
“Fear not,” Cornelius said, his voice the echo of a whisper that froze her in place. “I am merely showing you where it all began.”
Rowan straightened her back and followed Cornelius as he crossed the threshold. All the while, she could not help but marvel at the intricate workings of wood overhead as they passed. Once inside, a tremor passed through the floor as the roots and branches arranged themselves protectively over the hollowed doors again.
Rowan’s instincts kicked in, urging her to escape. But the scene before her rooted her feet to the carpeted floor.
If the room had been around during the Purge, the battle’s trail was forced to a halt right after its only entrance.
Rows upon rows of ancient scrolls and leather bound volumes were tucked securely behind a cage of dark wood—as if a creature with sharpened fangs closed over the archive, threatening to gobble up whoever dared to enter its territory.
The image was made real with the residual blood of Medeis that remained on where the roots did not cover. Faint traces of gold and silver lightened the shade of brown that caked the premise near its entrance.
At the centre of the foliage, a single trunk stood. An orb of light brown balanced atop the tip of its branches twisted into the form of a blooming rose.
Cornelius placed a hand over the orb, closing his eyes in concentration. Its glided surface rippled, tiny prickles reached out in four opposite directions while its heart wounded around itself. A four-pointed star with a heart of rose soon took form under his palm.
Rowan watched as the Duke fit the structure into the hole in the floor and turned it clockwise twice. With a click, veins of cracks began to spread, reaching their fingers towards them but stopped just before any reached her.
One by one the pieces of stones that formed the floor shifted and sunk in the shape of a spiral. A staircase that led deeper down appeared in its place. Through the gaps Rowan glimpsed darker barks identical to the ones above. Judging from the hollowed sound that echoed from beyond the darkness, it was over fifty feet underground.
“Come,” Cornelius extended a hand to her, a foot had stepped through the hidden passage but his body still faced her. “This concerns the both of us.”
Rowan hesitated. Cornelius arched a perfect thin brow before taking her hand in his. She shrugged it off reflectively but he took it again. She glared at him, incredulous. They had repeated the routine more times than she could remember over the days he kept her holed up in her bedchamber.
He had insisted on channelling his life magick to her, that she need it to heal. But she knew, from the colours of his eyes, that he too suffered from battling the creature of his own makings. Yet, his hold on her remained strong. No matter how she tried to struggle herself free from his grasp, the Magus proved to be stronger.
“I can manage on my own, Lord Darkwoods,” she tried again as they manoeuvred down narrow and uneven steps in the dark.
If it was not for the dress she had on, Rowan would have no doubt of her own ability to sail in darkness. But even so, she was not a damsel so afraid of darkness that she needed help from a man—a particularly stubborn one with the blue in his eyes clearly dimming at that.
Cornelius whipped around sharply, nearly caused her to lose her footings but his hand on her waist steadied her. “Do not underestimate the power of a Magus, little one. I may be ancient but this much would not dust me,” he continued, without a change in his pace.
“But Lord Darkwo—”
“And not Lord Darkwoods,” he sighed. “It should be, Cornelius.”
Rowan was beginning to think mind reading was indeed one of the Magus’s abilities. But ability was definitely not one of hers. For the briefest moments, Rowan had seen the passing of a storm on his face. She had thought it might had been something that she had done, something bigger, a sore spot poked.
That was the reason? Her calling him by his family’s name?
“Yes, Lord Dar—” she answered reflectively, biting down on her lips the moment he glanced at her, words of reprimand ready on his lips.
Rowan lowered her gaze, lifting the hem of the silvery white silk dress and stuffed it between their touching palms. “What is it that you wanted to show me?” At least with the cloth in the way, the fog caused by the steady flow of his life magick lifted a little from her mind.
If the Duke was displeased by what she did, he did not let on. Instead, a hint of amused grin lifted the corners of his lips. Rowan forced her gaze from them. Strangely, the sight of them had been as distracting as the flow of his life magick in her lately—that, and the way he looked at her. Distracting and utterly unnerving.
A sigh of relief escaped her lips when they reached the end of the steps and he finally released his grip on her. But dread was only a short distance away from the first.
“Have you heard of the Purge?” Cornelius asked, as easily as if he was talking about the weather.
Rowan tensed. “The battle between Maguses and Nyphilles, my lord?” she asked, treading on thin ice.
She knew it all too well. Had it not been the Purge, the Nyphilles would not had been hunted to near extinct and her life might not had turned out the way it did.
She did not dare to take her eyes off him. A strange sense of guilt crept up the length of her spine. It had happened long before she was born. Yet she felt as if she had been a part of that horrible massacre, her bare hands stained with pure silver.
If only the Nyphilles had not revolted against Maguses in the first place.
“Is that what the Fulgels had been telling their children?” Cornelius waved a hand in the space between them, his eyes shone faintly in silver for the briefest seconds.
Rowan was expecting the stairs to disappear or a shelf to relocate but in the end, it was the shadows that shifted. Layers of black peeled themselves off the barks and lifted into the air.
Rowan swallowed the hard lump forming in her throat, involuntarily remembering the wraiths that had chased after her. But instead of launching themselves at her, the shadows gathered on top of his palm before stretching out thin and formed a canopy overhead.
Beyond it, she could see nothing at all. The space around them was left lighted as if a room under the sunlight instead of an underground archive that had not seen a soul for eons.
“It wasn’t the Nyphilles who had caused the Purge.” A pause.
“It was the Fulgels.”
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