A chill, damp air pressed against Isolde’s skin. Her throat felt raw, each word a desperate rasp against the silence of the interrogation chamber.
“No, no, that’s not what happened.” A tremor ran through her. Her voice cracked, betraying the icy calm she usually maintained. “He wasn’t struck by me. He was… trying to bury something alive when…”
Lord Valerius, perched on the edge of a heavy oak table, lifted a hand. A dark, ornate ring glinted on his index finger. His features, carved from the same pale stone as the manor walls, showed no flicker of emotion. A wisp of smoke curled from the slender pipe he held, dissipating into the gloom.
“Burying something?” Valerius’s voice was a low rumble, devoid of warmth. “And he was clearly displeased by the interruption.” He drew on his pipe, then exhaled slowly. His eyes, the color of winter ice, fixed on Isolde. No wrinkle marred his porcelain-smooth skin, belying the presumed weight of his years.
“It wasn’t me. It was… the thing he was trying to seal.” Isolde’s palms grew slick. “It moved. It struck out. A stone, yes, but not from my hand. I only reacted in self-defense, but…” Words failed her. Her mind raced, grasping for a defense that wouldn’t condemn her. Each syllable felt like brittle glass, threatening to shatter.
Valerius’s gaze remained unblinking. “My brother, Cassian, has senses keen as a falcon’s. Not a fool to be surprised from behind.” He leaned back, the ancient wood groaning beneath his weight. “He avoids the unwary. And he is never careless.”
“But…” Isolde swallowed, her tongue thick. Her life hung by a thread, she knew. A single misstep here, and she would be lost to the Whispering Moors, another forgotten secret. No one had seen her in the depths of the vault. No one knew the true chaos Cassian had unwittingly unleashed.
She desperately needed to understand her surroundings, the man before her. But only one thought pierced the terror: survive. Escape this place. Escape him.
A deep, resonant drone pulsed through the stone floor, a slow, rhythmic thrum from the manor’s unseen depths. It echoed the frantic beat of Isolde’s heart, a primal sound of ancient magic stirring, making the very air vibrate.
Valerius’s lip curled. “So, an accomplice, then? To this… entity that struck my brother?”
“What?” Isolde’s denial was sharp, desperate. “No! I don’t even know what that thing was!” He simply watched, impassive, as her world fractured. Her existence felt like a wisp of smoke, dissolving under his cold scrutiny. He maintained a casual repose, as if discussing nothing more significant than a dreary weather forecast.
“Isolde Thorne,” he said, letting her name hang in the cold air. “Your identity holds little interest for me.”
He pushed off the table, moving with a predator’s grace. He lowered himself to her eye level, his gaze piercing. “As one who saw my brother’s lights dim, I require a reckoning. Someone will pay for Cassian’s state. That much is certain.”
‘Coma,’ Isolde thought, the word a bitter taste. ‘The creature was in a coma?’ A horrifying realization dawned. The ward he had tried to bury was not a ward, but his brother. The one she’d witnessed. The one she’d fled.
“Whether you struck him or not matters little to my intent,” Valerius continued, a faint smirk touching his lips. “Instead, we will strike a bargain. Exhibit wisdom, and you will walk from this place unharmed.”
“A bargain?” Isolde’s voice was barely a whisper. She did not trust the offer.
“Indeed. A bargain.” He crushed the ember of his pipe into a small, tarnished silver dish. “Find the true aggressor. Bring them to me. Until that task is complete, you will attend my brother. You will ensure his survival.”
He produced a heavy parchment, aged and brittle, from inside his coat. A single quill lay beside it. Ancient sigils, not of ink but of something more arcane, shimmered faintly on the surface. Her name, Isolde Thorne, was already inscribed in a precise hand.
He offered the quill. “A pact. Binding. Ancient law requires a mark.”
Isolde’s hand trembled as she took it. The quill felt cold, a shard of ice against her skin. She recognized some of the sigils, a cruel twist of irony. Containment spells, binding oaths. She knew their power, the impossible escape from their grasp. This was no simple paper. This was a soul-tether.
With a deep, shuddering breath, she pressed the tip to the parchment. A faint warmth spread, then a searing pain as a drop of blood welled from her thumb and stained the page. The sigils flared, a brief pulse of dark, emerald light, then faded, absorbing her mark.
Valerius nodded, a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes. He freed her wrist from the hidden restraint. The metal chafed, leaving an angry red mark.
As he turned to depart, his voice echoed in the cavernous room. “He must not leave Blackwood Manor. Understand?”
The drone from the depths of the manor, the restless hum of magic, seemed to recede with his footsteps, fading into a low, lingering thrum. Isolde was left alone, the silence ringing in her ears, heavier than any chain.
---
The flashback snapped shut, cold as a vault door. Isolde’s eyes flew open, the same dank air from her memory filling her lungs. Moonlight, thin and watery, bled through the tall, grimy window of the chamber, painting the medical apparatus in stark, silvered outlines.
His cot was empty. Where had he gone?
Fear, a primal, gut-wrenching dread, clawed its way back, a ghost from that night in the vault. The tension of the interrogation, the suffocating presence of Valerius, the stark, chilling scent of damp stone and old blood – it all rushed back.
Valerius’s words slithered through her mind, a venomous whisper.
‘While you slept, I considered various methods. Flayed alive, perhaps? Or entombed in the deepest hollows of the vault, left to feed the forgotten seals?’
‘I require a reckoning. Someone will pay for Cassian’s state.’
Isolde’s entire body trembled, a frantic vibration deep in her bones. Valerius would make good on his threats. He would flay her, entomb her, if he discovered his brother was gone.
She had to find him. Her mind, usually a fortress of calm, raced. Must find him, quickly.
Turning, her eyes scanned the door. A flicker of shadow, deeper than the moonlight allowed, caught her attention. A chill snaked up her spine, even before the form solidified.
It was Cassian. He lunged, a silent, predatory blur. He was faster, stronger than she could have anticipated. A desperate lunge, a heavy blow. Isolde staggered backward, pain flaring in her shoulder as she hit the floor. Medical equipment crashed, a jarring clang of metal and glass against stone.
Two years in a coma. His body should have been withered, useless. Yet he moved with a feral, unsettling grace. He landed heavily, his knees buckling, but he twisted, binding her body, pressing her down onto the grimy mattress. He pinned her, a suffocating weight. Her cheek was forced hard against the stained fabric, the metallic tang of old blood in her nostrils.
She thrashed, arms and legs struggling, but his grip was unyielding. The raw power in his limbs was terrifying, alien. He twisted her arms behind her back, pressing them against the small of her spine. His legs locked around her lower body, effectively immobilizing her.
His rigid form pressed into her back through the thin fabric of her shift. An unexpected, horrifying intimacy. A primal fear, cold and sharp, pierced through her. He was an animal, all instinct and brute force, and she was utterly, devastatingly at his mercy.
Her breath hitched. This was not the broken, helpless man she was meant to guard. This was something else entirely.