Chapter 17
' Wake up. '
The voice that whispered to Feyre in the ancient sleep was the first sound she'd ever heard.
No, the first in years.
No, the first in weeks.
' It's been two days, ' the voice came again. ' Now, wake up. '
This time there was something else behind those words, a will Feyre couldn't help but obey.
Her eyes snapped open.
Something swirled in her vision. All she could see was gray so dark it was nearly black. There was a texture to the color too, and it moved on its own.
A face came into view, distorted and stretched.
No, she was beneath it somehow.
' Wait -' Feyre realized at last she was laying on a metal table beneath a cloth roof.
Her head swam as it re-oriented itself and her body figured out where it was. She tried to move, but something held her fast. Tried to reach out with her mind- a web circled her senses and quieted even her bond with Rhys. Feyre tried to use her power, but it was somewhere silent and out of reach.
The face above her belonged to a man with rich brown skin and amber eyes. He was cloaked in golden robes that seemed to shimmer in the candlelight like the scales of a snake.
He tilted his head after a moment, assessing.
With a single click of his tongue, a bit of the gray fell aside to reveal a mirror suspended above.
Feyre vaguely remembered aging. Her body had grown heavy and weak as her flesh sagged. Whatever was done had been reversed. Her flesh was tight, sun-kissed, and dotted in nothing more than freckles.
Her skin was an easy thing to assess- she was showing plenty of it. Someone had stripped Feyre of her leathers and underclothes. Only a thick leather strap over her pelvis and another across her breasts provided any modesty. Her wrists and ankles were fixed to the table with metal cuffs.
"A promise," the man said smoothly, nodding to the leather straps, "that unlike your people, I will cross no lines. Those remain, no matter what."
"What do you want?" Feyre's throat was dry, but she made herself heard.
"I want to know exactly what happened to Persephone. Hades knows you haven't been High Lady for long, but you will tell me everything you can."
Something tightened around Feyre's throat.
The oaths she'd sworn to Azriel.
"Persephone is dead," Feyre felt a sick dread settle in her stomach. She couldn't stop what was about to happen, no matter how much she wanted to.
"Despite your friend's best attempts, she survived," the man said. "She's here. Safe. But she can't tell us anything. Not anymore. The angels are taking her memory- and removing the poison you poured into her mind."
"I didn't do anything to anyone," the words passed through Azriel's oaths. They weren't specific enough for concern.
"You've lied to me twice now, Lady Feyre. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the first one- maybe you planned to kill Persephone and didn't think we could find a way to save her. But the second one- at best it's a half truth. You didn't do anything to Persephone? Fine. Maybe that's even true in a sense, but you gave the orders, didn't you?"
' What happened? ' Feyre mind whirled. How did things go so horribly wrong? They were going to let Hades meet with his wife and gently transition Persephone to their care. Where did it go wrong?
"Where's Rhysand?" she heard herself ask.
"Oh dear," the man shook his head. "I think you've misunderstood how things work when you're the one on the table. I will be asking questions. You may ask for clarification, but nothing else."
"I'm not guilty of any crimes," Feyre tried again. Fear gripped her as tightly as Azriel's oaths.
The male sighed, "I think we need to start over." He pulled something out from within his robes- an open crescent with a strange mass of metal in its center, "This won't hurt a bit. It's of my own design."
He lowered the thing over Feyre's mouth. A wedge of something black and hard forced her lips apart, then her teeth. It continued most of the way through to the back of her mouth, keeping her tongue pinned in place.
"Breathe through your nose," he instructed as she gagged.
The sides of the device snapped against the table and pinned Feyre's head in place. The man pulled a folded bit of metal down to hook the bottom of her chin and tightened a knob to lock it.
Feyre began to shake. She couldn't speak- couldn't even open her mouth, and now her head was fully immobilized.
Two more strips of metal were pulled up from the muzzle to cup the sides of her eyes. Blinders, so that all she could see was her own terrified reflection in the mirror above.
' Rhys? ' her own voice in her mind was thin with fear. She knew he couldn't hear her- their bond was muddled and silent. Still, she couldn't face the terror alone, 'Rhys, please… I need you. '
A tear rolled from the corner of her eye to pool against the blind.
"Ah, yes, don't indulge in too much of that, or you won't be able to see."
The man went away for a moment to remove his robes and fetch something. When he returned, golden chains crossed his torso and connected to an intricate web of precious stones draped across his shoulders and chest as if he were some noble from Day.
He set three things down between Feyre's ribs and arm- a bowl of small black disks hardly as large as her smallest toenail, brutal silver shears, and a small blade.
"I'm used to working on people who know me, so this in the first time in millennia I've had to introduce myself. It's exciting," the man confided with a smile. "My name is Apophis, and there are two things you will learn about me. First, I treat all of my subjects equally, be they man or woman. I will take no sexual liberties with your body, as I said, nor will I mutilate anything beneath the straps. Second, I am a fair god. Lies and half-truths will be punished severely, but honesty is rewarded."
Apophis leaned over so that Feyre could see him. She was whimpering into the gag, fear a metallic taste at the back of her throat. Her body shook uncontrollably and the shuddering breaths she drew sounded like- and may very well have been- sobs.
'Rhys, please. Rhys- '
He held up one of the black disks, "I will be inserting these into your feet and various joints. As you may have guessed from the muzzle, your only job right now is to feel this. I've told you lies are punished, I just want to make sure you understand what that means. Don't worry yourself by trying to give me information just yet. There will be time for that later. If you lie to me then-" Apophis made sure Feyre was watching as the disk began to inflate.
He chuckled as moisture spread across the table, "Don't worry, Lady Feyre. Every subject I've ever had- from minor criminals to kings- has pissed themselves sooner or later. There's no shame."
Apophis retrieved his scissors and dragged them along Feyre's forearm, letting her feel how sharp they were, "The first step is to expose the joints."
' Rhys, please! Please, where are you? I need you! '
He shifted out of view, leaving Feyre to watch helplessly in the mirror as Apophis pinched the skin on the back of her elbow and pulled it away from her arm.
' Somebody, please! HELP!'
The scissors brushed against her skin as he positioned them to cut the flesh away.
'Rhys- '
The scissors slammed closed.
Azriel was woken by a scream.
It blasted through his mind, deafening his senses and sending him hurtling forward off the bed.
He slammed into something cold and metallic after only a few steps. His body ached, a bone-deep sense of wrong raced through his body, accompanied by a wave of nausea.
He vomited as his stomach heaved and a cold silence took the place of those screams. It was a blessed relief- and more terrifying than he could process.
The bars gave Azriel something to hold onto as his mind recovered. He remembered holding his mother, Hades grabbing him, and then Azriel was entombed in pure, unending darkness.
He opened his eyes slowly.
Azriel was in a black-gray tent, locked inside a cage with rough steel bars. A cot sat against one wall of the cage, its sheets stained pink-orange where he'd been laying. Outside the cage was short green grass- not the rough leaves of a forest floor.
The army left the mountains.
Near the tent entrance, Azriel could make out the shadow of- he wasn't sure what it was. Three wolves? Or one wolf with three heads? Whatever it was, it guarded him.
Another wave of nausea and dizziness made Azriel slump to one side. His wings felt thick and cold. They burned as if his brother's flames were racing along his back.
Still, in spite of the ache, hope stirred in his chest. The Grecians had him- maybe they had his mother too. Magic couldn't save her, but Prythian relied on magic. If they had another way to repair what was done she might survive.
A stray breeze lifted the tent flap. What caught Azriel's eye wasn't the dog with three heads.
It was the wooden pole sitting between his tent and another black-gray one.
They were only visible for a second, but a shockwave of terror slammed into him.
Two Illyrian wings, each pierced through twice by the pole. Pinned open and left to rot in the sun.
Azriel reached behind him with a shaking hand. He felt wet gauze and bandages. But- but he must not have reached high enough. He tried again, looking over his shoulder at the same time.
Bandages covered an area too small and too flat to hide wings.
Something opened in his soul. Something empty and endless and black.
No scream shattered the silence in the tent. He didn't rage or try to rip the bars apart.
Azriel slumped to the floor of his cage with wide eyes and an open mouth. The horror that washed over him burned away any thought or emotion. He turned to that gaping maw in his soul and let it consume him.
Hades stood in the corner with his daughter as the Angels surrounded Persephone.
Zahariel placed a hand on either side of her head. Haniel rested his hands over her heart. Remiel would be the one to touch the collar directly. Beside Zahariel, Mnemosyne held her vial, now open.
Healers surrounded Persephone's legs. More than twenty laid their hands on her. Aesculapius and Zahariel determined there was not enough time to heal her before the collar blocked out all magic once more, but they hoped quantity would win out. Half would focus on her back, the other half the damage to her pelvis.
"When I blink, drop the shard," Zahariel said one last time. There wouldn't be time for words.
Mnemosyne nodded and lowered the vial to within an inch of Persephone's forehead.
"Brothers," he took a deep breath, and the angels began their work.
Three spears of blinding, holy power shot into the goddess. They broke against a wall of steel and pure, raw power. The three drew on might left untouched since their war with the gods and concentrated their strength into one single beam.
He'd said Zahariel would know when to use His gift. The archangel lifted one hand to grasp a vial that had been hanging from his neck for nearly ten thousand years.
Ashes of a broken promise. Of a garden abandoned and burned in holy rage.
The power was enough.
In the heart of their beam, the collar's walls shifted to secure their prisoner. The gap appeared as one form of magic gave way to another.
Zahariel blinked.
The shard fell into Persephone's brow.
Healing light flooded the breach as it closed. Not enough to repair everything, but enough to do something .
Their task complete, the angels withdrew their might and stepped back.
Hades rushed forward to take his wife's hand as color returned to her face. Melinoe stayed in the corner, fear in her eyes.
No sooner did Hades touch her than there was a shift in her countenance. A shudder.
The Queen of the Underworld and Mother of Night opened her eyes.
** TSON has been suspended TEMPORARILY as I address some health issues. I am making no promises on when the next chapters will be posted.