Page 82 of Ashborne Phoenix

‘You’re safe. But this has to look good. Trust me.’

‘I do.’

The echo of those words made my heart swell. Gripping her hand as if to stop her moving, but actually to steady myself, I turned to the watching crowd, whose expressions ranged from fascinated to deeply skeptical. I could feel Mother’s eyes on my back, but she couldn’t intervene without revealing that she was ignorant of my supposed power.

I’d told her to retrieve the sacrificial blades, and she had. Now she stood watching just as zealously as the others.

‘Kham?’

‘We are here.’

‘Hold on. And pray. This… I need help.’

‘We are here,’ he repeated, a grim gravitas in his tone.

“Your chants are not needed. The circle is not needed,” I said, just loud enough for my voice to reach the others in the now-silent chamber, as I urged Grace to scoot herself down the altar to lie down.

The red marks on her hands and gown made me nauseous. I tried to ignore them.

“You know who I am. And why I’m here. But you do not yet know the power I hold,” I intoned. “Your blood doesn’t sing like mine. Your magik is weak.” I lifted my eyes from Grace to scan the room and pin each of them with the derisive gaze. “Keep your fucking eyes open and watch your Heir take what is his, and his alone.”

No one spoke. I wasn’t sure they breathed.

Then, softly pulling Grace’s hair out from under her neck so the trailing curls fanned over the marble, I took her hands and lifted them over her head. One-by-sickening-one, I tied each wrist, and then her ankles, to the tether rings carved into the corners of the altar. The places designed to shackle sacrifices.

God, forgive me.

Grace kept her eyes on my face, even lifting her head as much as she was able to watch me tie each ankle. She never dropped the mask of eager adoration, for which I was once again amazed, and grateful.

Then I returned to her side, grasped her hips, and pulled her further down the altar’s surface, so there was no give in the ropes over her head. As the ties held her hands, she was forced to arch back, her wrists bound high enough that her spine rose off the flat surface.

‘Remember the safe words,’ I warned her. ‘I won’t hurt you on purpose, but if you’re too stretched… tell me. I’m listening.’

‘I will.’

I stroked her face and gave her the awful smile, then I turned to my mother and, without a word, selected a blade from the gold-trimmed black velvet cushion she held.

I used that blade, with a butcher’s precision, to cut off Grace’s dress.

Invoking Power

SOUNDTRACK: Elysium by Hopsydian

~ GRACE ~

I didn’t understand the words Voski spoke. Not one. There was a terrifying light in his eyes as he lifted the blade and spoke to it. The tension, that oppressive hum that already made the air in the room heavy, became cloying. Every person there leaned in, breathing faster, watching that blade flash under the torchlight.

When he first lowered it to the neckline of my bodice, a jolt of fear crackled through me, but as he cut through the bodice, following the line of the boning on my corset underneath, he left my shift intact. And though it was mostly sheer, I was relieved he hadn’t made me naked in front of all those people.

‘I’ll do my best not to, Grace. I give you my word.’

I began to sweat. But I focused on his face, reminding myself this was a deception, and we’d saved a life.

Better to end up naked and embarrassed in front of these awful people, than to watch them slaughter a woman.

When the tension of my gown gave under his blade, and I lay on the altar like a peeled fruit, only my shift between my body and the Cruors’ avid gazes, Voski began to speak again.

“Your magik is real. You have seen its power. But it is not the power of this world. The rites are imbued with old, weary power. The power that runs in my veins, in Grace’s veins, is invigorated. Fresh. Young. Not stifled, or drained by all this… frailty.”