Killian sat with Acheron, Kael, and Ronin. Acheron reminded me of Lore—carefree with a serious side he turned on at the drop of a hat. Kael had the same boyish good looks as Gideon, and a kindness that was impossible to conceal from the world. Ronin, he was silent and broody, always examining everything and everyone around him with an expressionless look on his face. The three men looked more like Knox than the brothers I’d been around. Lore’s soft chuckle forced my focus to shift, sliding over his moss-covered face.
“You aren’t inspecting my brothers for a potential mate, are you? Because Daddy had his application in early, for the record. Knox isn’t coming back from this, is he?” The stabbing pain in my chest began anew from the pain flashing over Lore’s face.
“We’re going to need a miracle, but who knows, right?” Tears singed the back of my nose, as heat pushed down my face.
“What was the point of searching for him? He’s gone. That thing that was here, that was not my brother,” Basilius growled in a rough resonance that had Esme visibly trembling.
“We needed to know if he was alive,” I admitted, which caused all conversation within the library to stall out.
“Is he?” Lore asked, cutting through the tension my words had created.
“Yes.” I felt my throat narrowing as the truth of it scratched its way to my tongue.
Killian exhaled a weighty sigh, then crossed his inked arms over his chest, tucking his fingers between them and his chest. “Look, Aria. I want Knox to be alive, too. But you saw the black shit leaking from every fucking orifice just as much as we did. That isn’t my best friend. That was a fucking corpse with Knox’s voice dripping from its lips,” he scoffed.
“Killian’s right.” Brander placed his hands on the table in front of him. The blackish-blue strands of his hair were disheveled from constantly raking his fingers through it, ever since the confrontation with Knox. The bags beneath his eyes were dark, which made him look older, if at all possible. I wasn’t even sure how old Knox was, let alone any of his brothers. “It’s a hard thing to accept, but it’s even harder to hope he’s in there. Not when he’s willing to murder his own people or brothers.”
“Can’t say I don’t agree with them,” Esme stated. “He intended to kill you, Aria. Knox wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“No, Hecate intends to force him to kill me,” I argued. “That black shit? That’s her fucking darkness. I watched the beginning of her introduction into the realms. Hecate released the same ink-colored droplets from her own eyes. It’s her magic, which allows her to take control of whoever it slithers into, literally. It’s a part of her, which means she’s inside those who hold the darkness.” I’d watched it slithering up the woman’s leg in the 4D rendering, the same as Esme had that day in the library. “She created the witches to harbor her dark magic. It spread like a virus.”
“Hecate didn’t create witches,” Acheron argued as his nose crinkled. “She brought them with her, or so we were told.”
“No, she didn’t. The gods imprisoned Hecate here because she reached for things that weren’t hers to take. The only thing Hecate could bring was her oak staff and her dire wolves.” Lore issued a smothered whine at the mention of the wolves. I calmly sat beside him and ran my fingers through his hair. “When she arrived, she released her own darkness and used it to taint other creatures to become useful to her. That’s why witches can breed with any creature as well. The darkness can be spread through sex from a mother, to that of her unborn fetus. In short, those who have even a sliver of her oily, dark magic in them, are what eventually became what you guys call witches. They’re not, though, not really. They were the inhabitants of the realms before she showed up and infected them.”
“You’re certain?” Brander questioned.
“I’m more certain of that than I am of my ability to drink water,” I confirmed. “You remember the witch Knox killed when I was in the water?” He gave a slow nod as his lips pulled down at the corners.
“The one in which you sought to free the tainted ooze that Ilsa controlled her with . . .” Brander sat up straighter, his eyes widening.
“Exactly.” I chewed my lip and glanced down at Lore, whose eyes were glittering with adoration. “I’m fairly certain that if they’ve held it within them too long, the host can’t sustain life after she withdraws the darkness. Those born with it in them? They’re different from those forced to consume it. They’re infected with the taint she unleashed to build her own army, but she uses them as a power source. She is only as powerful as the numbers standing beside her, literally. The fewer witches in the realm, the weaker she becomes. Luckily for us, Knox went on a witch-killing bender before he forced us back here.”
I’d never thought to be happy about what Knox had done. Not that they all deserved to be slaughtered. That wasn’t the case with the ones who hadn’t ever asked to be born with her magic inside them.
“How do you know he’s even still alive without actually seeing him?” Killian cocked his head, then leaned forward, lacing his fingers together as he rested his hands on the table. “How can you know that if none of us could discern it?”
“Easy. The idea of having to kill Knox forced me to use my brain instead of my emotions. The moment Zyion touched me, Knox fought to the surface to threaten him. Knox was there, but the more he fought her, the more darkness she forced into him. He was struggling to tell me he was still there. That means we’ve got to figure out how to get him away from her. Once we have, I can attempt to draw out her darkness from him.”
“In order to do so, you’d have to get close to him,” Zyion scoffed. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I’m not easily taken down. He didn’t just hold power, Aria. That was a direct line from Hecate that he merely drew from. I’ll add that he was using a corpse like a lackey, which still caused a lot of damage. If you face him, he could kill you. Shit, he could kill all of us.” The tone he used caused my flesh to cover in goosebumps. His hand lifted, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache.
“I’m aware of the cost, Zyion. It’s Knox, though.” Closing my eyes against the stares of worry filtering from the faces within the room, I shook my head. “I’m going with or without you guys. I can’t leave him there knowing he and Lennox are trapped in his head. She’s forcing him to remain at her side with magic. Knox isn’t there because he needs or wants to be there. He traded himself for Lore, for fuck’s sake.” My voice broke, and the fingers gently moving through Lore’s hair were pulled down and laced through his. “I’ll fight for him. I’ll fight for him with my last breath, if that is what it takes. I can’t just leave him to that fate. And, if I can’t have him, she can’t either. Knox would rather die than be forced to remain endlessly by that bitch’s side. So, if I can’t save him, then I’ll set him free.”
“What if he kills you and we still don’t save Knox?” Lore asked, with sweat beading on his brow as the fever burned within him. “Because I can’t live with being the cause of losing you both, Aria.” Chills chased up my spine at his words.