Savage Worlds, page 16
part #3 of Savagery and Skills Series
“Finally healed. Seneca sleeping?”
“Still. But at least she seems to be peaceful.” I hung my head.
“I sensed Petra was off days ago, but I simply believed she was frightened. This was my fault.”
“No, if anything it was mine. Rudarius was right. I was predictable.”
“How could you have known he’d be able to get to us here?”
“Because that’s how he is,” I replied simply. “Always five steps ahead of me. I should’ve done this differently. Reached out to you all some other way.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “What’s done is done. All that’s left to do now is see he pays in kind for his crimes. I never wanted my coven to see war, but you’re right. Doesn’t matter where we go. He’ll find us.”
We stayed at the railing watching the commotion below us, but not in any hurry to move away from our perch. Nathaniel, Shane, Wendall, and Theo were working with Vince’s new second. They needed to get everyone organized and make preparations to move out to Seneca’s cottage. I’d been worried about where to put an entire army, but Macron had poked his head into our conversation long enough to say he’d take care of it, then bustled away again. Macron would have to take a break at some point, and then I could corner him. Carson said he was going to check in with Vince and see if there was anything he could do. I watched him walk away and noticed Macron leaving another room.
“Macron,” I called, and he paused, clearly trying to duck out of sight. “Just tell me, please. What happened over there?”
He sighed but seemed to lose whatever internal struggle he was having. “As Seneca told you, we found the forge and rings were made. There’s little else to tell really.”
“And all that shit Rudarius said about conversations with her? Was he lying?”
“These are questions you should save for Seneca.”
“You’ll tell me the truth.” I picked at the cracked stone railing as I spoke, not wanting him to see the growing doubt in my eyes. “She did talk to him, didn’t she? At least tell me that much.”
“The situation is complicated.”
My fingers froze, and I glared. “How? Rudarius is evil. That’s it. End of story.”
Macron’s sharp intake of breath said otherwise, and this time, I did look at him. The old mage seemed to have aged while they were gone. The wrinkles on his face appeared deeper. He held himself differently, a slight hunch to his back. “I wish I could say there’s an easy answer,” he said quietly. “I wish I could tell you the new rings can take away all our worries, but they can’t. We were foolish to think they would. I’m afraid this… situation is about to get even messier.”
I rested my forehead on the railing. The rings were supposed to save Seneca, but from the way Macron talked about them, it sounded like they only made her worse.
“Are we losing her?” I whispered, hating I even had to ask such a question.
“Do you want me to lie?”
“Shit, you can’t be serious? How? She overcame his influence before, I’ve seen it.”
Macron said nothing for a long couple of minutes. “We’ve all underestimated his influence on her mind. How deep he’s been able to seep inside her very being. The betrayals, the losses, they left her vulnerable and nothing any of us did helped.”
“You’re saying it’s our fault?” I snapped, baring my fangs, but Macron didn’t flinch away.
“Yes, in a way. We’re certainly not blameless, but you have to have faith.”
“Right, faith.” I hissed as I heard my own words thrown back at me. “Have faith and stay optimistic that she won’t let evil take over her mind. That she’ll be able to stand against him in the end. Not by his side. Tell me, Macron, how the hell am I supposed to do that?”
My words echoed around the vast chamber of the fortress. The vampires below looked up at me.
Macron shrugged. “I wish I knew, Draven. I truly do.”
I stormed away from him, not sure where I was headed, but I didn’t stop. I had to keep moving to stop my anger from tearing a hole through me. Everything I passed became a blur. Voices fell to the background, and all I saw was Seneca’s eyes turning black as she attacked me. Seneca as she laughed evilly, standing beside Rudarius while they slaughtered the vampires and the fae.
Seneca as she killed me.
I found myself in a dead-end corridor and completely alone. I paced from one end to the other as my hissing turned to a snarl, then a furious shout. I bashed my fist into the wall, kicking and hitting the stones as if they were Rudarius himself and I could beat him to death with my bare hands. I’d been an idiot this whole time, thinking I was protecting Seneca. Had I damned her? Had I just gone and made it worse? When my strength gave out, and my hands were numb, I fell to the floor. I leaned my back against the wall and looked at my bloody knuckles. I was losing Seneca because of that piece of shit vampire. He was never going to stop trying to take her from me.
One way or another, I had to stop her from giving into his call. But first, I had to know the truth. I had to know what they talked about so I could figure out a way to stop her from giving into the evil growing worse within her.
Chapter 15
Draven
We spent two more days at the mountain fortress before Seneca finally woke.
We started the trek home.
She hardly said anything to me but clung to my hand as if I was the only person keeping her alive. Questions burned to be asked, but I held my tongue until we reached home. Nathaniel and Shane stayed behind. They’d join us with the rest of the vampires in a week or so, once Macron had time to make room for them all at Seneca’s cottage.
“I need to gather supplies,” Macron told me, pulling me from darkening thoughts as I stood in the living room. “Helena and Minnie should be back tomorrow.”
I nodded slowly, hearing him, but not caring. The front door opened then closed, and I turned around to go look for Seneca. Neither one of us was going to like the conversation we were about to have, but there was no more putting it off. If we were about to go to war, we had to go into battle clearheaded, not ready to fall apart.
She stood in the middle of the backyard. The air was cool, and she had a heavy black sweater on, though she was barefoot as always. I stepped outside but kept my distance. Her new rings glimmered in the light of the orbs hovering close by, which were shifting from blue to violet then back again as if trying to decide to be calm or angry. Her fingers moved as if tapping the air, but there were no shadows surrounding her, no dark magic spewing from her hands.
I circled around to her right, trying to figure out how to start this conversation when she did it for me.
“I dreamt about you, while I was in that other world,” she said quietly, looking intently at the ground in front of her. “We were here. It was so real.”
I froze. “Here? In your dream?”
“Yeah, you tried to stake me through the heart. Said there was no saving me.”
“Huh, funny, in my version you tried to rip my throat out,” I commented lightly.
Her gaze shifted to me.
I shrugged. “It’s what happened. We were talking about your journey, and then you attacked me. Woke up with puncture wounds on my neck.”
“And I had a stab wound really close to my heart.” She rested her hand on the spot. “Shit, Draven, what was that? I thought it was a freaking nightmare.”
I walked further into the yard, aiming for the oak tree. It was times like this I wish I could be better with words, but blunt was so much easier, to say, if not to hear. “Rudarius. I’m sure he had something to do with it. Getting inside our heads somehow.”
She crossed her arms at the mention of his name, curling in on herself.
“Seneca, how many times did you talk to him while you were gone? What did you even talk about? And please don’t lie. As much as I hate Rudarius, he’s usually telling the truth.” I rested against the tree, waiting. “I’ll stay out here all night and all day if I have to. Give me an answer.”
“I don’t know,” she blurted.
“You don’t know.”
She shook her head, hair falling from the very loose braid she had it in. “I just… it happened, alright? I was inside my own head one minute, and then we were in some room at a fortress. At first, I thought it was at his place, but then thought it was all in my head.” She rubbed her face hard, eyes wild and landing everywhere but on me. “I wasn’t even sure if it was real.”
“Obviously it was.”
“Don’t,” she snapped, aiming a finger at me. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me, like I messed up. Like I did something stupid.”
“You said you wouldn’t talk to him again.”
“Like I can control it,” she ranted, throwing her arms in the air. “You and Macron are the same. You both think that everything that goes on up here is in my control. Well, it’s not.” She turned her back to me.
The orbs in the yard burned bright red.
I ground my teeth, not moving away from the tree, as I worked to keep my temper in check. “What did he talk to you about? Did you learn anything useful?”
“Draven, don’t.” Her pleading tone caught me off guard, as did the guilt that came with it.
“Seneca. What did he do?”
The orbs changed from red to blue, then black for the length of a heartbeat, then back to red. My imagination ran off with me, growling quietly as I imagined him hurting her. Torturing her all over again inside her mind. What she said next rooted me to the spot.
“He tried to comfort me,” she whispered. “He spoke about what he wanted for my future. What he saw me doing. He showed it to me.”
“Showed you what?”
“Another possible outcome and it was terrifying and glorious at the same time. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
She sounded almost in awe, and slowly I approached her as she kept talking.
“He hugged me as if he… as if he loved me,” she spat, and I bit back a curse, willing her to stop talking, but at the same time, I had to know what was going on. “He kissed me. I was comfortable around him, Draven. How… why? I don’t—I don’t understand what he did to me. But I was, and I wanted to go back. I wanted to see him… gods, what’s wrong with me?” She spun around. Tears streamed down her cheeks as true terror filled her green eyes.
For a long moment, all I did was stare at her, dumbfounded, torn between disgust for her and fury with my own fear. Then she clapped a hand to her mouth, eyes wide, and sprinted to the fence. As she was sick over the side, my limbs finally stopped being numb, and I rushed to her, holding her hair and rubbing her back as she heaved. She trembled. I held her up, talking to her quietly, not even sure what I was saying.
Rudarius had indeed messed with her mind, but not in the way I assumed he would. This was a low blow, and it was meant to hurt me more than Seneca.
It was meant to tear us apart. And I nearly let it. Hearing Seneca admit she wanted to see the man who tortured her, who tainted her in the first place sickened me. But she’d fought him in the Blood Dragons fortress. She tried to kill him. Rudarius was going to have to try a lot harder to turn us against each other.
When she finished heaving, I turned her around, but she kept pulling away.
“No, just don’t, alright? You can be pissed. I’m pissed, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to… to… shit, I hate him,” she shouted the last, shoving away from me and stumbling across the yard. “You hear me, you bastard? I hate you.”
“Seneca, he tricked you,” I told her, but she continued to slip from my grasp, and I gave up for now. “He got inside your head. Hate to say I told you so, but I knew this would happen.”
But she was shaking her head like an insane person. “No, no, no. You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I get?”
“It’s worse, so much worse. You’re going to hate me. I hate me.”
Honestly, at that moment, my mind couldn’t stop seeing Rudarius holding Seneca as I held her. Kissing her as I kissed her. My own stomach rebelled, but I swallowed hard and didn’t lose it. Yet. “I will never hate you.”
“You should.” She held up her rings.
“I’m confused, what about them?”
“I messed up,” she whispered. “I was supposed to focus on who I am, on my power while I made the rings. And I was, but then this voice crept back into my mind.”
“Rudarius?”
She went perfectly still as if hearing that voice. “It was me, but not me,” she finally said, her lips barely moving as if she was afraid to say it aloud. “And now… shit, I have to get away from here. He’s going to use me against you. I can feel it.”
She made to bolt for the back door, but I blurred around and caught her in my arms. She kicked and punched wildly. No way was I about to let her go. I held her, taking her fears and her anger until she calmed down enough for me to set her back on her feet and have her face me.
“The rings, Seneca, what happened with the rings?” I asked, keeping a tight hold on her shoulders.
“The moment I created the rings, that voice was speaking to me,” she said loudly. “And when we were fighting, Rudarius showed me what I did. What I let happen.” She held up her hand again as tears burned in her eyes. “He has rings, Draven. Rings that match mine and I basically gifted them to him. It’s my fault. Whatever he does next it’s my fault.” She repeated it over and over, attempting to break away from my arms again. “You have to let me leave. Just let me go. He’s mine, alright? I’m the only one who should face him. Let me go!”
“No, just stop for a minute. You’re not going off to get yourself killed.”
“Why the hell not?” Her shout was so loud; it caught us both off-guard. “The rings were supposed to help me, and all they did was give him more power. What if I’m not enough? And this voice in my head, it’s constantly whispering.”
“Then find a way to drown it out.”
“Don’t you think I’m trying?” she shot back.
“Leaving now means he wins,” I said as she turned her back to me to walk away. “You’re letting him win. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know what I want, not anymore.”
“You’re lying. You want the same thing I have all along. I know you do. You just have to remember it.”
She whirled around and marched toward me, shoving me, but I stayed put. “I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else. But I don’t think I can stop it anymore. I don’t want you to be there when I fail. Your disappointment will kill me. Don’t you see that?”
“You are not going to fail.”
Her laugh was harsh and filled with bitterness. “You don’t get it. He’s up here,” she tapped her forehead, “and nothing I do is going to get rid of him, nothing aside from obliterating him.” She looked at the rings on her fingers as she added quietly, “To do that I might have to lose myself.”
“No,” I snarled and grabbed hold of her hand. “I won’t let you.”
“What if there’s no other choice?”
“How can you say that so calmly? There’s always a choice and if I have to tie you to a damned chair until you see that, I will.”
“Cage me? That’s what you want to do?”
“If you’re going to run off and be an idiot, yes.”
We hissed at each other, close to starting another fight. This time, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold off her attacks.
We stood toe-to-toe, glaring at each other when the back door opened, and a voice reached us.
“Hey, I just got back… what the hell is going on with you two?” Marlie asked. He moved to get in between us, but I took a step away from Seneca. “I miss something?”
“A lot,” Seneca replied. “You have news from Ash?”
“The fae are going to be arriving over the next couple of days,” he said slowly.
“Good, the vampires will be joining us then too,” I informed him, not looking away from Seneca. “Macron said he’ll find a way to accommodate everyone.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“Anything else?” Seneca asked, her voice strained.
“No, that’s it. You sure you’re alright?”
Seneca glowered at me then stepped back as she said, “Peachy,” then stomped inside and slammed the door shut behind her.
Running my hands through my hair, I paced around the garden, cursing under my breath every few steps. Rudarius had given up torturing her the old-fashioned way and tried to seduce her instead. What had he shown her in this other possible future? She hadn’t told me, and now I doubted she would say anything else on the matter. He ruined everything in my life, but I was not going to let him steal her from me.
And now he had new rings just like hers. What the hell did that even mean for us?
“Draven? What’s wrong with her?”
Damn, I forgot Marlie was out here with me. “You have an hour?”
“Yes. She forged new rings, right? I thought you all would be celebrating, minus the dead vampire leaders, of course.”
I reached the bench and sat down heavily, clasping my hands between my knees as I hunched over. “Rudarius admitted he wanted Seneca as a bride,” I informed him as he joined me on the bench. “It appears he’s now trying to convince her that joining him is the right path to follow. Now she’s terrified she’s going to turn on us. That she won’t be able to stop the evil taint inside her from taking over.”
“Not going to happen.”
“What I said, but she’s changed.” How was I supposed to fight him when he was inside her head? I said I’d be there for her, but this was her fight. She had to be the one to silence his voice for good. She had to be the one to show him she wouldn’t be so easily taken. “He almost had her,” I whispered in disbelief and Marlie cursed. “If she hadn’t come back when she did. If Rudarius hadn’t attacked us…” I trailed off, hating where my thoughts went.
“It won’t happen. Seneca loves you, Draven.”
“I know. She’d rather leave me and face him alone than risk my life.”
