Nightborn: Totally addictive fantasy fiction (The Hollow King Book 2) by Jessica Thorne

Author:Jessica Thorne [Thorne, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838887629
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2020-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Aurelie hated the Temple. It was too quiet. Her footsteps echoed strangely in its emptiness. True, it was almost deserted these days. She had to keep some retainers here to keep Celeste fed and watered, amused and quiet, though it wasn’t an easy job. She was going through carers like a scythe at harvest time.

But Aurelie could always find more willing to serve.

Well, they weren’t exactly willing but whatever.

The former goddess was not in her rooms today. She was down in the cellars, trying to break her favourite obsession, the man who had created the sigil binding her. The fact that it was burnt into her skin now didn’t seem to occur to her. Aurelie was fairly convinced that Celeste would slice her own flesh off if she thought that might free her. She had probably already tried.

At first Aurelie had been reluctant to turn the old Master Atelier over to her but Asher had insisted and, idiot that she was, she had let him persuade her.

It’ll be fine, he’d said. It’ll keep her happy. And if she does find a way to break the spell, well then we’ll have her power at our command. She can feed us again.

If she could make the old man cooperate, so much the better. If anyone could replicate Mother Miranda’s work, it was Zavi Millan. Or so everyone assured her. Miranda had used her leeching powers and her knowledge of Bastien’s research to harness the powers of so many mageborn, sharing that magic with Aurelie and those she had honoured. But nothing broke the old man. Nothing.

Divinities, Aurelie missed the taste of magic, the feel of it in her body. It was an addiction, she understood that, one she had been forced to quit far too soon. She longed for it again: the power, the strength, the ability to bend the world to her whim at will. And she deserved it. All of it. Magic wasn’t something to be wielded by the weak and cowardly.

Now she had no one to source it for her. The last of the orbs containing raw, drained mageborn power were used up. She still had Celeste, and the mageborn prisoners, but no Miranda and no way of getting at their magic.

But if the price was letting Celeste Larelwynn free… Even Aurelie baulked at that thought.

Luckily, Master Atelier Zavi proved to be even more stubborn than Bastien, Marius and Grace Marchant put together. That was probably how he’d survived the fall of the Academy. His knowledge of how to access mageborn power had saved him then, the information locked away inside him invaluable. If they could only get him to comply.

But even Celeste couldn’t manage it.

He wasn’t screaming this time, that was a relief. Whatever she was doing inside his brain, she kept him quiet. But Aurelie could see the pain in his eyes, the way they flicked from side to side in panic. Celeste held his head in her small and perfect hands and pressed either side of his face, muttering words that didn’t make any sense.

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