He knew the sound of it intimately, had heard it in the middle of the night when Bells had her nightmares. Except this wasn’t a scream of fear, butpain.
Dylan threw himself forward and the pop of his shoulder dislocating echoed in the back of his mind, followed by the quick agony. ‘Let me go!’ he roared.
They only offered him a knife.
He looked between them all. There was no taking on fourEmpyreals, not in a weakened state like this. He barely felt capable of standing, let alone fighting. But maybe he could buy himself time.
‘I – I’ll need my hands free, and my arm.’
One of the Empyreals came around to unshackle his chain from the wall and put one palm to his chest as the other grabbed his dislocated arm.
‘Wait, I—’
He didn’t have a chance to grit his teeth before the arm was forced back into the socket. He screamed behind his teeth, barely able to relish the escape from the discomfort. The cell zoomed in and out of focus as he grappled to stay conscious.
He felt them fix his chains to bring his arms around the front and push the knife into his hand. It was a signifier of how unthreatening he was and how confident they were that they gave him a weapon.
‘Let me see my family and I’ll do it.’
‘You’re not going anywhere.’
He could barely make out their features. How could he fight his way out of here like this? He couldn’twait, Bells needed him. His father. Nicole.
Desperation; devastation clawed up his throat. ‘Please—’
‘Swear your oath and we’ll untie you,’ one said, his face swimming.
‘Repeat after me,’ the other Empyreal said. ‘I pledge myself—’
Dylan cursed the world as he tipped the knife to his arm and went to carve through the skin. He gritted his teeth against the blood that welled up, dark and fast.
‘I pledge—’
Liquid fire razed his blood, turning his words into a strangled cry.
Wrong, his Empyreal told him, as if it was tearing through the haze of its healing process, but was too weak. Instead, it blared warnings and spotted his vision with light.
‘—myself,’ Dylan panted through his teeth.
‘In eternal service to the Wake, as their loyal hunter,’ the Empyreal continued.
He’d managed a crescent moon now, blood sliding hot down his forearm and spattering to the cell’s stone floor. He didn’t know if he’d make the circle reach, if it would form the shape in the right way.
It made him understand, truly understand, Nicole’s fascination with paintings. Withsymbols.
This one wasn’t just the symbol of an open eye, of the ‘awakening’ of an Empyreal through their first transformation.
It was an eternal prison.
And he was about to be well and truly damned.
I’m sorry, he thought. To his mother. To himself, and the new, shuddering power within.
But I have to protect them.
Dylan steeled himself to say the next words. ‘In—’
‘Dylan!’
