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“How do I go about retrieving this heart?”
“It is encased in a glass sphere at the center of Infernium. Theheartof the labyrinth. It is what feeds Eradye, by absorbing the energy of souls and vitaeilem. So long as it beats, Letifer lives.”
“And what happens afterwards?”
“The world collapses and the portal closes. You will have merely minutes to find your way back out. If you don’t, you will remain trapped inside Eradye with the Mortunath.”
Trapped inside that dark and lifeless world seemed worse than Ex Nihilo. “And if I close the portal, Eradye no longer poses a threat to the other realms.”
“Until it’s opened again, yes. Now, what say you?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I wish to make a deal.”
“Very well.” From the table, she lifted the vial that carried the black substance. “You will administer this to Miss Ravenshaw, after which the soul will be released. She will remain in a deathlike state for a period of three nights. If you fail to deliver Letifer’s heart, she will remain that way eternally. Three nights from when you administer the elixir. Remember this.”
“I understand.”
“I hope so, My Lord. For your sake, I do.”
* * *
An unsettling feeling stirred in my gut, as we followed the path up Blackwater Mountain toward the cathedral. The words of Venefica spun inside my head, over and over and over in the hours it took to ride all through the night, at a much faster clip than when we’d left. Sunrise was still another couple of hours away, and by then, I’d have to make the decision. Feed the drink to Farryn and leave her alone, yet again, to retrieve Letifer’s heart …
Or face the consequences of my father violating her for an eternity and Syrisa keeping her imprisoned in subspace.
If I could close the portal, though, I could kill him.
Damn the glimmer of hope that stirred in my chest.
“I know you think this is the solution, Jericho, but you asked me to come along for a reason.” If Soreth had had any awareness of the actual reason, he’d have surely felt foolish right then. “I have mulled over what that substance could possibly contain to put Farryn in a deathlike state. All I can come up with is Nightshade. How she intends to reverse those effects seems impossible to me.”
“Farryn has defied the impossible before.”
“And you are perfectly willing to accept the consequences, if you’re wrong.” The urgency in his voice seemed uncharacteristic for an arrogant prick. “If the witch can’t be trusted.”
“Why are you so against the idea? What do you care? She is a mortal to you. Below you.”
“While I may not harbor much love for mortals …. Never mind. I’ve nothing to say about this. Except that I find it reckless.”
“Recklessness is a necessity, at times. I will not stand by and hand her over to my father.”
“Why is he so hellbent on having her, anyway?”
A question I’d asked myself a number of times, with only one explanation that made sense after all these years. “He blames me for what happened to his sister.”
“I didn’t know your father had a sister.”
“Yes. So happened he was fucking her. Apparently, when I burned down Praecepsia, they fled to Eradye. She was bitten by a Mortunath, and so he returned here with her. To Blackwater Cathedral. He kept her in the dungeons for centuries, feeding her souls in Nightshade, which earned him a very dark reputation that I somehow inherited from him.”
A long pause followed, the quiet filled only by the clop of horse hooves. “That is why there are so many Nightshade flowers outside of Blackwater,” Soreth said from behind. “Unclaimed souls.”
“Yes. My father was a butcher. Some would say for love, but I don’t believe he’s capable of such emotion. The Knights arrived to push him out of Blackwater, and he fled. I personally ended my aunt’s life.”
“So, this is revenge.”
“Yes.”
“Certainly complicates things.”
