Aidan blacked out.
He didn’t dream. Didn’t hallucinate. He swam in midnight and felt the Dark Lady’s eyes on his back. His world jostled and crashed. Pain was a constant ebb and flow, a pulse along with his heartbeat. And with it all was the greatest sense of emptiness, of loss. He couldn’t place it, couldn’t grasp the sensation long enough to understand. But as he swam in the darkness, he knew the void without was nothing compared to the gaping nothingness within.
A part of him wanted to drift away forever, to vanish into the abyss. He knew what it would spell, but death seemed far more comfortable than an eternity of this.
Then his body slammed against concrete, and he jolted from his darkness with a gasp. Just in time to hear a door slam shut. A lock slide into place.
The shivers started a second later. And with them, the dull, throbbing pain in his arm that made him cry out once more. He curled over to his side. Tried to hold off the tears as he held on to his wrist.
He didn’t know what was worse: the cold, the pain in his arm or the emptiness that clawed at his chest. He curled tighter and tried to find some sort of heat. Tried to reach for the power that had kept him alive for so many years.
He couldn’t find it. He couldn’t hold back the tears. There, alone in the dark and the cold and the emptiness, he started to sob.
He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d cried, and it surprised him so much, he laughed. Snot dripped from his nose and tears ran down his cheeks and he couldn’t tell if he was still crying or just laughing or if it even made a difference.
Of course it didn’t make a difference.
He was royally fucked.
The pain of absence was immense. He kept reaching for Fire, the reflex so ingrained in his mind it felt like breathing. Kept waiting to feel the heat blossom in his heart and rush down his fingertips, filling his veins with purpose. With life. And every attempt was a missed breath, a broken heartbeat. Every time he reached for it, he felt like he was dying all over again, his fingers clenching and unclenching as though they could claw flame from the air.
“Eventually,” came a voice, “you’ll realize there’s no point fighting it.”
Aidan jolted upright, tried to shut down his emotions. He sniffed and rubbed his face, but it didn’t matter if he was covered in snot and tears—it was too dark in here to see. Besides, it’s not like his cell mate would have missed hearing him sob.
“Who are you?” He sounded pathetic. He tried to steel his voice as he sat up. Pressed his back to the wall behind him. Told himself he wasn’t cowering. Tried, but without Fire backing him up, there wasn’t much fight left.
“Name’s Lukas,” came the voice. “I’d, um, I’d shake your hand, but I don’t quite know where you are.”
A thousand questions warred in Aidan’s mind. The only one that came out was, “What the hell is this place?”
There was a pause.
“Hell.”
Aidan didn’t respond. He heard the guy sigh and shift, the creak of a cot frame.
“We’re in London,” Lukas finally said. “Home sweet home.”
The words made Aidan’s gut sink even further. “What do you mean, London? London is a Guild.”
“Was. Until the Church took it over.”
Aidan’s thoughts were slow. As if, without Fire, they were freezing in his mind. “When—”
“A few days ago,” Lukas replied. “We got word Calum had fallen. Everyone started celebrating.” A pause. “I wish I could say that the Church attacked us. Came in the night. But they didn’t have to. They were already here. There was a coup the moment the Guild let their guard down. Half the Guild was murdered in their sleep by civilians who’d been brainwashed into thinking they were doing God’s work. The rest were captured. Branded by the Church. Now, they’re—I mean, we’re—being tortured. Though as you’re finding out, the brand is torture enough.
“Turns out, all those horror stories about the Inquisition were real.”
Aidan wanted to vomit. He wasn’t certain if it was from what Lukas was saying or the pain that throbbed in his arm and skull. “The others I came with. Are they—”
“Dead? Probably not.” Despite the words, Lukas’s statement didn’t make Aidan feel any better. For one thing, Lukas said it like it was a bad thing.
“Where are they?”
“How the hell should I know? I’ve been locked in here since the coup. If they’re lucky, they’re down here with the rest of us. If not, they’re upstairs.”
“What’s upstairs?”
Lukas didn’t answer.
Aidan reached down, gingerly touched the skin where his tattoo rested. It hurt like hell, but he didn’t let up. The flesh was hot and welted. The moment he touched it, he felt...wrong. His head swam like he was spinning, falling, spiraling down into a pit. It emptied every emotion from his heart, a vacuum, a cavern he couldn’t escape. It hurt worse than the physical pain. It was something beyond hurt. Something beyond even death. It was absence. Absence of what it meant to be alive.
He hissed and drew back his hand.
What the hell had they done to him? Or, better question: How the hell could he undo it?
“I’d say it gets easier, but I don’t like lying. Once you’re branded, you ain’t getting your magic back.”
It should have been impossible. Aidan had seen Hunters get entire arms blown or hacked or eaten off. They could still wield magic. The ability went deeper than the mark of the runes. It branded itself into your soul, attuned you to a frequency you could never forget.
Apparently, he had been wrong.
“Why are they doing this?” Aidan asked.
“Don’t quite know,” Lukas said. “Glory of God? Spreading the good word? Good ol’ witch burning? It’s hard to say. That’s the thing about Inquisitors. When you’re being tortured, it’s usually them doing the questioning. Goes with the name. If I had to guess, though, it’s because—without Calum as a threat—they figured now was the time to take over England. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’d already done the same up in Scotland.”
It didn’t explain why they’d suddenly decided to abandon their truce with the Hunters and start overthrowing Guilds. At the end of the day, they were all supposed to be on the same side.
Sure, he’d heard stories of Hunters getting pulled in for questioning. Hunters who had never made it out to tell their tale. But for the Church to mobilize like this, to take over a Guild...it felt like an act of war. Especially when led by Brother Jeremiah. Aidan had thought the man dead. Was this some petty act of revenge?
They came after Calum fell.
Something snaked through Aidan’s chest. An emotion he could barely place until the weight of it dragged him down.
Guilt.
The Church had overtaken London because Calum fell. Because he had killed the Kin. Because his victory had made everyone cocky. Because he had kicked Brother Jeremiah and his followers out into the streets to die.
This was the price of his pride.
“What’s your name, by the way?” Lukas’s voice made Aidan jolt.
Aidan considered lying. Not that he could see telling the truth making things any worse.
“Aidan,” he said. “Aidan Belmont.”
Lukas hissed in a breath. “The Aidan Belmont?”
Even the awe in Lukas’s voice did nothing to make him feel better. Nothing would make him feel better.
His silence must have said enough.
“Did you really do it?” Lukas asked.
“What?” Aidan replied, trying to keep his words steady. He hated that he was shaking. Hated that he could be scared. Hated that without Fire, he was nothing. Nothing. He’d always been nothing.
“Defeat Calum.”
“Aye,” Aidan replied. “I did.”
“What was it like?” Lukas asked. His words were soft and heavy with excitement.
For a moment, Aidan considered telling the truth. The full truth. After all, he might as well start practicing his confessions now. Why not admit that he’d stormed into the castle to see Calum pinned to the wall? That he had only won because another Kin had come in to do most of the dirty work? That that very Kin was the only reason Aidan had pushed to come down here? He considered sharing every dark secret of his soul, and without Fire to tell him otherwise, he nearly did.
His soul was a very dark place.
Instead, he grunted, “Not what I thought it would be. Do you have any idea how many Church members there are?”
“No idea. We never counted.” Lukas paused. Sighed. “Not that it matters, really. All it takes is a few of them to get into the people’s heads, and you have a whole new Sept. Their faith is a plague.”
Aidan felt it then—that note of anger, of rage. Not over being trapped, but over how easily the very people he’d liberated had turned against him.
“Shit,” Lukas said, and that’s when Aidan heard it: a shuffle outside the door, the thud of footsteps.
Aidan had just enough time to get to his feet before the door opened. Warm light poured in, flickering and orange, and just the sight of a flame made Aidan’s chest ache. He stumbled and reached out, steadied himself on the wall.
So much for not looking weak in front of the enemy.
There were three of them. Two maybe in their twenties, with shaved heads and strange angular tattoos on their scalps. The third, the man in the middle holding the lantern, was Brother Jeremiah.
Aidan found himself flinching at the memory of hot metal on his skin, at the sensation of emptiness when everything else consumed. “You,” he whispered to the man who had done this to him.
Old Aidan would have leaped forward and wrung Jeremiah’s neck with his bare hands. No matter the guards holding clubbed staves. He would have gone down fighting. Rather, he wouldn’t have gone down at all. Now it was all he could do to keep upright. To stare the bastard in the eyes rather than cower like he wanted.
“Me, indeed,” the man said. He smiled and bowed graciously, acting all the world like he was entertaining a guest and not holding him prisoner.
“It is good to see you again, Aidan.” Even though the man sounded like a grandfather, blood laced through his words. “Ever since we were forcefully removed from our home, I have prayed that we would cross paths once more. It seems my prayers have been answered. I hope you slept well on your journey; we have a great deal of work at hand. The road to salvation is long and arduous, especially for one such as you. But tonight is a night for rejoicing. For here, you are found. And with our help, we will guide you from the darkness, back into the heart of the light.” His smile made Aidan’s blood run even colder. “Let us begin.”
He gestured to the guards. They grabbed Aidan by the arms, yanking him out the door and into the hall. He didn’t even have the strength to fight. Especially when one of them grasped his burnt forearm. Aidan bit back a scream and tasted blood. They shoved him out. Jeremiah locked the door behind him.
Aidan knew Lukas’s expression all too well.
He didn’t expect Aidan to return.