AIDAN
This felt like a trap.
It felt like a trap, but with Fire burning in his heart, he wasn’t afraid. If anything, he was amused. Tomás thought he could trap him? Natasja thought she could dazzle him with—what?—a glittery hallway? A maze? Please. All it would take was a flick of power and he could turn this entire place into a goddamned puddle. Ice was nothing. Not against the sun.
But he had to admit, he wanted to see whatever snare they had laid for him. This was his final kill, after all. Sigmund had been simple. Desmond ridiculously so. And now that he stood on the precipice of his final victory, he realized he wanted a battle. Even if it was all a farce. He didn’t want to just destroy the castle and everyone within. He wanted to savor it.
He walked down the crystalline hall, admiring himself in the many mirrors that lined it. Mirrors and ice and snow in the corners, and if he hadn’t had Fire in him, he would have been freezing.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
His voice echoed along the hall, reverberating off crystal and glass and stone. He knew this was supposed to be disconcerting. Knew he was supposed to feel like a mouse in a cage. But what could she do that would harm him? He had the primal Fire in his hands. He could unmake her in a heartbeat if he wished.
“This way, young Hunter,” came a voice. It echoed, too, but he followed it with a smile. Down the hall. Around the corner. And into a maze of the dead.
Calum’s hall had been desolate in its depravity. But this...this was artistic. Whereas the frozen statues in Calum’s castle had been dusty and dimly lit, this was clearly meant to be a showpiece. One intended to inspire fear in any who trekked through it. Frankly, Aidan was just bored.
He’d have thought the Kin would at least be a bit more original.
He walked down the rows and rows of giant ice slabs, each lit with bright electric light above. And within each slab was a human. Some with shocked expressions. Some clothed. Some young, some old. But they were each of them posed, each of them floating in eternal ice. And each block of ice had something Calum’s hall had not.
Tubes.
Tubes looping from wrists, carved in the ice and into flesh. Tubes sluggishly transporting thick, coagulated blood.
“Do you like what I’ve done with them?”
Natasja’s voice was as cold and crystalline as her subjects. She glided into the hall in a ball gown, a long, glittering, delicate thing of blue satin and diamonds. She was tall and pale, her hair bleached within an inch of its life. Her eyes glittered light gray, and around her throat was a heavy sapphire necklace.
She probably thought it was impressive. A show of power, that in a broken world like this she could walk around wearing finery. No armor, no weapons, no flank of guards.
He just found it terribly outdated.
“I’ve seen better.”
Her eyes flashed, and that serene expression cracked. Just like Tomás, the monster waiting below the surface of her highly polished exterior was craving blood.
“You’re here to kill me,” she said.
Aidan examined his nails, twining flame around his remaining fingertips.
“Yup,” he said. “Is this the point where you beg for mercy?”
She laughed, high and clear.
“Would you expect me to grant you mercy if the roles were reversed? I think not. Creatures like you and me, Hunter, we are not in this game for mercy. We are in it for power. And we fight to the death to maintain it.”
“And yet you aren’t fighting.” He gestured to the emptiness around them. “No guards. No defenses. Save for those ridiculously bad runes you had out there. Who taught you those, anyway?”
“Our Mother,” she said, and began walking away. “Come. We have much to discuss before you kill me.”