Twenty-nine

“Sibbi, please. This has gone on for almost two weeks, if you know you’re going to be force fed, just eat. Please.” Farrin laid a cool cloth over her forehead.

“No.” Any concessions would be a sign she was breaking. She needed to hold strong. There was strength in pain. The Cave, a song she’d heard Sage listen to more than once poured out softly.

“Sibbi.” Farrin sighed and kissed her head. 

“What is she singing?” Dara sat on the bed next to them and stroked her cheek. “Another refusal?”

“Yes. Something about strength in pain.”

“Under any other circumstances I’d be proud and marvelling at her. You will give in eventually, Sybil.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Farrin was agonized. This was taking its toll on him as well, Genevieve could feel it like the constant soft ache in her soul. 

“She will. I can keep doing this for far longer than she can endure it.” There was a moment of quiet. “Keep encouraging her. I know this hurts you as well, the sooner she gives in the sooner you can both be happier.”

“Yes, Father.”

The room was quiet after Dara left and Farrin resealed it. She lay on the bed trying to keep herself together and not think about the grey room and Dara’s painful spells. He alternated them with fatherly affection and pleas to think of her brother, it was beyond exhausting.

The phone buzzed on the table and she jumped, she hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep. “It’s alright, Sibbi. Go back to sleep.”

She half listened to the conversation with her eyes closed. “No, she’s… here.” The sound of a picture being snapped made her flinch. “She’s awake enough to flinch when I took the picture.”

“No. I’m-I understand that but I’m worried you might upset her, she’s barely holding it together.” He exhaled. “If she gets upset you’re not going to get to talk long.” Farrin stroked her hair, “Sibbi? The phone’s for you.”

“Justice?” The voice was so familiar… “I need to know how you are, how much longer can you hold on?”

Opening her mouth to try to speak the song Angels Fall spilled out.

“What did you say to her? I can’t tell if that’s hopeful or suicidal.” There was a pause. “She hasn’t eaten, he’s been force feeding her with a tube down her nose. He’s sure he can break her and he intends to keep her alive until he does.” Farrin sounded exhausted. “Soon, I hope.” 

She faded down into sleep, when she woke she was alone in the room and the sun seemed to be setting. Her mind was fuzzy, but it cleared as Farrin and Dara entered.

“Father, she needs more rest.” Farrin was pleading urgently.

“She slept all day. It’s time for me to try something else, you can either bring her down or wait here.”

“I can’t. Father, she can’t take much more.”

“She’s stronger than she looks, all Mesny’s are.” Dara stood next to the bed looking down at her. “Get up Sybil. Or should I take your brother down tonight? He’s very insistent you need a rest.”

Genevieve trembled as she forced herself out of bed. Night in the grey room. This would be worse.

“Do you-do you have the internal phone if you need me?” Farrin was staring at her as if he were asking her the question. He turned back toward Dara when he got no answer. “Father?”

“I have it. Who called you last night?” Dara gave a faint smile when Farrin looked startled. “The walls have ears.”

“Brandon called.”

“Sybil, who called last night?” Dara asked not taking his eyes away from Farrin.

“I don’t know. The voice sounded familiar but I was so out of it…” 

“How did he get your number, Farrin?”

“I gave it to him. I wrote him a letter and mailed it before you had me arrested.” Genevieve answered holding her head up.

“What else was in that letter Sybil?”

She remained silent.

“Sybil.” His tone was a warning.

“The Sibyl is not required to answer.” She murmured, feeling defiance stirring.

“You will answer me.” He took hold of her arm and pulled her along down to the grey room. “Too much rest and your defiance returns.”

“My defiance never left. My end is so close.” It felt like the approach of relief.

“I have some things to show you, Sybil. The dream you had didn’t prepare you, I assure you.” He was coldly confident.

Genevieve shivered as she stepped into the circles to wait. This room was all too familiar now. The feeling of deja vu as he looked at her icily and summoned something from below was too strong to ignore, she looked past him expecting to see Remiel. The lumbering stone creatures took her by surprise.

Monstrous looking, huge and hideous, like carved demons. Gargoyles with eyes like bloodstone. Something inside her started to crack. They were not meant to be in the service of someone like Dara. They were made to protect not to harm. 

“What have you done?” She watched as they squared off against her and one opened his hands palms out as if to take hold of her. Genevieve launched herself at it with a wail wrapping her arms around its neck.

“That isn’t the reaction I expected, Sybil.” Dara sounded sour. “You woke screaming from the dream.”

“I saw something else in the dream.” Her heart was beating fast.

“What did you see?” He asked pensively. “I suppose I could shatter another one.”

Looking into the creature’s bloodstone eyes she felt her resolve set. She was going to die but there was one last thing she could do. Her feet touched the ground and she turned on Dara. “Dara Mesny, you WILL sleep.” Genevieve’s hand struck him in the face and he fell to the floor.

A wave of pain rolled up her arm and her nose began to bleed as she teetered, barely keeping her balance. The internal phone. Stumbling and crawling to the table to pull herself up and call her brother she hoarsely croaked into it, “Come get him. Bring me sage to burn and one of my glass pieces of jewelry. Now.”

Leaning over the table she panted and waited. Farrin came quickly with salt water and a costume jewelry bracelet. “We don’t have any sage, Sibbi. What happened?”

“Take him. Take him up and into a protected room.”

“Why?” Farrin eyed the creatures and helped her stand.

“They are blameless. He isn’t worth their desecration.” She pushed him. “Go.”

Genevieve pried a piece of glass from the bracelet and stood in front of them with the water as Dara was dragged out. She didn’t have long. Holding onto the glass and flicking the one she had embraced with the water repeatedly, she spoke as clearly as she could, “You are free of his influence. You are free of his spells. You are free of this place.”

Its posture changed and it made a horrible stone grinding noise that made her wince. “Glass is a void. Take this, wrap it around yourself and you will not be touched by those spells again.” She offered it and watched as the creature took it and placed it in its mouth.

Turning her attention to the three others she did the same to and for them, repeating herself each time. The four stood when she had finished, looking at her expectantly. “You have to leave. You have to do what you were meant to do as you were meant to do it. I can’t-I can’t.” She shook her head helplessly. “Go.”

They looked at each other for a moment and the stone grinding began again, the sound bringing her to her knees. One crouched in front of her and imitated Dara’s voice as if it had been recorded and played back. “What did you see?”

She looked at it in confusion.

“You woke screaming from the dream. What did you see?”

“Remiel. Here. In danger.” Her eyes were burning. “I’m going to die, but I need him-I need him safe.”

“I knew the wolves wouldn’t let her leave so easily. Find them, keep me informed.” Dara’s sharp tones came from the creature’s mouth.

“No! They can’t! Please you have to warn them! He’ll be weaker when I’m dead, they have to wait! If they come here when he’s prepared, while I’m alive, he’ll slaughter them, he’ll slaughter my pack! Please!” Genevieve pleaded tearfully.

“We have to go now! We need to get her! My mate is going to die! Die thinking I can’t love her, thinking I don’t know how much she loves me. My Alpha, PLEASE!” Remiel’s desperate voice repeated to her made her crumble.

Dissolving into heartbroken sobs, she curled on the floor as the creatures stepped away and began to tear the room apart. One scooped her up and put her on the ground outside when they had made a hole large enough through the layers of building to clamber out. The sounds of destruction continued for a time and then fell silent.

Dara’s surveying of the damage at dawn when he ventured out of his protected room left him seething with rage. Genevieve had stayed where she was put in the grass and when Dara moved to kick her Farrin shoved him off balance, putting himself between the two of them.

“You’re not going to do that, Father. She had your life spared.”

“She had them destroy my defenses so that the wolves can do the job instead. You knew, didn’t you, that the wolves were coming?” Dara was practically snarling.

“Yes, Father. I want Sibbi safe. She isn’t going to bend.”

“She would have if you had done as you were told!”

“No. I sent for them, Dara. I sent Mother’s notes to her mate. She called for Justice.” Genevieve sat up fixing him with a look of defiance. “The Sibyl will not serve.”

“Very well. I’ll give you what you’ve been asking me for since you arrived.” Dara lashed out at Farrin knocking him from his feet, leaving him writhing in the grass. “Cold is the water, smoke and heat but no light? That was how you phrased it?”

“Justice will be done.” There was no fear, only anger. Anger that he was going to outlive her. Anger that she wouldn’t know if Remiel was safe. Anger that her brother had to die too. 

“You would rather die than see your own family prosper. You are ungrateful Sybil, as ungrateful as your mother. I spared her a terrible fate and offered her a life filled with wealth and she spat on it just as you have.” He grabbed her by the back of her head, forcing her to her feet and half dragging her.

It looked like a garden shed but when he dragged her into it and shoved her into what looked like an open well pit, she was certain it had been a long time since it had been used as one. Dara followed using the ladder. 

“You’re not trying to escape?” He looked at her dubiously.

“No. I want it to be done and over.” Genevieve could feel her heart starting to beat faster. Her pack would have a better chance when she was dead. 

He gestured down a short cramped passage with smoke stained walls and she moved down it of her own accord. “There was no need for this. You could have had everything you ever wanted, everything you ever dreamed of. Family, wealth, purpose… This is a waste, Sybil.”

“It is.” She stopped, staring at the hideous little hatch. “And you can stop it, if you submit yourself to judgement for the wrongs you’ve done, Dara Mesny. Justice-” Her head bounced off of the metal.

Genevieve woke inside the black chamber. The grate under her was sharp and uncomfortable and the t-shirt she was in didn’t offer much protection from it. Above her, heat radiated from the metal. The fire was above her. Her anger had dissolved. There was no longer any need for it.

She wasn’t afraid to die, she wasn’t even really afraid of the pain that was coming. It was anguish, pure and clear. Not knowing if she had done all she could, not knowing if she’d made the right choices. It felt like her back was starting to bake.

The sudden rush of cold water up through the grate made her shriek without meaning to, and it went into her mouth and nose threatening to drown her before she turned putting her too hot back into the icy water. The water that was forcing her up toward the hot metal. Her hands reached out to brace against it and she screamed again as it burned them. The air tasted like thick smoke as it was sucked through the narrowing space. The water rushed back down sucking her against the grate as quickly as it had come.

Shivering, coughing, and panting, curling on the grate she knew it would keep doing that until she died from the stress of it or until he decided to flood the chamber completely either with smoke or with water. She wailed as the water rushed back in, bracing her hands on the hot metal again. 

Flooding and freezing, burning in the black airless space. Genevieve couldn’t keep track of anything, finally slipping under the glass to wait for the permanent release of death.

The glass was clear again. She hadn’t been able to tell in the darkness, but when she was dragged into the light, hauled out of the hole in the side of the chamber, out of the ground, she could see. There was no sound, no feeling. Just the flurry of motion around her.

It seemed like they were trying to get water out of her lungs, trying to make her breathe. She hadn’t realized she wasn’t. Farrin appeared over her pressing a thumb between her eyes and speaking something she didn’t understand. And then she heard it, Justice. Justice Valla. It rang like a bell under the glass, lifting it. I’ll know my name as it’s called again.

Pain washed over her as she drew in a sudden shuddering breath, her lungs hurt, her hands, every inch of her body. “Bastion.”

“I’m here.” Her brother looked like a weight had been lifted. “And so is someone else.” He looked up and gave someone a half smile. “He dug, he didn’t even hesitate.”

Turning her head, she saw Remiel looking at her helplessly and afraid as if asking permission to come close. “Remiel. Please don’t be afraid of me.” 

“I’m not.” Remiel moved closer, lying on the ground next to her and kissing her face softly. “I’m not afraid of you, I’m afraid to touch you. You look so-” He came to a stop pressing his face to the side of hers.

“You look like you’re on death’s door, Ms. Valla, and you smell like smoke, burned flesh, and stagnant water.” Alpha Germain looked around at the house and garden. “Dara Mesny is dead, but I’m still not sure if the house is safe to go into. You need care.”

“The house is safe.” Bastion assured him. “If it isn’t, I can make it safe. I really want to put her in a salt bath but I’m afraid it would hurt her. I don’t have any sage to burn.”

“We’ll get some. Ethan, Alpha Latro?”

“Alpha Latro?” Justice craned her head.

“Elizabeth is coming, she’ll bring it with her. She wants Justice wrapped up snug and warm for now. If you have any bone broth she can have that. No salt baths and no licking until she’s had a chance to look her over.”

“Understood. Remiel, Bastion, take her in. I want a perimeter set up. I don’t like this place.”