Apprentice of Death

The following morning, Cinder was in her room, preparing to leave for Dominique’s. She was just about to leave when she heard the secret door open with a quick knock, cracking so Adrian could ask if he could enter.

“Enter,” she called from across the room.

“Cinder?” he asked, looking around for her once he was inside. She stepped out from behind the changing area in a deep purple dress.

“I have something for you,” Adrian said, “Something that I’d like you to wear at all times, especially when you go to Dominique’s.” She was curious but waited for him to explain.

He came over to her, holding out a necklace made of silver that had an oval moonstone in the center of it. The necklace was made of woven silver wire, in a beautiful vining pattern, with the shimmering oval stone in the center. She could sense some magic in the item and looked up at him questioningly.

“Would you wear it for me, please?” he asked her, his eyes almost pleading. She signaled her consent by turning around and pulling her hair to the side to allow him to put it on her. His hands lifted the necklace and placed it around her neck, clasping it behind her neck as she held her hair. His hands lingered against the back of her neck until she turned around to him.

Her violet eyes found his, and he could see the question in them, thinking, “It will help keep you safe.” Her lips parted in surprise at his gesture; he wanted to protect her however he could, especially because he couldn’t actually be there with her.

She wasn’t familiar with moonstones and didn’t know how it was supposed to protect her. She had done some reading where they had been mentioned as part of an incantation and had heard of them, knowing what they looked like but not much else. Even though she didn’t know how it would protect her, she knew that Adrian wouldn’t ask her to wear it without a good reason.

She smiled at him, thinking, “Thank you, Adrian.” He gave her an adoring smile as he studied her face momentarily. His eyes briefly went to the necklace before they drifted back to hers.

He swallowed back his desire to touch her and thought, “I will be escorting you today. Sebastian will be reviewing some material in preparation for holding court tomorrow.” She was surprised; he had never escorted her before; only Sebastian had and, on a rare occasion, a patrol.

“Will you be picking me up as well, then?” The agreement was made that she would never again be without an escort like when Dominique had fed on her, but she was still surprised that he was escorting her himself.

“Yes, I will.” She gave him a nod.

“Alright then, let’s go.”

They traveled silently, stealing sideways glances at one another as they rode along, enjoying the morning in the forest. Adrian’s thoughts were nervous about her entering Dominique’s Keep again. He was searching his mind for how else he could protect her or help the situation; he hated feeling helpless.

She sighed into his mind, “There is nothing that can be done, Adrian. Don’t drive yourself mad with trying to come up with ideas. Your willingness to escort me is enough. She could hear his disagreement in his mind that it was enough.

He began wondering if he could petition the council for all of her time, overriding her work release with Dominique. It sounded like a good idea until he remembered that even as a King Alpha, he was nothing but a werewolf in their eyes; they probably wouldn’t even listen to his request, let alone show him favor over a vampire sorcerer. He sighed in frustration, still racking his brain for ideas. T

hey had arrived at the gate, and he reluctantly pulled up, letting her continue ahead without him. He looked at her one last time before she rode into the gates that opened for her. She felt his gut clench as he watched her ride through the gates beyond his sphere of protection.

Cinder looked up and locked eyes with Adrian as the gate closed behind her, cutting her off from his sight, his jaw muscles tightening at the last second before the gate closed. She walked her horse over to the hitching post and dismounted, taking Obsidian’s reigns and hitching him to the post to stand there.

She waited for her escort to come to her before heading into the dungeon that held the prisoners. While she worked, he stood in the far corner of the room, bored and dozing as always.

She again started with the ones on the verge of death, moving around the hanging cages and the living corpses chained to the walls. She moved over to the tables to check and see who needed her help first. One woman was already dead, so Cinder closed the woman’s eyes, a tear rolling down Cinder’s cheek as she moved onto the next table.

This time, the little girl, Lucy, was among those on the verge of death, and Cinder about started crying as she worked to save the little girl’s life. Cinder wiped at the tears that managed to escape, but she did her absolute best to keep a smile on her face for the little girl; she was awake for once, watching Cinder work.

“What is your name?” the little girl weakly coughed out while looking at Cinder. Cinder had plucked the little girl’s name from other prisoners’ minds, but the girl had never been awake to speak with her before now.

“My name is Cinder. What is your name?” Cinder met the little girl’s eyes with a smile while her magic flowed into the little girl, healing and strengthening her; the bite mark on her neck slowly came together and then was no more.

“Lucy,” she answered Cinder with another coughing fit.

“That’s a beautiful name! Lucy, how did you end up here?” Cinder smiled affectionately down at the little girl as she searched for any more wounds she could heal.

“I got caught trying to steal food from one of the Keep’s supply wagons,” she offered.

Cinder looked up from her examination with a scowl of confusion, asking, “Why were you stealing from the wagon, Lucy?” Cinder asked as more of her magic flowed into the little girl, healing the rat bites she had found on her legs, pushing out the forming infection in the bites first, and closing them up.

“I’m an orphan, and I was starving,” Lucy said, looking to the side. Cinder sighed, sad at Lucy’s situation but also feeling in shock over Dominique’s acquisition of Lucy; instead of having mercy and letting her go.

Cinder grabbed some fresh water and a rag and cleaned the little girl’s legs, which were covered in grime and blood from the rat bites. Her heart was aching for the little girl, and she couldn’t stop the tears that came to her eyes and rolled down her face, so she turned her body to hide them from the little girl.

Cinder finished washing Lucy and touched her forehead, gently caressing her, saying, “Rest, Lucy. Try to sleep to allow your body to heal. I’ll get you some water after I’ve finished healing the others, alright?” The girl nodded and closed her eyes, laying her head to the side.

Cinder moved to the following table to treat the next prisoner and found an unconscious Sean, slowly bleeding to death, with another massive wound in his neck. He had either fallen asleep or passed out; she wasn’t sure. She immediately stopped the bleeding with a compress and pressure, quickly flowing her magic into him to heal the wound.

After examining the rest of him with magic, she discovered he had multiple broken bones and another stab wound, bruising and bleeding flesh wounds, and minor cuts all over his body. His internal organs were also a bruised, wounded mess like he had been beaten by a granite fist; one she knew to be pale and deathly cold to the touch, making her shiver.

She healed the stab wound first, again flushing out the infection and closing it up, making it disappear. The bones would be harder to heal and hurt immensely when she fixed them. She was relieved Sean was unconscious and prayed that he stayed that way. So far, he hadn’t woken, and for that, she was grateful. She healed his leg bones first, praying that the pain wouldn’t bring him out of his slumber.

A sickening crack sounded when the bone was set and put into place on the last leg bone, and she could feel his mind rousing from it, but she still had a few ribs that she needed to repair. His head flopped to the side, facing her, as he began to come to.

She quickly lifted his shirt and placed her hands on his chest, over the broken ribs. His chest was covered in the same black tattoos she had spotted earlier, and she had difficulty not staring at them as she worked, flowing her magic into his body. His ribs snapped back in place and fused back to normal. One had punctured his lung, deflating it, so she turned her magic on him there, healing him.

He sucked in a breath once his lung was clear and inflated and finally opened his eyes to look at her. He recognized her and blinked in a way that expressed his exhausted irritation with her continuing to heal him when he would rather die.

He grabbed her wrist, his chains clanking as he moved, thinking, “You really need to stop healing me, witch. Just let me die.”

She looked at him and felt with her magic, that his jaw was dislocated and his eye bloodshot and damaged. She reached toward his face, but he restrained her.

“Sean, let me heal you.” He stubbornly refused to let her go, so she pleaded, “Please. I’ll get into trouble if I don’t.”

The fight in his green eyes faded, and he let her bend over him and touch his face. She set his jaw with her hands and then used her magic to heal it. She healed his eye, and he blinked as his vision in that eye returned.

She felt tears stinging her eyes as she remembered the horrendous wounds she had just healed. She moved back down to Sean’s torso, pouring her healing magic into his body, healing the internal damage, and the tears started to pool in her eyes, blurring her vision as a tiny sob escaped her.

Surprised by her emotion over him, he looked at her, then thought, “Don’t waste your tears on me, witch.”

She met his eyes just as tears slipped over her eyelids and ran down her face. He let go of her wrist and slowly reached up to her face to wipe her tears away with his thumb. His touch was gentle and light as he looked at her with tired green eyes. Surprised by his soft touch, she stared back at him, and a question occurred to her.

“Why are your wounds always so much worse than anyone else’s, Sean?”

A mocking smile tugged at his lips as he looked at her, and he thought, “I figure one of these times, I’ll be able to make him angry enough that you won’t be able to save me, witch.” She was horrified.

“Sean, you mean you are trying to get killed?!”

He just closed his eyes and dropped his arm to the table with a clank. Was death so much better than this? Didn’t he want to try to live and get out of there to return to his family and friends? Didn’t he have anything to live for?

Her brow wrinkled with concern while her eyes reflected how much she cared as she gently asked, “Sean, how did you end up here anyways?”

He snorted and replied, “I failed in my mandate.”

She watched him blinking lazily again, almost rolling his eyes at his statement that only served to confuse her more, so she asked, “Which was what exactly?”

His green eyes opened and met hers, gauging her reaction as he answered, “To assassinate him.”

She mentally gasped and searched his face, asking, “You mean you’re an assassin?! ”

His mocking smirk showed his amusement at her question, and he blinked again, thinking, “Was. If you fail your mandate, you never return alive. I would have preferred death to this, but he caught me. We didn’t know he was a vampire too. He guards his identity very closely, and we had no intel.”

Cinder closed her eyes as fresh tears slid down her cheeks; her heart was aching for him and his words, his desire to die. He reached up and wiped the tears away again with a small sigh.

“I told you not to cry for me, witch. I was dead the moment I was handed over to the assassins to train me, anyways.” She shook her head, grieved by his sad life and all the evil he had seen and experienced to make him prefer death over life.

“Sean . . .” He touched her lips and shook his head.

She remained silent for a time, his fingers still on her face, as she studied him with her eyes, thinking about him. He didn’t say anything; he just looked back at her, watching her thoughts and emotions as they crossed her face. He knew they were there because of him, and he seemed surprised and fascinated that she felt anything concerning him.

Her brow wrinkled again as another thought occurred to her, so she asked, “Being an assassin, is that why you are different in your mind? Is that why you appear different to me? Is that how you escaped the hold I put on your mind?”

He smiled a mocking smile again and nodded, keeping his eyes on hers, thinking, “Seems the witch learned something today. Next time, you let me die.”

Cinder shook her head no, leaning over him more, unable to bear the thought. She had grown to care about him, and the idea of purposely allowing him to die when she could help him made her feel like she was being stabbed in the heart. She gently shook her head as more tears escaped her and ran down her face to fall on his cheek.

“Sean, no.”

His eyes held patience as he answered, “If you want to be merciful, you will. The same goes for that little girl you seem to care about. Sustaining life here is only drawing out suffering. Let me die.”

She began crying for real this time; her face fell as she sobbed uncontrollably until it rested on his chest. He sighed with impatience like you would dealing with a child. His shackled arms came up slowly to surround and hold her while she cried on his chest.

He mentally sighed, “It’s alright, witch.”

She cried herself out, soaking his tunic before she managed to calm down, the sorrow settling into her heart as a dull ache. Was she capable of such ‘mercy,’ as he called it? Could she actually let them go, let them slip away?

She felt him look down at her, thinking, “I’ve always been a dead man walking, witch. You’re the only one who even knows my real name, so don’t fuss over me. No one will notice my passing, I promise you, witch, so stop wasting your tears over me.” She lifted her head from his chest and leaned back over his face, touching his face in shock while capturing his gaze.

“No one even knows your name, Sean? You’ve lived your life without friends or family?”

He said nothing; he just blinked an affirmation to her words, as the smallest pulling at the corner of his mouth signaled the bitter irony of her questions. She studied him some more, gently touching his face, asking, “Do you know nothing of love even?”

He didn’t answer her, and his trained mind revealed nothing. His piercing green eyes stayed on hers, and slowly, both of his hands came to her face and gently pulled her lips to his. He kissed her for a moment until her hands came to frame his face. He rubbed her face with his thumbs and then released her, gently holding her face close to look at her.

Mentally he whispered, “Now I have.”

Her lips parted in surprise, and more tears welled in her eyes, slipping over the lids to run down her face again with the grief she felt and what he had just done; oh, how her heart was aching.

He wiped at her tears one more time, thinking, “No more crying, witch.”

Cinder gasped and stood up straight when the door to the prison flew open a second later. She quickly wiped the rest of her tears away before Dominique could see. He walked in and spotted her close to Sean. His eyes went to Sean and back to her and narrowed as he walked over to her, evaluating the situation that he had walked in on.

“I have a soldier outside that needs your attention more than these prisoners,” he coldly informed her. She curtsied to him, not trusting her emotional voice to answer him without letting him know she had just been crying.

He turned and left, intending for her to follow him, leaving the prison door open as he went. She exchanged one last look with Sean before leaving the room to follow Dominique. Outside, Dominique had a soldier with a deep sword wound in his thigh waiting for her. She quickly healed the injury, and the soldier got up and left without a word of thanks, returning to his post guarding the secret door in the corner.

Cinder dropped her eyes when she felt Dominique examining her. He stood in front of her as he studied her intently. He grabbed her face, making her look at him as he looked her over. He looked her up and down, his eyes landing on her moonstone necklace. In his thoughts, he became suspicious of something he couldn’t quite piece together.

He was familiar with the stone and started searching his memory for where he had seen them. They were rare, and his mind struggled to come up with the conclusion he sought.

“Where did you get your new necklace?” he demanded of her.

“From my other employer,” she answered him, doing her best to keep her voice steady and her face neutral. His mind couldn’t put the pieces together that he had floating around, so he just smiled at her instead.

“I didn’t know that employers provided such rare and lavish gifts,” he sneered at her. His mind was suspicious all at once that she had a romantic relationship going that was to compete with his designs on her. He still wasn’t aware that she had a relationship with Sebastian already because they had hidden it from him.

His grip on her chin lessened, though he didn’t let go. He wanted to kiss her, but the thought was interrupted as the gatekeeper signaled them that her escort had arrived. It was the end of the day, and she couldn’t have been more relieved. Dominique’s cold kisses were always painful and left her wanting to wretch. She didn’t know what she would do when the day came that he would try something more.

The signal to open the gates was given. Dominique released her but stood there, watching her, still trying to piece things together in his mind. In his mind, he was expecting to see Sebastian, waiting to pick her up. What he saw when the gates opened, however, was King Adrian.

Dominique’s mind snapped then and put the pieces together that he had been trying to figure out. Adrian’s moonstone livery collar shone in the sunlight as Dominique looked at him. He hissed in anger at seeing Adrian, and Dominique knew that Adrian was the one who had given Cinder the necklace.

Cinder rode out of the gate and didn’t look back as she spurred her horse toward the King. He smiled for her, and then his eyes locked with Dominique’s. Dominique’s lips pulled back over his teeth, and he snarled silently at Adrian, his eyes going blood red. His anger erupted anew inside of him as he watched them ride off together. Dominique vowed he would figure out a way to keep her for himself. He had taken Adrian’s love from him once; he would do it again.

Adrian followed Cinder as she rode away from the Keep. He was confused, as they weren’t heading toward his Kingdom.

“Cinder, where are you going?”

She kept going but answered him, “Come with me. I have somewhere I wanted to take you. Do you trust me?”

He gave her a smile, though his brow was wrinkled with confusion as he thought, “Of course.”

He followed her a short gallop East, and they arrived at Celeste’s fortress. Cinder called out, and the gates opened, allowing them to ride into the courtyard.