“Why would it do that if Ryder and I are here to feed it power, though?”
“Because of the two options the world has handy, his is the more powerful magic for it to draw from. That doesn’t mean the land won’t end up settling into a balance between the two, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
He slid his darkening eyes to clash with the silver-colored ones, peering directly at him with intrigue and something sinister burning in their mercurial depths. Arius was conscious of the connection to Spyder, even if he didn’t understand the how or why of it all.
“If that’s true, then why haven’t we felt a dimensional shift of power?” Ryder asked, rubbing his chin.
“If you’re starving, it doesn’t matter what you eat so long as you’re being fed. Until the land reaches an equilibrium, it will pull any power it can from whatever source is available.”
“That’s not good news,” I whispered so quietly I wasn’t certain anyone else heard it, until a collective sigh shivered through the room. “Fuck . . . fuck!”
An insane fucking titan had my daughter, and his essence was the brainchild of the biggest fucking monsters we knew. How much fucking worse could it get? I felt like I was going to puke and then scream until my lungs lost the ability to draw air.
“It can always get worse. He cut me off, which means I don’t know what he’s thinking or planning. I do know that this land will accept him. It’s already done so once before. The entire realm is now dependent on him, which you’ve only managed to supplement, as Danu did by adding the tree. It’s not enough to sustain the land. If it was, Arius wouldn’t be hearing the realm crying for his return.” Spyder hesitated, and then frowned. “If I knew where he was hiding, I could seek him out and try to reason with him.”
“Does Arius know who you are?” Lena asked softly, giving me a reassuring look, which did nothing to ease the growing panic rushing through me in violent waves, seeking to drown me in a watery grave.
“He doesn’t know what he really is, no. He should believe Oberon and Titania were his parents.”
“Can he be killed?” Ryder asked with hope churning in his liquid golden-colored gaze.
“You can’t kill him, Ryder. If you kill Arius, you kill the root of magic in this realm, which is why I put him in the mansion in the first place. He would need to be contained, but not killed. If you murder him, you murder magic in every realm attached to Faery. Ether is the source of magic in every breed who houses the capability to wield or manipulate it.”
“Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that when Spyder adds to the growing pile of what-the-ever-loving-fuck, it gets ten times worse?” Adam asked with wide, horrified eyes.
My head bobbed in agreement before I raked my hands through my hair. “If we can’t kill him, and he’s completely unwilling to negotiate, what the hell do we do?” I demanded as my chest struggled to rise and fall under the weight of this situation.
“There’s got to be something we’re missing. Arius changed somehow, and we need to figure out how he did. He was trapped in the mansion, which he figured out a way out of obviously. It explains why the mansion vanished, and I can’t find a trace of it in any dimension. My guess is this: Arius deciphered the codex, and in doing so, rewired it to be a part of him. So, what changed about him would be the question we need to focus on,” he muttered while rubbing his chin.
“How could he do that?” Lucian queried with narrowed eyes aimed at Spyder.
“I don’t know, but my guess is he found something in the mansion. The mansion held vast knowledge, and journals. He was there long enough to read everything available. If he adhered himself to the mansion, it would explain why it vanished once I removed Kahleena from it. It also explains how he knew about her, and where to find her. When I was in the mansion with her, we spoke of you often and I told her what was happening with you. He’d have heard it all if he was in control of it, or hell, he may even be the mansion for all we know.”
“Zahruk seems to believe that he’s keeping Kahleena alive because he needs something more from her. If we take an educated guess and assume that whatever he wants is something housed inside her, then if we get her back, we not only save our daughter but also hold something he needs.” Ryder’s tone was growing more frustrated as Spyder answered our questions. “But what the fuck would she house that he would need?”
Spyder was right. If she was alive, then there was a chance to locate her and get her away from him. Unfortunately, we didn’t know where the hell he was, or where he’d hidden Kahleena. Her words replayed in my head, forcing throbbing to pound in my temples. Shaking the thoughts away, I focused on what his reply was.
“I honestly have no fucking idea. I do know it isn’t her magic. It can’t be that, since he holds his own. Kahleena is gentle, and still views the world through the eyes of innocence. She’s ethereal, and kindhearted. But, she’s also fierce and very powerful in her own right. I know, because I trained her and spent a lot of time doing so. I sought to ease her fears with knowledge, training, and stories of you and her home. Or, I did until madness sank into her mind, and the mansion fought me to keep her, and expel me. At least that part now makes sense. If Arius was the mansion, it meant he was aware of my presence in it. I merely thought it sensed me, and sought to force me out in order to keep her there.”
“You trained her?” I whispered, scrunching my nose up as theories shot through my head.
“I didn’t touch her, Synthia. Not like that, anyway. She needed a distraction, and not even I can enter that dimension without being trapped for a period of time. I went in to get her, and ignored the issue and implications because Kahleena was your child. You’d have done the same for mine.”
“Not if the cost is my child,” I corrected, hating that I sounded abrasive and bitter. “I wouldn’t expect it of you if the shoe was the other foot. Our children are the purest thing we create, and they’re our entire soul put into an extension of us. She’s my daughter.”
“And he’s my creation,” Spyder stated with a glittering look in his glittering eyes. “I intend to help you look for him and get Kahleena back.”
“Thank you,” I said softly, hoping he knew I was thanking him for more than just his willingness to help find her. If it weren’t for him walking into that mansion and getting Kahleena out, she would likely still be locked away, slowly being driven closer to madness.
“The next real question here is, where would he hide once he escaped the prison? He isn’t just running around this world. Arius has to be close in order to control those infected by the sludge.” Lucian tilted his head, studying the way Zahruk continued to track Spyder’s every breath.
“It isn’t sludge,” Spyder corrected. “Ether, which is ten times worse and impossible to remove unless the host source removes it,” he informed with a hardened look on his face. “I hate to say it because I pray it isn’t where she’s hidden,” Spyder stated, rubbing the back of his neck. “He may be holding her inside the mansion. It would mean she’d have no perception of time, and he could be using that against her. To her, it would be infinite and never-ending.”