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Authors: Roshani Chokshi

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BOOK: The Gilded Wolves
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26
S
É
V
ERI
N

Fifteen minutes before midnight

S
é
verin opened his eyes.

He was kneeling. He knew that much. His knees ached. The muscles of his neck throbbed. When he looked down, he noticed his hands were bound together. As if in prayer. His mouth tasted sour. A hint of clove burned on his tongue.

“Do you know where you are, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie?”

S
é
verin glanced up. Roux-Joubert
stared down at him. S
é
verin shifted from one knee to the next, feeling the heavy weight at the bottom hem of his left pant leg. Before he’d stepped foot into the catacombs, he’d placed a time-weighted bag full of diatomaceous earth and sulfur in the lining. A trail, he’d hoped, but now he wasn’t sure the others would find it in time.

S
é
verin bit his lip, hoping the pain would jog his memories.
He remembered entering the catacombs. He remembered seeing the strange grooves carved along the floor of the stage. He pushed
himself, new images rising to the surface of his thoughts.
Laila
. Laila screaming at him, reaching for him just as he was reaching for the helmet that had been stuck tight to Tristan’s head.

“He’s fine, my boy,” said Roux-Joubert, as if he could read his thoughts.

S
é
verin bit back a growl.

Roux-Joubert had laid a trap for them. And he had placed irresistible bait for S
é
verin: Tristan.

S
é
verin looked up. The scarlet curtains, once pulled close, had been flung back. The Tezcat door sprawled before him, towering like a great beast of polished obsidian. Through the Tezcat, he could see the Forging exhibition. Objects hovering above black podiums. The stingy
light of sulfur lamps draping the scene in shadows. But that was not all that he could see. Standing just on the other side of the Tezcat, feet planted firmly in the Forging exhibition, their hands shoved into pockets and smug grins on their faces were Enrique and Hypnos. S
é
verin looked away from them, his heart beating fast in his rib cage. His gaze swept the stage. Only two people stood there.
Roux-Joubert, dressed in a black suit, his honeybee pin prominent and polished on his lapel. Behind him, a stout man with a strange bowler hat, the brim of it gleaming as if … as if it were a blade.

S
é
verin tried to twist his neck to look behind him, but he couldn’t. Laila and Tristan were gone.

“Where are they?” he croaked.

“They’re waiting to bear witness,” said Roux-Joubert.

He took a step
toward S
é
verin, then stopped. He reached for a handkerchief in his pocket, coughing violently. Even now, his head still swimming with the remnants of nightmares, S
é
verin could see the other man was not well. The handkerchief was blood-splattered.
S
é
verin opened his mouth to speak when the man in the blade-brim hat held out an object from behind his back: the helmet.

Blue sparks traveled up the
glass exterior, and S
é
verin shuddered. That thing was the last object he had touched before collapsing. He remembered how it had invaded his thoughts. Images darting through his mind, grabbing his soul in a tight fist—his mother screaming at him:
Run! Run, my love! Run!
Tristan crouched in a rose-bush. The cuts of thorns crosshatching his skin. Golden-skinned pheasant on a dish. Laila’s hand falling
limp to the floor. Ortolan bones cutting the inside of his mouth.

Nightmares. All of them.

“The Phobus Helmet needs no introduction to you,” said Roux-Joubert. “Though you do seem surprised to see it. It was banned about ten years ago by the Order of Babel. Quite a pity, considering it produces excellent results. No one motivates you better than yourself. And who knows you better than, well,
you
?”

S
é
verin remembered Tristan’s face when he pulled back the helmet. The bruises beneath his eyes. As if he hadn’t slept in days.

“It’s astounding what one might reveal in their worst nightmares,” said Roux-Joubert.

The man in the blade-brim hat pulled up a chair for him, and he sat, crossing his ankles and smoothing the front of his jacket as if they were sitting down for tea.

“Including
an acquisition of a Fallen House bone clock.”

S
é
verin’s gaze hardened.

“Oh, don’t worry, my boy. It’s still particularly impressive that you were able to figure it out. Frankly, I wasn’t sure you would, but I left the trap there just in case.”

S
é
verin fought against the ropes binding his wrist, but they didn’t budge.

Roux-Joubert got up from his chair. In the sulfurous lighting of the catacombs,
his face was drawn. Almost yellow from illness.

“Shhh … Shhh … Don’t do that. You shouldn’t hurt yourself. Let someone else do that. Otherwise, where’s the fun?”

He touched S
é
verin’s face, trailing a nail down the side of his cheek. But then Roux-Joubert winced. He grabbed his sleeve, as if there was a wound there that needed tending. Slowly, he drew up the fabric, revealing a long gash covered
in a bandage that was stained yellow.

“This is the price of godhood,” rasped Roux-Joubert. “A price that we tried to pay once before.”

S
é
verin looked behind Roux-Joubert. Enrique and Hypnos stood there, clearly inside the exhibition and talking to each other, throwing something up in the air as if they had all the time in the world. S
é
verin wetted his lips. His voice sounded hoarse, but he needed
to talk. Needed, more importantly, to keep Roux-Joubert talking.

“Godhood?”

“Of course,” said Roux-Joubert. A manic gleam shone in his eyes. “Have you never wondered about why only some humans can Forge? It is an essence alongside the blood. One capable of being harnessed by the power of the Babel Fragment itself. God made us in His image. Are we not gods, then?”

Once more, Roux-Joubert lifted
his sleeve. He tore off the yellow-stained bandage, revealing pale skin crosshatched with scars.

“It was hard,” he admitted. “To hurt oneself. To flay oneself. But—”

He took a glowing knife from his breast pocket and dragged it across his arm. He winced, but when his blood ran, it was not red, but gold. Gold as ichor. As the blood of a god.

“—it is worth it. The Fallen House made a discovery
of our blood years ago. With the right tools, we could harness the essential es
sence within us that allowed those of us with the affinity to Forge. But that is just the beginning. It gives one power over more than just matter and mind—it gives one power over the spirits of other men. I’ll show you.”

S
é
verin jerked back, but the ropes bound him into place. Roux-Joubert took a step forward. He
pressed the knife point against S
é
verin’s cheek, dragging it downward. S
é
verin tensed. His breath turned jagged, his pulse leaping wildly. When he had finished making the cut, Roux-Joubert pressed the broken skin of his arm to S
é
verin’s face. S
é
verin cried out, but Roux-Joubert only pressed harder.

Roux Joubert’s voice was low, damp against S
é
verin’s neck. “I could make you an angel, Monsieur
Montagnet-Alarie.”

A searing pain rent itself across S
é
verin’s back. He screamed. Something shoved through his shoulder blades. He exhaled a shaky breath then looked behind him. The slender point of wings shoved through his suit, sharp as finials. Wet, pearl-pale feathers rose steadily into the air as they dried.

“Or I could make you a devil.”

S
é
verin doubled over. A new pain gripped him, shooting
through his temples. His vision blacked out, then restored just as horns shot out from his forehead, curving around the backs of his ears.

“I could change you.”

The very cells of S
é
verin’s being quivered until, in an abrupt rush, it fell away. The horns pulled back into his skull. Wings furled tight against his spine.

Roux-Joubert gasped—S
é
verin could not tell whether from triumph or pain.
He looked up to see the other man squatting, rocking on his heels. He was grinning and smiling so hard S
é
verin thought his teeth would crack. Roux-Joubert licked his lips, but no blood fell. Gold flaked off onto his chin, spattering the front of his jacket.

“But we cannot remake the world on just the power given by one Fragment, you see? If we were to
join
them, then perhaps such imaginings as
I might have performed would be permanent. I could
remake
you. Remake the entire human race in the images of
new
gods. Imagine it. No more of this hideous mixing of blood. A purity. Assured and filtered through the holy relics passed down to us from the first ages.”

S
é
verin fought through a wash of pain. His tongue felt leaden. “You know, I was told once that an ancient civilization in the Americas
made gods by sacrificing humans.” He smiled. “If you’d like me to drive a stake through your heart, you need only ask.”

Roux-Joubert laughed. “It’s far too late for that. It is time for revolution. Soon, the Babel Fragments will be joined together … but first, they must be awakened. Only then can we fulfill the promise and potential that the Lord set out for us.”

Even through the haze of pain,
S
é
verin’s mind latched onto something:
first, they must be awakened …

“And what promise would that be?” he asked.

“Why, to make the world anew, of course.”

The man in the blade-brim hat hoisted the Phobus Helmet. S
é
verin recoiled. He would do anything—
anything
—not to wear that cursed thing again.

“And it’s nearly time,” said Roux-Joubert.

He looked over his shoulder, grinning widely at the
image of Enrique and Hypnos.

“Your friends have been most helpful. Which makes me think that perhaps I owe you something … a thank-you, of a sort. All this time, you wished to know where the West’s Babel Fragment lay, did you not? Perhaps you wanted to alert the Order? Warn them, even?”

S
é
verin said nothing. His gaze flicked to the image of Hypnos and Enrique. Still laughing.

Don’t look …

“You’ll soon find out,” said Roux-Joubert, smiling. “You know, I rather like you. I think you could fit very well among our rank, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie. Should the doctor decide to let you live of course.”

Blearily, S
é
verin ran the word through his mind.
Doctor
. What
doctor
? Roux-Joubert coughed again, this time more harshly. He dabbed at his mouth, spittle glossing his chin.

A sound echoed
from the stage. S
é
verin forced his head to raise. Laila stood there. Behind her, holding a knife to her throat … Tristan. S
é
verin couldn’t look away from him. Tristan’s eyes were the same piercing gray they had always been. But Tristan’s eyes held no betrayal, only grief … and when he saw S
é
verin, his eyes widened. His mouth opened as if to speak, but something held him back. S
é
verin’s gaze flew
to Laila. Laila, who was …
mouthing
something to him. Beside her, Tristan’s eyes glistened.

S
é
verin couldn’t read her lips. His head still felt fuzzy from the Phobus Helmet. But he watched her hands. How they squeezed Tristan’s wrist. As if she weren’t fighting back … but reassuring him.

Before him, Roux-Joubert tore off the honeybee pendant from his lapel. He twisted it sharply, and the ground
ruptured beneath them.

“Now it begins.”

S
é
verin tried to take advantage of the chaos. He lurched forward, but an object whizzed through the air, sharp and whistling. The blade-brimmed hat of Roux-Joubert’s accomplice caught the edge of his jacket, pinning him to the ground.

“That would be a poorly thought out move on your part, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie.”

S
é
verin could only watch as the ground
beneath him changed. The deep, spiraled grooves set into the earth glowed a faint blue.
Bones peeled off the walls. They began to merge, cobbling themselves together into terrible shapes. The dead were bent into thrones and crosses, grotesque skeletons wearing crowns, and cruelly formed beasts. He felt a cataclysm rising inside him, of true Forged power, not the ornamentation and posturing of
the Order, but the very thing that had sewn itself into humanity.

“Are you familiar with the word ‘apotheosis,’ Monsieur?” asked Roux-Joubert. Ichor dribbled from his lip.

S
é
verin didn’t respond.

“It’s … a moment of
ascension.
From mortal to immortal. Man to God. And you shall witness it, but you shall not be alone. The doctor will see what I have done, and I will be glorious beyond reckoning,”
he wheezed.

Roux-Joubert raised his hands. All along the walls, the bones shivered. They peeled off the walls—skulls, femurs, necklaces of teeth—careening down from the terraces, knitting themselves together. The bones clasped together, the sound like thunder.

With the scarlet curtains fully drawn back, the image on the Tezcat mirror shivered. Across, Enrique and Hypnos had not registered the
danger. They smiled and carried on, not even raising their heads.

“S
é
verin,” called Laila softly.

Her dark eyes were wide and glossy. There was a plea to her voice. One that S
é
verin didn’t know how to answer. Because maybe Roux-Joubert was right. Maybe there was no hope. They had intended to deliver the Horus Eye to the Order. To show them where the Babel Fragment lay hidden. They thought the
Babel Fragment would be far away, hidden somewhere far from the Fallen House.

BOOK: The Gilded Wolves
12.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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