When Stars Die (The Stars Trilogy) (26 page)

“You won’t have to force me,” I tell him, my voice monotone. “I’ll willingly give myself to you.” At least I can better someone else’s existence this way, since I have not been able to find a way to better my own.

Theosodore stops by an abandoned shack sandwiched between two dingy, boarded apartments. Instead of presenting me with his usual jagged smile, he raises an eyebrow. “You truly think this is why I chose to help you, just so I could take advantage of your vulnerability?”

I nod without the fear that would normally be present. “Don’t you want to make me your Exaltation? Don’t you want to end your suffering?”

Theosodore sighs. “That may be true, but even if I wanted to, I can’t. Mr. Cromwell has already claimed you as his Exaltation, so for me to take your purity would do absolutely nothing. I must choose another. I didn’t know that at the time.”

The mention of Oliver in such a callous manner sends a burst of anger through me that I thought would be impossible for me to muster. “Oliver has not laid claim to any part of me. I will not let him.” At least that is one thing I will not let happen to me. He has hurt me beyond repair, and to give in to the cruel demands of someone I still love would completely undo me.

Now Theosodore’s jagged smile decides to make itself known. “You don’t have a choice in this matter, Miss Amelia. An Exaltation is not a mere concept, but practical divine intervention. Once Oliver fell in love with you, you were branded. It isn’t a mark you can see, and you will never be freed unless Oliver falls out of love with you, kills you, or dies. Then you will free yourself to be some other Shadowman’s fair game. For now, you are his.”

Nausea sweeps me off my feet, forcing me to my knees to hold every screaming part of me together. Before knowing who Oliver was, this would have been a romantic concept, knowing that I am invariably tied to him so long as he is in love with
me. I would have seen the idea as a form of marriage. Now it’s beyond frightening to know that as long as he is in love with me, I can never fully free myself from him. I pull myself up, indifferent to the ice soaking through my stockings.

“Is there more to this?” I ask.

Theosodore’s smile widens. “Oh, yes. Because you are branded, Oliver will always know where you are.”

Nausea threatens to push me over again, but I steady myself against the shack and pull in deep breaths of biting air to stem the anger that threatens to burst through my skin. He will always know where I am. Because of this, I’m surprised he hasn’t killed me yet. He has had so many opportunities to do so, but I won’t wonder on that now.

I look at Theosodore with narrowed eyes. “Then if you’re not here to make me your Exaltation, then why are you bothering to help me find my little brother?”

“I care not for your little brother,” he says. “But your little brother is an excuse to confront the Shadowmen Alliance myself.”

“How long have you known?”

“I’ve known what they were planning since Oliver took it upon himself to propose the idea of an uprising. I joined Cathedral Reims to keep an eye on him.”

I dig my fingers in the splintered wood, deliberately piercing my skin to replace the anger with momentary pain. “Why didn’t you stop him then if you knew what he was up to? Why allow him to continue building this plan? Have you known this entire time about the Shadowmen around Cathedral Reims?” I think back to Sash and Asch and how they bolted when Theosodore came to Colette and I. “You could have done something.”

“I didn’t know about the Shadowmen around Cathedral Reims. If I had known, I would have snapped their necks. I have a power many of them wouldn’t trifle with. Very few Shadowmen are so powerful that they are feared, as Shadowmen powers are often equal to one another. This is why they took your brother. They believe he’ll provide them with a power as special as mine.”

I don’t even care to ask Theosodore to clarify his power. He made that clear when he attacked me in the library. “If you’re so powerful, why did you not stop Oliver?”

Theosodore’s smile transforms into a rigid line. “Because I too once toyed with the idea of a rebellion for the longest time, even after I decided to keep Oliver in my sights. But now that’s changed because the stakes are much higher than the Shadowmen realize. They will only be punished in the end should they follow through with this.”

“What are those stakes?”

“Freedom.”

I want to ask Theosodore how he knows that their freedom is in danger when they themselves don’t seem to, but an explosion rips the question apart, replacing any of my thoughts with an echoing ringing. A large plume of smoke rises in the sky, followed by bloodcurdling screams. The mixture of screaming and ringing divides my world into small pieces, hurtling my entire being into a state of confusion as I grasp what I should be doing. There are more explosions, more screams, and the explosions increase in intensity. Everything is in a haze.

Theosodore grabs my arm and hauls me into the shack, shuttering square holes that pass as windows with slabs of metal he finds lying on the dirt floor. There is only a small space between two slats of wood that make up the makeshift door. I see snow and wood and stone through these slats, then black cloaks. A gasp threatens to free itself, until Theosodore clamps a hand over my mouth and drags me back behind a pile of rubble made of wood, stone, metal, and other materials.

“Thank Deus Shadowmen powers like mine are rare,” Theosodore whispers. “Or else Malva would have been torn from the seams by now.”

What if it already has been? Oliver can control nature. Oliver knows where I am. For all I know, a root could be making its way through the earth to strangle me, the way one almost strangled Colette.

“We’ll wait this out. It’s too dangerous for you to be out there.”

“The re
bellion has begun, hasn’t it?”

Theosodore says nothing, telling me everything I need to know. I pull away from him, curiosity compelling me back to the slats. Theosodore doesn’t stop me this time. “It’s even more hopeless now to find my brother. He’s dead. That’s all there is to it.”

“You don’t sound so desperate to save him,” Theosodore says.

I scrabble back behind the pile of rubbish as more cloaks trail by. The air is thick with the scent of smoke and other smells I can’t distinguish. “I have to accept it, don’t I?”

“No, you don’t. You don’t know that he’s dead.”

“Yes, I do. If Nathaniel’s power is as special as yours, they will want it.”

Theosodore plants a hand on my shoulder. For a moment I think he’s going to dig his fingers in and shake me. He doesn’t. The gesture feels sympathetic. “You’re a fool for wanting to give up so easily. Where is the determination I saw in your eyes during the trials, that defiance when I fetched you for Mother Aurelia? You had so much life in you, and now you seem to be content with despair.”

I throw his hand off me, my nerves igniting with a spark of anger. “I am a fool, I’ll admit that. I’m a fool for continually hoping anything could change. And why do you seem to care so much, you who enjoys abusing sisters for breaking rules, for partaking in everything that is wrong with Cathedral Reims?” I find my voice rising, but with the screams and explosions outside, I am not concerned with being heard. “You were even willing to rape me, to forever hurt me so you could end your own pain!”

Theosodore doesn’t react in rage. He smiles. “And you were willing to give yourself up to me, so you have no reason to be angry over my past actions.” He crosses his arms to put on intimidating airs that have no effect on me. “If there is so much wrong with Cathedral Reims, then perhaps you should have never considered joining. I care because I want to stop this. I care because I know what Deus wants, and they do not. But if you cannot bother to care, then I will leave you here as deadweight and Shadowmen fodder.”

The anger threatens to tear me apart. In fact, my fury is so heightened that I can feel the fire moving beneath my skin. I want to slice that jesting smile off Theosodore’s face. How can a man who claims to be so devoted to Deus participate in such cruelty? He flirts with girls young enough to be his daughters, and then beats them for some mild infraction. Theosodore is a contradiction, someone who possesses an equal amount of love and hate that he can use together as weapons whenever he feels like it. I have no doubt that was his strength in life, to hide who he is by couching his actions with honeyed words. Whoever he was in life, I’m certain he was the type of man to beat his wife while claiming to do so because he loves her. But what makes him different from other men who do the same is that he doesn’t seem like he would be angry in doing so. He seems to enjoy torment.

“You’re so sick,” I tell him.

“You’re angry. You’re not completely gone.”

I could hurt Theosodore. I could hurt him right now. I feel the fire in me, and it can hurt him. “I have every reason to be angry.”

“You haven’t given up then.” He rises and pins me against one of the flimsy walls. “You know as well as I do that giving in is not one of your traits. You know as well as I do that you would do anything for Nathaniel.”

These words should come out as a scream. Instead they come out soft, yet certain. “I don’t understand you.”

“And you never will. Now why don’t you use some of that anger? It’s your shield, Amelia. Use it to protect yourself so we can find you brother. I have no doubt that whoever Nathaniel is with, he is with someone Oliver would hate to lose, someone so integral to this plan that a loss would be devastating.” He pulls away. “And I never help unless it benefits me, just as I never hurt unless it benefits me.”

“You’re still so sick.”

“Hold on to that anger. It’s working rather well for you.”

Theosodore glides over to the slat and peers through. His shoulders tense. Before I find out why, an enormous blast shakes the foundation of the shack, and a wind torrent throws me behind the rubble and nearly rips my hair out of my skull. The roof of the shack caves in. I look behind me. The edge of the metal roof narrowly missed my spine. It rests slanted against the rubble. If the wind hadn’t thrown me behind the rubble pile, the roof would have landed on me instead of tucking me safely in a space between it and the debris.

Two familiar Shadowmen stand before us, smiles planted on their too-human faces. “We’ve been looking all over for you, Amelia,” Sash says, stepping amongst the rubble.

“Remember, Sash,” Asch says, “he doesn’t want her dead. Just subdued enough so that we can bring her to him.”

Theosodore rises from the wreckage, rubbing his skull that has a purple lump from the roof. “Why doesn’t he fetch her himself? He knows where she’s at.”

Asch laughs as he walks over to Theosodore and matches his height. “That he does. That he does. But Purgatory is too busy keeping this city under siege. He has no time to bother with Amelia until after everything is through.”

Sash grabs me by my hair and hauls me up until I’m hovering above the dirt with bent knees and my face is at his level. There is no tension in his hand. “What are you doing out here? You should be tucked away safely, praying to Deus or some such other nonsense that you convent people do.”

Asch laughs. “Probably to rescue her dear brother.” His demeanor darkens. “Oh, but he’s dead, don’t you know that? Burned alive during that first explosion. It won’t be long before he turns. And we can use him.”

Sash inserts his final input before I scream. “It’s a shame he had to die in such agony, but he fought back…and lost.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Theosodore is right. My anger is my strength. The rage boils inside me, filling me with renewed energy. The feeling takes me back to the barn where Colette tried to teach me how to control my fire. I almost had a grasp on the tempting flames then. Now the feeling is back. I focus on it, drawing the anger down into the skin of my palm, letting it heat my skin until it’s almost unbearable. All I have to do is snap my fingers and--

I raise my hand and shove it in Sash’s face. He screams and drops me onto the dirt. I scramble away, back toward Theosodore. The angry fire races beneath my skin, thirsting to be used again. I keep my attention on it, feeding my anger and channeling it into the heat.

Sash’s screaming turns to heavy pants. He pulls his hand away from his face, revealing a raw and blistered palm print on his cheek. He grits his teeth, throwing a vicious glance at Asch.

“Can we really not kill her, Asch?”

Theosodore doesn’t wait for Asch to answer. “Amelia, take Sash. I’ll deal with Asch.”

Asch laughs. “You really think she can handle him?”

Theosdore replies with a cunning grin. “Amelia and he have the same powers.”

“He has strength to back up that fire,” Asch says, his hand sliding down his cloak and removing a dagger. “So what are you going to do? Manipulate me to death? I told Purgatory we should have killed you before you waltzed away from the alliance. But he’s soft and thought he could trust you not to meddle.”

“We were good friends before our lives were claimed in Shala,” Theosodore says. He circles Asch, whose eyes trail him.

Asch matches Theosodore’s grin. “Oh, and what changed?”

“Deus changed me.”

Theosodore is a part of the past Oliver refused to tell me. Did they die at the same time, caught for the same reasons, killed in the same way? There is so much I don’t know about Oliver.