Shattered Souls (Guardians of the Maiden Book 3)

They fell like stars through the sky. Cassiel fought against the wind to open his wings as the ground rushed to meet them. He righted himself in time to skate over the trees, but it was to climb the air. He had seconds to shield Dyna with his body and wings and roll so he would hit the ground first before they crashed. The brutal collision snapped several bones and he must have gone unconscious for a few seconds, because the next thing he knew, Sowmya was shaking him awake. Cassiel breathed through the pain as his blood worked to heal him. Valkyrie landed in the distance, the sound of beating hooves nearing. A black form appeared in his blurred vision, whining and nudging to get through his wings.

“Oh gods. Dyna.” Cassiel jerked up and let his wings fall away to reveal her still body in his arms.

The clouds parted and moonlight fell over Dyna as everyone gathered around her. Mottled bruises marked a scabbed cut on her cheek. Her dress was torn and caked with old blood. But her eyes—once bright green and full of life—were vacant. She stared past him to the sky. At nothing.

Cassiel was flooded with fear. “Dyna?”

Zev keened, nuzzling her cheek. She didn’t stir.

“Shield us,” Rawn said.

Lucenna immediately cast out a cloaking spell that rippled through the air.

Cassiel took her bruised face in his shaking hands. She was ice cold but he felt the faint pulse in her wrists. The newly reformed bond was still there, so why wasn’t she? “Dyna?”

Zev shifted. “What happened? Something struck you, and you fell out of the sky!”

“They struck her.” He patted her cheek. “Dyna!”

There was no sign that she had heard them. Her blank face made his insides twist. Normally the bond thrummed with her emotions and thoughts, but now it was quiet, her consciousness far away out of his reach. He didn’t understand.

The bindings on her ankles matched the collar Tarn had first put on her. Maybe that was it. Taking out Rawn’s enchanted knife, he struck them off. The bangles fell to the ground, but still, nothing.

“Dyna?” Cassiel called shakily. “Can you hear me?”

“I stayed,” Zev said, taking her other hand. “I stayed. I’m here.”

She didn’t react to them at all. Every part of him was shivering.

Zev shook her. “Dyna!”

Rawn took his arm. “Cease.”

“Why does she look like that?” he demanded, his voice cracking. “What’s wrong with her?”

Rawn observed her catatonic state, sadly shaking his head. “I do not know. Her eyes, they are…”

“Empty,” Lucenna gasped.

“They hit her with a spell,” Cassiel said, punching the ground. This couldn’t be. He had found her and lost her in the same moment. “They did this to her.”

“She’s desolate,” Lucenna said. “A wicked practice the mages do to their rebellious wives or daughters to magically expunge their minds of memory and personality. Nothing but a shell to do with what they please. Dyna is alive but only just.”

Cassiel wanted to scream. He couldn’t bear the sight of his bonded this way. There was no recognition in her. Nothing.

He gently gathered Dyna in his arms, feeling like he was dying all over again. Her features fell out of focus because his vision blurred. He thought of the way her smile lit up when she saw something new. Of her laughter when he said something unintentionally funny. Of the feel of her hand always reaching out to take his. Of the soft, genuine moments where she had knocked down his walls. Was all of that lost?

The pain splintering through him, there was no hiding it. He didn’t care to. He could only sit there, holding his broken mate and fighting to breathe. Because the last few months she had given air to his lungs. Dyna…she had been a spark of light in his darkness, but he had been afraid to want it, because he knew if he lost it, there would be no repairing the pieces.

“Is that it then?” Zev asked, his voice breaking. “She’s gone?”

“No,” Lucenna said. “She is in there somewhere.”

Her words were like a blow to his stomach. It dislodged the lump in his throat and he and Zev sucked in a breath.

Cassiel looked up at her. “Can you fix this?”

Lucenna fidgeted with her hands. “N-no, yes, I mean I know there is a spell to reverse it, but only a skilled mage can perform such complex cognitive magic.”

He leaped to his feet, cradling Dyna to him, because now that there was hope of cure, he wouldn’t stop to get it. “If there is a way, then you must undo it.”

“You know nothing of magic, Cassiel. I cannot simply undo such a spell.”

Rawn placed a hand on his shoulder, walking past him to Lucenna. “You are a very powerful sorceress, my lady. If anyone should have the power to heal Lady Dyna, I believe it to be you.”

She sighed. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Please,” Zev said. “You have to try.”

Looking down at Dyna somberly, Lucenna inhaled and nodded. She opened her satchel and flicked her hand. The tent swirled out into the air, spinning as it grew and landed a few feet away. “Bring her.”

“Form a perimeter and keep watch,” Cassiel said to Yelrakel, his next words a near growl. “If anyone tries to come near, kill them.”

The Valkyrie bowed.

He headed for Lucenna’s small tent, and was reminded of how big it was when he entered. The candles were lit with purple flames, and crystals dangling from the ceiling offered soft light. One end held the kitchen area with a dining table. The other side was a desk with books and scrolls, and her glass orb resting on a brass metal stand. The air seemed to carry a faint static that indicated a touch of magic, and it smelled the same as before, like sage, cinnamon, and lavender.

Ignoring the mess of clothing and books in random stacks placed around the tent, Cassiel laid Dyna on the four-poster bed as Zev and Rawn entered behind him.

Lucenna hurried to her desk and began flipping through some thick tomes. With each book she went through, she grew more anxious.

“What are you searching for?” Cassiel asked.

“For a record of the spell I need.” She dropped her head in her hands, fingers pulling at her hair. “But I don’t have a cognition magic book.”

A heavy dread fell over them at the understanding that she couldn’t help them.

Cassiel glanced at the orb on her desk. “Wait, your brother. Might he know something?”

Lucien had healed Dyna before when she’d been wounded by the grindylows. It had been a blow to his pride, but right now, Cassiel felt his desperation climbing. He would grovel to the mage if that’s what it took to get Dyna back.

“Gods, you’re right.” Lucenna sat straight and concentrated on the crystal ball. It fogged with white smoke and cleared as his image materialized.

Cassiel and the others came to stand behind her. It was about time they met him. Lucien was a male version of his twin sister. Long silver-white hair was braided from his handsome face, and lilac eyes lined in pale white lashes regarded her. He was dressed in fine deep blue robes with his white-wood staff resting against the wall behind him.

“Lucenna?” He straightened when he noticed them. “Who—”

“These are the travel companions I spoke of before. We reunited again, but that isn’t important right now.” Lucenna waved it away when he tried to ask more. “I will properly introduce you later, Lucien. Right now, I need your help. Dyna has been placed under the halucinor spell and I don’t know how to reverse it.”

Lucenna had spoken so fast her words blended together, Cassiel hardly understood what she said.

Lucien also took a moment to make sense of it, and his eyes widened. “How did that happen?”

“There’s no time to explain. Can you help me?”

“To reform her mind, you will need a great vast amount of Essence. It takes years to perfect such a delicate process which is why most don’t bother with it.” The mage looked at something below out of sight as he shuffled through pages. Cassiel realized he must be sitting at his desk, the same as Lucenna. He stood and went out of view briefly then returned with a thick book. He set it down below and rapidly flipped through more pages. “Not even I have performed a reversal before. It’s very difficult to do, Lu. You might inadvertently hurt her.”

Lucenna groaned and kneaded her temples.

Cassiel didn’t like the doubt between them. They had to try everything they could to save Dyna. He finally found her again. He wasn’t going to let anyone give up.

He removed the previous plucked feathers out of his pocket. “These enhance magic. Can they be of any use?”

“He’s a Celestial?” Lucien’s mouth parted at the sight of them, and his sister nodded. “With those you can perform an animus healing spell.”

“What is that?” Zev asked. “What is wrong with the other spell?”

“Lucenna isn’t advanced enough to cast a reformation,” Lucien said. “However, Celestial feathers have natural curative traces in them. In the past, we used them to cast powerful healing spells.”

“But animus is for concussions,” Lucenna said.

“Precisely. Right now, Dyna’s mind is broken. An animus spell heals brain injuries as well as reconstructs fragments of broken memory.”

“Lady Dyna’s injury was caused by magic not blunt force,” Rawn mentioned. “Will the spell still perform the same?”

“I honestly don’t know, but it’s our best option.”

Taking a breath, Lucenna stood. “I’ll do it.”

“Only use one feather,” Lucien warned. “Those are very powerful and could do more harm than good.”

Cassiel frowned. He handed her one and put away the rest. Wouldn’t more power be a good thing? His feathers broke down Dyna’s barrier, then they should break whatever spell was on her now.

“I would like to witness, if that’s all right,” Lucien said.

“Allow me.” Rawn lifted the orb, and they all went to stand by the bedside together.

Lucenna sat on the bed and rested Dyna’s head on her lap. The black feather glowed gold then dissolved in her hands before she laid them over Dyna’s temples. She closed her eyes and remained motionless. No one spoke. They held their breath in anticipation. After a few minutes of nothing happening, Cassiel’s irritation and worry increased. He was about to speak when a bright white light streamed from beneath Lucenna’s hands. It came over Dyna’s head, spreading to her body.

“Good,” Lucien murmured. “It’s working.”

Cassiel held his breath. But the light stopped growing, and it flickered in and out like his hope. He took her limp hand in his. Come on, Dyna.

But Lucenna shook her head. “She’s…she’s lost in here. It’s so dark and cold. It’s snowing…there is something else here…something bad.”

Cassiel stilled and he looked back at Zev. They both knew what that meant. Dyna was wandering through her past.

“Careful,” Lucien said. “You are in a memory. Don’t get lost as well. She is there. You have to find her. Guide her back.”

But Lucenna’s mouth only pinched and the light dimmed. She couldn’t find her.

No. It had to work. Cassiel’s chest tightened as the light flickered. He pressed a fist over his heart. The bond was still intact, but it was weakening. Everything was tilting again.

Lucenna’s mouth trembled, her breaths catching. “She is hiding from something. She’s so scared.”

He felt a wretched helplessness, knowing how terrified Dyna was and he couldn’t reach her. He wished to tear into her mind if only to pull her out himself.

“Lucien, I don’t know if I can—”

“Don’t you dare give up,” Cassiel snapped. “Bring her back to me!”

Halfway gone by madness and desperation, he snatched the rest of the feathers and pressed them over Dyna’s forehead. The tent burst with a blinding white light as they dissolved into gold dust. The air grew thick with a wild charge, and he felt it crawl along his skin, raising every hair on end.

Everyone was shouting and moving and grabbing him.

“Prince Cassiel! Move back!”

“What have you done?”

“Lucenna! Stop! That’s too much!”

Cassiel ignored them all and shoved off whoever was trying to drag him away. He took Dyna’s face. “Come back to me. Come back!”

Her eyes snapped open. There were no pupils, no irises, only glowing orbs of vivid green.

The white light over her body flared to blinding. Cassiel had to shield his eyes. The heat coming off the spell forced him back. It grew immense, and it felt like it was burning against his face. His wonder replaced itself with fear. A powerful wind roared around them, and the pages and books and any loose item in the tent began to spin in the thickening air.

“What is happening!” His voice was lost to the wind. He felt something building, and bursting, and—

A blast exploded past them like a sharp wave.

It ripped away the world and threw Cassiel backwards. But he never hit the ground. He seemed to sink through it and simply keep falling and falling, into an abyss with no end.