Please note, this is Book 3 of the DAUGHTERS OF FATE Trilogy. To read Book 1, please visit my profile at MathiasCavnanaugh

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my readers who have stuck with me since the very beginning. I may not get a chance to thank each of you personally, but I do deeply appreciate the time and dedication you have given to reading this story of mine.

The difference between a wise man and a fool is knowing when not to pursue a misguided path.

Dofran Sanguen, Sage of King Herrmond

"Consider this your last chance." As Cassandra leaned over her prisoner, her whispered warning hissed in the ear of the still unbroken and defiant rebel. His stubborn insistence on being difficult had pushed her beyond being mentally exhausted by him. Throughout the entire course of his imprisonment and torture, she'd never even extracted so much as his name.

Lashed to the table as one would subdue an animal for slaughter, arms stretched above his head, the rebel struggled in spasmodic bursts against the ropes restraining him. He was little more than a shell of the man who had tried to murder her. Emaciated from his attempts to not eat, her guards had concocted creative ways to force just enough nourishment into him and prolong his suffering. All at the general's insistence that they kept him alive, or else.

With all the demands of her new rank, Cassandra's available time to deal with this rebel and the annoyance he represented had faded to non-existence. Either he'd break now, or the distraction of his presence would end.

"You think I would consider what you offer as mercy?" His reply to the general possessed an identical chapped nature as did his lips.

Cassandra smiled. Her captive exhibited the same stubborn refusal as always. Declining to face her, he stared only at the ceiling. "More merciful than what I suspect you are about to go through, and if you don't agree to just tell me what I want to know."

Throughout the previous year, there had been other prisoners who had come and gone. Along the way, they'd divulged bits and pieces of the information she sought. Through these other avenues, the general gained pretty much everything that she wanted to know. And she used it. But to Cassandra, breaking this recalcitrant fool of man had grown into a matter of principle.

What would have passed as a grin tried to form on the rebel's face. But it faded with exhaustion before forming in full. "I decline your offer."

"So be it." She shrugged. "He's all yours."

Standing nearby, Lady Noranda busied herself with the preparations important to the unnatural magic she desired to perform. Everything she required now stood assembled and ready down in The Vault. Granite pestle in hand, the red-robed woman's attention was consumed with the laborious process of chewing together a myriad of bizarre ingredients. Every so often, she referred to a book containing instructions she did not want to get wrong.

Out of all the things collected to perform the ritual, Cassandra was not sure which unnerved her most. Was it the exhumed corpse of the late General Kayzar still in its shattered black armor? Or the unholy creature her ladyship had summoned from The Dark?

That foul smelling and vaporous demon hung above its urn, drifting like the night itself. The shades always about the palace carrying our Lady Noranda's bidding were twisted in their own right, but this creature exuded an aura of darkness over and above those of its more minor kinfolk. Its presence caused every nerve in Cassandra's body to shiver like icy rivers in winter.

But seeing the carcass of her vanquished nemesis and the thought of him rising again? That vision gnawed out a portion of her brain and replaced it with the inescapable feeling that this was the worst of all bad ideas.

As the compiled ingredients within the mortar smoked and sizzled, Lady Noranda finished her mixing. The lady in red then moved to inspect the black-armored reminder of a man Cassandra would rather forget.

"There isn't another suitable candidate?" Cassandra waved a hand, gesturing at the late General Kayzar's grotesque remains.

Hands caressing the black spikes of the armor, Lady Noranda considered what she was about to do. "The vessel must be strong. It must be capable of holding what is to be placed inside it. I understand your concerns, child." She gave Cassandra a knowing grin. "But what will rise will not be General Kayzar. He is among those in The Dark, and soon this pathetic rebel of yours will join him there. A soul for a soul, a light sacrificed for darkness, and one who has died a violent death to contain that brought forth and renewed."

"If you say so." Cassandra locked her eyes on the demonic cloud. It twisted and, she assumed, stared back at her, pulsing with breaths. It just seemed like an emotionless void. "I don't trust this thing."

As if judging her in silence, it said nothing in return. Perhaps it sized her up as a potential threat and concluded she was nothing but an insect that it would soon seek to squash. Every emotion flooding through Cassandra piled upon itself. The longer she looked, the more her apprehension compounded against the mere idea of going through with this plan. Giving an ancient demon a new life upon this world was something Cassandra never once imagined, before now, she would ever have agreed to being a party to.

"My friend here," there was a particular quirk to the way Lady Noranda said 'friend,' "will give us an even greater advantage over the Rebellion. You've already crushed Fimmirra and the Elven Kingdoms. Leaving what remains of Hitithe as the only remaining obstacle."

"The other two keys have eluded us. That is no small obstacle to make light of." Cassandra forced herself to turn her sight away from the demon in the urn. "My best agents believe my sister and the elven woman with the silver hair fled south ahead of my decimation of the elven lands. After tracking them, they believe both most likely caught a ship waiting for them. I assume they returned to Fimmirra."

"Only to find nothing but what remained of your revenge." Lady Noranda wanted Cassandra to remember the progress towards their goal, not dwell on negatives. "Perhaps you should take the fleet there and investigate?"

"No, I will not chase them around the oceans. With my uncle dead and the Elven Kingdoms little more than ash? The Rebellion is their final ally. They will seek out the traitors. And that is when we will ensnare them."

Lady Noranda nodded. "Crush the rebels, and your sister will have nowhere else to hide. Then we'll have all that we need to recover the Tear of Earoni."

"And that's the only reason I'm agreeing to be a part of this." Cassandra eyed her long time prisoner, his breathing heavy and labored. "That and the fact I am tired of this one's intractable nature. If I can't break him, I say let him suffer for all eternity. Let's get this over with."

Lady Noranda returned to her concoction within the mortar. "It is of the utmost importance," an undeniable stress was upon her words as Cassandra followed, "that we impale both bodies in unison. Any delay, even the slightest, can cause the transference to fail."

Cassandra accepted one of an identical pair of daggers. Fashioned for this rite, the blades twisted like a serpent out from a hilt of polished granite. One side's edge was smooth and sharp. A long row of jagged and serrated fangs adorned the other. Lady Noranda collected a handful of the powdery brew she mixed earlier and sprinkled it along the steel.

The weapon flashed, settling into a dull red glow.

"If I mess up, I'll get you another rebel." Cassandra felt the awkward weight of the ritual blade.

"I've spent two whole five days preparing for this." Noranda rebuffed her nonchalantness. "I do not wish to waste that time again. Now, please, let us begin."

Cassandra stalked back to her prisoner, fingers so tight on the dagger's hilt that her knuckles burned white hot. Although he had become integral to her being since the night of the failed assassination, she wouldn't shed an ounce of regret over his death.

Lady Noranda recovered the other dagger, prepared it in the same way, and took up a similar position over what once had been Cassandra's greatest nemesis. Looming above him, she began. "Forces of darkness!" The effort behind those recited words echoed. With their utterance something dreadful descended upon them. Something indescribable in its wickedness and that had been waiting for this moment. Something that drew any semblance that there might be goodness in the world out of the very air itself and crushed the atmosphere under the weight of its corruption. "From beyond and below, take what once was, and new life bestow!"

"I'll pray for you." The near silent rasp shook Cassandra.

"What?" Taking her concentration off the words Lady Noranda continued to issue, the ceremony became a noise in the background. She stared down her prison as he glared back at her.

"I'll pray for you."

The repeated statement once more lashed at her. "I need nothing from you." Her response to him crackled with indignation. "Nor your false goddess. Soon you'll be nothing more than an annoying memory."

"You're a monster, but even monsters can seek redemption."

"Pray for your own redemption. But as a coward and a traitor? Expect none."

"And now!" Lady Noranda's words once again commanded Cassandra's attention. "Blood to restore blood. Flesh to renew flesh. Life to death so that death may again become life. Among the living you shall once more sow fear and roam. With the stroke from this blade made of steel and stone!"

Lady Noranda's blade plunged into the chest of the corpse before her with a steel shattering crack. Cassandra followed suit a fraction of a second later. There was not the slightest refusal from her prisoner's flesh. The dagger punctured his chest at his heart. He lurched and his body agonized and contorted when the general twisted the dagger a full one hundred and eighty degrees to shred the vital life-giving organ.

Blood spilled forth.

The rebel fell into a fit of convulsions, no longer able to fight off the inevitable death waiting to claim him. As his body hemorrhaged at irregular intervals, sparks of energy leaped between the handles of the daggers implanted within both bodies. Acting like lightning rods, they attracted the energy of the other.

Each of the women stepped back.

As a hurricane forced wind replaced the normally still atmosphere of The Vault, Cassandra fought to stand. She shielded her eyes as the rush of air against them hurt.

The demon howled. Its cry was a mixture of both triumph and anguish. Twisting and bending, an unworldly force drew its incorporeal being towards the black-armored shell that would serve as its new home.

With a final, thunderous crash that cast the dungeon into complete darkness, the tumult was no more.

For several moments, only the inhuman sound of lungs inhaling then exhaling shuddered the surrounding stone. Each was so strained and deep that it reminded Cassandra of a slumbering dragon.

In Lady Noranda's hands, a flickering orange light crackled to life and set the surrounding area aglow. She ran it along the length of the black metallic form lying on the table before her. Covering it was a thick layer of a mucus-like substance. The cocoon glistened in the only luminance of the dungeon as pieces of it sloughed to the stone floor and pooled there.

What lay before them only possessed a vague resemblance to the armor once worn by General Kayzar. No more was the hole from her point blank pistol shot that felled him as the transformation from shapeless being to one of flesh and bone and blood succeeded.

The chest of the creature rose and fell with more of the same breaths Cassandra had heard from the darkness. Unable to look away from what was now there, the general studied what they had created. As she did, her dread of it only amplified. She was about to ask, just for clarification, if the ritual had worked when the demon thundered a response to the question not voiced.

"I live again!"

Deep within him, Lord Hedric sensed a stirring. The tingle arose through the deepest fibers of his being. It tore his attention from the historical tome open in his hand, the words within it no longer having any meaning to him.

For a bond, once lost, had formed anew.

Noranda's plans to make flesh the demon she had summoned, and use General Kayzar's body as the vessel, had yielded an unintended side effect. Although significantly weaker, Lars could easily recognize the source. But only in body, not in spirit. And, unfortunately, the spirit was where the true strength of a Blood Bond resided.

The physical form, the shell of his late general, remained linked to him. He could sense his whereabouts, but no more. Because what the physical form now contained within it was something alien.

There was also a second bond that now existed. One joined to him only through the body it was now captured in. Lars pondered it. In his mind, he could see it. Just as a normal person could see a rope binding a ship to the dock.

There was a great power available to him at the other end. But it was not like what he'd tapped into in the past to continue prolonging his life. This was different; fundamentally different. It was pure power. There was no sustenance to be derived from it; only raw might.

It traveled off, down a path of darkness to a place he had never gone. Although he knew in a heartbeat where it led; The Dark. To the underworld and its depths is where it sank like lead in water.

At the other end, souls festering with corruption grabbed at the tether back to the mortal world, as though trying to use it to ascend from their prison of eternal torment. He felt their pull. But they were blocked.

As he tried to plunge down the mooring to its end, Lars also found himself unable to proceed. The perception he got was as though The Dark was forbidding him to enter. Almost like a sense of not being worthy of residing there fought back against him.

Frustration. That was all he could use to describe how he felt. There was a vast well of power on the other end to be tapped. He wanted that power. It was within his reach. And he knew if he could claim it, it would make him unstoppable.

He searched, seeking that which prevented his progress towards his goal. There was a light in the darkness. It was out of place. But as Lars remained as far along the path as he could manage, he could see it. It glowed, keeping the barrier against him intact.

Yet, he knew there must be a way. Noranda's pet had made it through the obstacle. If that was true, there had to be a path downward as well. And he would find it.