Page 53 of This Dark Descent
She looked up at him, and he stared back with an intensity that she’d come to crave. It was like having a rifle trained on you. It made her feel real. Here. Alive.
Damien joined her on the other side of the desk. She tracked every inch of space disappearing between them, swallowed her anticipation when he stopped before her. “I don’t know what you intend to do when this is over.” His voice was soft, intimate, like a song played only for her. “But you are welcome here as long as you wish to stay.”
He offers power, whispered the voice.He offers strength.
Ari hadn’t thought about what came after the Illinir. Their goal was so grand, their plan so dangerous, that life after it felt impossibly far away. But a license would alter everything. She could open an actual shop, work legal enchantments she could sell honestly, perhaps even control her magic enough to feel comfortable returning home to face her family.
Except she didn’t want to stop making golems.
She loved everything about it—the art of sculpting, the power of her magic, the challenge of getting it all just right.
All save the memories it tore free each time.
But she couldn’t go on as she had been. Risking herself as an unlicensed enchanter had been worth it when she needed the money to survive, but it was only a matter of time before someone found her out. If she worked here with Damien, though, she’d be safe. More than that, she’d have everything she needed to push the boundaries of her magic, and someone who wanted to explore them with her. She’d already begun to practice identifying enchantments to help Mikira with her knives—what else was she capable of?
A tentative smile spread across her lips as she imagined it. “I’d like that.”
Damien shifted, a tension she hadn’t noticed before slipping away from him. Had he—did he lookrelieved? He laid a hand atop her own, and she turned her palm to meet his. Relishing the heat of his touch, she laced her fingers with his, closing tight.
“But if I’m staying,” she said, “I want to understand what it is I’m getting involved with.”
A shrewd smile turned one corner of his lips at the challenge, and she felt his satisfaction like a thrum deep in her belly. It had taken time for her to realize it—that Damien Adairlikedto be challenged. That when she or Mikira pressed him, no matter how he deflected, he respected them for standing their ground. It was something Ari had once thought herself incapable of, but as she tugged Damien with her to the sitting area and he willingly came, for the first time she wondered if she was capable of more than just standing firm.
Perhaps she could push back.
Settling into one of the armchairs, she released his hand—and didn’t miss the way his fingers curled inward as if to capture her touch.
“Tell me why you’re so intent on destroying Rezek Kelbra,” she said.
“That,” he replied, “is a rather long story.”
He strode past her to the drink cart, where he poured them both a glass of Adair whiskey. “Let’s just say my family hasn’t always been what it is today.” He picked up the glasses, handing her one as he came back to the sitting area.
Damien took the armchair beside her. “My parents were both immigrants who struggled to find work when they arrived in Veradell. By the time they were expecting Loic, my father had taken a job working the Kelbras’ verillion fields. He worked there for years. When my mother got sick, my father couldn’t afford the treatment, so he went to Eradas Kelbra for help. He laughed in my father’s face and took his job for his impudence.”
The callousness of his story shocked her, and yet she could see it with ease: the cold indifference of Enderlain’s elite, the scorn, the disgust. She’d seen it over and over again in the eyes of her customers.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
Damien’s fingers tightened around his glass. “When my father left, he stole verillion seeds from the Kelbras. Did you know that verillion can actually grow anywhere? But it’s only when it’s planted in certain areas that it possesses the magic necessary for enchantments.”
She frowned. “It’s the dirt. The magic is in the soil.” Damien crooked a smile, and she traced the rim of her glass with one finger. “How can no one know this?”
“Because it’s common knowledge that verillion can only grow in certain areas, and those already belong to someone. There’d be no point in planting it elsewhere.”
And so no one had bothered to try. No one but a desperate man trying to save the woman he loved.
“And,” Damien continued. “Because it requires knowledge of Kinnish magic, which uses holy dirt in its enchantments. But that’s just another term for verillion-rich land. The Sages theorize they’re places where the Harbingers walked or spent a great deal of time. It’s why so many temples were built in verillion fields in Kinahara.”
“What did your father do with his magicless plants?” Ari asked.
Damien lifted his glass of whiskey in a salute. Ari took a sip of hers. The liquor was rich and oaky, but it changed as it passed over her tongue, sweetening into notes of vanilla and orange, before sliding down her throatsmooth as honey, leaving behind a smoky aftertaste that made her mouth tingle.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“Exactly.” Damien sipped his own drink. “My father built an empire on Adair whiskey. Soon he was buying the verillion fields of other lords, coalescing what became the second largest verillion holding in Veradell, and eventually ousting one of the old lesser noble houses not long after King Zuerlin took the throne from the Raniers.”
He paused, eyes dropping to a spot on the table. “But he couldn’t save my mother.”
