HEART OF THE CHOSEN (CASTE BOOK 1)

Chapter 26

My eyelids remained closed. Every effort was crushed under the immense fatigue that immobilized me from head to toe. The stench crept into my nostrils and made me gag. I felt the sensation of sinking into the cold ground. New nausea. Droplets of water crashed in a thunderous echo and pierced my ears. Heavy breathing. Moans. I fell back into unconsciousness again.

Last effort to open my eyes. This time, a thin thread of light came to irradiate my pupils. Who was I and especially where was I? I could barely make out the two individuals in white coats who were examining me from every angle. I could still feel their fingers trailing over my bare skin, but I couldn’t tell what part of my body they were lingering on.

“She’s waking up,” said a voice.

“I’m going to prepare another dose,” replied the other.

“No, the master wants her to be sufficiently awake. Are you done?”

“Yes, I have all the samples, I’ll ask Yanosh to take her to her cell.”

No more noise. Footsteps moved away, leading me to believe that the two men were gone. Lord! But what the hell was I doing here?! My eyelids were still way too heavy but I could make out blurry shapes in the room. A new figure came toward me and lifted my inert body. Up close, and despite the hazy image reflected in my eyes, I thought I recognized the tall, almost platinum blond man who was controlling Eric that evening in Brixton. Cradled in his arms and overwhelmed by my exhaustion, my efforts to concentrate cost me another dreamless sleep.

“Wake up! Everliegh, wake up!”

What was that voice? Ugh! That smell was unbearable! I had finally opened my puffy eyes and started dragging myself towards the bars of my cell. I immediately vomited the little that my stomach contained. Why bars? And this headache… I lifted my arms but they seemed to move slower than usual and heavy… My knees hurt like hell and my lower back throbbed. I looked at my legs up to my belly, I was completely naked. I shivered, chilled by the freezing cold of the dungeon.

“That’s it, are you awake?” inquired a voice to my left.

I whirled around in a move that took way too much effort for my aching body. My eyes widened as I observed the stranger in front of me. The man in question was old and skeletal. His dirty, emaciated face contrasted with the bright blue of his eyes. He wore a kind of holey pyjamas whose dirt couldn’t reveal its original colour. From his appearance, one wonders how this man could still be alive. His protruding fingers held the bars of his cell, joined to mine.

“Who are you?” I asked him while covering my chest and lower abdomen with my hands.

“I’m Blake. Finally, you wake up!” he said, as jovial as his condition allowed him. “You’re Everliegh and I can tell you that you descend from the line of the Castellanes, can’t I?”

“How do you know?”

“Gregory said your first name when he came to see you yesterday. The rest, I discovered immediately when you arrived. You’re Eleanor’s double.”

“Eleanor?” I wondered aloud, trying to remember where I had heard that name, and then the image came to me clearly. “Like the engraving above the room at Mortain?”

“Mortain... So you live with Carmichael. That’s interesting.”

The foul smell was unbearable. The bars were rusty, and from my still blurry vision, I saw that we were imprisoned at the end of a dark corridor. It was impossible for me to distinguish what was more than two metres away. The walls were made of stone, cold and damp. A toilet was set up next to the disgusting mattress that served as my bed. All exist in a jail which measures no more than three square metres. There was no clothing or blanket to cover me, the cold was intolerable. Blake tried to get up, but he was far too weak, so he went to his knees in the corner of his cell and came back with a dirty cloth that he threw at me through the bars. I immediately put it over me and covered my chest and upper legs.

“Where are we?” I said, my teeth chattering.

“In London,” he continued impatiently as if he hadn’t spoken to anyone for centuries, “in the catacombs of a very old building of which only this hidden old prison remains. Above our heads is a tall tower in the centre of London’s business district and it’s owned by your captor, as well as Villa Mortain, for that matter. What a wonderful place, isn’t it? Since the time I’ve been here, I keep thinking about the calm of the courtyard garden and my summer pavilion by the lake.”

“Do you know Mortain Castle?”

“Sure! It belonged to me before I was dispossessed of it by my brother.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes, my brother, Magnus,” said the old man in a low voice. “The one who thinks he rules over all the caste and also the one who keeps you here, my dear.”

“The Master Hand?” I guessed, amazed.

“Yes, although I swear to God I would never call him that.”

“But what does he want from me?”

“Many things, my dear. But if he saw your face, events will not unfold as he had planned. I know him only too well and I care deeply for you, Everliegh. However, it could jeopardize his plans, and that’s good news!”

He had said his last two sentences as if I was no longer present in the room.

“Why? I asked.

“Because you look way too much like Eleonore! It’s going to drive him crazy and he’s going to make you pay for it. Besides, it has already started, hasn’t it? But he’ll have to wait a bit if he wants to fulfil the prophecy. Yes… he must.”

Blake was now talking to himself, I couldn’t understand a word of what he was mumbling. But one thing was certain, in addition to the rest, I began to seriously worry about my situation. It was a far cry from the welcome Carmichael had given me at the castle, and I had no idea what was expected of me. Thank goodness my cellmate seemed to know a bit about it. I grabbed his arm through the bars to turn him back to me. His touch sent me a shock so strong that I was thrown against the wall, my head hitting the stone hard. Unspeakable pain shot through my spine.

“Sorry, Everliegh, old defence reflex.”

The voice he was using now had a harsh, abrupt tone denoting immense self-confidence. I no longer understood who I had in front of me but I didn’t let myself be distracted.

“What’s this prophecy? Carmichael already told me about it quickly but he didn’t have time to explain it.”

“Of course,” he sneered, “Carmichael must have wanted to keep you all to himself, it would have been foolish to send you to the lion’s den. It’s a seven hundred-year-old prophecy:

“Two chosen ones whose sovereignty will be all-powerful, blood brother and sister, she alone will be the heart, because they will be at the origin of the advent of those who have been chosen. An ultimate power so great that an isolated act against them will bring about the annihilation of the earthly world. The final outcome will depend only on the choices they make. Chosen in soul they will remain, chosen in soul they will die.”

These words spoken by Egeria, our oracle, will remain engraved in my memory forever because they were spoken on the day when my brother changed forever.”

“But what does it mean?”

“It means Magnus has been looking for chosen siblings for centuries to carry out his purposes. He thought for a long time that they would be his own children, but he only ever had a few caste children and all of them from different mothers. The only one who was going to give him two, he killed while she was expecting her second baby. Eleanor.”

“But I have nothing to do with all that!”

“You have everything and that’s what worries me! Magnus wants to keep you and your brother close to him: the coming of the caste is more important to him than a vague threat of world destruction. He has always had an inordinate thirst for power, it has always been his ambition and it always will be. If he were to fail, I think he wouldn’t care if the world disappeared. Still, I don’t think he anticipated your striking resemblance to Eleonore, and that might jeopardize his plans, but your safety as well.”

“Do you think he’ll hurt me?”

“Yes. It’s possible.”

“I don’t understand! It’s still strange that I look like this woman, isn’t it?”

“It means above all that you descend from both Castellane and Burton Race.”

“Burton Race? Like Carmichael.”

“Sure! Magnus is his father, didn’t you know that?”

“No,” I replied, astonished and disgusted at the same time.

“Carmichael is indeed the son of the master of the caste, and therefore my nephew. But he doesn’t have the same conception of power as his father. Just like him, he believes that the caste must live among themselves and have nothing to do with humans. The only difference is that Carmichael doesn’t have excessive ambition, this irresistible thirst to subjugate all men hasn’t been transmitted to him. Only Connor inherited this character trait.”

Blake surely didn’t realize the bomb of information he had just dropped. I tried to reconstitute the last events in my head but I was unable. Thinking was agony and none of my thoughts could come together, let alone Carmichael hiding me from his own father. Did he know the fate reserved for me by his father? Was this anything to do with his strange behaviour of the past few months? In any case, I understood much better the supremacy of the Burton Race over the caste. Connor, Prisca and Carmichael Burton Race. Damn, what a headache I had!

“But how can I be both from the line of Eleonore and, at the same time, from that of Carmichael?”

“Eleonore and Magnus had a daughter, Camelia. The only one who survived from the Castellane line. She fled far from her father towards the end of the 13th century and gave birth in her turn. Well, at least that’s what we can conclude from your mere presence.”

“You’re telling me that you’re over seven hundred years old!”

“Yes. My life is endless, but the age is starting to be felt, Magnus is doing everything to make it happen, by the way. But what becomes of my nephew Carmichael? He was by far my favourite!”

“I’ve no idea. We didn’t really part on excellent terms.”

“It must have made him suffer a lot,” replied Blake, suddenly acerbic as if accusing me of treating his nephew with a certain contempt.

“No, I don’t think so! Sometimes he ignores me, sometimes he…well, it’s Carmichael.”

“He ignores you! So that’s very strange. Given your predispositions, I don’t believe a word of it. If he hasn’t jumped on you yet, it’s because Magnus had something to do with it.”

“No, I don’t think so. I just think it was one more way for Carmichael to hide the truth about my brother from me.”

“Ah… your brother. Ethan, right?”

“Yes, how do you know?”

“I still have a few gifts left, you know. But you’re not like your brother, Everliegh, and I can’t advise you enough to stay as far away from this young man as possible.”

“Why are you telling me this? You don’t even know him!”

“Oh, yes, I know him! And I know what he’s capable of. He’s been coming to see me every night for a week.”

“Right here!?”

“Yes, here. Your brother is Magnus’ most loyal soldier, after Gregory, of course.”

A punch in the stomach would have been less painful. One week! I was petrified, worse, I was breathing badly and my body was nothing more than a gaping wound. I leaned against the cold wall of my cell and shed tears without even realizing it. How could this be possible? It was too much. Way too much for me. The prophecy, the Master Hand, Eleanor, Carmichael, and my brother Ethan. And why was Carmichael hiding me then? Why didn’t my brother help me? Why… Why… I couldn’t even unravel all the questions that were swirling around in my head. And this pain in my skull… Thomas, Eric, where were you at such a time? Oh, Eric… his image and the wave of memories around him were immediately swept away when I heard footsteps coming down the hall. Blake retreated into a dark corner of his cell, pretending to be asleep. I recognized Gregory immediately when his red hair passed in front of the bars of our cells. He stopped in front of mine without even looking at Blake.

“Get up!” he ordered me.

“When I have clothes,” I shot back, with all the strength I had left.

“Now!” Gregory said, showing me the tranquillizer gun in his hand, “You get up or I’ll puncture your skin with one of those injections you like so much.”

I barely recovered my wits and kept the mad hope of regaining my powers once the effect of the drug disappeared, I had no choice but to comply. The tiny rag that Blake had given me fell at my feet. I had never experienced such a demeaning situation, and when I noticed Gregory’s gaze, almost licking his lips, a shiver ran through me, I was scared to death. I thought I had hit rock bottom, but unfortunately, I still had no idea what to expect.

Gregory went to a kind of metal box two meters from my jail and dialled a code that instantly opened the cell door. He came in and grabbed my arm violently, standing behind me and aiming his tranquillizer gun a few millimetres from my neck.

“Now you don’t struggle and you’ll follow me without any trouble, you understand!”

I nodded in agreement. Anyway, in my condition, I was barely able to stand. Gregory clung to me, I felt his fingers come off my arm to caress my breast, disgust made me gag again. A tear rolled down my grimy cheek. I tried to escape my mind from this nauseating place by thinking of Eric and his devotion to me but also of his way of fleeing after… To Thomas and us meeting or when my heart raced at the slightest of his glances. To Carmichael and his innate talent for provoking both hatred and fascination in me. To Salomon and his quirky humour, and to the Van Durens and their misplaced veneration. But I had to face the facts, none of them was here for me anymore, I was alone and condemned to horror. Gregory grabbed my other breast and kneaded it as gently as a bear. His breathing was getting more and more panting and his excitement was at its peak when the tall Scandinavian interrupted him with a sharp accent.

“Gregory! The master is waiting!”

“Yanosh, you’re disturbing us here!”

“Now!” the blond cried as Gregory glared at him.

Gregory grabbed my arm again and pulled me roughly. I was hungry and I was shaking all over. As I had guessed, my legs collapsed after a few metres in the dark corridor. Yanosh grabbed my waist and pulled me up while Gregory’s fingers gripped my arm. As we advanced, I discovered, bewildered, an ultra-modern elevator in the middle of the cold and gloomy stone of the place. Once inside, Yanosh operated a key which immediately caused the cabin to rise. The time seemed endless to reach our final destination and Gregory took the opportunity to slip his hand between my thighs, which he withdrew once the elevator doors opened. He redirected his gun at the back of my neck and I could almost feel the needle dig into my flesh as Yanosh pulled me out of the cabin.

We were in a kind of corridor, the tall blond handed me an immaculate white linen toga. He opened the door facing us and ushered me into a huge glass-encased room. It was dark and the panorama offered a breathtaking view of the city. A monumental desk sat at the end of the room with high-tech computer equipment that contrasted sharply with the rusticity of the furniture. On the right, an old woman was asleep in a velvet armchair. Her long white hair unrolled on her frail and sagging shoulders, so white that my gaze could no longer detach itself from this well of light in the middle of the dark night and the dim lighting of the room. However, I found the strength to move my eyes around me. There were about ten caste present but in the darkness, I could barely make out their faces. Yet I guessed how close the danger was. I could feel their lewd and unhealthy looks on me. A man stood out from their group. He came forward, recognizable among all: Magnus Burton Race. His noble, sure step, his blade-sharp turquoise blue eyes gripped me as vividly as his impressive self-assurance filled the place. He had short black hair and his greying temples had a timeless charm and beauty. He looked like a man in his forties, at most, but had the build of a twenty-year-old in a tailored suit. The slight wrinkles around his eyes accentuated their intensity and his perfectly lined mouth now stretched in a grin of strange contentment. His gaze was fixed irretrievably on me, freezing me in place and as he advanced, my nerves tensed with anxiety and fear.

“So there you are,” he said in a hollow voice incredibly close to the timbre of Carmichael’s.

He stood in front of me and tried to put on a friendly face. His efforts were in vain because I could read a mixture of curiosity and contempt in his eyes. The other caste, including Gregory and Yanosh, were sweating in terror. There was no doubt that their master could have reduced them to dust in less than half a second, but for the moment, their visceral fear only increased mine. The opening of a back door tore me from my trance and I discovered, amazed, Ethan entering. Obviously, the situation seemed completely normal to him.

“Ethan,” Magnus commented, looking at him like a father reuniting with his prodigal son, “your sister is visiting us.”

“Isn’t she beautiful?”

“That’s an understatement,” adds his master coldly.

“How are you, Eve?” Ethan asked me without being moved for a second by my appearance.

I turned my head without a word. Disappointment flashed across Ethan’s face for a brief moment, but he didn’t comment. Beside him, I recognized the plump little man who had tried to kill me on the train with Gregory, he was staring blankly at the master.

“The welcome we gave you may seem cold to you,” Magnus went on, “but it was necessary. It’s also a little Ethan’s fault and it’s his punishment for hiding information about you from me. Blood ties often cloud the smartest of minds, but luckily I had other resources within Mortain and here you are.”

He stepped back and went to put his hand on the forehead of the old woman who instantly opened her eyes. I remained paralyzed as if I could sense the inescapable danger looming as the seconds passed. Ethan stood, without saying a word, behind his master’s chair. I decidedly didn’t understand the hold this man had over my brother, but part of me was relieved to learn that he had sought to protect me during my stay in Mortain. I couldn’t ponder this thought any further because the elderly old woman got up from her seat. She gave me the impression that every effort cost her and she froze when her master spoke again.

“I present to you Egeria, our oracle. Now you will join us.”

I remained walled in the most total silence because I fully understood his intentions of domination and madness. Even though my blood was soaked with drugs, my mind was still sharp enough to realize that the man in front of me was the cause of all my misfortunes. Especially the death of my father. I had furtively noticed on one of the walls the logo of the Canary Wharf Tower, which couldn’t be a coincidence. My expression was now filled with contempt and hatred. How I regretted not having my full abilities to confront him even if it meant losing my life... Magnus immediately captured my feelings and widened a grin that said a lot about the cruelty it contained. I would have bet that he was hoping for a murderous retort from me to make me pay for it a hundredfold. Blake was right, my resemblance to this Eleonore thwarted his original plans.

He turned to Egeria, who walked in my direction. When she was close, I realized her blindness through the grey-white veil in place of her pupils. Her arms went up and her hands rested on either side of my head, she immediately froze and raised a nasal voice.

“She’s not going to follow you, Magnus, yet she’s the one we’ve all been waiting for. She’s fertile, Magnus, we may be able to secure her offspring.”

“No!” I yelled immediately when I understood the meaning of her words, “Ethan! Please get me out of here!”

Ethan stood up, but Magnus jerked his hand out and motioned for him to sit down. My eyes were still imploring my brother when unfortunately he lowered his. As I tried to get his attention again, Yanosh took the opportunity to plant a syringe in my arm. Gregory let out a victorious laugh as the poison seeped through my veins.

“Just in case, Master,” Yanosh commented without an ounce of emotion in his voice, “it should relax her.”

“Tell me, Yanosh, do you like Everliegh?” Magnus asked coldly and threateningly.

“Yes, my master.”

“Gregory, help our guest to lie down on the table.”

Gregory immediately walked across the room and grabbed both my arms. Yanosh never took his eyes off me. The product he had inoculated me with was starting to take effect and my head was weighing tons. My body felt dizzy and my legs no longer supported me. My brain remained awake, alas.

Drugged, devastated, alone and disgusted by the inevitable fate that awaited me, I tried to keep a semblance of dignity when Gregory undressed me in front of everyone. The large front door swung open when my clothes hit the floor.

“Sophia!” exclaimed Magnus, “Darling, come in!”

Conway! So it was this woman who had sold me out to this madman. She paused, looking at me with contempt.

“You were far too dangerous for me and Carmichael,” she said as her jealousy sweated through every pore of her face. “You should also know that it was I who convinced Naomi to go through with Thomas. A godsend because he no longer blocked my way. But you had to come back, and this is the result, my dear. Have fun now!”

“You… b***h,” I uttered harshly.

Gregory laughed and laid me down on the table. Unable to move, my tears began to flow and came to vanish at the roots of my hair.

“Ethan!”“It will be over soon, don’t worry.”“Ethan, help me.”“It’s impossible. The master knows what he’s doing, don’t worry.”“I beg you!”“It’s impossible… I… I can’t. You should have been more docile, maybe it could have gone better.”“He hates me, Ethan, he hates me.”

But it was over, I no longer had the strength or the concentration necessary to reestablish contact. Conway went to join him and admired this gloomy spectacle.

“Go ahead, my friends,” Magnus commented, “and enjoy your reward.”

I looked up at the ceiling when I saw Gregory and Yanosh undo their pants. I closed my eyes until the end.