Dark Blood(61)

“We both saw his body fall,” Tatijana confirmed. “Xavier picked up his feet as if he were trash and dragged him out of the lab.”

There was a small silence. Fen looked across the circle to his brother. “We both studied a bit under Xavier. Did he ever once perform a menial chore manually? He had assistants who lived to serve him. If he looked at them they rushed to do his bidding.”

Dimitri shook his head. “I’ll admit, I can’t recall a single moment when I saw him lift a finger. He instructed everyone else to do the work.”

Fen arched his eyebrow at Branislava. “Was it his usual practice to drag dead bodies out of his lab? He tortured and killed on a regular basis. He must have had some kind of routine.”

Branislava’s heart jumped and then began to pound. Xavier had killed so many over the centuries, far too many for her to count. No species was left out of his circle of torture, he preyed on all of them. He worked out his dark spells alone . . . She bit her lip hard and once more raised her eyes to meet Tatijana’s gaze. Her own horror was reflected there.

They had been young when all three brothers had been alive. It had been difficult to tell which one was performing an experiment, or which sliced their body with a knife and drank deeply. The three brothers looked and sounded alike. They all preferred to work their spells alone, but they didn’t clean up after themselves. Not ever.

Why had Xavier dragged Xaviero’s body out of the laboratory? Why hadn’t he called one of his assistants?

“Would he have taken care of the body because he didn’t want any of his assistants to see that there had been a look-alike?” Gregori asked.

Branislava wanted to answer in the affirmative, but she found herself shaking her head. Xavier had no compunction about using his assistants for a task he wanted kept confidential and as soon as it was completed, murdering them on the spot. Those disposing of the bodies would have no idea why Xavier had killed the mage interns, but they accepted it because dead bodies were common where they worked.

She began to rock back and forth. “Why would they stage Xaviero’s death? Xavier didn’t believe we could escape. None of them believed it. No, Xaviero’s definitely dead.” Even to her own ears, she sounded doubtful.

“What of the other brother?” Mikhail asked. “The one you called Xayvion? You said Xavier murdered both of his brothers. How did he die?”

Branislava wanted to crawl inside Zev’s mind for protection. How could she have been so gullible? She had wanted to believe Xaviero was dead. All three brothers were cruel, true psychopaths without a hint of remorse or feeling for anyone. Xaviero just seemed to take his torture further than either of his brothers, as if he did it out of pure enjoyment rather than purely for experiment. She didn’t doubt that Xavier and Xayvion were just as bad, but Xaviero always sent a horrifying chill through her when he looked at them encased behind the wall of ice. It was the one time Branislava was grateful for the protection of the ice.

“The same exact way. Time passed. I don’t know how much, because time meant nothing. But it was a while. Xavier and Xayvion performed the same ceremony, and Xavier stabbed Xayvion and dragged him out of the lab by his feet. I never saw the actual body after it fell, only the feet and legs,” she admitted. “But we never saw them again.”

Mikhail rubbed his temples. Gregori flicked him a quick look. Branislava felt a surge of soothing heat circulating throughout the cavern. Mikhail sent Gregori a small smile as if thanking him.

“You said you couldn’t tell them apart,” the prince said. “Is it possible they were alive but because you believed them dead, you always thought it was Xavier performing experiments and spells? Could they still have been switching places?”

Again she wanted to say no. She would have recognized Xaviero’s smirk. She was certain she would have. She’d been a terrified child, and he loved to torment her. He knew Tatijana was far more comfortable in the ice than her sister and he would deliberately make the ice colder and colder around Branislava until it was impossible for her to control her body temperature to keep warm enough. She shivered and shook for days, sometimes weeks and months, her very insides so cold she thought she would freeze from the inside out.

“Bronnie?” Fen prompted.

She shook her head. “I don’t believe Xaviero ever returned, not where I could see him. I don’t think he could have resisted tormenting me.”

“You asked us to meet you in this sacred place,” Mikhail said, making it a statement, waiting for her to finish.

“No mage, not even a powerful one like Xavier or his brothers, could penetrate the safeguards of this chamber,” Branislava said. “I’m Dragonseeker and I sensed that the moment I set foot on the ancient stone. I didn’t want to chance being overheard, or speaking the name of evil aloud where it could find me. Xaviero is wholly evil, every bit as evil as Xavier. Although I would have sworn upon my very life that he was dead, I saw his very distinctive signature last night.”