Page 85 of The Missing Sentinel
“It was not quick,” Drexley revealed. “And I did not do it willingly. Adney ordered me to stop training. Demanded I cut my hair. I remember the chill as I sat, and he cut it himself. My skin crawled. I did not want him touching me. But the worst day was when I had to hand him my blades. He destroyed them in front of me. His realm tore those memories from me. I thought they were my decisions. That I wanted to be a scholar.”
“Because you like reading,” Chander surmised. “On some level, you enjoyed educating yourself, and he exploited it.”
“Yes,” Drexley replied.
“What I cannot figure out is how he knew to drain your memory,” Brynnius commented.
Drexley sighed. “Ducarius met Adney. The real one. The irascible man who complained and was often unpleasant. But that is not the Adney I encountered in the first few decades. We built trust. I was the one who told him about the spell at the compound. At some point, he recreated it. Played with my mind.It remains a smooth transition in my head. Maybe he started off lightly and increased it? I have no notion. But I remember him blaming Alaric for the spell at the compound. He was convinced you manipulated some necromancer into creating it, then murdered them. That was how you lacked one. According to Adney, you claimed you were our ruler and assumed the mantle of leadership in a compound where no necromancer could go to dispute your claims.”
Alaric rolled his eyes. “It is almost ironic that I was summoned for the sole purpose of caring for the sentinels so the world could soothe themselves with the knowledge that we had a leader and should be fine. That they could forget we existed. To ensure Albrecht forgot how he was abused, all our memories were drained to keep us from remembering them. As if we wanted to.”
With a heavy sigh, Drexley frowned. “Strangely, I remain grateful to Adney. I had freedom while few other sentinels did. For a time, I could even live much how I wanted. My mate was locked behind the walls of a prison five centuries ago. I cannot think of myself as a victim. I was lucky. It could have been far worse.”
“Fuck this shit,” Chander exclaimed, bringing his hand heavily down on the counter. Several people, including Drexley, jumped. “There are no levels to being victimized. You either are or you are not. A part of you may always remain that likes Adney. Because you had things in common and he treated you like family when you couldn’t remember all the bad shit he did. But don’t you dare put anyone else’s suffering on a pedestal. Trauma is trauma. End of story. Sentinels downplay their pain. It’s innate. Probably because your need to protect and defend is overdeveloped. But you have to learn to cope like every other survivor. And the path forward is not by pretending that someone else has a bigger slice of pain, so you should get thefuck over what happened to you. Do you understand, Drexley? Does every fucking body in this condo hear what I’m saying?”
“He is yelling now, of course we can hear him,” Cassius muttered to Teverild, who shushed him with a chuckle.
“I apologize—”
Chander held up a hand. “Save it, Drexley. Say sorry to yourself, not me. I am mad for you, not at you.”
“For all that Adney was wrong about, he believed that you were destined to be the best Arch Lich in history,” Drexley said. “He was right.”
“Alaric, tell him to stop complimenting me,” Chander ordered as Alaric wrapped his arms around his other half. “I’m not good with that shit.”
“Which makes me wonder what the hell Alaric is doing in his matebond,” Baxter said. “You two have been together for decades; doesn’t he ever compliment you? I tell Ben stuff about his—”
“If you mention Ben’s dick or your own, I will use your mate’s dagger to sever your head from your neck,” Ducarius threatened.
Baxter scowled and crossed his arms. “Using one of Ben’s daggers is taking it a step too far.”
“I don’t understand how you’re cool with being murdered as long as it’s not Ben’s dagger,” Teverild interjected.
Ignoring everyone else, Alaric’s glowing gaze met Drexley’s. “What I am most sorry for is that you must carry your full memories of Adney’s realm and you lack the chance to question your former necromancer about his decisions.”
“Not true,” Chander said. “If Drexley wants answers, we can shadow walk. I’ll march right into Adney’s face and stand there as long as you need to squeeze every bit of truth out of him.”
Drexley did not doubt the Arch Lich. His pewter eyes blazed with determination and anger, but Drexley did not have questions for Adney. The necromancer had wanted a realm that served him fully. Adney had not met his mate. His only son had died. Drexley could recall his terror about whatever he had left behind at Blackwell Manor. Adney had believed he was in danger. So, he had left his old life behind.
Perhaps he did not want to be alone, and that was why he had summoned his sentinel. Or he feared being followed somehow, and that had lessened as the years bled into decades. The reasons behind Adney’s choices were irrelevant because nothing would change the past. What mattered to Drexley was his future.
Suddenly, he could not fight his urge to smile. For so long, the horror of what awaited Drexley had paralyzed him. But he understood now. Five centuries without deciding for himself had stunted his ability to believe he was capable of surviving. But he was. And Drexley planned to do things his own way.
It started with the job awaiting him on Monday morning. Drexley was a sentinel, but he also had a different education from his peers. That, coupled with his love of books, meant he could act as a confident liaison to aid the Sentinel Brotherhood and the Council. However, at heart, he was a sentinel.
And he had missed the feel of weapons in his hands.
“Alaric, how do sentinels get their weapons?”
The Lich Sentinel lifted a brow. “At your resurrection, the machine that created us provided them. But now, Chand adds new people to our population, and Madeline crafts daggers for us.”
Without a word, Alaric marched out of the kitchen in his vibrant green-and-black jammies. He disappeared into the office he shared with Chander and emerged a minute later with a setof daggers. But they were not his. They lacked poison, and he immediately handed them to Drexley.
“Have no fear, I had Madeline make this for you the day you returned with Duc,” Alaric said.
There on each curved blade was Drexley’s name emblazoned by the spell unique to Alaric to protect every sentinel from being harmed by their own weapons.
“But I told you that Drexley did not carry weapons,” Ducarius stated. “I recall mentioning that not every sentinel needed to.”
