Chapter Thirty-Five
Indistinguishable whispers hiss from every direction as I surrender to my fate, the metallic taste overwhelming my senses. Just like the night at the fountain, when I was submerged beneath the pool of blood, a surge of vitality courses through me, like lightning electrifying my every cell. Power floods my veins, a power that feels foreign and yet more familiar to me than my own heartbeat. I latch onto it—my courage, my hope, my defiance.
The Underlings have taken everything. My brother. My father. My home.
I will not let them take me.
The pressure lifts, like a weight removed from my back, and I rise to one knee, a dagger clenched in either fist. I cough and sputter, blood dribbling down my chin, but every choking gasp fans a fire in my chest, warming my skin from the inside with radiant heat. At first, I don’t look up, my gaze trained on the floor, watching as the blood undulates beneath me, rippling with my pulse.…
“ What an interesting creature you are ,” the Sylk croons. “I look forward to picking you apart.”
I stare at the blood, at the two golden orbs of light reflected on the crimson surface. Eyes like those of a Nightweaver.
Trudy lifts her foot as if to take another step, but when I raise my head, fixing a glare on her, she stops short. A look of fear. And then—
“ There you are ,” the Sylk whispers, “ Violent Aster. Now we can have some fun. ”
“Did someone say ‘fun’?”
My heart leaps at the sound of Titus’s lilting voice. He appears over Trudy’s right shoulder, looking no less heroic than the famed pirate for whom he’s named. Killian must have set to work on healing him quickly, because the swelling in his face has gone down, the holes in his hands mended.
Titus rolls his neck, adjusting his torn cuffs as if he wasn’t just pinned to the wall like a dead insect. “I’m thought to be somewhat of an expert on the subject,” he says, crouching. He plunges his hands wrist-deep into the pool of blood, his eyes glowing gold at the contact. His gilded eyes slide past Trudy, to me, a sudden look of concern on his bruised face. “Maker of All…,” he breathes, a roguish grin tugging at the corner of his busted lip. “You are quite the walking contradiction, Aster Oberon.”
Trudy looks between the two of us, disbelieving, before throwing her head back in erratic laughter. “Isn’t this quaint? The prince and the pirate…” She tilts her head at Titus, tsks. “What would Mummy and Daddy think?”
“You know,” Titus says slowly, running his thumb over his bottom lip, smearing it with blood, “I’ve never really given much consideration to what my parents think. But I’ll be sure to ask them when Aster attends my wedding.” He gives me an earnest look. “You will join William at the palace, won’t you?”
My mouth stutters open. “Join Will? At the palace?”
Titus glances about the room, laughter tugging at his crimson lips. It’s hard to believe that only a few minutes ago, he seemed to be clinging to life. “Is there an echo?”
Trudy rolls her eyes. “ You’re lucky my master wants you breathing ,” the Sylk tells me, “ or I’d rip out your heart just to gag him with it .”
“Now, that’s not very nice,” Titus coos. “If you’re trying to win over Miss Oberon, you might say something like, ‘Won’t you please join our evil death cult?’ or… ‘Say goodbye to your neck.’”
Trudy’s head turns like a whip as she sneers at Titus, a confused look on her face. “Say goodbye to…?”
The moment Trudy takes her eyes off me, I launch one of the daggers at her neck, my heart pounding as it flies through the air, seconds away from severing her spinal cord, when—
Without looking, Trudy seizes the dagger an inch from her flesh. She drops it with a hiss, as if it had burned her. Her head swivels slowly, her eyes like two smoldering bits of coal.
“ Stupid girl ,” the Sylk seethes. “These people seek only to wield you. You are an object to them. A prize.”
“I’m flattered,” I say, flipping my one remaining dagger and catching it in midair, the metal warm in my palm. “But isn’t that exactly what the Guild wants to do with me?”
A malevolent grin. “Oh, the Guild of Shadows has great plans for you. You could be free. You could be powerful. Queen Morana has taken a special interest in you. If only you weren’t—”
Titus throws out a long rope braided with silver thread—a cord from one of the curtains, I realize—with enough skill and force that it wraps itself around Trudy’s throat.
Trudy claws at the rope, her face turning purple, eyes bulging.
“How rude of me,” Titus drawls. “I believe you were saying something?”
Trudy’s fingers transform, long black talons slicing through the rope with little effort. She takes a triumphant inhalation, her red glowing eyes wild with hate. When she exhales, a legion of purple flaming bats burst from her mouth, hurtling toward me.
Everything slows. This is it. This is my moment. All these months spent chopping onions and peeling potatoes, all the blood that’s been shed… every second since the day Owen was killed has led me to this very instant. And I know, with startling clarity, what I am to do, as if I’ve been riding on a gentle wave propelling me inexorably toward land, and at long last, I’ve reached the shore.
I don’t run away. I run toward Trudy. Toward the Sylk. Toward revenge.
Death is the only defeat. And I don’t intend on dying tonight.
This is for Mr. and Mrs. Hackney. For the child Percy murdered in cold blood. For Mrs. Carroll. For Dorothy. For Father.
For Owen.
“No!” Titus roars, his voice breaking, as I race toward the onslaught of fiery bats, unflinching, picking up speed and—
I drop to my knees at the very last second, sliding beneath the blazing purple swarm, headed straight for Trudy. I lash out, bracing as I strike true, slicing Trudy’s stomach wide.
The Sylk howls.
I come to a halt at Titus’s feet, panting for breath. I look up at him, at his bloodstained face. His chest heaves, his blue eyes wide, fear and shock and awe all warring in his expression.
“You’re mad.” His voice cracks as he extends his hand to me. If it weren’t for the blood blurring my vision, I’d think there were tears in his eyes.
“No,” I say, standing on my own. “I’m a pirate.”
I turn, watching as Trudy pivots, clutching her gaping stomach. Her wound glows with a gilded light from the effects of the Elysian Iron as the magic takes root, expelling the Sylk and banishing it to Havok. Entrails spill out over her fingers, her intestines unfurling onto the floor. But she smiles, her teeth crimson, eyes glowing red.
“ We will meet again, Violent Aster ,” the Sylk says clearly over the gargle in Trudy’s throat, a voice wholly separate from the body it possesses. “My master has great plans for you.”
A rush of power thrums in my veins. “See, that’s the difference between you and me,” I say, lodging the dagger in Trudy’s forehead with a squelch. “I have no master.”
As the Sylk’s shadowy form seeps from Trudy’s flesh, dissipating like smoke, it cackles a gritty, grinding sort of laugh.
“ We are all bound to someone, ” the Sylk says, its voice fading, merely an echo on the wind. “The question is, who binds you, child of the sea?”