Chapter 19 - Jael
Jael
XIX
“There’s definitely something going on out there,” Pimmin said as they ducked their head back in through the curtain. “The vampires are all gathered. Some of them look… eager.”
I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and paced the length of the small room again. Whatever they were discussing, I doubted it was tonight’s meal plan.
Unless it was.
A chill hugged my spine, and I shrugged it away.
What was I afraid of? That I was going to die?
If we managed to sneak out of this cavern and track down Princess Brynna’s carriage, the likelihood was that we would die before we reached her anyway.
All around me, my options were death. So why should I care?
The thought was so sudden and so liberating that I staggered against the wall and sank to the floor.
What did it matter?
I would be dead before the next full moon, so what difference did it make how it happened?
A laugh rumbled out of me, bitter but strangely lighter than any other sound that had escaped me since being thrown in this room.
“Oh good, he’s lost his mind,” Corban said from his corner where he hadn’t done anything except glower.
Hethyr and Pimmin squeezed closer together, and I suffered a pinch of regret on their behalf. They’d found something to live for outside the cause, and now it would be torn away from them.
While I…
I’d ruined things with Kalla by choosing my revenge over her.
All I had left was death and darkness. But the universe had given me a final gift.
I had thought to go to my end never playing another song or hearing a kind voice.
I’d felt my magic. Kalla had allowed me to experience some brightness in a life that had been nothing but emptiness for six years.
I could be grateful for that. Whatever the future brought me, at least I’d had that.