Chapter 36
ARIEL
P anic surged through me, and I reached for the blade. But Vesstan caught my arms and spun me around to pin them over my head just as Hemming had, his grip impossible to escape.
“You’ve been manipulating me all along?—”
“No! It’s not what you think?—”
“ LIAR !” His anger boomed through the hallway as he raised his hand. The sharp sound of his palm hitting my cheek soon followed.
“I saw you with my own eyes. Saw him hold you like this while he worked you over with his fingers. Heard you moan like a whore for him.” He pressed his body against mine so hard that I couldn’t breathe. “But you’ll do more than that for me. You’re going to scream my name as you beg for mercy, though you’ll receive none.”
“How?” I wheezed as he crushed me against the cold stone wall with his anger and arousal. There had been no one lurking in the hallway. Hemming, above all others, would have heard him. Scented him. Felt his footfalls in the thrum of the stone floor. And yet he’d been blind to any of those things. A damning thought crossed my mind; I was the reason. His desire for me had blinded him to Vesstan’s presence.
“I am a god —there is much I can do that you couldn’t possibly imagine.” He pulled away enough to eye the leather top hanging precariously from my chest. “But you will soon…”
He hooked his fingertip in the top of the bodice and slowly pulled it free. I stood as still as stone, suffering the indignity so that I might find an opportunity to strike. I steeled my gaze on him and sneered. “We’ll see about that.”
His nostrils flared with rage—and excitement. “There she is…the real Ariel. The one drawn to danger. I hope you’ll fight back. It makes it so much more fun.”
He released me long enough to spin me around against the wall, and I capitalized on the sudden movement to rip the dagger strapped to my thigh from its sheath. Using the momentum, I cranked my torso around further and plunged the dagger deep into his gut, then wrenched it upward, carving through his belly like I was gutting a fish. He buckled forward, and I forced the blade higher, into his heart. He knocked me aside with considerable force, and I crashed against the neighboring wall with a thud as he looked up at me with angry eyes. He withdrew the blood-soaked blade and tossed it behind him while his other hand pressed against the massive wound to staunch the bleeding. I darted toward the weapon, hoping to finish him off.
And end the curse on Anemosia.
My fingers wrapped around the hilt of my father’s blade, and I turned as Vesstan slowly rose, as if to face death with honor. But instead of a look of resignation on his face, I found one of maniacal amusement.
Roaring laughter rang through the bowels of the castle as he walked toward me. His hands fell away from the gaping wound I’d carved into his belly, and with one look at the pale, unmarred flesh they revealed, my body went numb. There was no sign of an injury beyond the blood staining his white silk shirt and the tear in the fabric. And it was at that moment I realized a terrible truth.
I wasn’t enough of a god to kill Vesstan.
But he most certainly could kill me.
“You stupid girl,” he said as he looked at me with wild vengeance in his eyes. I turned to run, but he caught me easily, then threw me across the hall. I slammed into the wall with crushing speed and collapsed to the floor. If that was the strength of a god, then I clearly wasn’t one. “Who sent you?” he asked as he stalked toward me.
“Nobody sent me. I came for the?—”
His open hand cracked against my mouth, sending blood flying and my world spinning.
“There’s a reason they chose you,” he mused aloud as the hallway itself crackled with the energy of a storm waiting to strike. “I wonder what that is…” He eyed me for a moment and I looked on, broken and bleeding, as realization dawned in his shocked expression and the secret I’d been desperate to keep was unearthed. “They think you’re a god.” In a blink, he had me by the throat, wings crushed awkwardly against my back as he pressed me into the wall again. His eyes narrowed in a sinister fashion as they searched my face. “I know who you are...” His low, threatening tone sent chills through my body. “I see it now. The resemblance you bear to Siora.”
His grip tightened, choking off my air, and I struggled to force the question I longed to ask past my lips. “Why…did you…kill her?” My garbled voice was nearly unintelligible, but understanding flashed in his eyes before he dropped me to the ground at his feet.
“ Kill her?” he asked, genuine confusion in his voice. “I did no such thing.” Then his surprise bled away, leaving a malicious smile in its wake. “But I know who did. And oh , what he’s going to do to you when he finds out you’re here. Not yet, though…no, I don’t think I’m ready to be finished with you. We’ve only just started to play my games, and I think you’ll like the next one I have in mind.” He strode toward the metal door. “Until then, Ariel, just know that I’ll be busy with your friends.”
Fire launched from my mouth, engulfing Vesstan as his hand reached for the door. For a moment, all I saw was a raging inferno before me, and I slowly moved closer, the pain in my back eclipsed by hope for his demise.
Maybe I was god enough after all.
Maybe my Fireheart was the answer.
Then Vesstan stepped out of the flames, his charred features slowly smoothing to pale perfection as they contorted with rage. He punched me with his unmarred hand, knocking me back to the ground. “I’m going to make you beg for death,” he whispered, his voice strangled by the anger fueling him, “but only after I make your friends beg for it first.” I struggled against his hold as he pinned me to the ground, but it was like iron binding me in place. “Look at you, you pathetic, weak little thing. You’re barely a god,” he said before punching me in the gut so hard I was left heaving on the floor, “but by the time I’m done with you, you’ll know what it means to cross a true one.” With a vicious thrust, he cracked my head against the stone floor, and my vision began to narrow. He opened one of the doors lining the hall and threw me into the dark space. “Rest well, Ariel. I’ll be back for you soon.”
I watched his silhouette through a fading haze as he closed the massive door behind him. I heard the bolt slam into place, and I felt the cold hand of death rake along my spine as I realized where he was going.
“ Hemming ,” I whispered to the darkness as it dragged me under. “ Run …”