Chapter 28
This time, I kept my feet quick. I didn’t spare curious glances—not even as a weak gasp rose from a familiar corner, as my name left familiar lips. That undeniable pull wrapped around my heart, attempting to drag me into the shadows. To him.
“River,” Ryder croaked. “You came.”
My feet tried, unwittingly, to stop in front of his bars. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of him, nothing but a pathetic heap on the iced-out cobblestone.
Something in me stirred.
I knew I was playing with fire, and it took everything to stay away from him.
A deep roar rumbled through the dungeon, and a draft, like hot, acidic breath, tossed my hair. It was terrifying, but at least it drew me away from the most dangerous part of this prison—Ryder’s cell.
“Wait,” he pleaded, his silhouette shuffling towards me. “Don’t go!”
My free hand squeezed into a fist.
Unlike when I’d trekked all the way down to the Dead Man’s Zone, this time I only had one more floor to go.
Puffs of frosty vapor rose off the stone, enveloping the tunnel in a haze.
A strange sense of knowing beat beside my raging heart, a rush of déjà vu prickling my skin as I entered the second level.
I held the torch farther out in front of me, the flames illuminating rows of wet cages.
The vapor was thicker down here, a dense fog. Weirdest of all, it was scorching. Maybe that’s why there was so much putrid water covering the floor, it wasn’t fog at all—it was steam. Traces of it wafted through the thin slits of the cell on my left.
I dared a step closer. I barely dared a shaking breath.
The whites of glassy eyes reflected in the torchlight. So many—too many. They all surveyed me, tilting at angles not humanly possible.
My heart sputtered in my chest.
The jelmadag.
It huffed hot air out of its wide, flat nostrils, jolting me back with the stench of rotting meat. Sweat trickled down my hairline, gathered at my temples.
I’d been right.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, rolling to my tiptoes, holding up my light to try and see farther into its chamber. The demon hissed, its back curling up like a threatened cat, lips baring fangs that were sharp and dripping.
“Stop.” The command swept through the chamber, deep and grating, masculine.
I spun around. No one was there. It was just me, and the dozen-ish eyes of the jelmadag, watching. A manifestation of my own fears permeating the silence, then.
Holding up the torch once more, I paced the length of its cage. The frame of a muscular body, the delicate outline of wings, flickered in the dim light.
A flowing mane mimicked the lick of flames, streaks of blue glinting against the dark strands.
It lunged, ramming its shoulder against the door. Breath catching in my throat, I jumped back. Something swung from the demon’s chest, clanging against the metal—a hoof.
My dagger was heavy on my waist.
“Don’t you listen?” A growl rattled the ancient bars. “I do not wish to be put on display.”
Stomach twisting, I mustered up a response. “You can talk.”
The jelmadag grumbled, retreating deeper into his icebox.
“I don’t know why I thought…” You were a feral beast might get me mauled, so I settled for, “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting a response.”
He curled into a ball of shadow on the floor. Throaty exhales rumbled in the air. My cue to go—but I didn’t.
“Are you sleeping?” I whispered.
“Are you leaving?”
Fingers curling around the thick iron, I leaned into the door. “Who put you here?”
“Fate.” The demon whipped his barbed tail, a flash of midnight against sparkling glacial walls. I shivered at the red streaks staining what should have been a sheet of white, at the pieces of bone bouncing off the stone when his heavy, cat-like appendage thudded to the ground.
A formidable creature, indeed. What else had the grimoire said—besides that he was basically a killing machine?
Part lamb, mostly lion, four in existence, one missing from the underworld…
“The book… it said you were missing.”
A satisfied chuckle lilted through the space like a cathedral’s copper bells. “They’re writing books about me now?”
“Did the queen put you here?” I asked. “After the Cross-Realm War?”
That random lamb leg kicked aimlessly, more of a twitch. “The Queen of the Huldufólk is merely a device for fate.”
As his wings fluttered closed, a feather slipped loose, adding to the piles scattered over the stone. It is the opposite of its Empyrean origin—a griffin—in every way aside from its wings. The feathers slowly fall out over the course of eternity.
One drifted near my feet, the edges serrated and sharp like the tip of a blade.
“Get that light out of my face.” Three bright, intelligent eyes cracked open, narrowing in on my chest. “And those fingers out of my cage.”
“Sorry.” I snatched my hand back, angling the torch away from the cell with the other. “I can’t see you without it.”
“I do not wish to be seen.”
I squinted into the enclosure. His body blended into the darkness seamlessly. I wasn’t sure what compelled me to stay. Curiosity, recklessness. Loneliness.
Keeping Kistuleitarinn locked up was questionable, but his gifts did give the kingdom an advantage, I guessed. But this beast? What reason to hold him captive if he was just going to stay locked in a basement, wasting away in the corner of his cell?
It’s not like the jelmadag could be rehabilitated. Evil was in his DNA. If he ever escaped… it’d be not only a threat to Hamarinn, but a danger to the realm, like Olivia had said.
Hildur had the means to banish this being back to his home dimension. Why not do it, then?
Shadows from the burning torch danced across my wrist. I stared into the flames. There were others in this castle with no means of escape. Other captives. Other cages.
I must’ve said that out loud because the jelmadag answered, “Power doesn’t always come from virtuous means.”
The stick trembled in my hand. “The queen is using you to strengthen her powers? Why, because her own is dwindling? Are you loyal to her?”
His jowls parted on a toothy yawn. The force of it blew my hair back. The fire sputtered. My nostrils burned. “I am loyal to no one here.”
“Then what happens when the Galdur fails? Will you…” I gulped. “Eat everyone?”
“Unfortunately for me,” the creature said, rolling onto his back, all four paws, and that awkward hoof, dangling in the air, “she’s discovered a solution to keep it running at the bare minimum.”
“How? Collecting beings like yourself?” Anticipation ran through me. “Then what does she do with you?”
A sleepy growl rumbled in response. “You ask a lot of questions. If it wasn’t obvious, I would like to be left alone.”
My head slumped. “Sorry.”
“You needn’t say it again.”
“Sor…” I cut myself off, the distinct sound of claw scraping stone bringing my shoulders to my ears. I peered down the hall, into the gloom.
The chill I’d been fighting snaked up my spine.
“You’re still standing there.”
Resisting the urge to apologize, I twisted the hem of my shirt. “Leaving now,” I said, not interested in learning what else lurked beyond the veil of ice and shadow.
I backed away, the outline of the cell fading into the blackness as if it never existed, as if it were nothing but a forgotten corner in a moldy basement.
Only when the ground began to slope, taking me to the upper levels, did I turn forward.
The energy hit me immediately—a dozen vicious gazes striking me like harpoons. I glanced over my shoulder, the torch juddering in my shaky hand.
A voice lilted through the chamber. “We’re all prisoners here, one way or another. A lack of chains doesn’t equal freedom.”
The jelmadag’s parting words hung in the air, haunting me with those invisible stares all the way up the ramp. Even when the first floor appeared through the archway ahead, I could feel them, hear them, my gut a pit of wild nerves.
As the next cellblock popped out of the void, the faintest hint of illumination streaking through the overhead grates, I couldn’t help but feel like one of them. My cell just wasn’t four glacial walls. It was worse.
It was the illusion of freedom.
The queen’s favors, her excuses, the room on the top floor… We’re all prisoners here, one way or another.
Low wails drifted into the corridor, their familiar timbre tickling my ears. I kept my head straight, kept my feet moving, but the mere proximity of him seemed to wrap around my senses, grabbing me by the chin, saying, Look at me, baby, look at me.
I halted in the middle of the walkway.
A jolt of something beautiful, something dangerous, pulsed in my chest. All of a sudden, it was as if gravity shifted. All of a sudden, I was in front of his cell.
Ryder. He was right where I left him. On his knees, his head bowed, hair frosted. Stiller than a statue, reverent even, as if he were in deep, dutiful prayer.
I had to fight every impulse not to wrap my hands around the bars, not to push the icy locks out of his face.
“You’re back.” His voice was so weak. So quiet.
“Seems I am.” I ran the back of my finger along the iron door, the metal clinking under my shaky hand.
Shadows cast out from his spine, stretching along the length of his cell, flittering in the hollow draft, wing-like. He raised his chin, gaze locking onto mine. Those electric-green eyes, the ones I dreamed about, were still devoured by emptiness, his black gaze chilling me.
Placing his palms on the frozen ground in front of him, he lurched forward, his shoulders rippling, in a slow, desperate crawl. “Did you come to help me, baby?”
I bristled. There was so much desire under that whine, so much need in those trembling muscles. Tendrils of those same, messy feelings twirled in my stomach. Clenching my fists at my sides, I tried to hold them in, but he made it impossible, even if I knew this was all a ploy.
“Please, baby.”
Fucking. Impossible.
A heady rush of air and emotions rustled my lungs. This wasn’t a good idea. Not at all.
Muffled laughter echoed off the icy walls, barreling under my skin. “What?” he said between laughs, “Are you scared of me now?”
“You killed people at Crescent Rock,” I said, tone lined with steel. “Of course I am.”
“Wasn’t me. Although my hands make steady work of my enemies.” He broke off to catch his breath, his teeth flashing a predatory smile. “Would you like to see what I can do with them?”
Upper lip curling, I tightened my grip around the iron separating us. The door rattled. “In your fucking dream—”
A whistle wove through the air. The pitch was weak, wary, but shrill enough to run a sheet of goosebumps over my arms. Unsheathing the dagger from my waist, I whirled around, the soles of my shoes scuffing the cobblestone.
No one was there.
The crown of Ryder’s head bumped the door.
Twisting to glance back down at him, my eyes caught on the sleek curve of my crystal blade.
“That’s right,” I whispered. I turned the silver handle over, weighing the weapon in my palm. Mined by the dwarves, it held a unique sort of magic: sniffing out the wielder’s enemies with a single drop of their blood.
Lowering to a crouch, I set the torch on the ground. I took in Ryder’s ripped black shirt, the bluish tint to his skin—bordering on hypothermia—the swell of his pants. Batting my lashes, I matched his desperation.
This was a game two of us could play.
“Come here,” I purred.
He moaned, lifting his chin to meet my stare, exposing the pale column of his throat.
Before my courage failed me, before he could stop me, I shot my fingers through the space between the bars and with a speed I didn’t know I possessed in this freezing cold, wrapped them around his nape.
He didn’t resist, falling forward limply as I jerked our faces together between the iron, a hair’s breadth of icy air the only thing between us. His breath danced over my lips. For a heated moment, we held there, inhaling each other.
Then I brought the knife to his neck.
“Again?” He chuckled, and it held no ounce of warmth. “You going to kill me this time?”
“No.” I dragged the sharp edge over his vein. “I want my blade to memorize the taste of your blood.”
“Because you can’t stay away from me either. Admit it.” The words were ragged.
“Because you’re my enemy.” Red carved down his skin, pooling at his collar. “And I want neither one of us to forget it.”
“Who is this girl?” Air hissed out through his teeth. “I like her.”
“Yeah?” Pursing my lips, I slowly shook my head. “You can’t have her.”
Darkness flickered in his eyes. “Get in here,” he growled.
I tilted my head, nose grazing his. I tried to hold in the way my body trembled at the feel of his skin against mine, pushing the poison back into my voice. “What for?”
“So I can destroy you or devour you.” His hand fell below his belt, adjusting. “I’m not sure which one yet.”
“Tempting.” Dropping the weapon, I pressed my thumb against his blood, slick on my fingerprint. His moan danced against my throat, a warm blast of air. “But no.”
Still, I couldn’t deny the heat creeping into my lower belly. We were close. Too close. I quickly backed away seconds before he snatched the bars with hands that, moments before, he would have wrapped around my neck.
“River!” he snarled, cheekbones pressed against the iron, the veins around his eyes turning black. “Don’t walk away from me.”
I bent to pick up the torch.
“Please.” A tired gasp left his lungs, his tone losing some of its sharpness. “Don’t leave me. Please.”
I debated it. For a few heavy beats, I stood in that dank, haunted, prison thinking about what it would be like: to truly touch him again, to hold him again, to bust him out of that cell.
The dagger whistled softly, reminding me of the grim reality: he’d left me. Betrayed me. Ruined me.
Shutting out his cries, I stormed to the exit. This time, I didn’t look back.