Chapter 37 #2
Rìan seized the bucket and shoved it into the void.
Several long seconds passed before the distant splash echoed upward, and then the pulley began to groan beneath the strain as he yanked fiercely on the rope, dragging the filled bucket steadily back toward the surface.
The dangerous look on his face was almost a relief to see, because this Rìan I understood.
This was the Dark Prince.
The male who had cut out the tongues of his servants. Who’d sliced open my attacker's cheeks without hesitation. Who’d very nearly destroyed Aedric.
He worked the rope one-handed while the other remained braced tightly against his side. The swelling in his fist was impossible to miss. It had been badly damaged, one knuckle already misshapen beneath angry flesh. He’d broken it—of that I had no doubt.
Yet I said nothing. Made no move to help him.
The bucket finally emerged from the shaft. Rìan reached down and caught the handle, pulling it onto the lip. Then he stilled, and so did I, both of us staring down at its contents.
"That looks like—"
"Blood," he growled.
And indeed it was. Not water. Not muck dredged from the depths of a forgotten well.
Blood.
Dark and thick and unnaturally viscous, it sloshed heavily against the sides of the bucket, moving with a sluggish weight that made my stomach turn.
The air within the temple thickened, as though every broken stone and shattered pillar were watching—waiting to see what we would do next.
Rìan stared into the bucket for a long moment, a muscle jumping in his jaw.
Then, he plunged his hand into the blood.
His nostrils flared slightly as he cupped the liquid in his palm, crimson droplets slipping between his fingers and rolling thickly down his wrist to his elbow as he raised it to his lips.
His eyes found mine—and held them—before he tipped the blood into his mouth.
He drank.
When he straightened again, blood stained his lips.
Without speaking, he jerked his chin forward.
Drink. The command hung unspoken between us.
I stared down at it, bile rising in the back of my throat.
This was why I’d come. Why Aedric and I had travelled to the Dusklands. Why I’d entered into yet another bargain with the Dark Prince.
I wanted Aedric free. Wanted my life back. Wanted the constant presence of Rìan beneath my skin severed once and for all. I wanted this bond broken.
Whatever the cost.
Drawing a slow breath, I dipped my hands into the bucket. The warmth of it nearly made me shudder—as though it had been freshly shed from a living body. I lifted the blood to my lips.
Rìan watched without blinking, his dark eyes fixed upon me with a dark intensity that made my pulse kick.
I drank.
The blood coated my tongue immediately, thick and revolting, and for one awful moment I thought I might choke on it. But beneath the copper and salt lurked something else entirely, something I had no words for, something that tasted like death.
The moment I swallowed, something tore inside me.
I crashed to my knees as agony ripped through me, so sudden and blinding it felt as though my soul were being torn from my body. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. Couldn't even think.
Rìan doubled over, staggering against the well hard enough to send the bucket tumbling back down the shaft.
And then, suddenly, the pain vanished. I lay where I'd fallen, breathing hard as I stared up through the ruined roof of the temple at the twilit sky. My hand drifted to my chest, where only a dull ache remained—a terrible emptiness lodged somewhere beneath my breastbone.
It had worked. I knew it with absolute certainty. I could feel it with every beat of my heart.
The bond was no longer whole.
Relief washed through me so powerfully that it nearly left me dizzy.
One Gate. One trial. One step closer to freedom.
Suddenly Rìan was there.
He pulled me to my feet with enough force that I stumbled into him.
When I finally raised my eyes, he looked much as I felt.
The color had drained from his face, the shadows beneath his eyes darker and deeper than before.
And yet there was something else there as well: a glint of grim satisfaction. Of triumph. The mirror of my own.
The cost had been steep, but the result was worth it.
"We need to leave." His voice was a low, warning rumble. "Now."
I hadn't even realized how much time had passed, how thoroughly the daylight had ebbed away while we stood before the well. The forest beyond the temple was darkening fast.
I hurried after him, my limbs heavy and sore, the strange ache persistently throbbing somewhere deep inside my chest.
"Do exactly as I say if you want us to make it out of here."
The cobwebs hanging between the trees shifted gently in the evening breeze, swaying in a slow, almost hypnotic rhythm.
Rìan reached the archway first, a loose strand of yellowed webbing brushing against his hip as he passed. He glanced back at me over his shoulder. "And above all, don't touch—"
The cobweb snapped taut.
The strands whipped around Rìan's waist and cinched tight, forcing the breath from his lungs in a startled grunt.
Before I could even react, they ripped him backward into the night and up into the trees.