Chapter 35
Nelle
The limousine swept through the early hours of the morning, the night sky as black as the fury festering beneath my skin.
Two of Valarie’s cadre had dragged me, spitting and snarling, from the Emporium and shoved me into the vehicle.
Like a trapped animal, I’d lashed out, ripping the pins from my hair to stab at them, tearing off my heels to hurl, striking out with my adamere bracelet at anyone within reach until they finally manhandled me into submission.
For two hours I’d been cooped up with nothing but my fury as we traveled along highways and lonely country roads.
Not even the chink of adamere beads, reminding me to keep my temper in check, had soothed me.
I couldn’t think clearly, could barely breathe without it being infused with vicious heat.
I wanted to rip Valarie apart with my bare hands. Indeed, any Crowther who came near me.
Ferne had promised me more time.
But her aunt had torn me from my parents too soon.
Valarie fucking Crowther.
I was still reeling from my mother’s revelation.
Despite both her and Graysen insisting Valarie had once been someone entirely different, I couldn’t reconcile that with the woman in front of me.
She was despicable and cruel. I couldn’t fathom how my father had ever loved her. What the hells had he seen in her?
The limousine slowed and swung wide, and I pressed closer to the window as we edged around the lead cars in the convoy. They’d stopped outside the Keep’s front entrance. Crowther guards and soldiers deployed from the SUVs, and one of them helped Ferne out.
Passing the cluster of vehicles, we rattled over the drawbridge, gliding to a halt inside the inner courtyard.
I fidgeted with the loops of my bracelet, impatient to escape the confinement.
One of the bodyguards leaned forward to open the door, but I lunged first and elbowed her aside. “I can fucking get out by myself!”
I flung the door open and practically tumbled out, the Bonefall swinging hard against my ribs as I staggered upright.
My hair was a wild mess of tangled curls and spiral strands bounced in front of my eyes as I whirled around, hunting for Valarie.
My gaze locked on her just as she ducked out of a second limousine that had traveled ahead of us.
She was on a phone call. As she straightened her figure, I heard her say, “Thank you. We’ll eagerly await the details.”
I shook with a rage so brutal it threatened to incinerate me from the inside out.
Valarie’s gaze collided with mine. She lifted her chin, victory shining brightly as she marched toward me, heels clicking briskly across the cobbles.
I stormed straight for her, both of us closing the distance as if we were about to meet on a battlefield.
I wanted to shred that smug smile off her face with my claws.
“That was Zielenski,” she said, as if I cared.
“I don’t give a fuck!”
“The Horned Gods want a Goods Appraisal.”
My steps faltered as horror crawled through my veins, smothering my anger.
It was an insidious whisper in the back of my head—They’ve won.
A Goods Appraisal meant the Crowthers had taken one gigantic step closer to gaining an invitation to the Witches Ball.
Valarie’s gaze slid to the guard hovering nearby. “Take her to the dungeon.”
The word dungeon plunged through me like icy water, swallowing me whole. The last vestiges of my fury twisted into terror at the thought of being shoved into a pitch-black cell.
No, no, no…
I stumbled back as the guard approached. Glancing around frantically, I discovered that the tower was effectively cut off. Valarie’s cadre had already blocked its entrance. I grabbed my skirt, spun around, and ran, sprinting toward the first place my gaze landed.
The Keep.
Valarie’s cronies were quick, but fear made me faster. I was a bird darting across the courtyard, tulle billowing behind as my bare feet slapped chilled stone. I bounded up the steps and soared through the doorway, flying past a startled servant.
The Keep devoured me, its cold breath brushing my skin like a warning.
I ran without thought, without a plan. Hallways and open spaces blurred past as I hurtled onward, lost in a maze of passageways and rooms. Behind me, ringing in the distance, came the thudding noise of chasing footfall and calls between soldiers.
I didn’t know where to go or what to do.
They were going to capture me and shove me into the dungeon, and Graysen wasn’t here to stop them.
A running rug slid beneath my feet as I skidded to a halt.
I jittered, bouncing from foot to foot, hands flapping uselessly as I tried to think, to choose a direction, to find somewhere, anywhere, to hide.
A bead of sweat slid down my spine when I realized belatedly that hundreds of people were staring at me.
A breath whooshed out of me as I understood where I stood.
The room was enormous, with its pale green walls and high crown molding.
Portraits and sculptures of all the Crowthers’ ancestors, captured in paint, stone, and metal, filled the chamber to the brim.
Their images stared back with cold, lifeless gazes.
The reigning family’s ancestral gallery.
But there was one portrait amongst them all that seized my attention instantly.
Tabitha Crowther.
She stared at me, grinning, her green eyes sparkling with mischief and warmth. Dirt-dusted hands wrapped around a wicker basket overflowing with white roses.
Insanity warped my terror. It felt as if Tabitha was everywhere, as if she’d been the one to orchestrate all of this. Venom charged through my bloodstream, turning it thick and black and fetid, jackhammering my heart faster.
I hated her.
I hated her with my very essence.
I wanted to destroy her.
And I detonated.
A shriek tore from my throat. I lunged toward her portrait, the bone-chains rattling as if urging me on.
Anything in my way was obliterated. Photographs, metal busts, and priceless antiques.
Sculptures crashed to the floor as I scrambled to get closer to the painting.
The thunderous noise of my rage ricocheted off the walls.
Snatching up a vase, I hurled it at Tabitha’s smiling face, relishing the splash of water streaking down the canvas. The sound of shattering glass.
I didn’t care that she’d been captured and caged like me.
That she’d been tortured for twelve long years.
Nor did I care that she deserved to be freed.
And I refused to acknowledge that we were in a similar position.
Clambering onto a credenza, I grabbed hold of the painting, yanking it wildly off the wall with such force that I fell backward, the weight slamming me to the floor with an oof.
Wrath roared from my chest in blustery screams as I attacked the canvas with my fists, pummeling her sweet face and gouging her lovely smile with my fingernails, tearing ragged holes as I stomped through the portrait before smashing it against a toppled cabinet.
Behind me, someone said, “Well, well, well…”
The broken portrait clattered to the floor as I let go. I spun around, the long lengths of bone-chains swinging wide.
Valarie entered the gallery, gliding along the rug in a graceful, languid stride.
A few members of her elite cadre spread out behind her.
Her expression was cold, unreadable, as she surveyed the destruction of her family’s gallery.
She didn’t seem bothered. No, not until her gaze flicked to the empty space on the wall behind me.
Then to the ruined portrait at my feet.
Cunning eyes widened in shock. Her lips screwed together as her entire body trembled with fury. The savage, hateful look she gave me would have left me cowering if I wasn’t drowning in my own vindictive abhorrence.
“W-wh-what d-did you d-do?!” she shrieked, stuttering with rage.
She rushed me, a blur of speed.
She was on me before I could stumble backward, snatching a fistful of my hair and yanking hard. Pain scorched my scalp as she shook me. “You s-spiteful c-child!”
Whirling around, she dragged me out of the gallery by my hair.
I fought and howled, twisting like a worm on a hook, batting uselessly at her hand fisting my curls, trying to keep up with her brutal pace. “Let go of me!”
But she was bigger. Stronger. Fiercer.
Bitter night air slammed into my overheated skin, cooling my flesh as she hauled me from the Keep and into the inner courtyard, barking orders at her cadre. But I couldn’t make out the words over my own screaming and thrashing.
The grinding of stone against stone made my anger falter and my chest seize. A wide section of cobbles split apart, parting like a wound to reveal a monstrosity rising from the depths.
The contraption was tall and long-limbed—a towering frame forged from lashed-together wyrm remains and human bones.
Vertebrae stacked too high formed a warped spine, partial wings flaring wide like tattered banners.
Wedged at the top were two human skulls, crowned in shards of wyrm scale and fangs, a sinuous whip circling their necks like a morbid necklace.
Strands of moonlight slid over the thick ropes coiled around the taloned handles.
“You wouldn’t dare!” I shrieked as I realized exactly what it was.
My mouth dried up at the memory of Graysen’s beautiful back bumping beneath my fingertips. The slashes of hate carved into his skin. The ridges of pain.
“I w-would! And I-I-I am!” Valarie screeched, shaking me about as she marched toward the device. “How d-dare you d-d-desecrate Tabitha’s memory?!”
She was lost in the same rage that had ensnared me when I’d ripped Tabitha’s portrait from the wall. I’d finally broken Valarie. But not in the same way I’d broken her nephews.
She shoved me ruthlessly, slamming me face-first against the whipping post, releasing my hair only to snatch hold of my hand and force it up to one of the bone-arms. I tried to wrench free, but she was too strong.
The thick rope coiled around the handle writhed as if alive.
It struck out, fast as a snake, and in a blink it wrapped itself around my wrist in tightening loops.
“No! No! Let me go!”
Valarie grabbed my other hand, and the second rope bound me to the post.
I struggled, twisting, pulling, trying to loosen the coarse cords biting into my skin.
I couldn’t free myself!
I sucked in a horrified breath and froze.
Behind me came the eerie, sinister sound of dark magic sizzling through the air.
Slashing. Whirring. Cutting.
A snap!
And an ear-shattering crack!