Chapter 47
Ire led me out of the stable and into a keep, a smaller, den-style group of rooms.
Nearly everything was metal and fur, all objects and linens adorned with his family’s mark.
He pulled me by my chain like a dog, and I stoked my roiling anger, saving it for when I could use it.
I felt depleted after screaming, as if the metal collar around my throat and the runes carved into it diminished my voice and leeched power from me even now.
The cold of the stone floor bit at my bare feet; my body now felt icy. I tried not to show relief at the roaring flames in the large fireplace.
With a gleaming smirk, Ire placed a hand beneath my chin and forced my gaze up, to the chains hanging from the ceiling, each with a hook attached. He grinned as he selected one and hooked my wrists into it, then lowered it, bidding me to kneel before him with my hands pulled up over my head.
With a scowl at the blade he kept close, I knelt.
“You look good on your knees for me,” he said, smiling still as he pulled the large leather chair carved like a throne closer—close enough to pet at my hair and feel the warmth of the fire, though he was still in his leathers and warm cloak.
I tried to relax and control what sensations I could, focusing on the feel of the warmth of the fire at my back, soaking into my bones.
Ire brought over a glass of ruby red wine and one of water, lifting it to my mouth. “Thirsty?”
Nostrils flaring, I jerked back.
“C’mon, pet. I know you are.” My throat was parched, tongue dry. I hadn’t drunk anything since dinner, and the elevation was getting to me. “And you’ll only be drinking from my hand.”
Cheeks flaming at the demeaning image, I opened my mouth and let him pour the water.
He didn’t stop after my mouth closed, drenching my thin nightdress, and I gasped, pulling back as far as I could, closer to the fire.
Ire took a long swallow of the wine and sat comfortably against his chair, eyes roaming over the way the wet fabric clung to my body.
“This is your grand plan?” I snapped, irritated with his silence.
He smiled lazily. “And if it is?”
“You’re dead. The second Blake realizes I’m gone, he’ll be looking for me. And Flame can—”
“Her Bond to the others is gone at the moment, just as is her Bond to you. Isn’t that right?” He looked at me knowingly. “I’m making sure to keep her that way.”
I couldn’t stop myself declaring, “It won’t matter. Blake, Jace, Quinn, Calla—I know they’ll come. You’re a fool to think you can get away with this. Blake will kill you if the demons don’t kill us both first. Don’t you care about the Raveling? Your dominion needs us.”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged, as if my words were inconsequential. “Perhaps not. There is another card to play.”
He leaned in then, his hand gripping my chin and arching my body toward him. I struggled, but only managed to pull at my arms, the pain immediate and intense enough that I froze and went pliant in his grasp.
Ire’s other hand activated something on that cursed collar I was wearing. The smell of smoke and rotting wood invaded my nostrils, a piercing headache sharpening against my skull as my vision blackened.
Edith.
It was Edith, bound in chains and bathed in a pulsating bright light, stone at her back—
My breath locked in my throat, nausea curling in my gut, seeing what had Edith.
It was a demon, but far, far worse than the Thirst demons. Something entirely different.
It loomed in front of her, at least nine feet tall.
Its body was a twisted husk of bone, an insectile nightmare.
Its movements were jerky, too fast and unnatural.
Its ribs jutted outward, overlapping like the plated armor of a starved locust, its spine exposed, vertebrae ridged and ending in hooked barbs that seemed to twitch even in stillness.
Its head was dominated by one vast, yawning maw, an abyss of unhinging jaws lined with jagged, shifting fangs.
An eerie, inhuman voice rang through the air: “Give us the woman of prophecy and our hunger shall be sated. Give us the woman of prophecy, and this creature shall go free, unharmed…”
And then the vision disappeared. As my eyes cleared, that same smell of smoke and rotting wood made me cough as Ire released my chin.
“Where is she?” I shouted, yanking at my chains in spite of the pain. “I swear if you don’t—”
“Born of passion and the silencing queen,” Ire began. Not a song. Spoken, whispered like a dark promise.
“A light shall rise where none have been.
Through her, the dawn will banish night,
If the dragon’s heart grants her might.”
Something raw twisted in my gut, mouth parted as he spoke the words of the song I’d sung for Edith. The one that haunted my dreams.
“Should the hollow one consume her power,
Darkness will reign in the final hour.
Let the serpent’s heir stand by her side
And storms shall rage and kingdoms die.”
“You’re reciting poetry now?” I spat.
Ire smiled. “It’s not just a song. It’s a prophecy.” He relaxed back in his chair then. “What do you know about it, Rubi Morningtail?”
“Nothing. And I don’t care,” I shouted. “Take me to Edith. Whatever you want, it’s yours, just let her go.” I felt my voice hit another register—longing and power, but nothing happened.
His chuckle was dark and smooth.
“I won’t take you to Edith. She and Flame are only to ensure your cooperation. But I will take you to the demon servant of the Serpent Lord,” he said.
My stomach dropped. “What? Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He has been seeking you.”
“But I’m nobody.”
“I agree you are nobody, and you will be nobody after I deliver you to him. But he wants you, so who am I to say no?”
“You’re working for him?” I said, disgusted.
“I’ve struck a deal.”
“Whatever he’s offered you, he won’t give it. Blake and the others will mend the Anchor. And then it’s only a matter of time before your precious lord is sealed tight in the Demon Realm again and you are ended.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll be seated on the throne and Blake will be the one who is ended.”
The throne. He’d…
“You made a deal for the throne of the Silver Tyger Dominion?” I laughed. “Isn’t it already yours? When the king dies? He’d never make Malissa his heir.”
He sneered at even the mention of his princess’s name. “She is a yin—of course he would never make her his heir. But he would name Blake after he married Malissa.”
I couldn’t stop the ache of jealousy.
“The king adored his Twin Blades, and especially Blake.” His voice dripped with disgust. “But I would be more than king of the Silvers. The Serpent Lord shall make me emperor over all of the dominions. And everyone shall kneel before me. Like you’re doing now.”
As his voice rang out, filled with a cruel, hungry certainty, Ire stood, an unholy light in his eyes. He was all hulking mass as he crept over me and released my chains from the hook, jolting me down into his lap when he settled back down.
I tried to shove off him, but one meaty hand wrapped around my throat above the collar like a vise. “Relax, little yin.”
The smell of wine was pungent, his voice a dark caress.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, fear making my voice shake.
“The Serpent Lord may consume you.” He smirked, lowering his head and skimming his nose against my throat. “But I will have you first.”
“You’re disgusting.” My body felt like fire, seething with anger, teeming now with power I could feel but couldn’t release.
Ire drew his mouth closer and closer to mine before I slammed my head forward into his granitelike forehead. It hurt me far worse than it injured him, but it was something.
He stood and dropped me unceremoniously on the floor. His large hand grabbed for my hair, yanking it hard as he dragged me across the room and up onto my toes, securing my chains somewhere behind me, so that I was nearly tied to the wall, my neck already aching from the immediate strain.
“Listen here, you little Azure bitch,” he snapped, his face red and furious. “Axefire and his brother have taken everything that should have been mine, by right and by birth. Blake will join the other Twin Blade in a grave by my hand.”
“Blake has taken nothing from you. You will never be able to hold the power he has.”
“I will be your emperor!” he shouted, hands clenched.
I glared at him. “You will never be anything to me or anyone else.”
His hand smacked so hard across my face, my vision swam. And before I could get my bearings, he delivered another blow, and darkness clouded my mind.