Chapter 25
Mari
“Ithank you for doing this, Harald. I know it’s been an excruciating day already, but I couldn’t keep a morsel down worrying about Mari.”
Tulli cocked her head and offered the servant her kindliest smile as she looped her arm through his.
The tips of his ears went crimson. “No mind, Tulli. That’s my job after all. Same as always, looking after you three especially.”
“Be that as it may, as a reward for you escorting me on my kitchen raid when you could be sleeping, I’m going to make you the best sandwich you’ve ever eaten. Cold beef, slathered with horseradish and pickled onions.”
His brow furrowed as he pushed the kitchen door open, and they stepped through.
“I don’t much like horseradish, but anything for you, Miss Tulli.”
She clicked her tongue and swatted him lightly on the chest. “How long have I waited to hear a man say that?” She popped him a saucy wink and then pulled away, surveying the wreckage.
“Lord. The staff leaves for one day, leaves these demons in charge, and look at the place!”
She picked her way over a couple of saucepans that had fallen to the floor and been left for dead.
“I don’t envy them cleaning this mess up.”
Harald stifled a yawn and nodded. “Yes, miss.”
She tossed her head back, a tinkling laugh bubbling from her lips. “I get it. Stop yapping and make your snack, Tulli.”
He drew back, recoiling. “Oh, I’d never think that, miss. You’re perfect!” This time his whole face went red.
She abandoned her search for food to draw close to him, and boop him on the nose with a single finger.
“You’re still a cutie, Harald, that much has never changed. And you’ve just earned yourself a fat slice of cake, if I can find it.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed but he didn’t reply, frozen into silence either by her beauty, her words, or both.
A knife left out on the table seemed to draw her eye, the blade still covered in blood.
“How is it, Harald?” Her wide smile faded and the light in her green eyes dimmed.
“How can there be people, good people like you and me while others turn so bad?” She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, looking away from the knife, as if that would make it disappear.
“What drives someone to do such horrible things? It’s not just upbringing.
I’ve seen…hell, I had a pretty terrible childhood, and I didn’t turn into a fucking monster, murdering innocent women. ”
Harald blinked hard and cleared his throat, finding his words.
“I dunno, miss. One could…I mean, maybe one might say they weren’t exactly innocent…not with what they did for the Fallen and all.”
Tulli drew back like he’d slapped her.
“What did you just say?”
He shrugged and wet his lips, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “Just saying, the women he killed…except that last one. They were good souls deep down, but they’d lost their way. Maybe he was trying to help them, is all. Maybe calling him a monster isn’t exactly right, you know?”
She was quick as a cobra, her hand cracking him in the cheek, hard enough to echo.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she hissed, the fury so palpable she shook with it. “I know you’re too dimwitted to understand what you’re saying, but you mustn’t speak like that. Ever! Whoever is killing the Doves, he’s evil, Harald.”
His eyes blazed as he grabbed her roughly by the wrist, his features morphing into a mask of rage. “Do not call me dimwitted. I hate when people call me that. Franny called me that once, and look what happened to her.”
Tulli froze. And for a second, the room was dead silent except for the sound of the breath sawing in and out of her lungs.
“Harald…did…did you do this? Did you h-hurt those girls?”
Harald’s nostrils flared as he stared down at her.
“No. I wouldn’t do that, miss.”
“Harald!” Tulli demanded, wrenching her arm away. “I’ll ask you again. Did you hurt those Doves? Did you kill them?”
Even as she spoke, her now-free hand crept slowly toward the table behind her, fingers searching wildly for the knife that had been left there so haphazardly.
Harald scratched at his jaw, agitated. “Not on purpose. At least, not at first. At first, I tried to talk to them. Help them change their ways. But they didn’t want to repent.
They wouldn’t listen. And then, I started hearing this voice in my head.
A woman…and she was telling me the only way to save their souls was to free them from their bodies, so their bodies couldn’t be used anymore.
” His voice turned pleading. “Don’t look at me like that.
I did good with Priscilla, didn’t I? She was mean to the Briar Queen, and I took care of it! ”
The very tip of her fingers finally found the blade of the knife…
“Tulli, you’re not going to tell, are you? If I promise to stop and—”
She let out a howl and made her move, yanking the knife free and swinging with all her might.
“Fucking whore bitch!” Harald shouted as the blade sliced his shoulder, opening a wide gash.
No more swinging. Plunging only.
She let out a scream as he lurched toward her, grabbing her by the forearms and pinning her against the countertop. He was much stronger than he looked and she jerked and wriggled to free herself to no avail.
“Help! Someone help me!”
The bedrooms in the house were so very far away. Would anyone even hear her?
“Shut the fuck up!”
She managed to get a hand free and got off another poke with the blade, this time to his side, hard as she could. He let out a howl as she twisted.
With an inhuman roar, he hurled her away, sending her careening into the wall, her head hitting hard enough to bounce off it.
When she hit the floor, the knife skittered away. She struggled to her knees but then fell back to cold stone again, blood running down her face. No amount of rapid blinking would make it stop, and her vision blurred.
But not enough that she couldn’t see Harald standing over her, reaching for her neck with both hands.
She tried to kick him in the balls, but her legs were useless.
This was it.
“She’ll come for you, you piece of shit.” She paused to spit a mouthful of blood at him as he loomed over her. “The Briar Queen won’t just kill you. She’ll pick you apart, piece by piece, until you beg her to finish you!”
“Shut up, bitch!”
Harald slapped a clammy hand over her mouth and nose, silencing her words, stealing her breath.
Then, he picked up the knife. And in one, clean slice…
I woke with a strangled scream, lurching upright so fast, the pain in my hip blinded me. But it was nothing compared to the agony in my chest.
“Mari? It’s okay,” Gabe called as I launched myself from the bed, stumbling. “You were having a nightmare.”
How I prayed he was right…
There was no time to argue or explain that what I’d seen had felt too real, and the thought that I’d just witnessed something so horrific…I had to get to Tulli.
Please, whatever gods might hear me, let her be okay.
I barely registered the chill of the stone floor as I rushed out the door and down the hallway.
The guard posted at the end of it wheeled around to face me, hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Miss? Is everything alright?”
Before I reached Tulli and Feather’s shared bedroom door, it swung open and Feather darted into the hallway, her face leeched of color, her hair matted with sweat.
“Mari! Is Tulli with you?” she demanded, voice shrill with panic. “I had a terrible dream and—”
My head swam as we locked eyes, and that was when I knew. It hadn’t been just a nightmare. Or if it had, Feather had just experienced the same one…an impossibility.
“Harald?” I croaked, skidding to a stop in front of her.
She pressed a hand to her belly and bent at the waist for a fraction of a second before wheeling around. “The kitchens!”
“Mari…Feather. What the fuck is happening?” Gabe shouted, breaking into a run after us.
But my throat was locked tight, holding back my screams.
Please, gods. Please let me be wrong…
Feather got ahead of me, not slowed down by an injury.
By the time I shoved the kitchen door open, my whole body was trembling and my teeth chattered as if I were becoming hypothermic.
Shock. I was in shock. Because my body already knew what my mind refused to accept…
“No, no, no, no!”
Feather’s screams seemed a thousand miles away as the blood pounded in my ears and I swayed, fighting to remain upright.
Tulli lay in a syrupy pool of her own blood, sprawled in the stone floor, throat slit from ear to ear in a garish grin, her beautiful green eyes wide and staring at the ceiling, still tracking tears.
When my legs gave out, Gabe was there to catch me. But none of that mattered. Nothing mattered now.
Tulli was dead…My sister was dead.
And it was my fault.