37. The Price of Darkness #2
The Blackthorne boys had referred to this midnight place as some symptom of their afflictions. What sort of affliction would have them locked away after midnight each night?
I was about to find out.
Pulling the items from my pockets, I pushed them into the indents in the iron.
The face opened its eyes. Slowly, the metal lips puckered, ready for me to share my secret like a kiss.
“Whisper something true into his lips,” Riot’s voice sang in my mind.
Finding something true seemed to be a theme in this castle and its spells.
What was true about me anymore? It seemed all I knew, all I was, had died.
Something new had risen from the ashes of who I once was.
Something darker… but yes, something truer.
On a whim, I leaned forward and whispered into the iron lips, “I am becoming who I am meant to be.”
Pulling back, I waited.
Suddenly, the lock clanked, and the door swung open. My heart beat furiously in my chest as I stepped into the darkness, grabbing the torch above the door as I went. “Hello?” I called into the space. “Riot? Spade?”
I ventured deeper, not sure where I was going, or what I might find. What could possibly inspire the guys to be down here every night? It was cold, wet, dreary, and horrible. A far cry from the cozy study we’d just hung out in all day and night.
The rustling of chains jolted my system.
Fear sprang to the forefront of my senses as dark magic licked across my skin.
Everything in me told me to run. My witch’s instincts screamed within me to turn back, lock the door, and never return.
Hundreds of years’ worth of Malefic women beat against the veil, urging me to not continue.
I listened to none of them.
Inching forward, I followed the banging of chains—until I froze in my tracks. Before me were two wrought iron barred cells, side by side. Two creatures were chained within them.
One dark and shadow incarnate.
One light and white manifested.
They each stood long and tall at nearly eight feet high, with the bodies of men, but exaggerated muscles and features. The shadow man had black horns. The bright glowing man had white horns. “What—what are you?” I asked, shaking.
Each creature’s eyes shot up to me.
They shook their chains violently before calming. The shadow being’s eyes glowed as he met my gaze.
The light being looked at me too, his eyes glowing like starlight.
They weren’t withers, they weren’t monsters, per se, but they were something…
different… something horrible to behold and terrifying to be near—even with the promise of bars and chains, I didn’t feel safe.
I knew I wasn’t safe—not in the slightest.
With white light radiating from his perfect physique, the bright being responded. “Congratulations, you found us. Now you know.” His voice echoed in an unfamiliar tone as if it were the voice of thousands. Though when his eyes met mine—I knew exactly who he was.
Riot . Riot was… he was…
With darkness creeping off his body, shrouding everything around him in a pit of black, the other being stepped closer to the bars of his cell, holding onto them as he eyed me. His voice was ancient and cruel. “We are the Blackthornes. The Blackthorne Daimons.”
“Daimons,” I repeated, hearing the quiver in my tone. “You’re daimons?”
Riot’s echo of thousands responded. “Demons, malevolent spirits, stewards of hell, devils, we are called all sorts of things across many realms. This is where we spare you as our true forms fight to take control.” He rattled the chain on his wrist. “Iron bars, iron chains, burning into our wretched skin. Aren’t you happy you solved the riddle?
Our time is ticking until we are banished to our daimon forms for eternity. ”
“What can I do? How do I help?”
“Leave,” Spade’s dark voice of cruelty ordered, chilling my blood. “Get out. There’s nothing you can do, and you’ve already done enough harm just being you , Rumor Malefic.”
Air pushed from my lungs. “All I wanted was help getting my sister back. I-I didn’t ask for all this. Whatever this is… us…”
“There is no us,” Spade sneered. “You broke through the house wards, you made it this far. It was believed that affections… love… could break the hex upon us. Clearly, it cannot. So, with that, we’ve no use for you. You’re free to go.”
“You were using me?” I asked, hating the way my heart splintered as Riot avoided my gaze.
Even glowing in white and wearing horns, he still looked like himself to me.
“No matter,” I fought to straighten my shoulders.
“I suppose I was using you all, too. I’ve gotten what I came for, one way or another, I got it. I won.”
In an eruption of metal clanking, Spade beat against his chains. I startled, jumping back, my instincts finally taking over as I moved away.
“GET OUT!” he yelled. The voice of a devil. The scream of a daimon. Repeating it over and over, as if his sanity had slipped, or perhaps, just the mask he put on for me, he screamed as I ran.
I should have known better. I should have known beings like the Blackthornes could never desire me truly.
Even Twenty—why’d he bait me into going down here?
What did that do other than break my heart and push me away?
Maybe he was tired of me too and wanted me gone.
It didn’t matter—I knew what I needed to do to get to my sister.
Fuck the Blackthornes… the Blackthorne Daimons…
Daimons… goddess… I’d been conversing with daimons .
I needed to leave, and I needed to leave quickly—before Twenty found me upstairs and before whatever midnight spell had passed, freeing the daimons from their horned forms and back into their guise of humanity.
Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, I had a thought.
This looked like the area where I’d been held when I first arrived.
The guys had said this is where Adder was being held as well.
Instead of ascending the steps, I pressed my palms into the stone walls, hoping I was right and our holding cells were on this side of the castle and not in some other cavern.
Thank goddess for my witch’s luck and intuition, because with a click, a large portion of stone moved inward, revealing a hidden door. Adder had to be in here.
Did I have a plan? Sort of. I was making it up as I went—and ignoring the pang of tears welling behind my eyes.
Fuck Spade. Fuck Riot. Fuck Twenty. Fuck this whole place.
Willowspire was my home, Prism was my home, and I’d get those things back like I’d always intended.
The one thing I couldn’t risk in this plan that was still forming in my head—was making it to the gates and becoming tangled in thorns again.
Spade had yelled at me to leave, but that didn’t ensure my safe passage.
The last thing I needed was to be snared in vines awaiting their rescue—or continued torment.
Someone I knew had gotten through the thorny wards somehow.
If he’d gotten in—he could get us out. The hidden door opened to a long hall with one wooden door in the center.
I wondered if the hallway led deeper into the underground of the house or if perhaps it ended with an exit to the outdoors. I supposed we’d find out.
I kicked open the door, and a startled Adder Viper sat up from his resting corner on the ground. “Rumor? What the hell—how’d you get the key? What are you doing here?”
“What key?” I questioned. “It wasn’t locked.”
“It was, idiot. Go ahead and keep lying, though.”
I didn’t have a key, didn’t even think far enough ahead to consider it would likely be locked—however, it opened with ease for me. Magic thrummed against my thigh where my protection charms still resided.
Maybe Riot’s key dagger was good for magically opening all sorts of doors. He shouldn’t have given it to me, a mistake on his part, and one I would exploit to the best of my ability.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said begrudgingly, already doubting my choice to team up with the likes of a Viper.
Adder forged ahead of me, jerking the torch from my grip and glancing both ways down the hall. He pointed to the right. “This way leads to a courtyard.”
“How do you know?”
“I taste it,” he said with a slight hiss on the S that sent a shiver down my spine.
Something about Adder was eerier than usual.
“Not that it matters, but I assume you came to your senses once you realized I could offer you protection and marriage in Willowspire. I’m a safer play than these elusive maniacs. ”
Biting my tongue, I nodded, following a few steps behind. “Yeah, sure.”
Adder glanced over his shoulder with a smug expression. “Little miss runaway-Rumor. She tried to fuck her way to safety, when her destiny was to live as a pig on my farm. Even the Blackthornes couldn’t save you from me. Here you are, crawling back for help.”
Fire twisted in my ribs as I clenched my knuckles at my sides. “I think it’s me saving you from the Blackthornes, not the other way around. They kicked your ass well enough, didn’t they?”
Adder’s head twitched at my words, and something about him seemed… off. More off than usual. “They rely too heavily on tricks. I’m more cunning.”
“Whatever you say.” We turned a drafty corner, following a small sliver of moonlight. “How’s your cowardly horse brother?”
“Oh, he’s human again, and mad as hell at you. I know he’ll be delighted to see you.”
“Great,” I muttered under my breath. This was seeming more and more like a horrible idea.
However, it was my only shot at getting out.
I wasn’t doing my sister any more favors hiding out at the Blackthorne Castle.
They’d given me hexes, charms, shown me the way, and taught me a dark defensive spell.
I’d gotten all I could from them and now, maybe, I was equipped enough to venture into wither territory for her if I had to.
First, I hoped I’d find one… or two… more things on my way out.