Chapter 81
Belle
I woke wrapped in the warm weight of a thick blanket. I stretched, then rolled and reached for Valen, but the space beside me was empty and cold. My fingers dragged longingly across the vacant sheets that still carried the scent of him.
Had it been real?
Memories from the library and then his bedroom flooded me—the wicked ways he’d worshipped and claimed me. The way he’d looked at me like I was the moon and stars, like I was the only thing that mattered in the world.
I flopped back against his pillow, my body aching and cheeks blazing.
Yes, by the gods, it had been real, and everything had changed.
I’d finally seen him, all his wounds and fears, and he’d finally seen me for who I was, who I could be.
Could I ever go back to the me before Valen? Did I even want to?
An ache spread from my chest to my throat. I’d found the perfect man in my enemy, and now we were nearly out of time. We had two weeks at most, likely less. Then I’d lose everything I’d won, lose the man I’d just given my heart to.
How could the Fates do this?
I shoved myself up, gritting my teeth. Not the Fates. The demon. And if we were correct, he was feeding on my emotions right now.
The sheets suddenly felt too confining, the air in the room too repressive and thick. I flung myself out of bed and wrapped a fur blanket around me.
“You can’t have him,” I said to the vacant room. “He’s mine.”
Maybe the bastard was watching me with his magic, just as Valen once had.
I gave the finger to the air, then shoved through the balcony doors and into the frosty air.
Shadows hung over the forest even though it was nearly midday, and there were few clouds in the sky.
Had it grown darker since I’d first set foot here nearly two months ago?
Was it the same as Valen’s scales? Darkness consuming each tree until only a dreary gloom remained?
Somehow, I would stop this. I would save Valen, the woods, and my kingdom, even if it broke me.
I went back inside and threw on the clean dress Valen had set out for me and quickly tidied my tangled hair.
The king’s sentries didn’t blink when I let myself out.
They’d probably heard us all night long, but I didn’t blush or avert my gaze.
I gloried in it. I’d just been thoroughly ravished by the dragon king, and I didn’t care if the whole world knew.
“Where is His Highness?” I asked.
“The king didn’t inform us of his intentions, my lady.”
“And Locke?”
The sentry shrugged and turned his eyes forward again. None of my business.
That was fine. I had work to do.
I hurried through the halls of the castle and down the winding stairwells, an urgency building in every step. But when I reached the library, I stopped with my hand on the handle.
The answer wasn’t in there.
Even if I’d found my missing notes and books, it wouldn’t matter. I’d bled the library dry of everything it had to offer. This was on me now.
My fingers slipped from the handle. All those beautiful books, row upon row. They’d pulled me in with hopes and promises of answers but had only given me fragments in return.
A hunter couldn’t have laid a better trap for me—the promise of answers, hidden in more books than I could read in ten lifetimes. Had this been part of the demon’s plan? Or had I simply trapped myself—retreating into the safety of the archives, just as Valen had withdrawn into his cave.
The truth was that I’d been hoping some long dead scribe would give me the answer. But they hadn’t. They couldn’t. The only ones who knew what had truly happened here had all been turned to stone, their voices silenced.
The thought bored into me, and my heart began to race. Had the answer been in front of me the entire time?
I hurried down the hall, then wound down the stairs and out into a corridor I knew well. A statue of a servant cowered in fear, hands raised. I’d practically collided with him the day Locke had taken me to my new rooms.
Could the statues hold the answer? Was it their whispers I heard in the halls? When I’d touched the crawling man in the chapel, I’d seen a glimpse of the past. Perhaps I could do it again.
I placed my hand on the statue’s shoulder and opened a connection, letting my magic flow into him, listening as I had with the bricked-up doorway to the ruined wing.
“What happened here?” I whispered.
The faint echo of the wind carried down the hall, and nothing more.
“Who did this to you?”
Still, no answer came.
Had I been practicing the wrong side of my magic this whole time? What if it was my ability to summon those visions that could save Valen, and not my ability to animate objects?
I cursed myself for being a fool. I should’ve told Locke about the power. Instead, I’d hidden it, thinking I’d use it as leverage. It had been another trap—and now I had no time to practice.
Gritting my teeth, I poured magic into the statue until veins of frost crept across the stone. “Was it the demon?” I pleaded. “Tell me how to stop him.”
Yet no vision came.
I released his shoulder and leaned back against the wall, breathing hard. Another dead end. I was flailing and grasping at straws. Was the demon laughing, dining on my misery and failure? Or was I so insignificant that he didn’t care?
Maybe we were wrong about everything.
I met the statue’s vacant eyes, throat tightening at the sorrow frozen on his face.
He knew the truth, but I couldn’t reach it.
My heart ached at my helplessness, for what would happen to Valen, for what had happened to them—hundreds of mortals trapped in stone, their faces twisted in the cruelest expressions of terror and pain, their miserable final moments preserved forever.
All except for one. My breath stilled.
Her face came to me, calm and serene, eyes closed in prayer. The bride, moments away from becoming queen. While the others had reacted in fear and anger, she’d shown nothing.
What did it mean?
I gathered my skirts and ran down the hall, pulse hammering under my skin.
It was likely another dead end, and I carried no hope with me, only the desperation to try something.
Anything. I wound my way to the ground floor and through the corridors to the arched door.
I unlocked it with my magic, then stepped into the ruins of the chapel.
The bleak light filtered down through the vacant windows, painting the statues in stark patterns of light and shadow.
I paused for a moment in reverence, then drifted through the gathering of terrified statues, studying each in turn.
Every eye in the room was fixed on the very same place.
My jaw tensed. I’d suspected before, but I was certain of it now: the demon had been standing right there.
I could almost feel him still—a violent, hateful presence, echoing across the centuries.
If there were any answers, they were here.
I made my way to the dais where the king stood, his expression contorted with anger instead of fear. I recognized that fury now—Valen had worn the same expression the night he’d murdered Sarkis.
I traced my fingers along the edge of the king’s stone blade. Was his hate and anger strong enough to echo down through the centuries?
I pushed my magic into him and opened myself to the connection. “Show me what happened here.”
Energy prickled across my skin like the touch of a light rain. The king’s lips remained motionless, the truth trapped upon them, but for a second, the world flickered. Something shuddered in my chest, and I grasped for the vision. It hovered at the edge of sight.
Then it slipped away.
I gritted my teeth, pouring as much of my magic into the statue as I dared, until the thread between us burned like an iron poker in my chest, searing me until I thought I couldn’t hold it any longer.
“Show me the demon—show me what he did to your bride.”
The vision flickered again at the edge of perception. I flung my magic wide, grasping at the statues around me, reaching for any glimpse of the truth they’d seen. Show me! Please.
Connections flared to life, my strength draining into them.
The room went dark.
I was no longer standing in the ruins, but in the chapel as it had once been, with polished wooden pews and arching rafters.
The sanctuary was bathed in light from flickering candelabras, and sunlight streamed in through stained-glass windows.
People in elaborate clothes filled the nave, lace and jewels, fabrics of satin and silk. I recognized their faces.
My vision lurched, as if I were seeing through a patchwork of memories, seeing what had happened from every angle at once.
The bride and groom knelt at the front, a priest before them, his hand lifted. The king looked at her in adoration, lost in the moment and the rapture of love.
The vision blurred and rippled before me. The priest’s serene expression vanished, replaced with terror. The people around me twisted toward the back, and I followed, turning.
The door was closed. Then it was open.
The silhouette of a man appeared in the archway. Then it was no longer a man, but a creature, tall and robed in yellow, antler-like horns upon his brow.
Fear rippled through me.
The demon.