Chapter 85 #2
My breath stilled. I’d been up against a wall before.
I slapped my hand against the stones and poured my magic into the masonry. Pull me through.
The wall buckled, and the stones pivoted inward behind me, dragging me inside beneath a shower of mortar and chips.
“Stop her,” Locke shouted as the wall began to close in front of me.
Talons raked against the stones behind me, but I was already entombed within the darkness of the wall. It ejected me, coughing and covered with dust, into a pitch-black room that smelled of herbs and potatoes. The larder.
I tumbled forward, bumping into a crate and reaching out with my magic. Let me out!
A door clicked and swung wide. I stumbled out into the bustle of the kitchen, shivering with cold and exhaustion, and wiping dust from my eyes.
“What were you doing in there, my lady?” a cook exclaimed as she pulled up short, an empty basket pulled close to her chest. “You’re covered in—”
“Run!” I shouted.
Her eyes rounded, and half a dozen astonished faces looked back at me.
I grasped her arm. “Get out of here. The magister has gone mad, and the dragon is under his control. Everyone needs to take shelter in the heart of the keep. Go!”
Pandemonium broke out as servants collided on their way out the door. Please, Fates, save them. He’d likely turn them all to stone or condemn them to a worse fate.
The only reason I was still alive was that he wanted to draw out my suffering and force Valen to kill me. I suspected he’d run out of patience with that plan sooner than later.
I fled on their heels, running down the servants’ passages as fast as my feet would carry me. I’d have to make a stand, but not in the kitchens. Flying knives and kettles would slow him down, but they wouldn’t stop a demon—not with the magic I’d seen him wield.
The corridor shook as the kitchen door exploded off its hinges.
I glanced back as the shape of a man appeared in the smoke. “Go ahead and run, little rabbit, but you won’t escape. This is my castle, and the king is nothing more than my pet. He’ll hunt you down wherever you flee.”
Pet. My throat ached. Valen was nobody’s pet.
I ducked into a stairwell as a bolt of magic crackled through the hall behind me, scrambling upward as fast as my feet would take me. My breath tore at the back of my throat, and I tasted copper on my tongue. I turned left, then right, then barged out of a servant’s door into the grand foyer.
My gaze swept across the lower level, then to the upper galleries. Dozens of doors led to abandoned rooms and both wings of the castle. Could I lose him? I sprinted up the grand staircase, gritting my teeth against the stitch in my side, and ducked out onto the second-floor gallery.
Footsteps echoed on the marble floor below. “Where are you hiding, little rabbit?” Locke chimed in a sing-song voice. “I know you’re in here.”
I threw myself into a shadowed recess, barely daring to breathe, searching for anything I could use.
A massive chandelier dangled in the center of the room, and long tapestries hung from the walls.
Two suits of armor stood as sentinels at the top of the stairs, while petrified soldiers from centuries before cowered beside the main door.
It was something—but I knew it wasn’t enough. Locke was too strong, my own magic and strength nearly spent.
Locke’s footsteps stopped in the middle of the room. “What a disappointment. I thought you possessed a rare gift, but you do nothing but run and cower. Pathetic. Maybe your sister will have the strength to stand up to me.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth to stifle the sound. Ella.
“I wonder how long it’ll take to break her,” Locke chuckled as his footsteps rang on the stairs. “By the time I’m done with her, she’ll have betrayed everyone who believed in her and killed her husband and that meddling old witch. You’re just an appetizer. She’ll be the real feast.”
I strangled a sob. He was taunting me, trying to lure me out. Damn him. Damn everything he’d done. I’d already lost Valen. I wouldn’t let him have Ella, too.
Emotions quaked through me—misery, heartbreak, despair. Except they weren’t mine alone; they vibrated in the walls, the floor, and the objects around me, raw and unrepressed. It was the gloom that had consumed the castle and everyone in it.
I recognized it for what it was now: the toll of his magic, centuries of suffering distilled into a single place. A limitless reservoir of suffering and pain.
A stillness fell over me as the truth dawned. It was the reservoir of Locke’s power—emotion transformed into magic.
I’d touched it once.
When Locke and I were in the kitchens, the magic had poured through me, overwhelming my own. The objects I’d connected to had come alive, as if possessed. I’d thought they were out of control, but they weren’t. They were protecting me. Helping me—just as I’d asked.
Could I tap into that power again?
“Come out, little rabbit,” Locke cooed as his steps grew louder. “It will all be over soon.”
I glanced at the door to my right. No more running. It was time for one last desperate gamble.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I pressed my hand to the wall, reaching for the river of misery that seemed to flow through everything here. Help me.