Chapter 79
The handler shoves me.
Hard.
I hit the bars with such force the tender skin on my hands ruptures, bursting my freshly mended burns.
Another handler pins me in place, firm knuckles and a blade pressed between my shoulders as I wait for the door to be unlocked, seething, looking at Fallon balled on her side in the far corner.
Facing away, in the same spot she was when I was dragged from this cell kicking and screaming.
Impatience eats me while a third handler fumbles with the ring of keys, finding the right one to push into the lock. Finally, the door swings open.
I’m shoved in, the ground shackle retethered to my ankle, the ones around my wrists removed. The usual shit, but I bounce, wishing they’d hurry.
“Bloodstone,” I order as the lock clunks shut, knowing he’s out there in the tunnel.
Watching, as he often is.
“I fought,” I press, looking through the strands of my wet and tangled hair, toward the darkness beyond the bars where the lantern light fails to reach. “The bloodstone I earned. Give it to me.”
“Apologies, Fire Lark.” Arkyn steps into the light and flicks back his hood, revealing his half-melted face, watching me down the line of his hooked nose. “But it seems the bloodstone is no longer necessary.”
Of course it’s necessary. It always is.
Fallon’s sick with sun starve. Without the sun she’s used to, she needs the bloodstone to stay alive.
Arkyn flicks his tattered cloak and turns, charging down the long tunnel.
“Wait,” I blast, gripping the bars, wedging my face into a gap. Heart thrashing as he disappears into the dark. “Wait! … ARKYN!”
I snatch my pan and bash it against the bars, over and over.
Scream for him to come back. To give me what I earned.
My throat is raw, his footsteps long faded by the time I turn, crawl onto the ground beside Fallon, and pull her close—believing Arkyn will come back with the bloodstone.
He has to.
I won’t fight for him again until he does. Will threaten to stand in the pit and let the beasts eat me, earning him nothing but a souring crowd.
It takes me too long to calm the rapid beat of my heart and my swift, sawing breaths. Too long to realize Fallon’s chest isn’t moving.
“Fallon?”
Silence.
I frown. Grasp her shoulder and give her a gentle shake. “Hey, Fallon. I’m back. Wake up.”
Nothing.
“Fallon.” Another soft shake. “Please. This isn’t funny …”
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t smile or sing or speak to me about all the wonderful things we’re going to do when we’re free. When we finally get the chance to live.
I edge apart, breath held as I gather the courage to slowly, gently roll her onto her back—
Something in my chest splits at the sight of her lifeless eyes, wide and brimming with fear. Her final moments cast in her terror-stricken gaze and the line of dried vomit that’s dribbled from her cracked gray lips.
I become so still I’m certain one soft blow will shatter me, wrestling the realization that my beautiful friend … my everything … she died alone in the cold, putrid dark. She died afraid—I see it written in the twist of her face. Afraid and without me here to comfort her.
To hold her and sing to her and help her mind go somewhere else. Somewhere warm and bright and full of the colors she loved so much—
Something hits me in the chest. Like a fist of flames just punched through my ribs and pummeled my heart. A dense sound moves up my throat as I feel the organ catch light. Feel it sizzle, spit, and seethe until it’s withered down to a hard lump of char.
The panic in Fallon’s unseeing eyes; the reek of vomit I somehow missed; the knot of her features and the deathly chill of her skin … I dispose of it all so deep within myself I’m certain I’ll never find it again.
Pulling our blanket up over Fallon’s shoulders, I bundle her against my chest and hum my calming tune.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ll get us out of here,” I whisper between choruses, sweeping the hair back from her face as I tangle our legs together, giving her every bit of my warmth.
“You’re going to see the sky again. I promise. ”
I’ll make it happen. Even if it’s the last thing I do.
I fall into consciousness the way I imagine a moon strikes the ground—so hard and fast I shatter within. Splitting apart from the slumber-terror’s violent echo. A terror that felt so real and sharp despite being such an ugly
fucking
lie.
Fallon didn’t die in our cell. I broke us free. She got to see the sky again, then died in a snow hut I dug for us both—hugged close to my chest while I slumbered.
Not alone.
I scramble to gather the terror’s jagged pieces, bundle them up, and stuff them back down beneath my icy lake with swift and steady motions.
Gone.
I release a shuddered breath of relief, though it’s short-lived as I open my eyes on too-familiar surroundings, becoming brutally aware of the iron shackle biting down on my ankle. Of the rough-hewn ceiling decorated with inky moons.
“Fuck.”
I’m back.
No wonder I was fever-dreaming about this place.
My lungs power, heaving stagnant air so fast it lightens my throbbing head. Fear blisters me from the inside out as I muddle over what this means. What I’ve forgotten or lost this time.
What happened after I lost consciousness?
How long has it been? Based on the hungry ache in my gut … a while.
Have the moons fallen yet?
Is Kaan here? Ahvi—
My heart rips at the thought, cold panic flooding in. A lethal wound I bind up, whetting my unruly emotions into a relatively smooth blade. Because I refuse to accept any reality where they’re here. In this place.
I
fucking
refuse.
I’m able to blink away the panicked haze enough to register the frail female hugged tight against my chest. Not Fallon. Her hair is too white and long, her scent all wrong.
Yet—
I dig my nose into her tangled, blood-crusted locks, scenting rain on hot stones mixed with the sweet spice of blooming vurillo flowers. The sort that’s grown in the large atrium in … somewhere. A place I must’ve been, the scent familiar in a way that makes my chest pang like a plucked string.
The stranger shudders through a rasped breath. Not unlike the sound folk make when they’re tiptoeing toward death.
Heart in my throat, I wriggle away enough so I can tilt her back, pull my arm out from under her head, and rest it on a tuft of dirty straw.
I begin brushing the matted hair off her face, then pause, heart pinching at the sight of a delicate silver diadem nestled against her brow— No.
Attached to it. Like it’s growing from her.
Understanding strikes me with such force my mouth drops open.
The Shade’s Princess. Kyzari, I think her name is.
Kaan’s niece.
Right here.
In my fucking cell.
“Creators …”
My gaze drifts to the black stone set within the ornate diadem, right in the center of her bunched brow.
The Aether Stone.
I reach for it, then hesitate as something inside me jolts. Like two worlds just smashed together beneath my ribs. An icy numb seeps through me. The feeling that often comes before my Other rips me back, dumps me into her frigid nest, takes control, and finds some way to fuck with my life.
Except she doesn’t.
Instead, I’m flashed with the vision of someone with long pale hair caught in a swirl of snow, weeping as she tried to pry that very diadem from her brow, tucked in a ball so small I worried she’d disappear—
The memory dissipates, leaving a gasp in my throat and an ache in my chest that feels like an open wound.
Do I … know her?
Is that what my Other’s trying to tell me?
I’m quick to clear more of the hair off Kyzari’s filthy and beaten face, half expecting to see the features of the same unfamiliar fae—
It’s not her. Definitely not.
Instead, I trace the curves of a thin nose, high cheekbones, fine chin. Of pale, shapely brows …
She’s beautiful. The most beautiful fae I’ve ever seen.
Just looking at her hurts. Makes my sternum feel like it’s being crushed beneath the heel of a boot that’s giving more and more of its weight. Something that makes no fucking sense.
I brush my thumb across her long, white lashes, failing to fathom why I ache to see her open her eyes and look at me. To see the shape of her smile. Hear her laugh.
What’s wrong with me?
Frowning, I press my hand against her fevered brow, my next words a grated whisper. “Do I know you?”
Someone gasps, chased by the sound of scurried motions.
I spear my gaze into the corner of the dark cell beside ours, finding a fae hiding in the shadows, bunched in a slow-rocking knot—a shroud of full-bodied hair tangled around her face and curled shoulders.
My heart stops, then smashes so hard and fast it makes my ribs feel like they’re caving in.
Thick, curly hair …
Freckles streaked in blood …
Glistening ember eyes—hollow. The hollow that comes to folk after they’ve been here for too long …
“Veya?”
She blinks, releasing tears that streak through the filth on her cheeks as she nods.
My stomach flips.
“What are you doing here?”
“I—” The words sputter, like this place has already stuffed her mouth full of stones. More tears slip down her cheeks, and I curse beneath my breath.
Veya’s eyes widen as footsteps echo down the hall. Many.
Heavy.
Panic wraps its hands around my throat and squeezes.
“I’m s-so sorry,” Veya rasps, and a sinking sensation drops through me at the desperate pitch of her tone.
“For what?” I frown. “What happened? Does he have Kaan?”
Her face crumbles at the mention of her brother.
Please, no …
Please—
“I wish I knew. But …” She spears a glance down the tunnel, and I glimpse the remnants of a rune cut into her temple—struck through.
“He knows everything, Raeve. He—” Her gaze flicks to Kyzari, more tears welling as she gasps, hands coming up to claw at her jaw and mouth.
Like she’s trying to rip the words free and pass them to me.
“He did this?” I press, jerking my chin down at the princess. “Arkyn beat her?”