Chapter Thirty-Three Dominic
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dominic
I don’t expect to fall asleep. But I know I’m sleeping because I’m dreaming. And even though the dream is clearly a nightmare, it isn’t mine.
It’s hers.
The woman asleep in my arms.
My heart stutters as I see Inana’s face etched in terror.
She’s in a rustic cell. Daylight filters in through the barred windows, while a lantern hung from the rafters illuminates the space around her.
Her wrists are bound with rope and tied to iron bars affixed to the wall.
Seeing her like that makes me want to scream.
To race to her rescue. This time I’m not experiencing this dream through her eyes, but as a helpless spectator instead. I can’t will my body to move.
A man steps into the light, blocking my view of Inana, and understanding dawns. I know what this nightmare represents.
This is the day Inana nearly lost her heart to a Sinless duke.
This man is that asshole, Henry Berkham.
He’s dressed in a fine suit of white and gold, with a red cape affixed to his lapels.
I can’t see his face from where I stand in the corner of the cell, but my viewpoint shifts slightly to the side so that Henry is no longer blocking Inana.
Her expression warps with a relief so sweet it makes my heart feel like it will split in two.
For I know that relief won’t last long. I know what happens next.
I try to scream, try to shake myself out of this nightmare to spare her from experiencing the terror of this day. But no matter how I try to fight free from my position, no matter how I try to open my mouth and scream, nothing works.
And that’s when I stop fighting.
That’s when I realize…
Maybe I should stay quiet and watch. This is all in the past, and I can’t save Inana from this nightmare anyway.
So why don’t I try to glean what I can from this?
She may not remember how this interaction ended, but what if her subconscious does?
What if the answer to Henry Berkham’s death is here, in this dream?
I’ve never cared about his death, and I still don’t.
But the mystery of his demise revolves around Inana.
Knowing the truth might not help me protect her any better than I already can, but if she isn’t responsible for killing him, then we’ll have nothing to worry about if any other Shadowbanes seek Inana’s bounty like Henderson did.
And if she is responsible for Henry’s death…
Then I’ll know everything I need to know to keep her crimes—and anyone who seeks to uncover them—buried.
My rage simmers into patience, and I watch the dream unfold with deadly calm. The newly appointed duke steps in close and unsheathes a knife. Inana’s relief melts off her face, twisting into confusion, then to blank shock.
Henry slices open the front of her bodice, baring the center of her chest. Then he presses the tip of his blade to Inana’s sternum, but drops the knife before he can make the first cut.
With trembling hands, he removes his gloves and closes his fingers tighter around the hilt.
That’s when Inana notices his wedding ring.
Her shock turns to fury, and my heart wells with pride when I see her lips pull back from her teeth.
She spits words of vitriol, raging at him for what he’s trying to do to her. For covering his shame with murder.
“Yes, I’m ashamed of you,” Henry says, covering her shouts with his palm.
I’ve never wanted to pummel someone to death with my bare fists so badly.
“I’m ashamed I ever loved a sinner like you.
But your sacrifice will save Dunway. This has to happen.
I must…” For a single second he truly seems to struggle with the moral implications of what he seeks to do.
“I must consume a human heart. It’s the only way I can light the brazier.
The only way I can keep it lit. And the first sacrifice must be you.
You’re the reason Shades claw at doors at night. You’re the sinner who draws them here.”
Inana scoffs against his hand. “With my sewing?”
“With your storytelling,” he says, bringing his face close to hers.
Her eyes turn down at the corners, brimming with agony. “Those stories were for you. Only you.”
Henry’s tone darkens. “Don’t lie to me. I saw you. I saw you talking to them. Whispering tales to things that moved in the dark. You were never afraid of them. You were always a sinner.”
Inana’s throat bobs, and she sags against the wall, defeated by his words.
They must be true, then. I don’t recall her mentioning that part when I overheard her story, but I can’t blame her.
How could I blame my beautiful little sinner for being exactly who she was always meant to be? An artist. A storyteller.
Henry tightens his jaw, recovering from his moment of hesitation.
He presses his forearm over her shoulder, pinning her in place.
Slowly, he drags the knife across her skin, an inch at a time.
I grind my teeth at the sight of the blood running down her chest and soaking her bodice.
She struggles against his hold, but it’s no use.
He has a Sinless’s immortal strength now.
Yet Inana isn’t fully defeated.
Her lashes flutter from the pain, but she gives him a dark smile. “You know what I did today, Henry?”
“Stop speaking or I’ll slit your mouth open.”
“I went to the market,” she says, unfazed. “I went to the market and saw…now, you won’t believe this…a teeny-tiny statue of a cock. Here’s the best part: It had your name on it—”
He halts his cut and slams his palm over her mouth, smothering her words.
That’s when I see movement stirring at the corners of the cell, Shades coalescing in pools of shadow. Despite the daylight streaming through the barred windows of the cell, there is plenty of darkness, between that and the lantern light.
Inana begins to hum against Henry’s hand, and the Shades grow even more interested, some standing at their full height and leaning as close to the lantern light as they dare. Henry growls in his anger but resumes his cut, muttering to drown out the sound of her song.
“Work quickly,” he says to himself, “but carefully. Thirty degrees from horizon to Sylas. Shit, I should have carved the circle first. I’ll carve it last. Thirty degrees from horizon to Sylas. Cut at ninety and one-eighty. Motion at seventy…”
My blood goes cold as his meaning dawns on me. When Inana told this story in the clearing, she said Henry began praying when she was humming, but her assumption was wrong. Because of course she couldn’t have made sense of his muttered words. Only someone like me could know.
He isn’t uttering nonsense; he’s verbally rehearsing an astrotheurgical diagram. One that’s different from the circle I use for light and flame. This one revolves around Sylas, God of Harvest.
Because…
He’s harvesting her heart.
He isn’t merely cutting it from her chest.
He’s removing it while it’s still beating.
My stomach churns. I may know much about the secrets of the Sinless, but there are many things I’ve yet to uncover.
Not even the rebels who trained me, fed me secrets from as far back as I can remember, know all that is kept by the church and crown.
This must be something only the dukes and royals know—that their heart sacrifices are taken using astrotheurgy.
No one ever sees the bodies of the sacrifices once the ritual is complete.
The hearts belong to outlaws and criminals, people without rights.
People who can be discarded without a care, without honoring their families by sending a body back for burial.
I’m so disgusted I can hardly see straight, but this nightmare isn’t over.
I force my gaze away from Henry’s careful cut, to Inana’s bound wrists.
I recall what she said she did next, and I catch sight of the sewing needle fraying at the ropes until her arm swings down, freed from its bonds.
Henry pulls back, startled by the sudden movement.
Inana flicks her fingers toward her cuff, tugging a second needle free and slashing out at the duke.
He winces, slapping a hand over the slice on his neck, but no sooner than he has removed his palm, the cut has sealed.
“Of all the idiotic things you could do,” he says with a dark chuckle. “I can’t be hurt by you. I can’t be killed.”
I hold my breath, even though I know I’m dreaming. Inana never finished her story after this part. She was interrupted by me and the Shades that surrounded the clearing.
This…what’s happening now…is new.
I’m so entranced, I almost miss the Shades that have slithered through the cracks in the walls, coalescing in the corners.
There are over a dozen now, and their hollow eyes are fixed on Inana and Henry.
I can almost feel their hunger. Their fascination.
A trio slinks across the faintest strips of shadow until they’re pressed between the wall and the edge of the lantern light that encases Inana and the duke.
Henry shifts his grip on his knife, his hand now at his side. “Useless, Inana. Your attempts to escape me are utterly useless. You are useless.”
She continues to hum, but her lips wobble and tears stream from the corners of her eyes.
“You’re a sinner. A criminal. Do you know what I am?
Do you know I am your better now?” His voice rises to a shout, and the Shades around the cell vibrate with the growing intensity of it.
“I am a fucking duke. And you. Will. Submit. To. Me.” He lunges for her, and her mouth opens in a heaving breath, her song cut short.
It takes me several seconds to understand what has happened.
Then my viewpoint shifts to the side. Then closer. Closer. Another step closer. A crimson stain blooms over Inana’s abdomen, the hilt of the knife protruding from her bodice.