Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Rage ignites, fast and consuming, burning through the helplessness that had begun to frost my veins. It melts into something fierce, something violent. A scream rips from my throat, raw, unhinged, as I drive my elbow back.
Bone hits bone.
One of the guards grunts, the air punched from his lungs, and his grip falters just enough. I twist, teeth bared, legs kicking. My foot connects with a shin, a knee, and I slip free for one breathless second. I sprint, vision blurry with adrenaline, pulse vibrating like a gong in my chest.
Up. Oh, God, I’m going up.
The realization hits midstep, but I keep moving. I’m doing exactly what every doomed heroine in every slasher movie I’ve ever screamed at does—racing up the stairs, away from escape, toward a room with one exit and no good outcomes.
“Not the stairs, you idiot,” I whisper to myself, breath ragged, “not the stairs—” But I’m already there, crashing against doors one after another. Locked. Locked. Locked.
The third one gives. I shove it open and lurch inside—
A thick-gloved hand slams over my mouth, wrenching me back before I can even inhale to scream.
Another hand clamps around my arm, bruising and brutal, and I’m dragged into the hall as the door bangs shut behind me.
Back down the stairs we go. Back through the castle’s throat, into a hidden passageway, into the dark.
My stomach lurches as stone grinds against stone and the last sliver of light disappears and I’m sealed in the dark.
It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the torchlight lining the walls.
The passage is narrow, carved from rough, unpolished stone, and it stinks of damp earth and something older—something rotten beneath the surface.
My heels scrape uselessly against the uneven floor as I’m hauled deeper into the belly of the castle, into some secret artery no sunlight has ever touched.
The walls press closer with every step. The ceiling lowers. The floor tilts. I can’t tell how far we’ve gone, how long we’ve been moving. My body aches. My lungs burn. My voice is swallowed by gloved hands.
And then cold air slaps my skin. The stone gives way to sky as we step out of a doorway carved into the castle’s exterior.
The hidden door grinds shut, vanishing into the castle’s stone skin. Above, gray clouds sag over the sea, the sun nothing more than a smear of light behind them.
The Tower’s isle rises from the churning sea like a broken tooth, jagged cliffs, pointed trees. Within those trees, the Tower watches, ancient stone and whispered ruin, waiting for me.
The hand over my mouth loosens, and I suck in a crisp, briny breath. A rough yank on my arms wrenches me forward, dragging me to the stone bridge that stretches from one island to the other.
They’re taking me to the Tower.
They’re taking me to die.
The wind shrieks around us. Waves slam into the rocks below, white spray leaping over the sides of the bridge like grasping hands. Salt lashes my skin, stings my eyes. My hair whips across my face as I stumble, half-dragged, half-carried across the stone.
And still—beneath the roar of the sea, beneath the thunder of my heartbeat—I feel it.
That pull in my chest, like a thread cinching tighter with every step I take toward the Tower.
No.
I dig my heels in, panting. I don’t want to feel it. I don’t want to be drawn to it. I don’t want to be another offering to something that’s already devoured too many women and left nothing behind but the husk of hope, spoiled and crawling with rot.
“I’m not the answer,” I rasp, twisting in the guards’ grip. “You’ve got it all wrong. Just stop.”
They don’t. Their hands clamp tighter around my arms as we cross the bridge.
“Wait, please,” I beg, the words tumbling from my mouth in broken pieces. “If you’d stop—if you’d just listen—I can help you. I can fix this. I can—”
At the far end of the path, where the bridge bleeds into sand and the sand gives way to shadow, Alder waits.
He’s motionless as a statue and immaculate except for the bloodred wine staining his chest. The dingy light of the storm-draped sky turns his golden hair to ash as he stands at the forest’s edge.
Alder ruined my life once. And now he’s going to be the one to end it.
“That’s not the real Lord Lockhart! That man is an imposter. He is lying to you!” I shout, straining against the guards’ hold. “The queen is lying to you!”
No response. Just heavy boots crunching sand.
“These sacrifices—” My voice cracks. “They won’t save your kingdom. But I can. I know how to fix the machines. I know how to bring it all back.”
Still, they don’t stop.
The trees loom taller now, their branches curling above the path like claws. Alder doesn’t flinch as we approach. Just stands there with his hands behind his back, a general surveying the battlefield.
The guards shove me forward, and I fall hard, knees hitting the ground before my palms slap cold sand.
“Sweetheart, you’ve always been easy, but getting you here was embarrassingly simple.”
My stomach twists, bile rising in my throat.
I push myself upright, breath ragged, throat raw. Sand clings to my skin, to the velvet folds of my torn gown. Fear coils in my stomach but so does rage. A low, simmering fury that steadies my hands even as the rest of me shakes.
Alder cocks his head, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. His gaze rakes over me like I’m a riddle he’s already solved. Like I’m right where I’ve always belonged: at his mercy.
I grit my teeth, forcing the tremble from my limbs as I inhale sharply through my nose. My body’s screaming with panic, slick with sweat, but I lift my chin.
“And you’ve always loved underestimating me,” I say, voice shaking with fury. “Let’s see how that works out for you.”
My gaze flicks past his shoulder.
There—a narrow break in the tree line where the pines thin and the path dips, half-hidden by rock and brush. Not much, but enough.
Adrenaline explodes through my veins. A sharp, dizzying burst of survival that propels me forward in one violent surge.
The world is a blur of gray and green as I tear across the sand and into the cover of the pines.
My pulse roars in my ears, drowning out the crash of the waves. The taste of salt fills my mouth, chased by the bitter tang of fear. I push harder, faster. My chest burns, my legs scream, but I keep running.
The world narrows to the rhythm of my breath, the pounding of my feet, the sting of bramble against my legs. I dart between twisted trunks and gnarled roots, ducking under branches, searching for a path to safety.
And just when I think I might make it back to the bridge, to the castle, to Alderic and the women, just when hope flares, foolish and fragile in my chest, I look back. One single, stupid heartbeat of a glance.
And I slam into something solid.
The impact knocks the air from my lungs, the world pitching as I stumble back. I flail for balance, but before I can catch myself, a hand shoots out and clamps around my wrist.
I don’t need to look.
I already know.
But some part of me still can’t understand how he got in front of me so fast. How did I get so turned around?
Alder stands before me like he was conjured from the deepest, coldest depths of the sea. His fingers tighten, and his eyes gleam with something close to victory.
“It’s cute and so like you to think that Delphara and I were in the dark,” Alder says softly, mockingly. “We’ve known from the beginning who he really is. What the two of you do to the machines when you’re together.”
My stomach drops.
Alder smiles wider, and it’s all teeth. “You used to dream of being someone, didn’t you, Gemma?
Someone important. Chosen. Special.” He leans in, his voice a poisonous whisper.
“Well, you were right. You are going to be someone. You’re going to be the key.
My key. To power. To everything I’ve ever wanted.
” He tilts his head, voice velvet-smooth and venom-laced.
“It’s about time you finally proved your worth. ”
A flush of rage burns through me, snapping the fear clean in two. My hand slices through the air and lands with a crack, my nails raking down his cheek, carving deep, angry red lines into his perfect skin.
Alder stumbles back, stunned, a sharp curse hissing from between his teeth as his fingertips brush the blood beading along the jagged lines my nails left behind.
I don’t waste a second—I bolt.
The castle rises ahead, dark and distant. I have to get there, to Alderic. If Delphara knows the truth—if she’s figured out who he really is—then there’s a chance he’s already been taken. And they know about the women…
I have to save them.
All of them.
The wind claws at my hair, my skirts twisting around my legs as I push harder. My breath tears from my throat in ragged gasps. The bridge stretches before me, the only path back to the castle. I’m almost there. Almost—
The scent of the ocean and something ancient fills my lungs.
No.
I skid to a stop, my chest heaving.
I’m not on the bridge. I’m standing at the mouth of the Tower.
The withered apple blossoms curl against the stone like burned parchment, brittle and blackened. The sea roars below the cliffs, spray shooting in foamy white arcs, but I barely hear it over the hammer of my own pulse.
Panic surges as I spin around and sprint back the way I came, chest burning, limbs screaming in protest, feet pounding the earth.
But the moment the bridge comes into view, I’m back. Back at the Tower.
The world has twisted in on itself.
The air thickens, heavy with the stench of old blood and older magick. It wraps around my throat, seeps into my lungs, presses down until I can barely breathe.
The bridge is gone.
The castle is gone.
There is only the Tower.
The great doors groan open. The sound rumbles through the earth, through my bones, shaking loose whatever part of me still believed I could outrun this.
A figure stands at the threshold.
His fanged, silver mask gleams in the dim, watery light—expressionless, endless.
White robes spill around his feet, across the stone, untouched by the wind that whips through my hair, the salt-laden air that burns my skin and fills my mouth with the taste of sea and ruin.
I take a step back.
The Tower pulls me forward.
No matter how far I run, I will always end up here.