29. Chapter 29
The door flies open.
Our freedom feels heavy, like shackles made of air.
Those shackles wrap themselves around my throat as streaks of undulating light filter down the corridor.
The cave shimmers back at me like limestone dreams and vagrant souls.
It crawls with bridges resembling threads woven from Hell itself, dipping and arching over bottomless craters and endless peaks, serving as a stark reminder that Lily’s sacrifice opened the door.
Lily’s sacrifice opened the door.
Oh gods, Lily is dead.
I anticipate the queen will be arriving soon, likely wielding her crown’s thorny barbs intent on spilling our blood everywhere.
However, I could give a fuck less if she comes.
In fact, I relish the thought of fighting her to the death.
She deserves to die after what she did. She deserves to be dangled upside-down from the top of her clocktower for all to bear witness.
She deserves to—oh gods, Lily’s body already feels cold.
Oh gods, Lily is dead.
No… no… no…
With a shaky breath, I manually close Lily’s eyelids.
A bramble of invisible thorns nettle across my skin, piercing me with the prickling realization that in her final moments, Lily put that ring on her finger for a reason.
To ensure that I never could. Because even in death, it refuses to budge.
Silence sifts through the safehouse. And for a moment, all we can do is stare at one another.
“Is she really dead?” Maxine asks, fracturing the silence with a parry of words. I try to answer, try to give her some sort of confirmation, but my words get mangled in my throat. All I can manage to do is weep against Lily’s forehead. How am I supposed to formulate the proper words for this?
“I think so,” Bella mercifully cuts in, her voice losing momentum before it even begins, its lilt resembling a somber hymn.
“Although it’s hard to tell,” she adds softly, brushing a finger over Lily’s wrist. “The effects of the poison can vary greatly, depending on the metabolism of its victim...” She checks Lily’s pulse, and her brows knit together. “I don’t think her heart is beating.”
“Oh gods.” Maxine stiffens, sniffles, and shudders. “I didn’t actually want her to die. I just wanted her to stop trying to kill us.”
Bella drops her head, her gaze falling to the floor. “It’s my fault. I put the Dreamshade in her mouth knowing what would happen. I was only trying to protect you…”
“It’s not your fault,” Maxine croaks out, a tear slipping down her cheek.
“I know why you did it. It’s just a shame, you know?
I really liked her.” Her glossy gaze remains fixated on Lily’s body for a moment more, the tear sliding down her chin and dangling there.
She shifts her gaze toward the open door and says, “At least we can escape now.” Her tone is uncharacteristically quiet.
“You know, before the door closes again.”
Bella and I stare at her in silence.
“It’s what Lily would’ve wanted, right?” she asserts.
“We can’t just leave her here,” I reply.
“Then I suppose we’ll have to carry—” Maxine starts, only for her statement to be thwarted by a stampede of footsteps echoing from down the hall.
“We have visitors,” Bella says, her voice harried and urgent. “Hide!”
I quickly slump Lily’s body against the wall and then hobble into a nearby closet, ignoring the pain ripping through my leg as I wedge myself inside the small space.
Bella rushes across the room and tucks herself behind the fallen bookshelf, and Maxine slips behind the chaise.
All the while, my heartbeat pitter-patters in my ribcage as I prepare to meet the soldiers of the Divine Army.
Or worse… the queen.
How does one kill a goddess, anyway?
Surely there must be a trick to it.
“And here I thought the door was supposed to be difficult to pry open,” a male’s voice booms from down the corridor. “Looks like you were wrong once again, Mothwing. You owe me a vat of Soulstones and a blueberry scone.”
Tannerian.
He’s speaking Tannerian.
Wait. How do I understand him?
I peek through a sliver in the closet door, only to find a man with curly red hair and eyes as wild and bright as feral honeysuckles standing underneath the room’s archway, the tattoo of a dragon ripping down his forearm.
Interesting. I’ve never seen that kind of spellmark before.
“I don’t owe you shit,” a second man retorts as he shoves the first man forward, a jagged scar cutting across his right eyebrow.
“You’re lucky that I even agree to breathe the same air as you, given how easy it would’ve been to shove you off the side of that cliff.
” He glares down the length of his hooked nose at his accomplice, his twilight hair tumbling over his eyes.
“Make that two blueberry scones then, and throw in a—” the first man starts, his voice coming to an abrupt halt as he seems to catch something out of the corner of his eye.
“Do you see that?” he asks, pointing toward the chaise, where a sliver of fabric is poking out from behind.
“Aye boss,” he shouts over his shoulder.
“Is this the pretty girl you’ve been lookin’ for? ”
Fuck.
The two men quickly move to apprehend Maxine from her hiding space, whisking her up underneath her arms. “Let me go, you maggot-infested slugs!” she shouts at them. “Do you have no sense of decorum? At least introduce yourselves first! Fuck!”
A third man swoops into the room then, slanting his gaze in Maxine’s direction.
He’s just as tall, broad, and bone-headed as the first two are, with a flash of white-spun hair tucked behind his sharp ears and skin as bright as snow.
He’s also the same height and statute as the others, all of them clad in the same scaly armor, only in different colors.
I imagine that they’re either the best of friends, or they’re all brothers, based on the way they’re looking at each other.
Fuck. Not him again…
“I’m looking for someone a bit more… stubborn…” Sylas trails off, his eyes narrowing in determination as he studies Maxine further. “Have you seen her?”
“She seems stubborn enough to me,” the first man points out.
Maxine jerks her elbow backward, hitting him straight in the balls.
He crumples. She smiles. I laugh. Sylas pauses.
Oh fuck. I throw my hand over my mouth to dampen my gasp, but it’s too late.
I’ve caught his attention. Sylas takes twelve long strides in my direction—and yes, I count each one—and then he throws open the closet door with a bang.
Double fuck. His eyes scan over my face, then immediately fixate on the makeshift bandage wrapped around my wound, which is leaking with every step I take to get away from him.
“For gods' sake, what happened to your leg?” he asks, catching up to me with ease.
“Bat bite,” I grind out as I make a beeline for the door. “Might want to watch your back when you leave this place. I hear they’ve got an affinity for lout blood—”
“Seems to me like they’ve got an affinity for beautiful women, because that bite has absolutely ravaged your leg,” he comments, putting himself between me and the door.
“Fuck off, Sylas.” I shove past him, only for my shoulder to zing in response.
“Really? That’s the gratitude I receive for coming all this way to rescue you?” he asks.
I spin around and shoot him a dagger-like glare square between the eyes. “I don’t need rescuing,” I retort.
He places a hand on his chest plate, in a place right over his heart, his gaze flitting to the decapitated head on the counter, and then over to Lily’s fallen form.
“Right. Seems like you’ve got everything under control here.
Well then boys, I guess it’s time to go.
You heard the lady. Our services aren’t needed.
” He jerks his chin toward Lily’s body and adds, “Axel, take her for me, will you?”
The man with the hooked nose promptly swoops Lily into his brawny arms like she’s a broken flower petal.
Wait. What if he crumples her?
“Put her down!” I shriek, my words feeling mangled in my throat. “You have no right to even touch her!”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Sylas recoils on behalf of his friend. “I was under the impression that you wanted us to save her. But perhaps I was wrong. You heard the lady, Axel. Put her down.”
Axel rolls his eyes and sets Lily back on the ground where he found her.
“What do you mean, save her?” I demand.
“Well, this is awkward.” Sylas flashes me a handsome grin, looking quite pleased with himself. “Did you think she was dead?”
“Of course I did,” I sputter out.
“Effects of the poison.” Sylas shrugs. “Unless of course, you’d like for her to be dead? Because I can arrange that.”
“No!” I startle, my gaze flicking between Lily’s body and the door.
If Lily isn’t dead… then how did the door prop itself open?
Is she stuck in some kind of holding cell between life and death?
“Wonderful. Shall we try this again?” Sylas waves a finger at Axel, who hoists Lily over his shoulder once more, his patience waning thin with a resounding gruff. “Not to fret,” Sylas adds as he does. “We will take her back to our home and fix her up.”
“And where is that exactly?” I ask, chills sailing down my spine at the thought of Lily going anywhere with them alone. “Home?” I stare at her hand, which is freely dangling over Axel’s back, the black widow ring squeezing the life out of her finger.
“To Skaldrathia, of course,” Sylas says with a superior raise of his brow.
“In less than two days’ time, your friend here will die.
Unless of course, my healers can reverse the effects of the poison.
Then I suppose you’ll be eternally grateful for my servitude and feel as if you owe me something in exchange for my help.
An offer I might take up at some point. But we can discuss the specifics later. ”
My world leeches of color, until all that’s left are gradients of gray.
Two days?
We have two days to save Lily?
She’s not dead after all?