Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Crymson
On a curling, unheard scream in the middle of the night, my lashes open to the darkness.
The noise fades away and is lost in a heavy state between dreaming and reality. I lie still, wrapped between hard bodies and quiet snores.
I curl into their warmth. I want to stay with them like this.
Forever. Encapsulate this moment in time and I’ll never let it go.
But an uneasiness gnawing at the pit of my stomach pulls me from the makeshift bed of scattered blankets and tangled limbs across my bedroom floor.
I toss and then turn. In the quiet, I watch them all in this unfiltered moment.
Rorrick snores quietly in a chair near the window.
He refused to sleep all night, but it seems the weight of it all has finally settled into him.
Seven and Carver are curled around one another, the furthest away from me but the most prominent pair among the pile.
They’re from different worlds, different kingdoms, different lives, but you wouldn’t know it right now; not with how Carver holds him against his chest, not a scrap of clothing separating them.
Restlessly, I finally stand. I carefully step over Christian’s pale hand, and it isn’t lost on me that Thorn is by his side.
I stand between the two men, but when I step past their sleeping forms, they’re side by side.
It’s me that brought them together after lifetimes of war.
It’s also me who’s ruining all of their lives.
We sleep in velvet blankets next to warm fires, but out there . . .
My gaze slips to the enormous window that’s shrouded in heavy curtains, keeping out what may or may not lurk in the shadows outside.
My bare feet pad across the cold floor, and I slip out into the empty halls. I peer back at the open door of Delilah’s room and wonder if she’s sleeping with the handsome Fae Commander tonight.
A smile pulls at the corner of my lips at the thought of just how well I’ve fully infiltrated the Fae Kingdom. Yes, this is most decidedly not the threat Thorn thought it was all going to be.
Sometimes I think he overreacts.
Sometimes I underreact.
I shrug and make my way downstairs. Right now, a cold glass of water would solve every single problem in my life, I think.
But when I make it to the entry room, the front door is severed just slightly open
A warm breeze slinks through the room, wafting the velvet curtains of the windows. Darkness is heavy in the room, and a knowing sort of eeriness crawls up my spine like spider legs.
“Hello?” I test on a quiet voice.
I walk closer to the door, and my hand extends to close it firmly back in place, but then the scent of ash greets me. I pause with my palm on the enormous metal handle for several seconds.
A scream scrapes through the night air, and I pull back the heavy barrier fully. Heat washes over me as embers burn like stars in the sky. My breath falls from my mouth as my bare foot collides with something there on the castle stairs, and a scream escapes me as I realize it’s a body.
It doesn’t move.
I kneel at his side, and his bloody head jostles to one side as the Commander of the Fae army looks up at me through swollen eyes.
“Aerin,” I gasp.
“Crymson,” he says in a struggling voice, and I fall to my knees at his side.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” I utter over and over again, but he only shakes his head at me.
“Crymson,” he gasps once more, and he forces the words out in a stream of dying desperation. “She–she took Delilah.”
My heart drops through my stomach. He breathes harshly once more. His glassy eyes stare unmoving up at the burning sky.
And then I’m running out into the flames.
Everything is on fire. And I fear I’m next.
The heat of the embers that sail across the smoky sky blisters across my shoulders. It singes my hair and face. Women cry out among the darkness, and I search for the screams, but all I find is dust and debris.
Somewhere out in the dust and darkness lies the serene meadow. But you wouldn’t know it now.
The dirt clouds around my feet with every step.
It clings to my skin, my lashes, and even my tongue with every shallow breath I dare to take.
I’m careful not to draw attention to myself as I scurry along the side of the castle walls.
The brick is to my back, and not a soldier is in sight.
I hear the clash of metal and the roar of the Dead out beyond the walls.
The gate ahead is intricate and strong, but when my palm grips the edge, blood coats my hand.
With a rush of adrenaline, I smear it frantically away.
It stains the fine nightgown across my thigh, but it’s the least of my problems right now.
“Delilah?” I call out.
It’s a stupid, stupid fucking thing to do, but it’s my only choice. I’ll be at the mercy of this demented Queen of the Dead one way or another, and I’d rather it happen sooner than later.
A quiet slips in on the heat of the breeze, and the hairs on my arms lift one by one. I swallow slowly, and though I’m only a few careful steps outside the castle gate, I peer back at the looming shadow of the building behind me.
I could go back. Right now.
My teeth sink into my lower lip hard, and I keep moving.
The breath in my lungs is clipped, and no matter how deeply I inhale, it’s not enough.
I can’t explain it, but there’s someone–something–close by.
I feel their nearness along the back of my neck, and my shifting gaze can’t seem to spot them fast enough.
“Such a pretty Promised,” someone hisses on a crawling whisper.
My heart plummets at the sound of those words, at the idea of being a Promised again. I turn, staggering in my steps to peer around at the dust that hangs in the night air.
“Give her back!” I call out, but silence is my only answer.
“Take me to your Queen,” I try again on a command with as much confidence as Christian always showed.
And yet somehow, my words feel flat.
A trickle of laughter is the only reply for several long bleeding seconds. My heartbeat counts each and every one that ticks by, but the moments feel like hours.
“You’re no better than us,” another voice taunts. “Why? Why did you get to walk away from the Blood King and not us?”
And then sharp nails are sinking into my flesh.
Blood-red eyes shine among the shadows, but there are too many to count.
Flashes of rotting faces and tattered flesh surround me.
Teeth gnaw desperately at my arms and legs, and no matter how much I kick and claw at my attackers, there are too many.
On an endless scream, my knees give out, and I’m forced to the ground.
The dust washes over the frail limbs of monstrous bodies.
They claw at my face. Blood oozes from my flesh, but the wounds are too much, too many.
The echo of my name is a desperate whisper on the wind. But I do hear it. I think?
“Christian?” I reply, but the sound of my voice is drowning beneath them all.
Thousands of bites pierce my skin over and over again, and it’s then that I realize . . .
I’m just another corpse lost in the Dark Lands.