Chapter 40 A Death To Deserve
A Death To Deserve
Desdemona
D
rip, drip, drip.
I’ve heard it all night, yet I can’t open my eyes.
Drip, drip, drip.
The sound carries on like music in the distance.
?
I open my eyes on the last drip. There’s little to see, just the dull gray ahead of me. Bars. I look around. A brick wall is behind me. Someone on my right, locked away.
But my glasses are gone. They’re gonna see me. Hunt me. How strong are the bars between us?
“Grand day, dear,” the blurry mass of muscle coos.
Dear.
“Who are you?” I cough, making out gray hair and blue eyes that bring light to the darkness.
“You don’t recognize me? I’m almost disappointed.” The person scoots closer, the jumble of features morphing into a face. A woman. “I’m Cynthia,” she says.
The headmistress? Could this be another hallucination?
“Where are we?” I mutter.
“Ilyria, dear—”
“Why?”
The headmistress watches me, slow to answer. “Because we broke Ilyrian law.”
I shake my head. She must be mistaken. This must be another hallucination. I thought I ended the damn things when I…
No.
I didn’t break Ilyrian law. I couldn’t have. Because if I did that means Lucian’s dead.
My stomach turns, bile rising up my throat and burning everything in its path. I hunch over, spitting the acid from my empty stomach. It freezes when it hits the floor. Only now do I realize the chill in the air. Ilyria. I’m really here.
I killed him.
I don’t know if I’m feeling nothing, or everything. I don’t know if I’m breathing frantically, or not at all. I look at Cynthia, suddenly grateful for the shield between us. Could she know? Would she kill me?
But Lucian—he was different. He was supposed to be stronger than me. He was supposed to survive me.
I reach into the sheath on my thigh, beneath the petticoats, where I had been holding his wolf. But even the sheath is gone. The wolf is gone.
My final piece of him.
Because I killed him.
His blood is still on my hands, dried beneath my nails.
“Interesting,” Cynthia hums. When I look up, the cold air dries my tears. “Do you always lose time when you come back to life?” she asks.
My throat burns, the bile rising, stopping me from responding. Not that I know what I’d say. Or what to do.
When the door to my cage opens, a man walks in. A sword hangs at his side, larger than any I’ve seen. It scrapes against the floor as he steps toward me.
I move backward, pressing myself into the brick wall.
He wrenches me up by my bicep, and I inhale sharply.
But I don’t fight. I don’t know why I don’t fight.
He lifts the sword. In one swift movement, he puts the blade through my torso, burying it to the hilt.
The man meets my eyes, his bright blue with a slight smirk. He twists the blade and pulls it out again.
That’s when the pain hits. He’s cleaved right through me. There’s a gaping hole in my stomach.
I fall to the floor, landing on my ribs and cheek, bruising them.
I know I won’t die, but I wonder if I deserve to.