Chapter Fifty-Four
I t blinks into the sky with a soft hum, and I gape at it.
An ornately carved marble archway—overflowing with vines, flowers and intertwined with tree bark—towers before me.
A small golden loom rests at the tip of the archway’s intricately woven peak, crystalline looking threads spilling from the bottom of it, weaving and twirling over themselves all the way down the threshold.
Inside the creamy marble frame is a sea of glowing teals and arctic blues, mingling in a veil of mist and smoke around clouds of indigo and periwinkle.
They move like a wave in the ocean, roaming in circles around themselves as if enclosed by some invisible force.
Right at the peak of the golden loom, the smoky water glows a deep and vibrant burnt amber.
I take a step toward it. Then another. On my third step, I reach the threshold of the gate, and a splashing noise echoes beneath my feet.
I glance down and realize I am now standing in a shallow body of still water—impossibly calm and eerily blue, like the bottom of the ocean.
The sky shifts from pastels to midnight black, and innumerable colored stars line the inky expanse of an endless sky, circling around me like a falling wave.
It’s hard not to just stand there and gape. To simply be still and marvel at the new world I’ve been sucked into, seemingly independent of the one I was just in.
A voice begins to sing, the tune sweeping on a gentle wind. It’s a voice I recognize with the utmost intimacy .
My own.
“Come in,” my younger self sings. “ Come and find me.”
And so I do.
I am floating—no, walking—through a maelstrom of darkness and shadow that writhes and twists around me like serpents on a branch. The shadows hiss and whisper taunts.
Worthless whore. Lowly servant. Naive fool. Hopeless. Inadequate. Breaker of all things.
We see what you do not wish us to see.
The darkness falls in on itself, squishing me—suffocating me. I open my mouth to scream, but I have no voice.
In and in the darkness pervades. Solid, unbreakable.
It swallows me whole.
I am falling, falling, falling and land with a thump inside curling gilded bars. A hanging lantern sways rhythmically in the center, squeaking. Back and forth, back and forth. Yellow, luminous light falls down, caressing my face, and I blink at it.
Realizing I’m trapped within a cage, I rise. “Hello,” I call out. “Is anyone out there?” I wrap my fingers around the golden bars, and they begin to glint as if a sun is shining on them. “Let me out of this cage,” I demand, my voice trembling despite my best efforts.
Sounds of snickering fill the air.
“You’ll never be free,” King Alastair’s voice echoes, coming from nowhere but everywhere. “ You will be my little birdie forever, bound to your cage. My pet. My puppet. My toy.”
“No,” I whisper.
A cacophony of voices ricochet off the darkness.
Dance, little monkey. Fly for me, little birdie. Sing us a song, little pet.
“Please…” I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “I only want to be free. Please . Do not lock me in this cage.”
The sound of a cracking whip harmonizes with agonizing screams. Mine. Gray’s. My mother’s. They echo and swirl in the air, playing the notes of bitter pain and acidic sorrow as if reading from a parchment of sheet music.
My stitches start to unravel, fighting with everything they have not to split apart.
Flashes of images form in the mist.
Gray’s bloodied, mangled back. His horrified face as he watches the whip break my own skin.
A memory I haven’t thought of in so, so long.
Suddenly, the gilded cage melts, and I am toppling over onto the floor.
When I gather myself, horror strikes me like a physical blow as I realize I am now reliving that forgotten memory.
One where a guard pins me to a wall, his hand forcefully plunging into my pants.
I bite his other hand as it attempts to muffle my screams.
Red splatters across my face.
And then comes the whip. Just an average leather one, thankfully not laced with metal or glass. But he snaps it down on me. Again. Again. Again. Gashes form, and crimson oozes from me like my dignity, pooling on the white marble floor. But my blood is tainting its purity, ruining its beauty.
That’s why I’m forced to clean it up, soaking it into a rag. My commonblood is not worth staining such an expensive floor. At least, that’s what the guard tells me as he continues bringing the whip down on me.
The weak, mumbled words I had whispered sing in the mist. But instead of the plea for aid they once were, they are twisted into a cruel taunt meant to mock.
“ Please…someone, anyone, please help me. Please… ”
A tinging noise—like fracturing ice—splits the floor. It opens wide, and the entirety of the scene shifts as the floor becomes the ceiling and the ceiling becomes the floor.
My world has literally turned upside down.
When I look up, I glimpse grayish-blue feet hanging idly, swaying like a forgotten branch above me. The sound of damnation hums as the noose creaks, gliding back and forth, back and forth .
And then another pair of feet appear. And another. And another.
I drop my head and grit my teeth as my body screams at me to turn away—to shut my eyes and refuse it exists. But…
I don’t want to be that girl anymore.
Because I’ve finally learned turning away from unpleasant things does not make them go away—it merely delays the inevitable confrontation of them. The truths that define us do not disappear; they wait.
I lift my head, steeling my trembling bones with the resolve to survive. To be a whole version of myself. To live again.
My fingers tighten around the dagger at my side, and an outline of what appears to be shadowy crates catches my attention.
Without thinking, I move toward them, using them to climb higher, stopping only when I reach the top of the creaking ropes.
I cut through the thick twine, the strands splitting apart as each set of floating feet drop from the weeping sky.
The moment the last pair falls into oblivion, the darkness whooshes, and I am falling with them, dropping—plummeting—down, down, down until I crash against something soft and plush.
My fingers feel the fluffy sensation of fur and the delightful touch of silk.
My eyes survey the area, and I find that I am in a room I’ve never seen before.
A fire roars in a hearth as two goblets sit on a table in front of me. Next to them are my Gardner supplies and the soporis plant. A voice that sends icy chills down my spine carries into the room.
“Alone at last,” he says.
I look left and see Eri standing at the edge of the bed, shirtless and with his pants unbuttoned. I glance down at my body and see my exposed legs, nothing but a sheer nightgown covering my middle half.
No. No. No. No.
Eri crawls onto the bed and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “So beautiful. Such a prized toy.” He kisses my neck, my collarbone and shoulders.
Nausea roils through me.
“Be a good girl and lay down.” He pushes me back against the sheets with a firm hand. “Good, good,” he soothes while slowly gliding his fingers along my exposed thigh. “Now, spread your legs.”
Bile burns my throat.
I glance at the goblets on the table. I can smell the hints of soporis on his lips. It should have kicked in by now. He should be fast asleep. Which means…
It didn’t work this time.
His lips find my mouth, and he kisses me with savage hunger. The kiss is hard and aggressive. Empty, hollow, cold—so different from what Draven showed me a kiss should be.
Using his knee, he kicks my thighs apart, spreading them open and settling between me.
Horror heats my skin as the room plunges into darkness. The fire in the hearth dies, the walls around us fade, and something in the shadows catches my attention. A sort of flicker.
Words fall into my mind.
You are not defenseless any longer. Fight him off. Fight.
Fight.
I can fight.
I shove Eri from my body and knee him in the groin. I jump up from the bed, slide my foot back, and I assume my fighting stance. “Never. Again,” I growl.
The scene shatters, and I again find myself plummeting through a rush of wind as I freefall.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the dizzying sensation.
When I reopen them, I am in a beautiful garden stretching as far as the eye can see.
The sky is powdery-blue, and the sunshine kisses my cheeks in greeting.
Birds sing as they fly across candied clouds and insects chirp with cheer. I take it all in, confused.
Am I out? Did I complete the Feargate?
I see Marcella and Gray talking. See parents that aren’t my parents, but also are. A tsunami of relief washes over me at the sight of them. “Azalea! Sterling!” I rush over to greet them. “You’re here!”
But right as I’m about to reach them, ready to pull them in for an embrace, my muscles fill with lead. And as I try to push through the heaviness, my feet become cemented in mud. I glance down and watch as my body becomes tangled in a web of vines and weeds.
What is—what’s going on?
Slowly, everyone swivels their gaze toward me. Their eyes are black and empty. So I squeeze mine shut, thinking I’m imagining things. But when I reopen them,their depthless stares remain.
And my heart falls into my stomach.
I am still in the Feargate.
Azalea pouts her bottom lip. “Oh, Lyra.” The voice sounds like Azalea—she looks like Azalea—but I know with utter certainty that could never be her.
Sterling shakes his head at me. “You damned us all.”
“It’s your fault,” Marcella sneers.
“What is?” My heart skips in my chest as panic presses into me, sharp as thorns.
“You’ve as good as killed us yourself,” Gray responds in a venomous whisper. “Our blood is on your hands, Coward.”
A sob forms in the back of my throat. “No…I’m not a coward. I just—just…”
Their black eyes pin me. “ Coward ,” they hiss in unison.
One-by-one, down the line, they all cock their heads and frown. “It should have been you,” Azalea drones.
“It should have been you,” Sterling says next.
“It should have been you,” Marcella sneers.
Gray’s black eyes stab me like a blade. “It should have been you. It was your fault, after all. It always is. Always will be.”
The conversation repeats on a loop, seeping into the fabrics of the wind.
You damned us all. It’s your fault. You’ve as good as killed us yourself. Our blood is on your hands. It should have been you. Damned us all. Your fault. Killed us. On your hands. Should have been you. Damned. Fault. Killed. Hands. YOU!
The last word booms in the air like a crackling thunderclap, making me crouch in fear. “Please,” I whimper. “Stop.”
Yet something inside tells me to get up. To not let these voices win .
And though it takes me a moment, I remember myself. “I only want to save you. Help you.”
A wicked cackle splits the air.
“ Help us? ” Azalea coos. “Darling, you are our damnation.”
I shake my head. “No, that isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” Sterling counters. “Look around.”
I do, and all the flowers suddenly bleed red, pooling into a puddle of crimson at my feet.
“It’s your fault,” Marcella repeats. “All those lives lost—both past and present. You are responsible for every single one.”
“Do you remember who you first made bleed?” Gray asks.
My breath catches in my throat. “Stop. Don’t go there.”
This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
But it feels, looks, and hurts as if it is. So what does it matter if it’s an illusion or some variant of reality? The damage still cuts the same.
They all cock their heads in synchrony, their black eyes lighting like a wick catching flame. “She’s waiting for you,” they sing, stepping forward.
Knots twist in my stomach.
They circle me, creeping closer and closer, stretching their tainted hands, reaching for me.
But I lift my chin and leave my arms at my sides. “No matter what you do, I won’t hurt you.”
The words send them crumbling to ash.
But not before Azalea sings a final time, her song a fading lullaby. “ She’s waiting for you .”
Everything shakes and groans as the scene crumbles away. It all tilts and shatters, leaving behind a blinding white light. When the light recedes and my eyes readjust, I find that I am in King Alastair’s throne room.
She’s waiting for you .
As I stare at the room—at the still picture of what I know is about to unfold—there is a moment where I think I would rather die than face it. That I’d rather be whipped or beaten than relive it—to acknowledge what it’s done to me. All the ways it’s obliterated me.
But then I remember Draven’s words. They wrap around my skin, holding me steady.
Pretending to be whole does not mean you are, just as pretending the pain does not exist won’t make it go away.
I’m ready to stop pretending.
I’m ready to move on.
I’m ready to face this.
“She’s waiting for you ,” voices hum once more.
I guess I shouldn’t keep my mother waiting any longer.