45. Chapter Forty-Five
Istared down Novus with such a deep frown that it hurt.
At least it wasn’t Sólkon. At least his hand, somehow, had been severed, shredded from his body, replaced by a gauntlet with slits in it. At least he had suffered.
He flourished the hand around and grinned ear-to-ear. “Eero is awfully violent for you, did you know that?”
“He should have done more.”
Tutting, he turned to the side when the door creaked open. Yenira’s heels clacked against the ground as she entered, her gaze flitting everywhere but me. Coward, I thought. She set something on the table and faced Novus.
“Where is Lyra?” she asked quietly.
“Is she not sucking Sólkon’s cock?” he asked, and irritable rage crossed Yenira’s gaze. “I’m kidding, sweetheart. She’s probably dreaming about it—there is a difference.”
“You’re insufferable,” Yenira muttered. “You and I both know the last thing a woman like Lyra desires is male affection.” She snatched material from the table and finally walked to me, her expression softening. I, however, hardened. My chest, my glare, my frown—it was all so severe. Without a word, she lifted the fabric and used it to blindfold me. “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
My lips trembled as she pressed her hands on my shoulders and lowered me to my knees—and then, there was silence. Her touch became absent, and I could only hear the shuffling of feet and indiscernible whispers. The door creaked open once more—and then came a quiet gasp.
“You’re late,” Yenira hissed.
“You do realize I’ve been awake less than a week? Give me some leeway.” That had to be Lyra. Had to be.
“I will give you no such thing,” she said before she sighed. “Between you and Novus, I’m all but losing my mind over here.”
“And that has nothing to do with the fact that you’re betraying your sister,” Lyra snapped back. There was something trembling in her voice—it didn’t sound quite like her. She didn’t have time to continue the thought, though, because a loud smack echoed through the room.
“Do not speak to me about her, Lyra. You are here to help, no more, no less.”
Novus was a giggling mess. “This is delightful, truly, but I still have Underfae plaguing my court, and you still have a bitch-ling trembling on her knees. Let’s go. I am certain Eero is on our tail already, and if he’s not, he will be soon. Sólkon will have burned half the Winter Court by the time—”
“Shut your mouth,” Yenira hollered. “You two are no smarter than fucking fish. Silence.”
I rubbed my lips together, trying my hardest to focus on every word. Everything could be used to trick me, sure, but I could also hear the tremor in Yenira’s voice. She was nervous. On edge. She didn’t want me knowing any more than necessary, and if I played my cards right, I could use that to my advantage.
Feet scratched closer to me, and the muscles in my body tensed before they opened my mouth and poured ashen powder down my throat. It felt far too familiar, tasted like a night I didn’t want to experience again.
“Swallow it,” Yenira said quietly. “It’s not going to end up like last time, I promise.”
A tear dotted into the mask, beading from my eyes as I coughed it out of my mouth. I shook my head wildly, trying to push away from her, but she grabbed hold of me again.
“I said don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Swallow the fucking powder, Aurelie. Trust me.”
My entire body started convulsing. My hands. My legs. This time, when she returned with more, I did swallow, and just like that wretched night, everything faded to black. In the distance, before darkness had suffocated sound, I heard the clattering of metal…
…the squelching of blood…
…and the death of a king as Yenira screamed Novus’ name.
I hadn’t been knocked out—no, it was simply a lapse in time. When I came back to life, my cuffs had been removed, the air colder. There was no sunlight, no warmth easing my aching bones. I was riddled with terror, wondering if they’d brought me back to that fortress.
No, even that place had windows.
I yanked my arms as I tried to sit up. Again, I was chained.
I was going to destroy every fucking chain in the world at this point.
This time, I was bound to the floor, the iron links leading all the way to the other side of the room. I was on my knees in the center of a circle, symbols racing around, glistening with magic.
I lifted my head slowly. Something thick and wet splattered across the floor in front of me, and as I looked around, I didn’t see Novus or Lyra. There were candles scattered across the ground, lanterns burning on the walls, but the darkness was so suffocating here.
It was all-encompassing. Magical, in a way.
My eyes stopped on Yenira. She knelt on the ground, eyes closed and head hanging forward as she murmured toward a circular door. The same symbols on the ground were etched into the stone of the door, and I could feel the magic in the air—in my chest, most importantly. It had returned. I rolled my wrists—I never wanted those cuffs on my body again. The way they weakened my magic to the point of no return, the fatigue that followed…I hated them.
Yenira turned toward me, and I saw raw, pink streaks carved down her face, something I’d never seen before. She usually held such a strong front.
“What happened?” I shuddered.
“Don’t worry about that,” she muttered and stood to her feet. “It’ll honestly serve us well. Good riddance.”
I watched her cross the room and dig through a satchel, metal clanking against metal. She removed two items:
A dagger and gauze.
“And Lyra?” I rasped, eyes widening at the sight of what she was holding.
“Hopefully dead along with him,” she muttered and rushed back to the other side of the room. She snatched the fabric she’d used to blindfold me. “She never had any intention of helping us.”
“Us?” I tugged on the chains, choking on the broken gasps in my throat. “Yenira, there is no us. This is you, and you can stop this—you don’t have to do this.”
Yenira shot me a pointed glare before approaching. “You’re right, I don’t need to. You made this choice when you decided to remain ignorant.”
“Remain ignorant?” I muttered and narrowed my stare up at her. “I don’t think you’re hearing yourself. You’ve lost yourself to this…to this madness. It has to stop!”
“It will,” she said as she forced the material in my mouth to act as a gag. “Bite on that instead of your tongue.”
I watched her back up a step, my trembling body hunching over in defeat. I couldn’t break free of these chains—perhaps my magic could help, sure, but Yenira was stronger. She’d win, and I’d die either way. I let my hair fall in front of my face, my eyes closed.
“On the other side of that door, Aurelie, is a woman I spent the last three-hundred years studying, searching for. She called to me not long after Sapphire was taken to the fae realm, and it solidified my fidelity. She was murdered in cold blood, just like Sólkon tried to do to you.”
I wanted to claw her heart out. What she was doing was no different. She was breaking me, and she hadn’t even laid a hand on my bruised skin.
“On the other side of that door is the only reason I endured Sólkon all those years…and the only reason I allowed you to endure it. It will be worth it—it is worth it.”
I wept through the fabric gagging me. I tried to spit it out, but it stuck to my dry tongue.
“Together, we can break the seal. Together, Aurelie…together, we can claim the power those fae bastards stripped from our hands. Our ancestors’ hands. Do you not crave that sort of power…that sort of control?”
I shook my head, looking up at her and leaning forward so the chains were taut. I couldn’t speak; I could only scream. I could only try and show her what she was doing to me—a person who had once been a sister, a best friend. But she’d gone.
And I feared she’d never return.
Because as she knelt in front of me, those crimson eyes were indifferent. They were hollow. “This is going to hurt.”
And then, she brought that dagger to my arm and etched those runes into my skin like an empty canvas. A silver dagger—one that immediately overwhelmed my sense of self and made my sight go black. Not in slumber. No, that was too kind.
I was peering into that celestial plane once more, and on the other end was Myrthana, hand outstretched with a smile. Her words bled into the distant echoes of my screams.
“Bring to me your sustenance, Aurelie Cane. A final sacrifice to free my soul.”
When I blinked, she was in front of me, hollow eyes reflecting the night sky back at me. Stars spiraled from the sockets, swirling around me like a toxic embrace. There was nowhere to go but down—and down I fell.
Deep, deep into a place forgotten by man.