Chapter 37
The Monster in Me
Eloise
Iwake in all too familiar chains, bound to an all too familiar arch, in an all too familiar room.
I’ve been hanging a long time by the look of my wrists and the low burn of the candles in the candelabra.
I reach out for Phantom and sense my power a long, long way away.
The Darklands. My stomach drops when I realize what this means.
My dragon, my anchor, is dead.
“At last. She wakes.” Adril Entrydal steps into the room, his heavy footsteps thumping on the stone floor.
When he comes into view, he is dressed entirely in silver velvet, a crown atop his head, smooth gold with pointed sections as if the molten metal were dripped into shape.
“You should know we killed your dragon, and my troops are even now slaughtering your meager rebellion.” He presses one finger into the underside of my chin and lifts my head.
“I’d tell you that I was going to torture you for military secrets, but what would be the point?
I don’t need them, and I’ve never liked playing pretend.
I am going to torture you for the fun of it, Eloise Hymir.
I am going to break you.” He leans forward until his thin red lips and pale blue eyes are too close to my face.
I hold my breath to keep from breathing the same air as him.
“I am going to make you my pet. And when I own this world, you will lap milk from my boots and thank me for it.”
As before, I don’t react. I don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me panic, although inside, my heart is pounding in my chest, a wild animal thrashing the bars of its cage. My blood is ice.
He scoffs and backs away, strides to the back of the room, those stupid boots clapping the floor as he goes, making me aware of every place he walks in the room. I hear chains, the rattle of bamboo rods. What will he choose? What will he torture me with?
I squeeze my eyes closed, instinctively seeking the safety of the darkness, but my mind won’t quiet.
Memories of the last time I was in this rack come back to me with jagged, painful clarity.
For now, I’m fully dressed in the black uniform of the resistance.
Last time, he unzipped my dress so that he could watch my skin break under the force of his blows.
I wonder if he’ll cut the shirt off me this time.
I wonder if my blood will splatter the walls again along with that silver coat of his. I wonder—
I open my eyes and remember Nathanial stepping into the room from Paragon, remember him feeding me his blood, blood that runs through my veins.
Remember that I am the dragon.
Phantom isn’t dead; they are simply waiting for me to pull them back from the underworld into whatever pile of bones I choose. I have nothing to grieve. Not yet. Slowly, I remember who I am.
I am Eloise Hymir, Queen of Stygarde.
My heart is made of darkness.
Entrydal will never own me.
No one can cage a shadow.
I was chosen by the goddess herself, and I will save my people.
I glance at my wrists, noting he didn’t use sunlight cuffs.
Why would he? He believes I’m a vampire.
Nothing more. My mouth curls into a smile, and I feel it, that cool chaos in my veins.
Not my blood—my inner shadows. They coil and stretch with my fear, just as they did the night I visited Bad Witches’ Club and Grog dangled me by my collar.
Only this time, I whisper to them, coax them.
I am the pied piper of shadows, thrumming a soundless string, vibrating at a frequency that calls them to me.
His heavy footsteps round me again, and he sets down the rod he’s chosen to remove his velvet jacket, leaving him bare-chested in nothing but breeches and boots. And still, he wears that fucking crown.
“You’re giggling, pet. Could it be that you’re going to enjoy this as much as I will?”
He lifts the rod to taunt me with it, then licks it with the flat of his tongue. Gross.
“I’m laughing because I can hear your heart.”
His brow furrows. “Why would that make you laugh?”
My mouth spreads into a wide, Mad Hatter grin. “Because it reminds me I have one too.”
He tips his head, and I know the second he hears my heartbeat, knows I am a shade, knows that the cuffs won’t hold me. His eyes pop, and he raises the rod. But he’s too late. I break into shadow and jet across the room. Jet right through the center of his chest.
When I form again, I’m holding his heart in a monstrous, beastly hand.
My hand, complete with razor-sharp talons and skin as black as leather.
The weight on my back shifts, and I see a wing arch over my shoulder.
The swish of something behind me is a tail like Damien’s.
My tail. I stare down at Entrydal’s dead body from an advantaged height and know that I’ve assumed my battle form for the first time.
The heart in my palm is a repulsive, oily shade of dark blue. It gives one last beat in my palm, releasing a spout of blood that splats across the floor. I removed it fast enough, it still believes it’s alive. The notion makes me laugh.
Once I would have hesitated, held fast to an ideal of what was morally right or wrong. Once I chose to save an evil man’s life to preserve my virtue. And in the end, it changed nothing. In the end, it was him or me.
Never again.
I crush the heart in my fist.
“I am no pet,” I growl at Entrydal’s corpse. I hurl the goop that remains in my hand at the wall. On my way out, I sweep his crown off his head and place the bloody ring of gold on my own. “And now, this is mine.”
I consider taking his entire head with me, but when I bust through the door and into the hall, I see that the crown will send the message. A servant spots it and runs like a rabbit.
I run too. Straight toward the battlefield. I only hope I’m not too late.
DAMIEN
Eloise isn’t here. I slice and kick and use my wings to claw at my enemy, my body a tower of pain and fatigue.
I was told she fell. Before we ever reached the battle in the Borderlands, before we ever saw how bad the tide of this war had turned, we saw the bones.
Phantom’s bones. Strewn across the battlefield along with the bones of so many others.
The grass is wet with blood. Our forces have been pushed back from New Stygarde into Willowgulch territory, where we are sandwiched between sunlight weapons and fresh shade forces that, unlike us, are not weary from battle.
Eloise isn’t here, and I fear she is dead or worse.
We are at the end of this war, and I face the stark possibility that we will not stand the victor.
“Remember your promise!” Jaqual yells to me, his blades swinging furiously in the taloned hands of his battle form. “If I die, you are still bound.”
I snort. “What makes you think that I will live?” We are surrounded by the enemy, six deep on either side.
“You Hymirs are like wagon bugs. You can survive anything.” His head sinks below a throng of silver coats, and I lose sight of him.
“Wagon bug. Can survive anything but the bottom of a shoe.” I grunt, shadoweave, and stab the elf ahead of me, but I take a sunlight blow across the stomach from his brethren.
I collapse, where my blood mixes with that of my enemies and soaks into the ground.
Opening the shadow channels, I send a message to our troops in Aendor—the dragon roars.
We can’t wait any longer. We need all the help we can get.
As soldiers march over me, assuming I’m dead, I stare into the star-filled sky and see a raven staring down at me. Hovering. Watching. Somewhere in the distance, a horn blows. And then I truly believe I have died because I see something I never thought I would see.
Brooms.
Robes flowing behind them.
The glow of magic.
Witches.
Catarina. At least a dozen others.
No one sees them but me. They float in silently, their brooms connecting to form a pentagram. Their wands circling in complex patterns. At first, I can’t glean what they’re doing. I lose sight of them on occasion as warriors step on top of and over me in battle.
Then I feel it.
Wind.
It drives straight down and blows out, sending a plume of grit gusting over me.
Screams. Shouts. A flash of silver as an elf flies over me like an oversized kite. I have to squint and turn my head to breathe. When I do, I find two violet eyes squinting back at me. Jaqual is still alive, flattened to the bloodstained earth, clinging to it to keep from blowing away.
It goes on and on until all the silver is gone and I see nothing but red and black around me.
At once, the wind stops. Boots land between us. Catarina reaches down and lifts Jaqual’s head, offering him her canteen. Their eyes meet, and something passes between them, wordless but palpable. Jaqual’s eyes widen.
Catarina releases him and moves to my side, lifting my head and bringing the same canteen to my lips. I cough at the putrid flavor but manage to keep it down. She releases my head.
“Hurry up and heal,” she says through her teeth. “We won’t be able to hold them for long.”