48. Chapter 48 #3
In the firelight from one of the Dokvalon soldiers, a man with bright blonde hair and green eyes appeared.
The way his eyes glowed told me he was a Wielder, but the smile etched on his face told me to be cautious.
Something was wrong but I couldn’t read it, especially now that I didn’t have access to my magic.
“Good dog. You did well. Now kneel,” the man said as he laid a hand on Peiro’s shoulder and patted him like he’d done a job well done, just as Peiro bent his knee into submission.
The stranger bent down to where he was eye level with me and smiled again. “So, you’re her? Hmm?”
“Who are you?” I was proud of how strong my voice sounded as I gritted my teeth.
The man ignored my question and looked to the side, where Ariadne’s body lay in pieces.
“Well, that’s a shame. He won’t be pleased, but what can you do in these situations, you know?
” His accent was deep, and the words rolled off of his tongue.
He tsked and pointed toward her body. “Did you do that?”
I stared at the man, still trying to desperately call my power into my hand.
I was utterly helpless. The man rose to his feet and patted Peiro on the shoulder once more.
“It’s good to see you again. Let’s go home, shall we?
” The man snapped his fingers at Ariadne’s body, and immediately a few guards gathered the remains and left through the tunnels.
Home? What did he mean home?
“Peiro?” My words turned small. “Peiro, what’s going on?”
“Oh. I almost forgot. Made you a little trinket so you wouldn’t get lost again.” The man turned to Peiro and pulled a dark band of leather from his pocket. In a swift movement, he placed the strap around Peiro’s neck. Peiro tensed in such a way that would rival a stone statue.
With deep breaths, Peiro watched the soldiers as they continued to file out of the cavern in a single line and back into the tunnels from which they’d come.
He barely looked over his shoulder as he whispered in a voice that wasn’t entirely his own, “Who would have thought it would be so easy to catch the moon?”
The words reverberated in my mind. He had said the same thing at Ventus Bluff. Had this been his plan all along? My world fell silent; only a loud ringing overpowered my senses. A faint screaming echoed around me as I continued to stare at Peiro, who refused to look at me.
Words like traitor, bastard, worthless pig filled the cavern, but I couldn’t register who screamed them. My chest tightened as I continued to look at the man who suddenly felt like a stranger. Who had sworn that he loved me.
Soldiers forced us to stand in our shackles and began pushing us forward one by one. I faintly registered watching Sury spit in Peiro’s face as he marched by. Ora screamed at Peiro as she tried kicking the two soldiers that held her captive off of her.
I hardly registered being pulled forward to walk before I was halted, standing side by side with Peiro. “Why?” I found myself whispering as my heart continued to break into tiny fragments.
Peiro slid his bright silver eyes to me, now so hollow and distant. Some emotion I couldn’t read flashed across them quickly. Was it grief? Despair? It didn’t matter. The soldiers didn’t have him in cuffs, and he had seemingly been rewarded for us being here.
He had betrayed us all.
He had betrayed me.
“Was any of it ever real?” I found myself asking, my body shaking.
My own mind betrayed me as images of intimate moments and promises carouseled on display.
With every image, every memory of a touch or sweet word, my heart cracked until it finally shattered.
His jaw tightened as he closed it. His audible swallow echoed amongst the cave walls. The silence roared.
My eyes began to water but I refused to let him see me cry.
Before I allowed myself to say anything else, anything stupid that my heart wanted to plead with, I followed the band of soldiers into the tunnel opening beyond.
A solitary tear escaped my eyes as I walked forward, and I hated that tear.
Hated the confession of what I felt. Silently I followed, wondering what would become of my fate.
I felt his presence at my back but I did everything in my power to avoid his touch, even opting to become scratched by the tunnel’s walls during narrow passageways.
My footsteps were heavy and the trek felt like hours.
Only blackness came from all sides, aside from the flicker of torchlight the few soldiers carried.
We finally made our exit and into the night.
A shiver coursed through me—wherever we were seemed more ominous than inside of the tunnels.
The light-haired man from earlier walked up to us with a strange gleam in his eyes.
He stood taller than me and Sury, but not by much.
“It’ll be much easier if we do this the hard way.
Oh, and how rude of me—my name is Cadis. ”
Before I could retort, something hard hit the back of my head.