Chapter 35 #2
Maybe it would damn her. But if it killed the witch, it would be worth it, wouldn’t it? If it gave Asher a chance to return to his daughter, she had to try.
Who was to say this wasn’t an answer to their prayer?
“Do you hear that?” Rowan whispered, her voice cracking like dry leaves.
It had been the faintest of sounds, like a breath against her cheek. Nothing, now. Just that heavy muffling silence.
Then, faint, the soft scrape of a footstep on stone.
From across the cell, Asher murmured, “She’s coming.”
His distance was necessary for their plan to work, but she wished he was closer. Her eyes strained, but she couldn’t see anything. Not when the shuffling footsteps paused outside their cell. Not when the lock fell and the heavy door scraped open.
Silence fell, vast and suffocating.
It was broken by a soft voice. “Good evening, Asher.”
“Witch,” Asher growled back. “Or is the witch even in there anymore?”
A warm laugh, low and smoky. “Believe whatever you wish. I trust you’re enjoying your stay more now that I’ve brought you a friend. Witch hunters do so poorly alone. You’re pack creatures at heart.”
Rowan searched the cell. It was large, made to hold many prisoners. She thought the witch was to her right, but it was hard to track the sound with the way it echoed off the walls. The charm was clasped in her sweaty palm.
“Rowan,” she said. “It’s so nice when an old neighbor drops by to say hello. You left so quickly last time you were here.”
A chill ran down her spine. “That was years ago. You were here then?”
Already?
“It was before I’d claimed this body, but I was aware even then. Witch hunters think we can only exist on this plane through an intermediary but there are thin places between our worlds. I was so glad when you came. It was rude of you to run.”
Oh, God.
There had been something down here when she and Toby had come all those years ago. Waiting, watching in the dark.
“What do you want from me?”
“We’re connected, you and I.” The voice was moving again, coming closer, she thought. “Practically sisters.”
She stood up slowly, keeping her back to the wall. “I am nothing like you.”
“No? I can smell it in your blood.”
“Lots of people have fae blood.”
“I can feel your magic. Blood and thorn. Oak and iron. So delicious.”
Her stomach turned.
“I’m not like you,” she said again.
“You’re not like other people though, are you?” the witch continued calmly. “That’s why you live in the woods. Foraging mushrooms. Snaring squirrels. Hiding away like a timid, wild thing.”
“The woods were actually quite nice before you came along.”
The witch laughed. “Is it by choice that you live in that dirty shack? That you go without food so your mother can eat? That the good people of Sulen mock you whenever you go into town with your ratty clothes and backward manners? That’s the life you choose?”
Her shoulders stiffened. How did she know all of that? Just how long had this…thing been watching her?
She shook her head. “It’s not your business how I live.”
“Poor little Ro, always on the outside looking in at all the bright pretty people with their bright pretty lives. You know the hunger I feel. You know it deep down in your bones.”
“I don’t,” she insisted, turning her head to the right. There was definitely movement there.
“No? What happened with your witch hunter then? That felt like hunger.”
She was silent, listening. The soft scuff of a bare foot on stone. Closer.
“He’s very handsome. So strong and brave. He’s so good you can see his light even from the other side. Most people are murky, but not that one. He’s blessed. Not like you.”
That shouldn’t hurt, coming from a demon, but it did.
“He’s a good man,” she said. “You should stay away from him.”
“Like you stayed away?” A low chuckle. “Couldn’t keep your hands off him, could you? I don’t blame you. Dark things are always drawn to light.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But she did. Oh, God, she did.
“The way you snared him…” A disgusting hum of appreciation. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“It wasn’t a trap,” she snapped. “He wanted it too.”
A flush heated her skin. Shame poured through her that Asher was hearing all of this. What must he be thinking?
“He wanted it,” the witch agreed. “You turned that nicely against him.”
It was a lie. She knew it was a lie. But lies cut deepest when they held a grain of truth, and this one stung.
“I don’t want to destroy who he is,” she said. “That’s the difference between you and me.”
“Sweet child,” the witch said with another low laugh. So close. She had to be standing right in front of her. The air around her chilled. Goosebumps rose on her arms. “You could have him. You don’t have to deny yourself any longer. I can show you the way to have everything you’ve ever wanted.”
A cold finger touched her cheek and she knew she needed to move, but she couldn’t.
Images flooded her mind. Hundreds of them in an instant.
Her and Casrian in the biggest bed she’d ever seen.
Satin sheets, that muscular body, his golden skin.
Her mother smiling in the garden. Jarn in ruins.
The mayor dead in the town square, blood leaking from his mouth.
The people in Sulen on their knees. Casrian smiling at her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
That one she couldn’t as easily push away.
“You could be so strong,” the witch whispered, cold breath drifting across her cheek. “Respected. Worshipped.”
“I don’t want to be worshipped.” What would she even do with a pack of worshippers?
“The trees call you daughter, but you smell like prey. So much power wasted on you. I will help you, little sapling. Together, we’ll change the world.”
A grunt and the witch rocked forward. Her finger fell away from Rowan’s cheek. There was a hiss of anger.
“Rowan,” Asher shouted at her. “Don’t let her get in your head.”
By the sound of it, he was holding the witch, or trying to, like they planned, but she couldn’t see a damn thing. There was the sound of a struggle right in front of her. She could kill Asher by mistake.
He cried out, and she dove forward. The chains on her wrists swung wildly until she hit fabric. She slapped the charm against the witch and spoke the word to activate it. “Cala.”
She held it there pressed against the fabric until it caught and started to burn, scorching the palm of her hand.
She didn’t pull back. She couldn’t. As soon as she lost contact, the charm would fall to the ground and the flame would fail.
You were meant to tuck the thing between firewood, not use it as a weapon.
She smelled burning flesh, but there was only a small flare of light. Orange, glowing through her skin.
Good news—she wasn’t blind.
It was just enough light to see the gleam of shiny black eyes and dead white skin.
It hurt. Oh, God. It hurt. That burning smell was her.
She bit her lip to keep from screaming. Bit down until there was blood.
And then, finally, a blaze of light that was just as blinding as the darkness.
She stumbled back. “Asher!”
Was he all right? An arm wrapped around her shoulders and hauled her back. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”
The witch screamed as fire ran up her tattered skirts. Her black hair hung in matted tangles down her back, and her arms were skeletally thin. She danced around the cell, the flames casting grotesque shadows on the wall.
Asher grabbed her burned hand and her knees gave out.
“Sorry,” he said grimly, moving his hold to her arm.
He pulled her through the open door of their cell and turned left, pushing her to a run as the witch howled behind them.
“It won’t kill her,” he said. “She’ll follow soon, and there are still familiars about. Do you have any other weapons on you?”
She laughed. “No.”
They hit the stairs at a run. She slammed her shoulder into the wall as she lost her balance.
Asher shoved her up the stairs. Darkness closed around them again.
Either the witch had managed to put out the fire or they’d moved beyond the light of it.
There was silence ahead. Silence below. She kept moving, remembering the stairwell from when she’d come here with Toby.
It wasn’t long. They were almost to the top.
The main door wasn’t far past that.
Her foot hit the stone landing. They’d made it.
She nearly wept at the sight of stars shining through a gap in the roof. The flickering light of a far-off torch through a hole in the wall. She lurched toward the spot where she remembered the door.
And came up short as the dark form of a familiar unfolded from the shadows against the wall, blocking her way.
Asher shoved her back, out of the familiar’s path.
He meant well. But the back of her head cracked against the stone, and her vision went blurry before she was able to gather herself.
She might have blacked out. Because Asher had moved deeper into the dark, roofless hall, pushing the familiar away from the door.
The sight of him was jarring. When she’d last seen him in Jarn, he’d been a gangly youth on his first patrol. Now, he was a grown man fending off a familiar with a chunk of stone in his hand.
The familiar stepped forward, and Asher hurled the rock at the thing’s head. His aim was good. The rock hit the thing’s skull with a meaty thunk before falling away.
The familiar kept coming.
“Get out of here,” Asher shouted at her.
She pushed away from the wall, trying to get her balance, but the floor kept tilting. She pressed a hand to her aching head and winced when her burned palm made contact.
She wasn’t leaving Asher behind. Not when it was her idea to run. They were in this together.
She tripped over a rock—or her own feet—and fell to her knees with a crack. She scrambled around for a weapon, crawling forward while Asher retreated deeper into the hall.
The idiot. He was trying to lure the familiar away from her instead of running for the door. God save her from heroic men.