62. Lina
Lina
H ow can I possibly feel more pain? How much more agony is possible before I implode? Before the world simply ceases to exist. I shake my head, trying to keep the darkness from curling deeper and taking everything I am.
Astella is here. Astella is here, and we’re both going to die.
Or worse.
I can’t tell what they plan to do with us.
Haze was speaking the truth, when he told me there is no justice here. Nothing right. Nothing good.
“Lina,” her small voice calls. No one else seems to notice or care that their prisoners are speaking to each other. We are nothing to these powerful beings. We are tools to be used and discarded.
Anger simmers in my blood, but the pain cools it.
I find Astella’s eyes as she sits on her knees just feet away.
“You found me,” I say with a bitter laugh.
She smiles, small and sad. Her body is covered in mud. Her limbs thinner than I remember. I would do anything to hold her, protect her, care for her.
My Dread is right.
She is my weakness. I’ll do whatever they want, even let that thing inside.
My soul shrivels up into nothing. All energy seeps from my limbs as that realization steals away my last remaining hope.
“Don’t give up yet,” she tells me just before Haze approaches and Ivar tightens his grip.
“Don’t give up yet,” Haze says.
I pinch my brow, looking between them.There is no kindness in his eyes. They are unnaturally black.
I gasp as I’m pulled back against Ivar’s chest. He grips my throat so tightly I choke.
Haze rolls his eyes and gives an annoyed look to the priestess. I’m dying, suffocating.
And he’s simply annoyed.
I want to kill him. When I shoved the dagger in his chest, I didn’t really mean it. I was scared and angry and needed to get away, but I didn’t truly want him to die.
Now, I do.
My vision peppers black before the priestess flicks her wrist. Ivar flies back, and I fall straight to the ground. I gasp for air and try to understand what’s happening now.
“Leave,” Blythe commands. Ivar grumbles, but he pulls himself to his feet and obeys, shuffling from the room like a battered puppy.
I cough, eyes darting around the room. The priestess clicks her tongue and explains, “I am more powerful than any of them.”
“How?” I breathe. I knew she had some strange power, but I didn’t realize it was this formidable.
“You’ll see soon enough. You will be like me.
Power will fill your veins, and you will willingly feed that power to our Ancient One.
And you’ll do it with a smile on your face, or your little friend over there will be torn apart bit by bit.
Would you like Haze to show you the kind of pain we can inflict?—”
“No!” I say quickly, too quickly. “He was right. I’ll do whatever you ask. Don’t hurt her.”
Haze glances at me but any other reaction is hidden behind his mask.
“But if I ever get the chance to kill you,” I say calmly, meeting his emotionless stare. “I will take it.”
I sit with this new reality, gaze unfocused. My mind, lost somewhere inside the maze of madness. Whatever this new torment will be, I know I will wish for death.
And I will wish for revenge.
“Let’s give the Ancient just a little taste of the gift we’ve acquired for him,” the priestess instructs.
Haze grabs my wrist, and before I’m even aware of what’s happening he slices the blade of a silver dagger across my forearm.
I scream. Or at least, I think I do. I hear nothing as red blood streams down my arm.
He tugs me forward, right up to the dead man on the table.
I scream pathetically, but already, the blood is pouring into his open mouth.
Was his mouth open before?
I rip my arms from my Dread’s grip and hold it against my chest. Blythe and Haze watch the man carefully.
He is so pale and wrinkled. The oldest person I can remember was Great Aunt Lynda, who lived to be seventy.
This man must have lived decades longer than her.
But even with his mouth gaping open to accept my blood, he doesn’t move for so long that I think all of this was for nothing.
Maybe my blood doesn’t have the power they thought it does.
How would it? I am just a village girl. I am nothing special.
Then, his eyes open, coins sliding off of his head and onto the floor with a scattering of clinks.
I hold my breath. Bones crack as he sits up.
He licks the crimson red liquid from his lips. My blood. He’s tasting my blood.
“What is she?” His voice is so hoarse it’s hard to make out the words.
“I was hoping you could tell us that,” Blythe says with an irreverent tone.
“Something special indeed. Turn her,” the old man says, still looking down at his legs and nothing more. Is he an animated corpse? How long has he been dead? “She should be controlled before it gets out of hand.”
Blythe bows her head. “It will be done.”
“I would like a word,” Haze says. His eyes are black. Dark flames flicker up his forearms.
The dead man—the Ancient One—turns slowly to look at him. “Very well. Leave us.”
“Alone?” Blythe asks, her brow pinched.
“Take the girl and begin the ceremony.”
The priestess sucks in a breath and pouts, but without another word she turns and grabs me by the upper arm. “You obey or the girl suffers. Do you understand?”
I nod quickly.
I stumble over my feet down the steps, keeping the priestess’s quick pace.
As we come close, Astella scrambles to her feet and grabs my free arm.
She clings to me as we rush out of the room.
I don’t even have the chance to tell her I love her.
My mind is spinning. My feet moving out of fear.
We’re pulled along in this wild stream, barely able to keep our heads above water.
We leave them behind, the Ancient One and Haze.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Astella. “I’m sorry.” My voice breaks.
“Don’t be sorry,” she tells me, her fingers lacing with mine. “Think it through.” She presses her face into my skirt, muffling her voice. “This isn’t over yet.”