CHAPTER EIGHT
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” The words tumbled out of Beck’s mouth, again and again and again. I’d never heard such meaningless words, but I let him say them. Nothing mattered anymore, anyways.
I stood at the stall of a magnificent, snow-white stallion. A smile tugged on my lips as he nuzzled my hands, pining for treats I didn’t have. The gargoyles’ stable was magnificent, all pearly stones and silver accents. Just another holdover from a time when humans and gargoyles had been allies.
“We’re not done,” Griffon’s voice ground out behind me. “With Lakesh. And you’re late.”
The smile vanished. “There is no we, asshole. And I am done.” I pivoted, only to find myself face-to-face with him and the four guards. The breath I released morphed into a snarl halfway through, my lip curling with it. “I see I won’t be given a choice.”
He jabbed a finger back toward Falcos. I glanced at the four guards, whose names I hadn’t bothered to ask. There wasn’t a kernel of warmth in any of their icy stares. If anything, they looked frostier than usual after being dragged around all day.
I glanced at Laney, but she just tossed me a shrug, her lips downturned and eyes narrowed on Griffon. My heart rate spiked at her obvious concern.
“Thanks for the tour,” I muttered.
She nodded without looking at me. I whipped toward the stable’s exit before Griffon could see my unease.
The bottoms of my pants were soaked by the time I’d trudged through the ankle-deep, glittering snow and back to the fortress.
The guards peeled off down a long hall the second we stepped inside.
Griffon shouldered past me without a word.
I trailed after him, the guards’ incessant bitching about the horrors of babysitting duty still filtering back to the foyer.
The mystery of Falcos’ design slowly unraveled within my mind’s eye as Griffon led me back to that barren room and flung the door open.
I hovered in the hallway, then set my jaw and stomped inside before he decided to drag me.
He towered by the door, watching me. “I trust you found a memory that will suffice.” A loose navy shirt fluttered open at his chest, a pair of black trousers slung low on his hips.
Neither his deep-brown eyes nor midnight hair looked like he’d slept, the first bloodshot and the second in disarray.
The door swung shut with a nudge of his foot, and he slid a key into the lock.
The sound of the cylinder clicking into place cracked through my skull.
“What part of, ‘You torched every good memory I had,’ did you not get the first time?”
He drifted to that table on the far side of the room, his back to me. “Fine. Have it your way.”
He pivoted, dual whips of black smoke snaking across the floor toward me.
“No magic, you fucking coward,” I bit out. I took a reflexive step away. My back struck the door.
The whips dispersed into foggy black mist. “Again.” His smile was cruel. “Have it your way.”
He stalked toward me, nothing but arrogance in his long strides and lax posture.
I dropped into a high crouch, my hands in front of my face.
He darted for my arm and I dodged his grasp, my other fist soaring toward his face.
Faster than I could track, he latched onto my wrist and twisted until my back was against his chest. Something jabbed into my neck, and I gasped at the pain. He released me and stepped away.
I slapped my hand over my still stinging flesh. “I swea—” The word morphed into a sharp cry as pain cleaved my skull. I gripped my head, trying to hold the pieces together, and raised burning eyes to Griffon. “What the fuck was that?”
He raised the dart and inspected it as he might an odd bauble.
“It’s called Lakuro. Chaos. Over the centuries our academics found a way to manifest mental turmoil.
The experience is completely different than the first shifts to Stone, but the method of finding and dragging yourself out of the darkness is the same. ”
Another wave of agony tore through my head.
I hit my knees and screamed. This was the end.
Whatever he’d injected me with would hammer this godsdamned pike between my eyes until my skull cracked open and spilled its contents at his feet.
He was speaking again, but the words were muffled, like I was drowning and he was standing above water, watching me sink.
I honed every ounce of my focus on his words, if only to distract myself from the pain.
“…interaction with ironweb that they never quite figured out. But both are necessary when dealing with channelers. Makes the process excruciating, does it not?”
I toppled over, some part of me vaguely aware when my shoulder struck the ground.
Images began to race through my skull, each one flinging aside the last in a chaotic carousel that abducted my mind.
Flames consumed writhing figures, their faces blotted out by billowing smoke.
Wispy silhouettes screamed as dark shadows carved them up with knives, the blades flashing silver with startling clarity among the distorted visions.
Each passing image sucked me in harder. Black crept in along the edges of my vision.
“No,” I gasped, my teeth bared and hands scrabbling against the slick floor, searching for something to hold on to. Anything to keep me from falling. But the chaos devoured me, and I tumbled into the abyss yawning open before me.