Chapter 23 Svenn
The prison is quiet except for the occasional soft lap of the receding flood against stone. The torch on the wall flickers, casting shadows that dance across it. I sit with my back against the cold stone wall listening to Rhianelle's faint heartbeat.
My hands are cleaner now, the black tar-like substance dissolved into the water around me. But I can still smell the sulfur and rot. The stench of Hel clings to my clothes, my hair, under my nails.
Footsteps echo down the corridor. Multiple sets of boots splashing through the flooded hallway fast.
My head snaps up.
The prison door slams open with force that echoes through the dungeons like thunder.
Eyepatch stands silhouetted in the doorway.
His sword is drawn.
Even in the dim light, I can see that something has overtaken him completely.
Sorrow and wrath.
The same emotions coursing through my veins.
Behind him, a young guard scrambles to keep up.
"Sir Aelfric, please—"
"Open the cell," Eyepatch commands without looking at the guard. His voice is flat, dead calm.
"Sir, I don't think that's wise—"
"Open it!" The calm breaks for just a moment and raw fury bleeds through.
The guard fumbles with his keys, hands shaking so badly he drops them. They clatter on the wet stone.
"Captain Niamh wouldn't want—" The young guard looks at Eyepatch’s face and whatever he sees there makes his decision. He picks them up and tries again.
I push to my feet as Eyepatch approaches.
The fucking prison isn't even locked, I want to tell them.
The door swings wide with a groan, the hinges protesting from flood damage. Eyepatch is inside with me before it's fully open.
He moves fast.
His sword pierces my chest, the blade sliding between my ribs. A trained knight knows exactly where to put a blade. He drives it deeper until the crossguard presses against my chest and the point erupts from my back to bite into the stone wall behind me.
The blade goes through me and into the wall itself, pinning me there.
I don't resist. I don't even try to dodge.
The pain is sharp, burning through me like holy fire. But it's nothing compared to the image of Rhianelle's broken body seared into my mind.
Good. This is what I deserve.
Blood fills my mouth immediately. I feel it running down my throat.
"What did you do to her?" he roars, his face inches from mine.
I have no answer because I don't know. I can't remember what happened during those missing hours. There's just darkness where the memories should be.
I hate that this fucker missed my heart. A few inches to the left and the blade would have pierced it clean through.
"Damn you!" He slams his hand against the sword hilt, driving the blade a fraction deeper. The steel grates against my ribs.
I'm counting on Eyepatch's vitriolic distaste for me to bring the pain I need. I want him to hurt me until I can't see Rhianelle's pale face every time I close my eyes.
"Just kill me already, asshole." I cough up the blood filling my lungs.
Eyepatch's hands shake where they grip the sword hilt. He twists the blade.
A strangled gasp leaves me. Hrolf makes a sound in the other cell.
"Was the hunger finally too much?" He leans closer. "Did the monster inside you decide it was time to feed?"
"No," I manage to gasp out.
"Liar!" He slams his fist into my face. "You bit her."
My head snaps to the side. Pain explodes across my jaw. He must have seen the marks on her neck.
"She trusted you," he says, all the anger cracking to reveal the pain underneath. "She let you into her life, married you. She defended you to the council when they called for your execution. She stood beside you when everyone else called you monster. When I called you monster."
He swallows hard.
"And you betrayed her."
I see it then. I think I've always known it but I was too fucking selfish to acknowledge it.
Aelfric loves her.
"I can't lose her like I lost Aerin. I swore I wouldn't fail anyone like that again." I can see it in his face. The same helplessness I feel now.
"But I did fail her." His eye meets mine and the pain in it is bottomless. An ocean of regret and self-hatred that mirrors my own. "I let you near her. I stood by while she married you."
His grip tightens on the sword.
"I should have driven this blade through you the moment you crawled out of that well," he says.
"You should have," I agree.
His fist connects with my jaw, snapping my head to the side. Then again. And again. He's not holding back now. I don't raise my hands to defend myself.
Every strike feels deserved. I don't even bother turning away.
Good.
I welcome the pain. Let it hurt.
Let it be all I can feel.
Because this is so much simpler than the self-hatred churning in my chest.
"Damn you," he says finally, his voice hoarse from shouting.
He stops hitting me, breathing hard. His knuckles are split and bleeding. There's defeat in his voice now, exhaustion mixed with the rage. "Damn you for making her love you. Damn you for letting her believe you could be different. Damn you for proving us all right in the end."
I wish he could put me out of my misery, rip my heart out or behead me. I'd even let him set me on fire and scatter the ashes. Anything if it would bring her back.
But he just stares at me for a long moment. His chest heaves with ragged breaths. Blood drips from his knuckles.
Then he steps back, leaving the sword buried in my chest. He wipes his face with his sleeve. "You don't deserve a quick death."
He turns toward the cell door, pausing at the threshold.
"If she dies, I'll come back," he says without looking back. "Next time, I won't miss your heart. I'll take my time with you. You'll beg me for death long before I grant it. That's a promise."
He walks out. The young guard hesitates only a second before following.
Darkness settles.
I hang there, pinned to the wall by the blade through my chest.
Blood continues to seep from the wound, running down my chest to pool in the water below. The flood around me is dark with it now. My vampire healing is already trying to work around the obstruction, trying to seal the flesh around the blade.
From the other cell, Hrolf speaks quietly. "That looked like it hurt."
The dwarf drags himself to the bars between our cells, the iron ball chained to his ankle grinding across the wet stone behind him. He shoves his arm through as far as it will go. He cannot reach me.
"His sword is made of dwarven steel," he observes, almost appreciatively. "It's a good blade with solid craftsmanship. Shame to see it wasted like this."
He reaches through the bars, straining toward me again. His thick fingers brush the sword hilt but fall short. He tries again, pressing himself against the bars until the metal must be cutting into his shoulder. It's no use. He's too short and the distance is too great.
"If you could just shift a bit to the left," he suggests.
"Leave it."
"Don't be daft. You can't stay stuck to a wall like a mounted trophy."
Hrolf ignores me and steps closer anyway, one thick hand hovering near my arm without quite touching. "Why didn't you fight back? Against the knight?"
"I can't remember what I did," I say it to the floor. "During the demon attack. There are hours missing in my head."
I swallow. "What if I hurt her?"
The question has been circling in my mind since I woke.
"Did you?" Hrolf asks simply.
"I don't know."
I try one more time to remember. When the witch cursed me, she stripped away what little control I had.
I became just the thing that kills.
I close my eyes and push at the void where my memories should be. There has to be something, some fragment.
I see the witch. Her golden hair and red dress.
I see her hands moving, tracing symbols in the air. Runes that glowed and rotted and sank into my skin.
I feel the moment the curse took hold. All the doors to the monsters in me slamming open.
And then—
Nothing.
A clean, absolute absence. When I surface again, the world has already changed.
I cannot see what happened in between. It's like a book with its middle torn out. The beginning is there. The end is there. But the pages that matter are gone.
Rhianelle paid the price for what I cannot remember.
Through the bars between us, Hrolf studies me with those sharp, unblinking eyes. "Well, it seems to me if you'd wanted to kill her, she'd be dead. Nightwalkers don't leave their prey alive. You brought her back for healing. A real monster wouldn't do that."
He may be right.
It doesn't quiet the guilt clawing at my ribs.
"The witch cursed me," I tell him. "Before the demons came. She did something to me. It made me lose control completely. I woke up surrounded by demon corpses and Rhianelle was—"
"So you're afraid you hurt her while you were cursed."
"Yes."
"But you also killed all those demons. So maybe you were protecting her from them," Hrolf says thoughtfully. "If you'd truly lost yourself to the beast, she'd be dead. There wouldn't be anything left to save."
It's possible. I want it to be true so badly.
But wanting doesn't make it so.
"For what it's worth, I don't think you meant to harm her," he continues after a moment.
"A young elf I met once said that everyone deserves a chance at redemption.
That no one is beyond saving if they truly want to change.
I told her she was naive. That some people are just born bad, born to destroy.
No amount of wanting could change that."
I close my eyes. The young elf is wise. That sounds like something Rhianelle would say.
But Hrolf doesn't know what I am. A killer.
That's what I was made to be. Patchworked together from monsters, each piece chosen for its capacity to destroy.
"I deserve this." The words come out flat, emotionless. "I deserve to die a slow, torturous death for what I did to her."
"Self-pity doesn't suit you."
I close my eyes but that only makes the memories clearer and sharper. Rhianelle's limp body on the battlefield among the demon corpses. The blood pooling beneath her, soaking into the ash.
Hrolf strains against the bars again, reaching for the sword lodged through my chest.
"Come on, shift," he grunts. "You're bleeding."
Good.
The pain anchors me. It feels deserved.
But it isn't enough. Nothing will be enough if she dies. No amount of wound or suffering will balance that scale.
"Your wife saw something in you worth saving," Hrolf says after a moment. "Perhaps trust her judgment over your guilt."
He pushes himself upright and retreats to his own cell without another word. The scrape of stone and iron marks the distance between us.
Time passes and the pain in my chest becomes almost familiar. I tilt my head and listen, straining past the drip of water and the guard's footsteps resuming his rounds upstairs.
Trying to find Rhianelle's heartbeat.
I close my eyes and press my head back against the cold stone wall. The chill seeps through my clothes, into my bones. I welcome it.
Rhianelle is fighting for her life.
All I can do is sit here in the dark and wait to find out if I've killed her.