Chapter 73
Seventy-Three
Nuummite
Cold, wet stone bites into the newly opened wound on my palm from Nightfall. A steady drip of water accompanies the silence of the dark room.
Even with my eyes adjusted, it’s still nearly impossible to see much beyond my small cell. But the bars surrounding me… Those are impossible to miss.
They fucking locked me in a dungeon.
It’s hard to tell when things truly went wrong. But I have plenty of time to keep replaying it all.
Adrian with Nightfall stabbed through his chest.
I push myself up, arms trembling and exhausted as I reach a plank position. Fire burns in my chest as I lower myself to the ground, body straight as my arms bend.
Opal smiling with Adrian’s blood staining her hands.
Another push-up, then another lower down. One after the other, despite my trembling arms and empty, clenching stomach.
There isn’t much else to do while confined to a small cell for…days—weeks? With the perpetual night clinging to the dark palace, it’s hard to tell.
But I refuse to let my body grow weak.
A ragged breath squeezes from my lungs as I press up again.
Graylen walking at Opal’s side, the man I love nothing but an empty shell.
“Stay strong and don’t stop fighting,” I mutter breathlessly as I do another push-up.
No one responds. Not that I expect anyone to. I’m alone here, or at the very least, if someone is in here, they aren’t willing to answer me.
My elbows bend once more as I lower myself toward the ground. This time, my arms shake so hard that they give out, and my cheek crashes into cold stone.
“My darling weapon.” A voice slithers into the darkness, curling around my senses and digging into my skin. “Have you missed me?”
Footsteps echo off the damp walls, and I hoist myself off of the ground. I have to use the bars in front of me for leverage, my body shaking, on the edge of starvation and adrenaline.
The owner of the voice steps forward, his face only partly illuminated by the singular sconce on the wall across from my cell.
Graylen tilts his head—his lips slopped into a lazy grin.
The majority of his face is still blocked by the light, his mouth and strong jawline the only things visible.
I ball my hands into fists, having no qualms about punching the smirk off his annoyingly handsome face. Only my hands don’t ball into fists. They stay perfectly still at my sides.
Panic claws at my chest, and I yank myself back a step, needing distance from Graylen. Only my body doesn’t do that, either.
“Problem?” He reaches forward—hand slipping through the bars—wrapping a lock of my hair around his finger and spinning it.
My muscles seize, Graylen’s magic holding me in place like I saw him do in Crea with the guards when we were escaping. I’ve felt his magic before, more than once. But this?
There’s something within the strands of his Essence that I don’t recognize. Something darker and foreign.
“Let me go, Graylen,” I demand, snapping the words at him as hard as I can.
He chuckles, shaking his head. “I don’t think I will, my darling weapon,” he murmurs, releasing my hair but still using his magic to hold me in place.
My nostrils flare at the name—one he’s never used on me before.
One that sounds like something that would come from Vidaris, not him.
He always seemed to be concocting new nicknames for me—right from the moment he met me in Crea—but this one feels wrong, making his teasing feel like a slap across my face.
He steps closer to me, his hand rising in front of his face. A ball of fire forms in his palm, illuminating his entire face.
I suck in a sharp breath, taking in the man in front of me—one I hardly recognize.
He blinks—gaze empty.
It was Graylen and it wasn’t. His eyes are solid black, his glorious green irises gone. Tainted. Covered in a darkness so deep that I can see my reflection in them.
Rage fills me, my heart hammering in my chest at what’s been done to him.
“You can fight this—fight her, Graylen.” I change the subject, trying to get through to him. “I know you can.”
Graylen stares at me, his blank expression morphing into a teasing smirk. “Awh, don’t want to play with me anymore?” He juts out his bottom lip, pouting. “I can think of a thousand ways I’d like to play with you.”
It’s wrong, so very wrong, the way heat pools in my core at his words. The moment they do, I pull my eyes away from his beautifully harsh features, unable to stand looking at him any longer.
He isn’t my Graylen, but he’s still Graylen. It’s still his devastatingly gorgeous face—still his smirk that’s always driven me wild. But it isn’t his eyes—those depthless emerald greens hidden by darkness.
“You’re not you right now,” I hiss, eyes set on the stone floor. “You’re something else entirely.”
Graylen laughs, and I turn back to him, careful to keep my expression guarded.
“You’re right. You never truly got to see me as the Prince’s Snake.” He grins and leans in closer, his breath tickling my face through the bars separating us. “But I think it’s time you learned.”
He twists his head to the side, moving the flame to show me his neck. The neck now bare of ink.
My breath catches, confusion causing me to pause. “Where—”
“You thought it was just a tattoo?” Graylen huffs a laugh, letting the fire die out in his hand and pitching us back into mostly darkness. “It was a gift from Vidaris. You’ll see in time how giving she can be.”
A soft hissing fills the dungeon, impossible to place.
But then I feel it.
Smooth scales brush against my ankle, my tattered pants doing little to protect me from its warm skin.
I try to look down, but Graylen still has my body locked into place, which leaves me unable to see what’s happening on the ground. I don’t have to guess—not when the creature begins to slowly wind around my body, starting at my ankles and slowly working its way up.
Panic seeps out of my pores as the massive snake coils around my body, squeezing my waist and holding down my arms.
It briefly pauses its ascent long enough to hover in front of my face.
The scales are black, but with each flicker of the sconce from across the room, a dark maroon reflects against the light. Its eyes are red, glowing like a ruby shimmering in the night.
The snake that was around his shoulders back in the hidden library…
My spine tingles as I fight against the grip of his magic on me—helpless as my gaze flickers over to an unfamiliar pair of eyes staring back at me.
“Relax,” Graylen murmurs. “He just wants to meet you formally.”
Bile creeps up my throat as the forked tongue of the snake snaps out toward me.
“Get it off of me,” I snarl at Graylen.
He laughs, the noise so innocent it sounds like we are merely playing a game we both enjoy.
There was a time when I hated him—when I was annoyed the moment he walked into a room—before he became the man I fell for. But even in all of our time in Crea, I’ve never felt afraid of Graylen.
This version of him…it terrifies me. Enrages me. And I can’t even scream for help.
“I know this isn’t you,” I push, avoiding making eye contact with the beast coiled around me. “Vidaris is controlling you somehow—forcing you to do this.”
He steps closer to the bars, and in turn, the snake wraps around my shoulders gently, a soft caress. A feeling that makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
“Oh, but it is, Lu,” Graylen taunts. “You know me better than anyone. Do I look unhappy? Trapped?” He huffs a laugh. “Vidaris didn’t force me to do anything; she remade me into something better.”
The bitter taste of doubt fills my mouth. There’s nothing in his gaze, no flicker of emotion or sign that the man I love is still in there.
“Don’t worry,” Graylen continues. His hands wrap around the bars, fingers relaxed as he leans forward. “Even without your magic, we’ll always be connected. You and I? We’re a match made in the stars. It’s not just love, Lunaria. It goes so much deeper than that.
“Vidaris helped me see things more…clearly. What you should be asking is why our connection is so special.” He pauses, his breath spanning across my face. “Haven’t you thought about it?”
My fingers don’t so much as twitch, even as they ache to slap that smirk off of his face. I don’t know what game he’s playing, but I refuse to entertain it.
“The special goddess-forged girl doesn’t want to talk?” He tsks, shaking his head, dropping his hands, and stepping back. But it doesn’t make me feel better.
“Fuck you,” I snarl, hoping Vidaris is somehow able to hear the words intended for her.
Graylen takes a predatory step forward, nearly nose-to-nose with me. I can still only move my eyes, but I couldn’t look away from him if I wanted to. He tilts his head to the side, his tongue swiping across his lips.
This isn’t Graylen, the protective and playful man I had fallen so deeply for. This is the Snake. Prepped to sink his fangs into me—somehow more terrifying than the actual snake still wrapped around me.
“Leave.” A new voice, deep and masculine, cuts through the dungeon.
Graylen growls, glancing over his shoulder.
I didn’t hear anyone approach—didn’t hear footsteps echo off the stone.
“Now, boy,” the stranger snaps.
Graylen turns back to me, his gaze flickering in annoyance. He makes a clicking noise with his tongue, and the snake begins to unwind itself from around me. The moment it frees me of its slimy grasp, I fall to my knees, Graylen’s magic simultaneously releasing me.
I glare up at him, fighting between wanting to scream for him to stay and telling him to fuck off.
“Later,” Graylen whispers with a wink.
He spins away, the snake slithering alongside him as he disappears into the darkness.
Silence bears down on me, weighing on my shoulders and leaving me wondering what the hell just happened. I don’t bother getting up, my limbs too shaky to even attempt to stand.
“Who’s there?” I ask, staving off the trembling in my voice enough to bite out those two words.
A deep sigh follows my question. Movement catches my eye.
Out of the darkness emerges a figure, tall and broad. Familiar.
His eyes are different this time, the sconce lighting them up enough for me to see. Navy-blue irises peer at me, the scars across his face somehow seeming less harsh now.
“Daimon,” I breathe.
He tips his head toward me. “Daughter.”