Chapter 33 Nothing Left to Lose
Nothing Left to Lose
Caramyn
Caramyn stood in the same spot for what felt like hours, staring into the lifeless fireplace that was supposed to be kindling with the firewood they had set out to find.
Instead, they had only found disaster. Just when her heart had finally begun to open, her past reared its head and closed it, stitching it shut tighter than before.
But there was still a wound left that she couldn’t seem to repair so easily.
She had experienced her fair share of betrayal and rejection, but this time it was different. She’d never felt rejection from someone she had begun to trust. Never from someone she was starting to...
No. I feel nothing for him.
She knew she must tame these thoughts that churned like the waters beneath those cliffs. It was the only way she would be able to win the war within herself. She couldn’t let herself continue to care about Asterious. Caring about him had cost her everything.
But her desire to find out the truth was fully alive and well, fueled by the pain left from their interaction.
She would not be able to leave this place, these people, and just forget it all like Asterious expected her to.
Whether he liked it or not, he had entangled her in his mess, and now she wouldn’t be discarded so easily.
If he didn’t trust her, fine. But how dare he pretend he had the moral high ground when he was so clearly concealing something too sinister to even imagine.
How dare he try to threaten her with killing her after toying with her emotions all this time.
It was all a trick. It had to be. There was something he didn’t want her to know, and it had shaken him that she’d gotten so close to figuring it out.
He wasn’t sending her away to protect her, or to keep from killing her.
That was horseshit. He was sending her away because guarding whatever secret he kept was far more dire than even getting his precious Shadowblood sword.
More sacred, apparently, than saving his own sister and mother.
And now that he had unmasked her secrets, she intended to do the same to him. She’d not forgotten those disturbing chains in the West Wing. And surely that’s where she’d find the truth. She had one night left here in this castle and nothing left to lose.
And as though he’d heard her very thoughts, Nocthar swept in and landed on the windowsill, the gleam of his eye catching the last bit of daylight as it faded beyond the horizon. And in his beak—the key to her room.
She didn’t even care to know how he’d managed it.
All that mattered was that he did. And she could either run…
or unmask Asterious. The bird dropped the key into her open palm.
“Well done, my friend.” She stroked him, running her fingertips along his sleek, black feathers as a plan took form in her mind.
“Nocthar, make sure your wings are well-rested. Tonight, we’re going to take a little visit to the West Wing. ”