Chapter Eleven
ELYSSARA
Vessira’s blade lightly presses into the sensitive skin of my underarm—my arms chained above my head as I dangle from the dungeon’s ceiling, feet grazing the floor.
My nose fills with the stench of iron.
The dungeon is silent, save for the drip, drip, drip of old wounds ripped open and bleeding on the damp stone.
She skims the tip across my flesh. Not cutting—teasing. Taunting. But that doesn’t stop the visions.
Whatever alchemy Vessira has infused into the blade—it works.
I hear boots descending the stairs, light and nimble, the clink of steel. A figure rounds the corner, fitted in heavy black armor, and hooded in a fine cloak. The wide-set frame of the figure’s shoulders tells me he’s a warrior, and the weapons hidden and cloaked from head to toe confirm as much.
He turns to me, and the lantern’s flicker illuminates half his face.
His mouth kicks up into that smirk that turns me molten, as he pushes the hood back, revealing his chiselled jaw, and those godsdamned ocean eyes.
He’s ruin wrapped in beauty.
And my desperate need for him scrapes and claws like a captive animal against the cage in my chest.
I lean towards him, hungry for his touch.
Reaching for him.
“Kael,” I whisper, desperate for him. He is a balm to my wounds. Nourishment to my hunger. He is wholeness to my void.
“I told you I’d come for you, Duskae,” he promises in a low rumble, and I break at the sound of his words.
I let out a whimper unbidden.
His hand stretches out, reaching to cup my face—
“How pathetic,” Vessira mocks. “The Prince of Nothing is what you most wish for?”
I startle, Kael vanishing before my eyes—a trick of the mind. An apparition by a fucking Venomshade.
“You fucking bitch,” I spit at Vessira, teeth bared, struggling against my chains.
She holds up the blade as if marveling at it. “This is infused with alchemy that conjures dreams, Gutter Rat. An altruistic work of art, I’d say.” She’s doing exactly as she said she would; distorting my reality like a blindfold on the truth.
“You created that image—you can hardly blame me for conjuring your dreams. It was a gift to you. A mercy,” she convinces and mocks all at once.
I fucking hate it, but my desperation forms a lump in my throat. I push it down, trying to quell the emotion and panic threatening to unfurl. But I can’t—a single tear tracks down my cheek, and a ragged, broken breath wracks my body.
I hate that I’m breaking.
I hate that she can see it.
Nothing undermines resolve more than unexpected hope, and that’s what the vision of Kael was.
“Fuck you,” I bite through glassy eyes.
Vessira sighs, feigning insult. “Well, Gutter Rat, if you won’t take my kindness graciously and show your gratitude for the alchemy to conjure dreams…
” she withdraws a second weapon, tracing her finger over the flat of the blade, and stalks behind me like a fucking duskprowler.
“Perhaps it’s time to meet your nightmares—”
She lashes out, slicing the blade down my shoulder—a souvenir to keep alongside my brand.
FUUUUUCCCKKKKKK.
The room spins. Or my mind does.
My eyes roam the dungeons, seeking, searching for anything that makes sense, panic clawing at my chest. My gaze catches on my feet, chained and brushing the floor, covered in the filth of this place—blood pools around them.
Not mine, though. My eyes follow the trail of crimson as it flows through the cracks of the dungeon’s floor as easily as it flows through my own veins.
And that’s when I see them—
Ronyn. Seren. Revryn. My parents. Therion. Rubi. Daelen.
Butchered.
Dead.
And standing over them…
Kael.
Twin swords of gleaming, onyx metal held firmly in each hand.
He smiles sardonically, as if this were all a game.
As if all that I hold dear are tools of leverage and not something sacred.
No. No. No.
NOOOOOOOOOO.
Their bodies blink out, returning into the recesses of my mind, as if they never were. But I won’t forget—I know my mind will deliver it to me in my darkest moments without request.
“So, Gutter Rat,” Vessira’s snarling voice cuts through the darkness, “what would you prefer—dreams or nightmares?” She looks at me as if my pain is a victory.
But pain is an old friend, and visiting can be a welcome reminder of all that I can endure.
I lift my gaze, imbuing it with hatred, “Both are a welcome reprieve from the horror of looking upon your face.” I spit at her feet, sickened by the fucking sight of her. “I’ll take the nightmares if you’re offering,” I challenge.
She recoils in disgust, as if I’m a living disease. “You don’t want to look upon my face?” she asks, stalking to the far side of the dungeon. She pulls out a tattered hessian sack and strides back towards me with the glint of violence in her eyes. “I can solve that. How do you like the dark?”
I lift my chin, defiant and unbreakable.
“The darkness knows me intimately—it will welcome me home. It always does,” I growl through bared teeth.
She throws the sack over my head.
“Well, let’s get you reacquainted,” she whispers with menace that snakes down my spine.
And the dagger of nightmares cuts through the flesh of my thigh.