Chapter 33 #2
I took the first step as a pair of huge eyes emerged on the wall, searching for but not finding me.
The walls began to close in around me, and I picked up the pace, stepping over the stream of faces with quick, light steps.
God, the squish. When my feet hit solid ground, my muscles relaxed, but—as I was quickly coming to realize—peace in Malignant Manor was fleeting.
I blinked back against the swirling shadows ahead and stepped into an office of sorts.
This room too held no ceiling, save for what appeared to be a continuation of the dark void I’d seen in the hallway.
But it wasn’t the void itself that made me clutch my chest, it was what ebbed and flowed within the pit.
Shadow creatures slithered in and out of the darkness like fish in a stream, hissing as they passed above me.
The way their eyes tracked me … they knew I was there.
Could sense my presence. I pressed my back against the crooked bookshelves when a sliver of light caught my eye, seeping from an arched doorway below a spiral staircase ahead.
“Well?” a woman’s voice bit out, muffled by the distance.
The shiver down my spine was answer enough as to who she was. Bethesda.
“She didn’t show,” Deception responded. “I’m beginning to think the witch and his pet may have gotten to her.”
“I do not doubt it for a second. Not an hour after my brand was placed, it was purged.” Bethesda hissed. “Serenity: ever the thorn in my side.”
Serenity? I dared a few steps closer and rested my face against the doorframe.
Deception sighed. “Fear not. Serenity’s power is nothing compared to yours, my love.”
I swallowed a scoff. Love? As in … they were together?
My stomach turned at the memory of yearning for his lips against mine, at the simple fact I’d allowed a snake like him to pretend to care about me.
To convince me I was more than a mere pawn in his game.
But now, knowing those lips had touched Bethesda’s, a fire built inside me.
Swallow it down. I can’t conceal your elements.
“Serenity would be wise to fear me,” Bethesda responded. “She is weak and tiresome. But, regardless, she is still a Guardian. If given the opportunity, she is sure to awaken Fey. Like breeds like, after all. We need her to remain dumb and blinded. Same as she’s always been.”
“You think Feyanna has awoken so soon?”
My stomach soured, the memory of Fate’s finger on my chest rolling over me. I rubbed a hand across the stone in my chest and focused back on their conversation, in hopes I may get insight into what it meant or its use.
“Hardly!” Bethesda’s heels clicked against the floorboards, slow and steady. “If they’d broken through our mental blocks, we’d know it by now. No. She hasn’t awoken yet. At least not entirely. You did as you were told and showed her her family, correct?”
“Yes, my queen,” Deception responded.
“And?”
He cleared his throat. “She recalled.”
“Perfect.” A clap echoed through the room. “At least there is that little victory. You know what they say: The best lies are woven in truths.”
They shared a laugh as acid rose into my mouth. Liars. Wicked liars! What the hell did they want with me? I leaned forward to sneak a closer look when the wooden board beneath my foot let out a shriek.
I froze, sucked in a breath, and held it.
It was neither Bethesda or Deception who sought me out, but a foul creature whose putrid stench crept up my nose without me even breathing.
Another Lore, no doubt. Its skin stitched together, and bits of shattered gemstones and precious metals poked through oozing wounds on the naked beast’s entire body.
Worse still than the pus and blood trickling from those open wounds was its face, which bore no mouth or eyes, just flaps of poorly sewn flesh and a crooked nose.
It slunk closer and closer, until I could hear its sniffs. Oh God. I waited for it to pass or find me, but Bethesda proved my saving grace as she barreled into the dark library.
“What are you doing?” she asked the skin-bag before me with thick irritation.
It didn’t respond—how could you with no damn mouth—but nudged its head in my direction.
Her gaze fell heavy on my location, but I remained firm.
Motionless. Seconds ticked away, my lungs screaming out for breath as she dared a step closer.
She stopped next to the creature—its shoulders a good two feet above her own—and arched her face up at it.
With one touch, the Lore crumpled to its knees before her.
“Waste my time again, Envy, and I will feed your precious trinkets to the Sandmen!”
She snarled, tore a gem from its split earlobe, and sauntered to the center of the room, allowing me to finally catch my breath.
Envy crawled on hands and knees after her.
A wicked grin crossed Bethesda’s face as she raised the stone above her head.
The figures I’d seen diving in and out of the ceiling earlier swept from the void above with great force, their moans chilling me clear down to my bone marrow.
“Do I make myself clear?” Bethesda asked, madness dancing behind her tone.
Envy nodded fervently. Her head tilted, listening as though the monster spoke, but no audible voice came out. With a huff, she cast the stone across the room, and Envy skittered after it.
“Pathetic fool.”
As she returned to her partner in the library office, she paused.
Not two feet from me, she scoured the room one last time, face still concealed beneath her cloak of darkness, even in the manor’s safety.
What was she hiding under there? A final snarl, and she spun about, disappearing through the door.
I waited, listening for more information when the click started at the base of my skull. It began low and slow, almost as if I had a crick in my neck, but intensified into a sudden migraine.
Time to go, my helper said.
But I hadn’t heard what I needed to, what the queen and her loyal henchmen slash lover had in store for me. How I fit into this whole plan and what my role was in the grand scheme.
“Not yet, this might be my only chance to hear it straight from the enemy’s mouth,” I muttered back under my breath.
The click burrowed deeper into my brain, spreading into my shoulders like a pair of hands gripping on for dear life. They pulled, ushered me from the Sandmen’s office, down the hallway of human prisoners, and back up the grade to the forest. It was then I realized my predicament completely.
I’d followed Deception into the queen’s domain, but I had no idea how the hell to get out.