Chapter 27 #2
They entered a narrow stairwell with stone walls seeming to close in on them, and without so much as hesitating, Roman began to climb again.
They went up five floors, the steps beneath them becoming less slippery the higher they went.
Apparently, people didn’t go up this far all that often, because boots hadn’t worn the steps down yet.
A wooden door took them into the fifth level’s hallway.
Trying not to peer around at the familiar wood-and-iron doors, she kept her eyes on the back of Roman’s jacket.
Every thread of brightness woven into the blue was dimmed in this lightless place.
Her body remembered everything—the iron, the cold, the delusions.
When he slowed, Vaasa stared at the thick wooden door he’d stopped in front of. She shimmied past him and approached, her heart in her throat. Quietly, she peered through the iron bars. “Amalie,” she whispered.
Amalie jumped up from where she sat on the floor. “Vaasa?” She ran to the bars, her face now visible.
“Don’t stand too close,” Roman warned.
Vaasa shooed him, practically pressing her face into the iron. “Are you all right? Have you… given any more thought to what we talked about?”
Vaasa knew Roman was listening, so she chose her words carefully. But she had to know—had Amalie spoken to Veragi again? Did she have any information about the necklace?
“Yes, I—”
Amalie’s voice cut off.
Vaasa pressed harder into the bars, magic biting at her insides as she tried to calm herself. “Amalie?” Vaasa whispered.
Amalie tilted her head. Blinked.
Her eyes bled to white. Bright, glowing like the moon, like the wolf that had grown from Vaasa’s darkest moment.
Vaasa sucked in a breath, and then Amalie’s hands flew up, her fingers snaking around the bars.
They opened in invitation, curling in a beckoning call, and on the tips of them was the faintest trace of black mist.
Whoever this was, it wasn’t Amalie, Vaasa was certain. The thing that looked back at her was no human, no being of this world. Bright white eyes, the same she’d seen in her conjured wolf, the same she’d seen in every manifestation.
Something in Vaasa’s bones told her she knew this magic. Knew this force, even when she couldn’t see it, even when she couldn’t access it within herself. There was no reckoning powerful enough to take this familiarity away, because the magic existed within Vaasa, too.
“Veragi?” she whispered.
The goddess smiled in what looked like relief.
Roman moved to block Vaasa, but before he had the opportunity to stop her, Vaasa gripped the iron bars.
Veragi’s hands closed over hers, and faintly she heard Roman hiss her name.
But his voice was drowned out by the sudden onslaught of magic.
It ripped through Vaasa, unforgiving, down her spine and through her limbs, tearing and pulling.
Mist wound around her neck and then plunged down her throat and nose, the sensation muddling her mind as it wrapped around it and squeezed.
Pain seared through Vaasa, but just as quickly as it came, the agony abated.
Behind her eyes was the image of something that started blurry and then took perfectly clear form.
Vaasa stared at her mother.
Vena Kozár paced in a hallway, staring down at her hands as Veragi magic consumed them. She twisted her fingers into fists, holding them close to her body, trying to breathe. Vena’s head whipped to the side, and Ozik approached. He looked around them as if checking to be sure they were alone.
He took Vena’s hands in his. It hurts, Vena whispered.
I know, love, Ozik whispered back.
The images Veragi sent shifted, turning in on themselves until Vaasa stared at the greenhouse. It spread out in front of her as if she were standing there herself.
Ozik led Vena into the structure, the olive tree towering above them, the stone statues all around them.
Vena graced Ozik with a smile the world had rarely ever looked upon, one Vaasa herself had hardly seen.
The two exchanged words Vaasa couldn’t hear.
Vena turned and lifted her hair, and Ozik fastened something around her neck, whispering to her all the while.
The black stone necklace.
On his hands, small black veins writhed.
Ozik closed his eyes. His face contorted in pain.
When he opened them again, red flashed until gold bled through the crimson in a smothering wave.
The black veins on his hands snapped back, leaving the youthful skin of the advisor Vaasa knew.
Ozik paused there, holding the necklace, staring down at Vena as if he looked upon his entire world.
Once again, the images shifted and turned.
Fear pounded through Vaasa, fear that wasn’t entirely her own.
It was a miserable kind of adrenaline as Vaasa’s vision leveled out.
She stood in the hallway of the emperor’s quarters, her mother fleeing down it.
Her hand lifted to her neck, but there was no necklace there to hold.
Ozik lifted his hand and twisted his wrist, and in front of Vena, the Miro’dag took shape.
It struck.
Vaasa swore she screamed as she watched it all happen—watched her mother sink to the ground in a pool of jade fabric, watched the life dim in her eyes. Watched as the Miro’dag feasted upon Vena Kozár like she was nothing but a soul to consume.
Ozik turned, and his eyes glowed bright red. There was no sign of gold any longer.
The vision spun. As it all leveled out, Vaasa stared at… her brother.
He clutched the necklace in his hand.
Vaasa was a mere ghost, a fly upon the wall, as Dominik slid back the lid of their mother’s sarcophagus.
Located in the grand mausoleum that sat sturdy in the center of the city, Vaasa remembered the day her mother’s body had been laid to rest next to her father’s.
She had just learned of her impending marriage to Reid of Mireh. Fury had shadowed the entire ordeal.
And now, there was Dominik, his fist clutching the necklace’s iron chain as he stared down into the sarcophagus. Vaasa couldn’t see her mother’s body, but she remembered the etchings of snowdrops the makers had carved into the sides of her coffin. Their mother’s favorite flower.
Rage simmered in the harsh tug of Dominik’s features. He placed the necklace in the sarcophagus and then grimaced. All of a sudden, his eyes went wide, and he reared back—
His gaze snapped up, and even though consciously Vaasa knew this wasn’t real and that he couldn’t see her, fear flooded her veins. It was as if he stared into her soul, as if he were still alive and crawling toward her with a knife again.
Vaasa was thrown back into herself, the vision disappearing on a snap.
Veragi released Vaasa’s hands, and Vaasa lurched backward, stumbling into Roman as he wrapped his arm around her waist and tried to tug her away from the cell.
Nausea swept over her in a roiling wave.
She fought to keep her magic settled, to prevent it from leaking onto her hands.
Vaasa doubled over, curling in on herself as Roman tugged at her shoulders to try and get her to stand.
Loss and anguish made a home in every crook within her.
“Let me go,” Vaasa croaked, fingers still clinging to the bars.
The bright white of Veragi’s eyes drained, and Vaasa gasped as her best friend’s body crumpled into an unconscious pile on the dirty prison floor.