Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Sticky strands of hair caked with dried blood stick to my forehead.
I have no idea how long I’ve been in this pit or strapped to this chair.
It could be hours or days. I’m delirious from the pain and exhaustion.
The moment I feel death beckoning me, it slips through my fingers.
I’m eager to greet it past the point of sanity.
But before I can slip into the next life, I’m ripped from its clutches and brought back to this hell made of sand and sweat.
They break me repeatedly, but not enough for death to claim me.
Yaretta rests against the bars of an empty cell, while Rhett and Eryk discuss the next steps. Frederick paces behind me, his hunger becoming insatiable. I think he’s worried they’re going to kill me, and my soul will escape before he gets to feed.
Blood trickles into my mouth from the cracks in my lips.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve had anything to drink, and the heat is stifling.
My shirt clings to my back, damp from perspiration and fear.
Both of my bare feet are resting on top of the hot sand, and I can feel the blisters forming.
The metal from the chair feels like it’s melting my skin off.
I welcome death with open arms. Pray for it. I’ve reached the point where I might even beg for it.
The sand around me is no longer golden, but now a muted crimson. A testament to the pain that has passed. The sun beats down on my broken form, causing the dried blood covering me to become itchy and unbearable.
For a glorious second, a shadow falls across the sky, blocking out the sun entirely. If I weren’t so delirious, I might look up out of curiosity. However, I can barely lift my head enough to look in front of me, let alone look upward.
Instead, I bask in the precious seconds I’m given a reprieve from the sweltering rays.
I used to enjoy days filled with sunshine and surf.
I’d walk through the broken tides, let my hair hang loose and become tangled from the sea breeze while catching sand crabs.
The warmth would tuck away the darkness I felt swimming beneath my flesh, if only for a moment.
It was my little secret. But in those stolen moments, it was everything.
Now, I’m not sure I’ll ever love sunshine the same way.
Not after baking in it for who knows how long, while they broke me piece by piece.
It will never again feel safe. I will never again feel warmth as a welcome reprieve.
I spit into the stifling sand, blood mixing with the saliva. The movement causes me to inhale sharply, pain lancing through my jaw and up toward my ear. I’m pretty sure it’s dislocated.
The ground shakes beneath my feet.
Screams tear from Yaretta and shouts from the men.
I manage to lift my head just enough.
Death.
Death has come for its dues.
Death has arrived on waves of shadow and demands retribution.
Darkness surrounds us, and in the middle of it all is a Noctryn, shadows pouring out of each hand and a promise of reckoning in his dark eyes.
Kingston.
I can’t explain it, but I suddenly feel peace. Vengeance will be served. Even if I’m not the one able to do so, I know my debts will be collected.
He takes one look at me, and his eyes turn black.
Eryk screams out orders, his arms flailing in panic, and a door opens from the side. The blood curdles in my veins as wraith after wraith enters, their hoods hiding their decomposing faces but not the stench or the palpable thirst they bring with them.
Kingston’s shadows wrap around their throats, before going through their mouth and nose, cutting off all oxygen.
He pulls both swords from his back, one in each hand, and starts cutting through the rotting army.
He fights like he lives. Every step is measured, every strike an answer.
Steel cuts through the air as wraiths fall at his feet, heads removed from their bodies.
Some scream as they collapse while others never have a chance to make a sound.
There are no evasive moves.
He simply disappears and reappears like a reaper demanding vengeance.
I suck in a broken breath.
The simple gesture causes a sharp pain to knife through my side.
They just keep coming. For every wraith he cuts down, three more enter through the door.
Two ropes fall down the opening of the pit.
I slowly tilt my head back, pain radiating down my spine as I look up.
I watch through swollen eyes as two soldiers make short work of the climb, landing heavily in the middle of the chaos.
One in a ballistic vest, gauntlets on his wrists and forearms. An assassin ready to strike.
The other is wearing the same uniform as I am, just not gray.
The look on his face is another story altogether.
Ambrose looks at my injured state and lets out a roar that shakes the walls.
He cuts down a wraith without taking his eyes off me and starts in my direction. He sheathes his weapon, raises his hands, fires burning in each palm, and throws them with lethal precision. The abominations fall at his feet. Ashes mixing with sand.
Yaretta leaps away from the metal bars she’s been holding onto and runs behind me. She grabs my hair in a painful grip and thrusts a knife under my chin.
Finnley takes measured steps in my direction, his arms held out, not even looking at the death and destruction happening around him. His focus is entirely on me.
Fear and hesitation are pooled in his eyes.
“Yaretta, don’t do this. You’re better than this,” he pleads, slowly walking toward us.
She digs the tip of the knife into my lower jaw, as blood trickles onto my lap. “Stop right there or I swear to the gods I’ll skewer her head on this blade,” she screams over the sound of battle taking place all around us.
Finnley ducks as a wraith grabs for him, quickly standing and driving his elbow into its face. A shadow slithers around its neck before it even hits the ground, squeezing until the head falls forward and rolls across the sand, landing at my feet.
Ambrose drives his knee into the face of another, as he spins and throws his sword, landing deep in the chest of one coming at me from the side. He’s resorted to hand-to-hand combat now. He won’t use his fire this close to me. Not with it being so unpredictable.
My gaze swings between Kingston and Ambrose. Darkness spills from Kingston as he dispatches two at the same time.
We’re outnumbered, and they just keep coming.
Finnley is mere steps away. I turn my broken gaze on him.
“Hi again,” he mouths, but I can read his lips perfectly. He turns his worried eyes to the person behind me. “Yaretta, please.”
She laughs cruelly. “See, Norissa, that’s how you beg. It’s not so hard, is it?” she taunts, digging the tip in even farther.
I wince and hold as still as possible.
“Hello, brother,” a deep voice says from the inside of a cell.
Finnley’s head whips in the direction it came from. “Rhett?” he asks, confusion coating his words.
“The one and only,” Rhett answers, stepping out from his hiding place, his arms spread wide.
Finnley’s eyes move from his brother to my broken face, and back again. “What are you doing here? What the fuck is going on?” he demands, his brows pulled down with a solid mixture of turmoil and fear etched across his face.
“What you should have done from the beginning, but apparently I can’t count on you,” he answers in a deranged voice. He points at me while looking at Finnley, a satisfied glint appearing in his eyes. “We got her, Finnley.”
I slice my eyes to Finnley’s face.
I have no idea what’s going on. I can barely see out of the swelling in my eyes.
Yaretta has my head pulled back at an unnatural angle, and every breath vibrates against what I’m convinced are multiple broken ribs.
One wrong move and I’m going to end up with a punctured lung or a dagger through my jaw.
I’m doing my best to put the pieces of the puzzle together, but it’s almost impossible to concentrate with my body deteriorating by the second.
He doesn’t look at me, just keeps his narrowed eyes on Rhett. “This wasn’t a part of the plan,” he replies, his tone turning icy.
“I came up with a better one, Finnley. Look,” he says before disappearing into the cell directly in front of me. He opens an adjacent door and shuffles through. A few seconds later, he walks back out, pushing two people who are bound and gagged.
Finnley’s eyes widen. “What are they doing here?” he demands, his voice rising above the fighting.
I shoot my eyes toward Finnley. Confusion and denial are painted across my features.
Rhett pushes the two prisoners into the chaos.
A man and woman in tattered professor robes, faces hollow and emaciated.
Their eyes dart around the pit filled with dozens of wraiths.
They glaze over the Noctryn surrounded by shadows cutting wraiths down one by one, and the Veil dispatching them where they stand.
The woman screams behind her gag, and the man shakes his head in denial. I wasn’t in her class, but I vaguely recognize the woman as Professor Hunstal. A starved version of her.
I can only assume that the man is the missing alchemy professor from last year.
His cheeks are sunken in, and bruises cover his temple area.
“We no longer need them, do we? I mean, now that we have the Liminal and the book,” Rhett remarks, walking back into the cell and coming out with my bag. “See,” he says, smiling as he opens my bag and shows Finnley Silver resting at the bottom of it.
I tear my gaze away from my bag. From my secret little book.
“Finnley, what’s he talking about?” I ask through my teeth, trying not to move my mouth too much since the dagger is resting directly under it.
Yaretta grips my hair tighter. “Shut up, bitch,” she seethes.
Finnley tears his eyes away from his brother and looks at me. Fear shines in his eyes, along with something else that makes me want to puke.
Regret.
Gods no. Please, no, not again.