“With the other upsiders, he would take and take until they had no breath, but me he loved.”
I wanted to scream, but a dark and ominous feeling wrapped itself around my chest and squeezed, making me choke out my words. “You were supposed to come and find me. You missed my whole life and you don’t care. All you care about is that Hemlock will stop using you, to use me.”
She walked to the door and opened it, turning to face me without a shred of regret or concern on her face. “Leave Ravenswood, Raine. Leave and don’t come back.”
It was as if something sharp and hot shattered deep inside my body, scattering my thoughts and beliefs, tearing me up from the inside out. Even Mathias had thought I came back for the dead king. How could anyone believe I would want to help the asshole who murdered the only family I ever knew?
I left in a blur. My eyes heavy with unshed tears.
I ran over cobbled stones and through archaic alleyways, past windows with odd, dark shapes lurking, and pressing up against the dirty glass. Whispers echoed, following me like ghosts, tingling and burning at the base of my neck.
My mother never wanted me here.
She never wanted me, period.
Fog closed in around me, billowing up from the ground as I ran. Higher and higher it swelled, filling the streets, blinding me.
I had reached the old worn Ravenswood sign that jutted out in the middle of the cobbled pathway that led up to the gardens of the castle. The large bird that carved into the sign was now perched on top of it, its beady eyes staring down at me.
It cawed once, and I flinched then set off in a dead run to the door.
I sped past the creepy guards and flew back through the ballroom, up the stairs and right into the place they called my bedroom.
I leaned my back against the door and tried to catch my breath, but all I could focus on was my mother telling me she was never a prisoner here.
And how I was here only to replace her.
Was this how it really was? Nothing I did upside in life mattered? My morals and my character traits in life didn’t express what kind of a person I was? I was nothing more than some unwanted being whose only significance in life was to make some dead king feel alive again. And my own mother was jealous of me because of that? How could I possibly benefit from being his healer? What did everyone think I could get out of that deal? How could they think I would just change sides without regret or guilt?
This place was full of dead idiots.
On the dressing table there was a small bowl of water, and next to it, a white towel free of dirt and grime. I grabbed it quickly and dipped it in the basin before scrubbing my face with it. I looked up into the mirror, realizing my mother’s face stared back at me. Her skin stretched over every inch of me, the same sad eyes and mess of hair. I looked so much like her we could pass as twins.
“You’re nothing like her,” Mathias’s voice whispered out from behind me.
I spun around wildly, heart pounding in my chest.
He sat on a chair in the shadows of my room, leaning forward, hands dangled between his knees. The skin under his eyes was bruised with sleeplessness or worry, I didn’t know which.
“She wants to be here,” I whispered.
“I know. Raine, I’m sorry.” There was real regret in his eyes when he spoke. But there was nothing for him to apologize for—this wasn’t his fault, he warned me from the beginning to stay away from this place.
I tossed the towel back into the water and walked across the room to lean against the wall where he was. His eyes followed my every step.
“I can’t believe I came back here thinking I could help her.” My back slid down the wall until my bottom hit the floor. “All she was worried about was me taking her place. She didn’t care about me or what I was going through at all.”
“People change here. No one remembers what it’s like to be human.”
I looked up at him, trying to absorb his words. “How could a mother lose the love for her child?”
He stared at me a moment, taking in a long deep breath he probably didn’t even need to take. “I don’t understand why or how this place does what it does. All I know is that good people…good people don’t come here.” He reached out his hand but pulled it back before his fingers could touch me. “It beckons people with the darkest of souls, Raine. The longer the person has been here, the darker their hearts grow.”
I didn’t want to believe that. There were children here; not many, but I saw them, filthy and scared, hiding in the shadows with the others. “I’ve seen children here and…and what about you?”
His smile was sad, his eyes lingering and haunted.
His heart couldn’t be completely black and twisted, there had to be something good inside him—I knew there was.
