“But—”
“You promised,” he hissed.
My fingers trembled over his face, yet he was as solid and still as stone, unmoved and unafraid. “Trustme.”
I dropped my hands to my lap in defeat. Did he know this would happen all along? Was this his way of escaping? He got to end his misery here and I was forced to stay on as some reluctant healer to a town of dead nutcases?
The guard to my right pushed his blade into my hand.
“I promise you. I will never leave your side,” he whispered.
Through my tears, I glanced toward Hemlock and something dark and sickening shifted deep inside me. I looked away, back to Mathias, trying to focus on him. How was I supposed to do this? “I can’t,” I choked.
He closed my fingers around the sword. “Let me go, Raine.”
My hands shook as he gripped them and lifted the blade to his neck.
I could barely breathe.
“One day we will find each other again and know death is a conquerable thing.”
“No,” I said, backing away. “If you make me a murderer,” I said, darting my eyes back toward Hemlock, “I will take my own life the instant it’s done.”
“What an odd thing to say,” Hemlock murmured.
I pushed away from the guards, pulling the knife far away from Mathias’s flesh. “Is it odd?” The knife was heavy in my hand. “I’ve spent the last twenty-two years believing murder was a sin. Why would I want to spend my eternity in Hell when there seem to be…other places to, uh…stay.”
“Stop, Raine,” Mathias’s voice hissed under his breath. “You don’t understand the alternative.”
I ignored him. What could be worse than being stuck here without him?
Hemlock rose up from his throne and slowly closed the distance between us. His broad frame lumbered before me and slipped in the spot between Mathias and me.
“An alternative. How very interesting, Mathias.” Hemlock smiled then, a strange twist of his lips that was both sinister and maniacal. “I happen to have another option for you, my little dove.”
Oh, I can’t wait to hear this crap. But what choice did I have, right? Anything would be better than watching Mathias die by my own hands.
“Become my Queen.”
Chapter 15
Iwas left alone. It felt like days, weeks, years even. No one, not even Mathias, came to my room.
At first I was glad. I had struck a deal with Hemlock that maybe wasn’t so bad, especially if being a queen meant being left alone in my room and Mathias remained in Ravenswood.
But then the panic set in—panic about the consequences of the choice I had made. What would becoming Hemlock’s queen mean? What would happen to my mother? To Mathias? To me?
What the hell did I do?
But what choice did I really have?
The more I thought about the implications of the things I had set in motion, the more worried I became. My stomach twisted in knots and the waiting for someone or something to enter the room was maddening. The only relief I felt was from leaning my back and palms against the chilly stones of the walls, relishing the vibration and hum of Ravenswood against my skin. I slept on and off, my slumber full of fitful dreams of long-ago gods that I had read about in the extremely small mythology section of the bookstore.
And then he was there with me, Hemlock, rippling to a solid form from the darkness and shadows, as if he were there, hiding, the entire time.
I stiffened, sitting up straighter, the stones at my back reverberating frantically. Ravenswood was just as unhappy to have him visit as I was.
Hemlock’s smile curled at both ends as he leisurely leaned a shoulder to the shadows. “I hope I haven’t kept you waitingtoolong.”
