How stupid I was to think I could best him or trick him. Up close to him, against his steel muscles, I was small and afraid, so very insignificant. I thought of my grandmother, her blood soaked into her kitchen floor, remembered the quiet movements of her murderer as he listened to me vent to her through our walls for the very last time. Hemlock was going to use me until I shriveled into something that resembled my mother. When I had no more to give him, he’d kill me like he did my grandmother. I saw no escape.
Then, with a puff of his putrid breath, he stuck out his tongue and licked it up the side of my face. When his hands let go of their grip on me, I collapsed to the floor in a broken, trembling heap.
“Dress for a feast tonight. We’ll have a celebration in your honor.”
I grabbed at my neck and tried to swallow through the pain and humiliation.
“Oh, and do rest, my sweet Queen. I have so many plans for us later.” Hemlock spun away, vanishing into nothing more than the shadowy darkness that clung to the corners of my room.
When I knew he was truly gone, I could have flooded the whole of Ravenswood with my tears.
Chapter 16
Ifelt the stares like ice against my skin as soon and I walked into the great hall. Hushed whispers made heat spark across my cheeks, and the soft flakes of the swirling ash fluttering on my skin were like a veil of mist clinging to my every movement.
And that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Some sort of unholy dead veil I was forced to wear, warding off those who tried to touch me.
The great banquet hall was fully enchanted; the once-cracked frames of ripped canvas paintings now hung like beautiful masterpieces on freshly cleaned walls. A long table took up the entirety of the hall with an ungodly supply of delicacies fit for a feast of the gods. Hundreds of chairs were filled with Hemlock’s court, the dead dressed in their fancied attire, and an enormous white fire smoldered in the hearth, giving off nothing but the idea of warmth.
My eyes found Mathias’s instantly, half-hidden by shadows, watching me with anguish in his eyes. The undeniable pain in his expression squeezed at my chest until I found myself struggling to breathe. I was the first to look away, wishing Ravenswood would somehow intervene and pull me through the stones of the floor or let me vanish into the thin ash that drifted like a translucent wall around me.
My gaze locked on my feet as I was escorted toward the farthest head of the banquet table, to the seat beside Hemlock’s.
“My lovely pet.” Hemlock’s voice spilled ice down my spine, but I forced myself to greet him with some mumbled half-assed hello.
His ungloved fingers were under my chin immediately, lifting my face to meet his. Pale blue eyes glared back at me, looking more alive then ever before. He brushed his thumb over my bottom lip and I tried hard to suppress the shudder of disgust that bolted through me. “You look quite ravishing with my marks on you.”
My heart dropped and sat somewhere on the floor of my stomach, beating wildly. “Thank you,” I forced myself to say.
He dropped his hand from my face with a smirk and toyed with the glowing pendant hanging around his neck—and I could swear I felt the darkness of that touch in my soul.
“Am I meant to feel that?” I blurted out.
His fingers froze along the glass as his head tilted closer with a smile. “Do you like my touch, little pet?”
Terrified, I could say nothing.
Hemlock leaned in closer and brushed his lips against my cheek, whispering his words against my skin. “You will learn to love my touch, and with your obedience, I could be a very generous lover.”
I wanted to cry.
On the table in front of me, my plate was filled with unrecognizable food. The server was an ink-black shadow that hovered next to me. When it bent over to fill my goblet of wine it hummed, “Follow the flames.”
The hum was musical and deep within my mind. I darted my eyes up to the shadow, trying to meet its eyes, but where there was darkness a moment before, now there was nothing but its absence.
At the far end of the room a white flame flickered to life, then another and another, lighting along the wall and down one of the smaller hallways off to the side. “My King,” I grit out the words, “please excuse me for a moment.”
But Hemlock was too busy to hear, his head bent toward Bain’s next to him, Rose’s name whispered fiercely between them. I wondered if they just realized how long she’d been gone. I wonder how they would look for her, or if they even would.
I stood from my chair quietly and slipped myself through the crowd of the dead who, once seeing the marks on me, suddenly were giving me a wide birth to walk through.The marks were hideous, but at least no one was playing grabby-hands now.
I walked quickly in the shadows closest to the wall until I reached the first torch that had lit itself and followed the rest. I only glanced behind my shoulder once, seeing Hemlock was still in a heated conversation with Bain. I pushed through the doors the torches stopped at and slipped through the opening.
The hallway on this side of the ballroom was pitch black until the torches lining the walls sparked one by one with a dim glow. I jogged down the corridor and came to a dead end. There was nothing but a wall with a floor-to-ceiling portrait of a raven perched on the tip of a stone. It was painted in heavy black strokes that blended together the closer you walked toward it, so when you stood in front of it the picture was too abstract to see. “Why did I follow the torches here?” I whispered out loud.
Torches on both sides of the painting burst with silvery-white flames.
“Is it a doorway?” I asked, prying my fingers along the outer edge of the frame. I slid my fingers up the wood and found a small latch. “It is, isn’t it?” I said, pressing the lever, and watched as the canvas sprung open.
