But now, on the other side, I knew what it meant.
You’ve never been alone, Wychthorn.
It had spoken of the wyrm inside me, that had been with me since birth, growing, maturing with my age. Though the rope bound its might and buried it so deep inside I couldn’t feel its presence, it was still part of me.
I’m not alone…I’m not alone…
I could do this, just one foot in front of the other.
But what Jett had said earlier amplified my fears.
Even if I got the collar off, the wyrm’s powers would be reduced to nothing. I’d be unable to use its brutal might to obliterate the Crowthers. To tremble the ground so violently that the Keep would crumble like a mountain, nor turn its insides into an oven and burn it, melt it, destroy it.
A distant part of me worried the collar would stop me from escaping. But there might be some kind of loop in the conditions that bound me to the estate. Maybe down here, deep below the Keep, Zrenyth’s magic would be void.
I desperately wished to cross the tunnel and keep running to freedom.
To climb to the surface on the other side and make a run for it. I’d run and run and run, and no one would find me.
On and on I walked through a layer of dust that proved no soul had passed here in ages while liquid darkness pooled around me, saturated with a sense of time that had no beginning and no end.
Surely I’d be close to the edge of the estate by now. And almost as soon as the thought crawled across my mind, the collar twitched.
A cold weight settled in my gut, but something bright flared beneath it.
There was no escape while the collar bound me here, but the twitch meant I’d reached the border. So close to stepping over the threshold, where beyond lay freedom.
How far would the escape tunnel go before it curved back up to the surface?
The collar snagged tightly around my neck.
I stumbled to a stop, stepping back until the pressure eased. With a hand trembling with exhilaration, I raised my flashlight. All I wanted to do was peer through the tunnel and see where it led, even if I couldn’t yet. Freedom was right there, right in front of me.
Hope spun through my bloodstream.
My torch slid through the darkness andthen…
Struck a wall directly in front of me.
A solid wall.
The escape tunnel was blocked by a wall of dark stone that gave off the subtlest of shimmers and sent a shiver of dread down my spine.
I knew with certainty that this wall differed from Graysen’s tower with its wild magic. There would be no trigger either, like the secret entrance at the library. This was much like my father’s treasure trove, the tithe prison too, and I’d need a special key to get past it. I realized now why Jett didn’t give a fuck if I found thetunnel, because there was no way through it. Hope obliterated into fragments as a myriad of thoughts, all of them dark and twisted, rushed through my heart. Here in the darkness, with only a feeble light staving off the black inkiness, a wail wrenched from my throat. So much like the terrified cries of the small, frightened child I once had been.
I couldn’t get into the armory to find Zrenyth’s mites.
I couldn’t get this collar off my neck.
I couldn’t move past this wall.
There was no escape. Even beyond the rope, beyond the wall, there was something more sinister than everything combined—the Alverac. A darker part of me, one I’d refused to acknowledge, rose in bleak waves and whispered that I’d always had a greater problem than Zrenyth’s collar. The Alverac would bind me to Graysen’s will in two weeks’ time, and there was no freedom when that happened.
Desolation crashed upon me, and I did something I promised myself I never would.
I broke. Horribly. With violent, ugly tremors that rattled my bones. I heaved great, shuddering sobs of misery and wretchedness that split apart the eerie silence.
My knees cracked against stone as I crumpled, falling forward, my palm slapping the cold floor. The flashlight escaped my limp grip, growing dimmer as it rolled out of reach.
