How long had he been here? Where was he, for that matter?
Fear seeped its way into his body. Adalia would wonder where he was.
“Welcome back,” sneered Snake as he sauntered out from the shadows and into a small patch of light that shone through a hole in the canopy of the cave. A devilish grin made its way across his pale face.
“When I get my hands on you, I am going to tear you to pieces.” Matthias groaned, the pain pulsing through his body.
Whatever Snake had hooked him up to was making his body feel like it was on fire and frozen all at once.
“Such big threats for someone who is trapped and slowly dying.” The blond male chuckled at the prince, though it was not a joyous sound.
“How long have I been here?” Matthias murmured, his speech slightly slurred.
“Two days,” he stated as he walked a lap around Matthias.
Two days? He was right. Adalia was going to be more than worried.
The prince’s head was spinning. The last thing he remembered was seeing his father’s army gathering and needing to warn Lucius. Snake must have been the one to hit him over the head.
“I must say I’m quite impressed you had the strength to carry me all the way here. I presume we are far from home. How did you manage that with those small arms of yours?” Matthias was feeling the poison course through his veins, but he wouldn’t let Snake think he’d broken him in any form.
Snake snarled and pulled a dagger from behind his back. He slowly strode towards Matthias, stopping just before him to run thetip of the blade down the side of his face, breaking the skin and drawing a droplet of deep-red blood to the surface. “This is a very nice blade you have here. Can’t say I’ve seen this type of metal in Oscuro before. Did someone gift this to you, or did you steal it?”
Matthias pulled on his bonds as he recognised the dagger Snake held in his hand, but there was little strength left in his body. “Do you always find pleasure in taking things that aren’t yours?”
“Only if they belong to you,” Snake taunted as he flipped the dagger around in his grip.
“One day . . .” Matthias coughed, pain lacing across his chest. “One day, you’re going to get what’s coming to you, Snake, and I will rejoice in seeing your body take its last breath.”
Snake threw his head back and laughed, the sound bouncing off the walls of the cave. “The only person losing their life here is you, my dear prince. And once they have buried your body in the barren ground, I will take my place beside your father and we shall rule Oscuro together . . . I will be the son he really deserves. Not the disappointment that you are.”
“My only claim to disappointment is that I didn’t kill you when I had the chance,” Matthias growled.
“All this talk of death . . . seems like you are obsessed with it. Well, I can make that happen for you, in fact . . . I already have. By the time the poison is finished with you, you will be dead, and your father will be at war. The precious Grey will be burnt to the ground and after that,” Snake leaned forwards to hiss into Matthias’s ear, his hot breath caressing the skin, “I will find your lover. And I will make her scream . . . First with pleasure and then with pain. Her piercing cry may even awaken you from the dark abyss of nothingness where you will dwell for eternity once I’ve taken you from this realm.” The blond-haired Thorn laughed. “You want to know the best part of all of this?”
Matthias groaned in answer.
“The poison in your veins comes from the lux hyssop that grows in the mountains of The Grey. Its stem and thorns are imbued with a potent venom, capable of paralysing even the strongest of men. However, its antidote is concealed within its flower. Their tiny yellow petals, like delicate pieces of a puzzle,hold the cure to the very venom they conceal. If anyone found you, they’d first have to find the flower, risking danger themselves. Even then, their efforts will be too late. And you will be gone.” Snake huffed a laugh.
The prince tried his best to keep conscious, holding onto keywords about the flower, but he was slipping in and out of reality.
“I can see that you need to rest those pretty eyes of yours, so I will let you be. Have a wonderful time dying a slow and painful death. Think of me and that pretty brunette of yours as she screams my name.” Snake flipped the dagger in his hand once again before returning it to its concealed place behind his back. “Oh, and thanks for this.”
Matthias lifted his head long enough to watch the back of his enemy slip into the shadows before his body slackened and he blacked out once again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The well
“Stay close, Bones,” Adalia murmured to the wolf by her side.
The pair were darting silently between the trees in the forest outskirts of Oscuro, their movements graceful and full of precision. Not wanting to be caught unawares by entering the tear closest to Matthias’s cabin, she travelled to a different part of the Veil that she could push through, so the journey to his cabin in the woods took longer than usual.
Spying it up ahead, Adalia picked up her pace. All seemed quiet. Silent as she could, she reached for the door handle, turned it, and pushed it open.
The house was empty. Glancing towards the fireplace, she saw that the ash was old. If he had been here, it wasn’t recently. Nothing seemed out of place. There was no sign of a struggle. Bones whimpered beside her and sniffed around the house.
She went back outside, but found nothing there, either. She’d have to go towards the palace. What did that look like? Would she be seen straight away? Could she even find her way around thecastle? Adalia may have spent a few days down in the dungeon, but that didn’t mean she automatically knew the palace layout.
