“You can’t.” He shot fire at me, and I stood strong and let it wash over and through me. Chilling me but not touching my inner strength—the only thing keeping me going.
“Give them to the one who can usssse them.” Iasar said.
“Who?”
“When the time issss right, you will know.”
“I’ll do it then. I promise!”
I. Am. Worthy.
Iasar stared past me, through me, before his gaze locked on my form.
“One day, your truth will sssshine,” he hissed before he winked from the room.
I turned while stuffing the bone coins back into my pocket.
Dregs poured into the cavern from every opening. Their hands lifted, and the squish and slither of their oozing bodies jarred across my skull like the dull edge of a blade. Their glowing eyes locked on me.
They’d come for the bone coins, and I had to do all I could to stop them from gouging their meaty hands into my pockets to take them.
My heart stilled as their limbs squelched like enormous slugs, their footsteps plunging against the hard floor as they lurched toward me. The sound gnawed through my nerves, making them snap and recoil.
“Give them back,” one growled. “Ours, not yours.”
The heavy clammer of their bulbous joints ripped up my spine as their eyes pierced through me. Icy dread pooled in my gut. I couldn't tear my eyes away from their relentless advance. I could not make myself leave.
But in the past, I had.
I’d caught one look at them and flitted to Weldsbane, where I’d huddled in my cold bed, my teeth clattering together, the sound of their oozing bodies echoing in my mind.
Why couldn’t I flee them now?
They reached me, and with a guttural cry, I wrenched backward, stumbling over something soft and squishy lying on the floor. I fell to the ground.
“Ours,” they snarled in unison. “Never yours.”
Their thick, oozing hands latched onto me and they—
Again,someone whispered in my mind, and I was sucked away once more.
I found myself in Ivenrail’s dungeon. He stood between me and my mother hanging from the wall by chains, her limp body barely jerking from the endless slash of his blade.
“Where is she?” he snarled. “Tell me. I need her.”
Who was he talking about? I didn’t remember this, but I’d done everything within the power of my frail, child’s body to block that time from my mind, to seal it away where even I couldn’t find it.
My mother hissed, and while I couldn’t see her around his form, I remembered her lifting her head. She spit into his face.
“I’ll . . . never . . . tell you.” Her air gushed out, a wheeze of pain that scraped across the raw, scorched skin on my chest and neck.
“Tell me!” He gouged the blade forward.
She grunted.
I still couldn’t see her, and I sensed I should. But I could feel the stroke of her hand on my brow, the kiss she’d given me eachnight before bed, her whispered words that Imustremember. That I must seek her . . .
In my mind’s eye, her feral smile rose, blistering across the king.
