How do they all know how bright the moon is? Is there a window somewhere in this dungeon? Wouldn’t that be counterintuitive?
“Light the vault!” Justus commands a fire-Fae.
An amber-eyed male approaches almost reticently, his Adam’s apple rolling in his throat as he gloves his hand in fire. Without penetrating any farther, he streams his flames toward the far wall, igniting a recessed arc. The flames catch and spread, scampering up dozens of channels, forming lines of varied length that drench the solid black vault in light. I’m so blinded by the glowing Lucin sun crest that it takes my eyes a moment to adjust.
And when they do . . .
Although the room sparkles with hoarded riches, the only thing I see is the woman seated in a gold throne, one hand resting on her lap, the other, on her armrest. Justus mentioned our family likeness, but I’m not prepared for how much she resembles the mother I will never meet.
The cruelest sorceress to have ever lived not only studies me right back, but her bow-shaped mouth curves into a smile that seems cut into her unlined face with a dagger. “Hello, Fallon, darling.”
Seven
Istand frozen at the entrance of the vault. Even the air in my lungs feels like it’s turned solid.
“Inside. Now.” Dante’s hand connects with my spine, jolting me out of my stupor and propelling me through the narrow entrance.
The man really needs to stop bossing me around. Unwilling to look away from Meriam, I don’t ferry a glare his way, but oh, do I grit my teeth and plot how I will push him around once armed with magical blood.
Meriam’s pink gaze strokes over my hair that’s the same deep auburn as hers, even though mine hits just below my shoulders and hers spills down to her waist like my mother’s. “She will need to come nearer, Maezza.”
I plant my feet wide. “Are you so lazy that you cannot even stand to greet your darling granddaughter, Meriam?”
My snide remark is met with a quiet, “They’ve not told you of my predicament?”
I frown.
Dante leers at the seated woman. “Your grandmother is trapped to the throne she desired so dearly.”
“What do you mean,trapped?” Though smaller than Marco’s in Isolacuori, her throne is a perfect replica to the sunray throne.
“She’s become one with it.” Justus flattens his palm on the small of my back. “Careful what you ask the Cauldron for, little Fallon, for the Cauldron grants every wish, and sometimes in the most terrible ways.”
I’m in such shock, that when Justus applies pressure to the base of my spine, I skate right across the buffed obsidian, almost ending up in Meriam’s lap. The second his hand falls from my body, I lurch back, but I don’t get far because the general has anticipated my retreat and planted himself behind me.
“She will not harm you,” he murmurs.
“Not harm me?” I snort. “That woman killed her own daughter. What’s stopping her from endingmylife?”
Meriam dips her chin, which is as pointed as my own. Why must we resemble each other so? Why couldn’t I have taken more after my Crow father? “Why would I harm my curse-breaker?”
“Yourcurse-breaker?”
“Yes. Mine.” She tilts her head, and the auburn mass shifts, revealing her right arm. When she sees me glance at it, she hooks her hair with her opposite hand and presses her cascade of curls farther back to offer me an unobstructed view of her misfortune. “Who else has been cursed by the Cauldron?”
The Crows. I smother the answer. Frankly, it’s best that no one makes the connection or they may reconsider keeping me alive.
Dante pulses out an impatient breath. “She cannot harm you, Fal, because your lives are bound.”
My heartbeats become suspended, and a dull buzzing nips at my eardrums. “What do you mean by bound?”
“My cunning daughter’s last spell was binding our two lives so that if you suffer, I suffer. If you die, I die. Did you not feel how the earth shuddered when you were shot with a poisoned arrow, because Justus felt it, didn’t you, husband?”
“I—I . . .” I try to remember, but the night became fuzzy after Lore sliced off the wildling’s hands. “If Zendaya’s dead, why are we still connected?” I draw my gaze over the golden folds of her dress that drape across her motionless form as though cast from actual metal.
“Because Zendaya usedyourblood to bind us. Technically, you magicked me.”
“I was still inside her womb. Or was I already inside Mamm—Agrippina’s womb?” Whatever. “The point is, I was a blob afloat in a sack of fluid inside someone’s abdomen. How the underworld did she manage to coax blood from my veins?”
