“Fuck you,” I bite through glassy eyes.
Vessira sighs, feigning insult. “Well, Gutter Rat, if you won’t take my kindness graciously and show your gratitude for the alchemy to conjure dreams…” she withdraws a second weapon, tracing her finger over the flat of the blade, and stalks behind me like a fucking duskprowler. “Perhaps it’s time to meet your nightmares?—”
She lashes out, slicing the blade down my shoulder—a souvenir to keep alongside my brand.
FUUUUUCCCKKKKKK.
The room spins. Or my mind does.
My eyes roam the dungeons, seeking, searching for anything that makes sense, panic clawing at my chest. My gaze catches on my feet, chained and brushing the floor, covered in the filth of this place—blood pools around them. Not mine, though. My eyes follow the trail of crimson as it flows through the cracks of the dungeon’s floor as easily as it flows through my own veins.
And that’s when I see them?—
Ronyn. Seren. Revryn. My parents. Therion. Rubi. Daelen.
Butchered.
Dead.
And standing over them…
Kael.
Twin swords of gleaming, onyx metal held firmly in each hand.
He smiles sardonically, as if this were all a game.
As if all that I hold dear are tools of leverage and not something sacred.
No. No.No.
NOOOOOOOOOO.
Their bodies blink out, returning into the recesses of my mind, as if they never were. But I won’t forget—I know my mind will deliver it to me in my darkest moments without request.
“So, Gutter Rat,” Vessira’s snarling voice cuts through the darkness, “what would you prefer—dreams or nightmares?” She looks at me as if my pain is a victory.
But pain is an old friend, and visiting can be a welcome reminder of all that I can endure.
I lift my gaze, imbuing it with hatred, “Both are a welcome reprieve from the horror of looking upon your face.” I spit at her feet, sickened by the fucking sight of her. “I’ll take the nightmares if you’re offering,” I challenge.
She recoils in disgust, as if I’m a living disease. “You don’t want to look upon my face?” she asks, stalking to the far side of the dungeon. She pulls out a tattered hessian sack and strides back towards me with the glint of violence in her eyes. “I can solve that. How do you like the dark?”
I lift my chin, defiant and unbreakable.
“The darkness knows me intimately—it will welcome me home. It always does,” I growl through bared teeth.
She throws the sack over my head.
“Well, let’s get you reacquainted,” she whispers with menace that snakes down my spine.
And the dagger of nightmares cuts through the flesh of my thigh.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KAEL
Two daysof travel to the far south of The Wastes has stripped us down to essentials—food, sleep, and will. We speak little. No one jokes anymore. Even Ronyn and Daelen have run out of clever things to say. The further south we go, the more the Belt tugs at me. A low, hungry pull beneath the skin.
