This is herhome.
The darkness in that cavern receded. The light in the room became too bright. Everand’s voice was too loud. As soon as Aziel broke through the surface of the enchantment, he flew to his feet. With a rumbling growl, he’d thrown himself across the room and pulled Everand from the chaise. He was on top of him, incisors mere centimeters away from the prince’s throat when that cruel and suffocating darkness returned.
He watched the world and all of his fury slip from his grasp again as Everand’s odorous magic flooded him.
“Listen to me,” another wave of magic ran through him, forcing Aziel’s eyes to look at the man now standing over him. “You will believe everything you hear. You will believe that everything I do is law. You will not argue, you will notfight. But,” he combed his hair back into place. “I suppose I will allow you to feel the pain of losing your mate to another man. If only for my own satisfaction.” His face dripped with disdain as he looked over Aziel’s body. “I do enjoy seeing you helpless. It will be my greatest accomplishment, you know? Watching the God of Death die in front of me, but keeping him alive enough to do my biddings. Watching you waste away, day by day. Forcing you to watch me with her…”
There was just enough strength inside of him to look Everand in the eyes. He hoped, from the deep dark recesses of his mind, that the prick saw the promise of death in his gaze. It would come for him. He didn’t care if Everand’s name was on The Toll or not. He didn’t care if Fate brought all of her wrath down upon him for going against the natural order.
He did notcare.
And in a voice that sounded deceptively melodic and repulsively enchanting, Everand spun his tale. “Nymiria is mine, now. You will believe that she left you—that she sought a better, brighter future than you could provide her. She wantedme. She wanted a title. She wanted power. And you, the reminder of her horrors, are nothing.”
Chapter 26
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Considering that Everand was insistent upon them getting married within days, she assumed it hadn’t been more than a few hours. She knew that the wound on her chest had healed, she couldfeelthat much. Even if she couldn’t see it in that unforgiving darkness, at least she had the ability to feel things.
After the Mimics took her blood, they left her there. Everand appeared moments later, but only to bring darkness to the dungeon, and then was gone. There was nothing left for her to do other than sleep, so she did. It gave her enough time to calm down, to regather her thoughts and center herself before she made any more rash decisions. Now was not the time for her to act on impulse.
As much as she wanted to scream and throw herself at the bars of her cell, she remained seated on her cot, silently listening to what was happening above her.
There were no sounds of children’s laughter. Even Thorn, a usually loud man, could not be heard at all. All she could hear were the thick, gravelly voices of those monsters as they roamed around her father’s palace. They complained that it was too bright, some of them even joking to dig holes into the floors to begin building their tunnels. There were sounds of glass shattering, of heavy footsteps and music.
“They’ve turned the place into a bloodytavern.” She grumbled to herself, shaking her head and drawing her knees up to her chest.
Her mind wandered back to the children—to Raven, in particular. None of them seemed to have been under any sort of spell. They seemed perfectly normal that day in the courtyard. All of them, except Raven. He’d stood far away from them, his face void of its usual innocent joy. And he’d been watchingthem. Not the other children as they ran and played, but Everand and his mother.
He wore the same sort of expression in the foyer as he watched her being dragged away, right before he made that signal with his hands.
Nymiria lifted her hand, repeating exactly what Raven had shown her. She dragged her index finger down through the air, and then into an upwards curve, and then another line. Jagged. Like one was drawing a lightning bolt. She traced it over and over again, trying to imagine what it would look like if she were to draw it on paper.
After many frantic minutes of scouring her mind, trying to remember her rune studies with Aziel, her finger froze midair.
Purify.
Cleanse.
Her brow furrowed as she rose to her feet and moved blindly through the darkness. She walked with her hands outstretched, taking careful steps until she reached the other wall of the cell.She felt around below, hands moving over the top of the vanity until she found the porcelain pitcher that Everand so foolishly forgot to remove.
With a quick swipe of her hand, the pitcher fell to the floor and shattered. She made it a point to swear loudly, as if it’d all been but a harmless accident. It was pointless for her to glance around and see if anyone was nearby, but she did anyway. Her hands trembled as she plucked a piece of it off the ground.
She carved the rune into the stone wall in front of her, only able to hope that it meant something—that it coulddosomething.
Moving away from the wall, she glanced around in that darkness, listening to the nervous pounding of her heart. She prayed that there was no one that could see, no one laughing at her foolishness somewhere in that dungeon.
But then she saw it.
The darkness parted, bright light bleeding into the black until all of it vanished completely. Nymiria recoiled from the sudden onslaught, eyes squinting and then blinking rapidly as she tried to make out the image of the person who was now gliding down the stairs.
When her vision finally adjusted, she watched in confusion as Raven stepped towards the door of her cell and unlocked it with the smallest twitch of his fingers. When his gaze found hers, he looked at her with almost no emotion. But she saw it in his eyes. Just like with Aziel, she saw the truth written there—theangerhe felt. The helplessness.
“How…” She breathed.
Her brother lifted one shoulder. “Don’t ask because I don’t quite know how to explain it, either. I just kept dreaming about that shape. I didn’t know what it meant at first, but I’m able to use it. It keeps me and the other kids from being affected by Everand’s charms.”
“You know what he is?”
Raven nodded. “I could see what he was the moment he set foot in this palace. It happens sometimes—I can see through enchantments and spells. His human formradiatedgold, but it was almost clear and I could see through it. I could see his Mimic form.”
