I squeeze my eyes shut, heartbeat tripping over itself as my body roils, trying to mutate into something else. My back snaps off the marble, head thrown back as a scream is ripped from my throat. “I can’t stop it!” I roar, squirming against the all-consuming want.
All-consuming rage.
His whisper pulses throughout my head, throughout my blood.
“She’s mine.”
This was a mistake. A deadly game of balance that we all knew weighed too heavily on one side. I’m not strong enough. I can’t contain the creature that dwells within me.
Lady Bethany grabs the manacles from the far side of the room. Too far away to stretch to this side. “We have to put him in the chains, now!”
Two guards rush in to grab my wrists. But not even Devin and them can keep me down as I contort again. I’m slipping, my eyes beginning to roll back into my head.
“Get out of my way,” he snarls in the slippery corners of my mind.
“End it, Devin,” I strangle out. The veins bulge in my throat as if trying to stop the command. “You have to end this.Please!”
“I can’t.” Frowning, Devin gets off me as the guards begin to drag me along the ground, backwards to the manacles.
My vision blurs, then darkens until it’s almost black.
“My turn,”the beast hisses like oil and blood.
Fifty
- MARCELLA -
I scale the side of the castle until I get to Lyra’s window and tap on it. She appears immediately, eyes wide as she opens it with haste and helps me in. My body shakes with how cold it’s gotten outside, and as she shuts the window, we turn to each other.
I nod at her. “I must say, you played a good part.”
Her eyes narrow. “I’ve been dying to speak with you the last two days. Why did you wait so long to deliver that message?”
A thousand reasons, Lyra, but we don’t have time to run through them.“Because I couldn’t risk being caught. Lady Bethany commanded that I can’t speak with you and Aelia ever again.”
Her head snaps back in disbelief. “Why would she care if we’re associated with one another?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But she also told me that Cyrus isn’t the most powerful person here—that she is.”
Lyra crosses her arms over her chest with a small laugh. “Sounds like something she would say.”
“I wouldn’t test the theory. I’m not quite sure what she’s capable of, and…” I toss a look at her bed. “I think you should sit down. There’s a lot I have to tell you.”
“Wait,” she throws out a hand between us, “there’s something you need to know too.” She digs a hand in her dress pocket and pulls free something small and shiny. “Look at it.”
I hesitantly step forward to take it from her, turning it over in my hand. A beautiful diamond and ruby earring with a splash of something dark against it.
As I look up at her, she whispers, “It was Willow’s. And I found it out in the hallway, partially hidden by a curtain as we all walked to the dining room.” She points at the splash of darkness against it. “That’s blood,Marcella. I don’t think she just ran away. I think something happened to her. Something awful. And I think…” Her lips begin to tremble as if she’s too fearful to finish her thought.
I rest a hand on her shoulder and guide her back to the bed to sit. Though, my own fear rises like a shadow hovering over my mind. Perhaps I don’t tell her the truth about Cyrus. Only that we must leave at once. And I know the way out.
Lyra whispers, eyes wide and distant as they meet mine, “The visions have been getting stronger. I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night trying to get out of my room. The forest with the fog? The one I’ve told you about? That vision is our last trial. Before Willow disappeared, she said cryptic things to me. About how soon there wouldn’t be any of us left. I thought maybe the opium poppies had her hallucinating, but…I saw more in the vision. No one survives that last trial.” Her voice breaks out into a cry as she says, “Not even you, Marcella.”
“Shhh,” I pull her into a hug, holding her head to my chest as I rub her back with the other hand. “It’s going to be alright.”
She sobs against me, and I grip her harder as I tip my head back up to stare at the ceiling. Pulling in a breath, I let her go and crouch before her.
“Look at me,” I say calmly. When she lifts her teary blue eyes, I squeeze her knee. “We’re going to get out of here. That trial isn’t going to happen, alright? But I need you to calm down first. I need you to be strong. Take a deep breath. In, out…good. Okay, keep doing that. Now tell me the last light vision you saw. Let’s just focus on that right now.”
