‘We had a fight last night,’ Avari’s father said, rubbing his face tiredly.
Posture rigid, Alec stood and turned to me. There was something missing from his eyes. ‘Why are you here?’
What? ‘You brought me here.’
‘Ava’s bedroom. Why are you here?’ His enraged voice raised hairs on my arm. ‘Did you do something?’
They were all worried about Avari. And we all needed to know her whereabouts. ‘Calm down. I’m here because I wanted to talk to her.’
Just as he prepared to fire back, his father stepped in. ‘We have more important things to do than accuse one another. She might have gone back to Ortensia; I will have a team sent there to check the castle. Did she mention wanting to go?’
‘No, I’m not sure if she would ever want to go back there,’ I said, thinking back to all the times she tried to leave and couldn’t.
They discussed something in hushed voices and disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, leaving me alone on the threshold of the empty room that somehow still thrummed with a steady flow of energy I couldn’t pinpoint.
She must have grown stronger, leaving her residual magic all over the place.
If she left, I just hoped she knew what she was doing because as much as I hated to admit it, she was right.
It was dangerous out there.
Chapter Forty-Four
Avari
My head lolled back on impact, my neck straining to keep it upright as the urge to let it fall took over.
A long cut ran along my thigh, blood pooling beneath the chair in a steady trickle. The puddle made my head spin; by the look of things, I would eventually bleed out.
Every time I tried to move, my wrists tore against something that felt like raw sandpaper. My hands were bound so tightly behind my back I could barely feel my fingers. There was no give, no slack. The bindings bit deep, threatening to cut off circulation entirely.
My mind raced, trying to find explanations for what was happening and ways to escape this rotten-smelling hell. The uneven dark walls were moist enough to grow moss and resembled the inside of a mountain.
I couldn’t deduce much more. With one eye swollen, I looked at the smiling woman before me as she laid out a row of blades on the nearby table.
She would kill me. She planned to. The sharper the blade, the more she watched for my reaction as she twisted them in her hand, making them glint in the harsh fluorescent light above us.
‘What am I doing here?’ I choked out. The dryness in my mouth made me gag as my lips stuck to my gums.
My stomach dipped at the thought of water. I was exhausted and starved too. How much time had passed since I stepped through the portal?
My fire, witchcraft, and even the minuscule shadows were nowhere to be found. Void. Blankness. Nothing answered me. I was completely and utterly empty.
Like she realised that I just attempted to burn through the binds, she laughed hysterically, choosing the smallest of knives. ‘You’re finally where you belong.’
The black-haired woman kneeled in front of me, caressing my thighs like she cared for me. Up and down, her hands moved as she basked in my discomfort. ‘Choose.’
‘What?’
Too fast for me to track, she placed the blade against my cheek, lightly dragging it down. ‘Choose a leg. Or I stab both.’
Cold sweat coated my back, then slid down my forehead. She poked the beads with her dagger, never pricking the skin.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I begged. ‘Why?’
‘Why are you doing this?’ she mocked me, running the blade along my sternum, circling my heart and moving on to my arms. ‘All of your questions are so predictable. Have some originality.’
I screamed. The blade drove into my thigh as she slammed it down to the hilt.
