The cold finality of Galen’s words strikes me like a blow, stealing the air from my lungs. For a moment, the blood weave trembles, a fragile thread stretched thin as Galen smirks, raising an eyebrow as he stares at me. My thoughts whirl and his grin grows wider as he watches me work out the truththat’s been staring me in the face.
“It was you,” I breathe. “You were the warlock my coven sold me to.”
Galen’s grin remains fixed and his voice cuts through me like a blade. “You’re not stupid after all. Pity. It might have been easier to control you.”
“You were always going to kill them, weren’t you?”
Galen steps closer, his silhouette cutting through the oppressive dimness like a predator stalking its prey.
“They were weak. Blind to the power they could have wielded. And you?” His smirk twists, cruel and mocking. “You were the key to unraveling it all.”
The blood weave surges again, and Kade’s presence feels like a distant heartbeat, faint but steady. I cling to it like a lifeline, even as Galen’s words threaten to pull me under.
“Why?” I ask.
Galen doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, his gaze sweeps over me, dissecting, calculating. His eyes are dark, fathomless voids that drink in the dim light, leaving no trace of humanity behind. The flicker of fear I saw in Malric’s face moments ago now churns in my chest.
“She’s stronger than you let on,” Galen remarks, his voice deep, cold, and resonant, like the reverberation of a struck bell. His tone carries no praise, only an idle observation, as though he’s noting the durability of a tool he intends to shatter. “Stronger than I’d hoped she’d be.”
“She won’t be for much longer,” Malric assures him.
Galen steps closer, the shadows clinging to him like loyal hounds. His presence is a curse, all silence and suffocation, and unrelenting pressure that wraps around my chest like a vise. He stops just short of the broken table, his towering frame casting me in his shadow.
He tilts his head slightly, the motion almost curious, before crouching to meet my gaze. The room seems to shrink around him, the oppressive atmosphere thickening until my every breath feels like dragging knives through my lungs. His hand extends toward me, not to strike, but to hover just above my temple, the heat of his palm igniting my skin like a brand.
“Malric enjoys games,” he continues, his tone almost conversational, though the words scrape at the edges of my sanity. “But I’m not here to play. You’ll give us what we want or you’ll wish for death. Either way, you’ll break, Zara. The only question is how much pleasure I will take from your suffering.”
“I won’t break,” I bite out, defiance laced through every syllable, though my voice trembles under the strain.
Galen’s lips curve into a faint smile, devoid of mirth. He straightens, his figure looming over me like an executioner’s blade.
“Your coven said that,” he says, turning to Malric. “Every one of them swore they wouldn’t break until they did. And Zara, they begged me to make it quick. Every single one of them.”
