He doesn’t get it. There’s nothing to work out. There’s no way back—the only way forward being a solid stone wall I have to punch my way through with wounded fists and a fractured heart.
There’s not one single part of me that wants to see what’s on the other side.
The monster you know is safer than the monster you don’t.
Cainon gives me a once-over, a deep sigh sawing out of him as he offers an outstretched hand and a pitying look that burns. “The tide’s rising. Too much longer and we’ll be trapped down here until it drops again.”
I look at his hand, whipping my gaze away in the next beat and staking my stare on the female chained to the cold, stone floor. Then across to the shaft of light that’s clearing the dust of denial that had settled into the grooves of my mind.
My thoughts tumble to the room in the heart of Castle Noir—the one where Rhordyn and Zali held the Conclave.
I suck a small, unguarded breath …
The table.
The hole in the middle.
The shaft of light piercing down from the roof to who knows where.
The hollow, melancholy vibe that swept over me the moment I set foot in that room, leaving me feeling bereft, as though I’d just cracked the seal on someone’s resting place.
What’s been below that hole—thattable—this entire time? A corpse? Or maybe there’s a living, breathing person chained to the floor, counting down the moments until someone comes and rips into their throat.
Not justanysomeone …
Him.
Slowly and then entirely too fast, I unravel the threads of my life, examining every fraying piece like the venomous snakes they are.
My muscles tighten. Fists clench.
He didn’t tell me about the Gods or the Unseelie or their wicked, twisted ways.
He knew I’d ask questions and work out what he was.Knew that he’d lose hispet.
Instead, I was tucked in a tower, nurtured and clothed, spoon-fed my daily dose of sun. For whatever reason, I was the lucky one—perhaps because I was an idol of survival to inject hope into his people and stem the discord for a few more years.
What about the rest?
If Cainon’s theory proves true … I only gave Rhordyn a single drop of blood a day. Nothing more. Certainly not enough to survive off.
Again, my thoughts rip to Baze—to his twisted, ravaged flesh.
Anger flares, a pulsing ember born of nineteen years of unquenched curiosity, because suddenly all those locked doors and secrets make too much fucking sense.
I don’t want to look. Don’t want to see.
My upper lip peels back …
But I’m going to, anyway.
I shove to a stand and stalk toward that shaft of light, kneeling before the female Aeshlian as I dig through my pocket for my hairpin.
“Orlaith, what”—I plunge the pointed tip into the mouth of the lock, twisting, flicking—”what are you doing?”
There’s a dull clunk when the lock opens.
“Freeing them,” I mutter, opening the jaws of the cuff and releasing the woman in the only way I can, draping one of the moth-eaten blankets over her bare body. Gifting her a scrap of modesty.
