“You’ve both been hiding her this entire time.”
The words butcher me down the middle. They scoop out my insides, then slop them on the ground, heaped in a steaming pile.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Jerk against my chains so hard I feel them peel some skin from my wrists, immediately quenching that itch.
He knows …
And I’m stuck down here in a fucking cell.
“I’m looking forward to killing her. I’ll hang her from a pike so everyone can see Shadow’s Hand in the flesh before I set her alight while you and the boy watch.”
My eyes snap open, a snarl slicing between my bared teeth.
Don’t listen, kid.
I rip at my chains again, again,again.
Cainon gives me a serpentine smile and shoves to a stand, towering over me. Looking down on me like the God he thinks he is. “Until then, you’re going to the Glass Palace,” he says, cutting a glance at Zane, and my snarl morphs into a deep, chesty growl that rattles my fucking teeth.
Cainon dishes me a smirk. “Bothof you.”
Iwake like a punch to the heart.
My eyes pop open, and I gasp a breath, gaze scouring a net of palm fronds to the powder-blue sky beyond. I rip at my chest with clawed fingers, brutally aware of the shards of crystal dome still wedged in my lungs and withered heart. Poking out of my smashed and splintered bones.
There’s a gnarled, overgrown forest of thorny emotion stuffed inside me, filling every dark, shadowy corner. Raw, painful emotion I’m too scared to touch. To handle.
Like I’ve forgottenhow.
Silver vines have twisted around my bones and organs, sprouting a nest of pretty slate-colored grayslades bearing charcoal filaments—so fucking beautiful I ache in places I never knew existed.
I don’t deserve those flowers.
Don’t deserve them—
Whimpering, I roll to the side, looking toward the sloshing sounds of the ocean.
A stretch of turquoise water glimmers in the sunlight. Small, frothy waves lap at a thin stretch of dark-blue sand that clings to my skin. My stomach clenches, and I gag, coughing up a vile mix of salt water and bile.
The storm must have dumped me onto the beach …
Rhordyn’s shirt hangs off my shoulder, torn in places but bone dry. Like I’ve been here a while. I pat my thigh, finding my sheath empty, though there’s a familiar weight around my neck …
I finger my necklace, confused.
How did I secure it after I ripped it off?
After—
You did this.
Cainon’s hissed accusation attacks me like a barbed whip slashed at my heart, and I see the look in Zane’s eyes as he fell. See him reaching for me—clutching that cloak with his other hand.
A guttural moan morphs into a sob as I crawl toward the water.
You did this.
I shove to my feet, stumbling over my steps before I run—colliding with the splashing waves, falling to my knees. The water swirls around my waist while I claw at my chest and tight throat. While I reach behind my arm andpinchharder than I ever have.
