He heard the screams far before he took the winding stairs that led below.
The prison was a stone structure, rising from the ground. That was why the underground hadn’t been flooded.
As the steady dripping of water began to faintly echo the rising symphony of screams and thumps of skin on skin, Az felt the need for vengeance fill him. He shoved open the thick stonedoor, and within, he found Vale pummeling a strung-up male—an Umbra.
Bastian stood against a wall, arms crossed. His red-tinted eyes met Az’s as the demon entered and let the door clang shut behind him.
Vale didn’t stop.
The Umbra was sobbing, white hair hanging dirty and soaked in gore, face a bloody pulp. One eye was protruding from his skull wickedly, blood vessels popped. The skin around the socket was inflamed and busted, like the force of the dragon King’s blows had been enough to rupture the fragile state of his eyeballs in his skull.
Az had to look away. He wanted to love violence like demons did, but he often felt like he had to force himself to do so. He could stomach this—for Luella, he would endure. He would listen to every scream, be the cause of the Umbra’s screams, too. He’d force himself to watch, to listen, to rage, to hang on to every word and ensure nothing was missed.
"He’s useless," Bastian pronounced tiredly as he watched the display of violence without a drop of hesitation. "His mind holds nothing of note. The Tenebrae does not allow the Umbra to carry anything worthwhile."
The Umbra gave a scream as Vale lashed out at his stomach. Bone cracked. Blood bubbled up past the Umbra’s lips.
"Where’s Graves?" Az asked Bastian.
"Searching for more Umbra."
Az sighed. "Right."
They wouldn’t stop. Not until Luella was back with them, and everyone was so scared of them that they didn’t even attempt to harm her without quaking at the thought.
It was necessary. So why did Az feel a void in his soul, which was once filled with sweetness and strawberries at the mere memory of his Vincire?
72
SIGNED IN BLOOD
VALE
The quill in Vale’s hands shook. He tightened his fingers around it, a low hiss rumbling in his chest. When the trembling stilled, he dipped the tip of the quill into the small pot of ink by his elbow, then touched it to the long scroll before him. The faint scratching noise of the quill on the paper began to fill the room, echoed by the warm breeze drifting in through the opened curtains of the lounge.
The setting sun dipped, casting long and thin shadows over the floor. He stared at them, feeling something well within him—fervent obsession and unrest.
Somewhere out there, Luella was being hurt, tortured… All while Vale sat here drawing up letters begging for help—for anything.
His knuckles were bruised and cracked, flaring with pain as he wrote. He did not stop. He hadn’t for days and nights, bleeding into each other. It was a monotony of waiting, a horrible stillness, forced upon them all.
Everything had to be just right.
Vale was the King. And kings could not falter.
He rarely slept, ate to keep himself strong, and trained his muscles and strength through the countless hours of torturespent on the prison island, the near-endless rowing of the boats, back and forth and back and forth.
When not torturing captured Umbra for any information on the Tenebrae and Luna, Vale sat until the wax of the candles had been burned out, curtains open, and quill set upon empty parchment. And he pleaded.
For the first time ever, the King of Serpentis begged for help.
The others did not know.
He refused to let them know just how worried he was and just how far he had fallen.
A king who moved too soon doomed more than himself. He wouldn’t risk her by rushing into plans halfheartedly, on mere emotion alone. Patience was a weapon.
Vale was patient… his dragon was not.
