LUELLA
The cage banged as it drifted to the floor of the throne room. Luella felt the rattle in her teeth as it came to settle on the ground. Her kneecaps pressed into the cold cage floor, and her left hand curled around the bars, her right lying limply in her lap as she sat on her bottom, not wanting to face her fate lying down.
The spikes dug into her throat with her every breath; the collar was looser from all the weight she’d lost. She could nearly stick her finger beneath the sleek, dark collar and wiggle it. She’d tried only once and had pricked her finger on the spikes—never again.
The Tenebrae stood before the birdcage, wearing a proud dark cape, his circlet perched upon his brow. Shadows swirled around him like smoke and air.
"Get up. We are leaving," he said plainly.
The door swung open as his shadows slithered to her legs, hooking around them and forcing them to uncurl from beneath her. She was too weak to fight. The bond sickness ravaged her body, making her head light, bones weak. She felt like she could snap in half from the faintest touch of his shadows.
Finally, the exhaustion was catching up to her. Maybe it wouldn’t be too long now before it all… ended.
She rose to her feet, forced by the shadows—one thought in mind. Her dazed eyes fell to the line of spikes. Ambrose’s dark eyes were pinned on her, watching her, as they’d done breath after breath, day after day. She’d felt his eyes on her, wide and unseeing—yet not quite, because a strange awareness clung to their shadowed depths. Just as it did the rest of the heads.
She wasn’t sure how the Tenebrae kept the heads alive. Were they alive, though? Or had the soul departed, and it was merely his shadows that looked through the once-seeing eyes?
She prayed that it was the latter, for how would she…
Luella’s shoulders caved inward as the Tenebrae grabbed her wrist, holding it up. His eyes traced over the bones on the back of her hand, down to the faint veins on the inside of her wrist. Her skin was so pale it was nearly translucent.
"You’re sickly. No matter. All will be right soon, my future bride. Come, I will take you to get prepared. We cannot be wed with you dressed in these rags, can we?"
She tripped as he let her hand go, and the shadows wrapped around her, urging her to follow as he turned and strode from the empty throne room. The watery blood was cold beneath her bare feet, staining the cuticles of her toes red. Now empty, the throne room appeared larger than life itself. It was as though she were the tiniest speck of dust drifting along the bottom of a chasm.
The shadows took her away from the spikes. She couldn’t fight against them, so she made her body weak and pliant, waiting. The blue glimmers of light that dotted the walls and ceiling made her pale skin glow, and the red water turned purple as they walked further toward the edges of the room.
Sconces were fixed to the walls. Close. Their flames flickered.
The Tenebrae’s shoulders were taut, pointed ears showing through his slightly curled black hair, the ends of which fell not quite down to his neck, tickling his nape and the high, stiff collar of his cape.
She made her breathing even. She made her steps stumble—it wasn’t hard. And she made her limbs as loose as she could.
The shadows sensed her weakness. Their hold grew soft, coaxing her forward as they released their tight pressure against her arms, thighs, and waist.
It was like rope unraveling, how she could now step to her own beat, move freely. And she pounced, not thinking it through, incessant insanity nipping at her heels as she broke free from the shadows’ hold, turned, and ran.
She barely heard the Tenebrae’s shout of rage, the shadows surging toward her like waves.
Luella felt their frigidness against her feet and calves. She turned her head and saw the Tenebrae standing there, watching what she’d do. His features straightened with perplexity, brow jumping high as she ran not toward the shut doors of the throne room, but back to the birdcage.
Let him think what he wanted.
Luella had her sights set on something entirely different.
He held up a hand and made a fist. The shadows stopped hunting her. She didn’t break her painful pace, soles of her feet slapping against the ground. Water and blood splashed, staining the edges of her already dirtied white gown.
Her spine and ribcage throbbed in agony. She kept wobbling from being off-balance, but she knew how to keep her balance. Instantly, she rose to her tiptoes and shifted her body’s center.
I am a tree. I am rooted. I cannot be moved.
Words Graves had whispered into her ear on the deck of the ship, when she had first learned to walk, with his hands on her chest and eyes burning bright. Shemissedhim.
Up until the last moment, she made the Tenebrae think she ran for the birdcage, for the twisted safety he must think she saw in its shape. Right before she slammed into the gilded bars and opened door, she let her body veer sharply, changing direction toward the spikes. With her left hand, she reached for a sconce on the wall and grabbed it. She felt the shadows at her back, heard his curses.
"Cease!" the Tenebrae bellowed.
Luella did not.
