Her entire body jolted against him, her back scraping against his chest, forced further back in the saddle, until she was nestled close against him. She shivered from the cold leaking from his flesh, even through their capes.
Pain stole her, and she gasped, head falling forward until her hair obscured her vision. She stared at the trampled flowers that passed by in a blur until she knew nothing else.
She dreamed of voices whispering to her.
Give in. Just give in. It will all be so much easier.
The voices turned to screams. And the screams turned to chaos.
Air whipped around her. Then, the air turned to blood, droplets falling from nothing. That, too, shifted to fire, crackling and burning against her skin as a trail of headless bodies chased after her.
83
HEART OF HEARTS
LUELLA
Luella jolted awake with a pitiful cough, leaning over the saddle. Her midsection was sore, and her neck ached as she turned her head slowly. But at least her back was not flush against the Tenebrae’s chest.
Hooves thumped over a path of packed dirt. The jolting was not as harsh on her body, or perhaps she was just growing used to the pain.
She didn’t move, watching rocks begin to surface in the dirt the further they traveled. One had the strange shape of a face she knew—her fingers twitched, wanting to reach out and pluck the rock and keep it in her pocket, if only to never part from him again. But the horse was too swift. Before she could lean to the right and let her fingers slip from the pommel, reaching for the rock holding the shape of Az’s face, hands curled in the back of her cape.
She was forced to sit upright. It was dark, and mountains began to rise around them, arching high in the distance. The moon was resplendent, its wise face staring down at her suffering.
"Trying to jump ship?" The Tenebrae spoke lowly behind her, tone mordant.
Luella was delirious. "We’re not on a ship."
She felt his laugh at her back.
"What a show this will be—you’re playing your part so well, it is almost as though you have read my mind and know that I want to make him suffer at the mere sight of you."
What?
"They will come for you. They always do."
"Who?" Her voice was barely a sound, but she already knew.
"My half-brother. He will come for you. Why do you think I have made such a spectacle of this—our union? It is to entice him to me. To make him crawl from his dragon den and face me like a male. I desperately wish to see my half-brother again." His voice turned soft.
Luella knew if she dared to look into his eyes, she’d see green.
"You want them to come, don’t you? I’m bait." Her chin trembled. "But w-why?"
"The Fates are inexorable in their perverse humor," he began. "So long as the conditions of a prophecy are met, it will come true. The meaning is… up to interpretation."
She heard the slick smile in his voice.
"Power over all, purest wings, of a winter’s snowfall. There will be one reigning king, and four aligned hearts, with the blooming rose."
"Where did you—how?"
"Where do you think I got it from? I stole it. I’m good at that—stealing. I stole you, I stole the crown of Luna, and I stole the piece of the prophecy from theCompendium of Fates, centuries ago, knowing what was written within could help me have you."
She remembered when she’d first found the Compendium in the library of Serpentis. The torn page at the bottom, ripped haphazardly. She thought it had been Vale and the others who’d stolen it, and theyhad—they’d taken a piece from within, but more than that had been ripped from the book, it seemed.
"It was you," she breathed.
