Luella turned, staring into the Tenebrae’s dark eyes.
"Did you take him away from me? Bring him back. Bring him back?—"
He studied her face, and it felt like ice being scraped over her cheeks. "I have not sent you a shadow of your Vincire since your time in the dungeons."
A stuttered exhale left her.
The Tenebrae gave a dreadful laugh. If the weight of his eyes felt like ice, the ripple of his laughter felt like icicles, sharp points frozen into a deadly stillness, stabbed repeatedly into her ears until blood leaked out.
"How does it feel to be aware that your mind is failing you? Who can you trust, if you cannot even trust yourself?"
Luella fell into silence.
She was aware of her sanity slipping from her and could do nothing about it.
She kept seeing them above, whispers of chaos in the mountaintops.
Her cheek rubbed uncomfortably against the white cape draped over the Tenebrae’s shoulders. Each hoofbeat made her back ache, and she just wished she would die already. How hard could it be? How had she not died yet?
Bastian clung to the side of the mountain, red eyes peering at her through the moonlit dark.
A dark shadow was cast on the ground, rippling the longer she stared at it, as if to say,Do not look here. I am not real.
Nothing was real anymore.
The arching spires of the Lunar Temples rose high, and their path leveled out into a flatter expanse, bordered by spikes rising on each side—a foreboding welcome to the temple of the gods. She felt something inside her answer the call of the majestic sense in the air.
She saw shimmering heads on the unlit tops of the spires, ghastly eyes boring into her. Their flesh bubbled and plopped to the stone path like water—but when she focused hard, they disappeared, like a mirage.
The thing inside Luella unfurled, yearning, reaching for something unknown to her.
Her heart thundered in her chest, so loud she felt it in her ears. A steady, heavythump, thump, thump.The sound of herblood roaring through her veins, her heart cracking against her ribcage.
She was aware of nothing but the sound and the growing call in the pit of her stomach, as if something was curled into a tight little ball behind her navel, trying to rip free from her belly.
Luella sagged on the horse, making a soft, pleading sound. The wards—they’d passed through the wards.
Was that what this was? Had the presence of the Lunar Temples shattered the last bit of her sanity?
She was kept upright only by the Tenebrae’s arm, banded tightly around her waist, crushing against her wings.
The thumping grew louder. She tried to move her hand to touch her chest, feel the beats of her heart—was it going to thump right out of her body? But she couldn’t move her hand.
In the darkness ahead, the Umbra called a warning, blades zinging and horses huffing as boots began to thump on the path, dismounting from their horses.
That was when Luella realized the noise was not her heart.
The thumping turned to thunder, and the Tenebrae cursed.
The Umbra were on guard, their swords rising as the pointed tips were held out into the darkness that stretched on either side. She felt the Tenebrae stiffen at her back.
They were in a canyon-like place, mountains trapping them on either side, with the path snaking into the distance, where the spires of the temple beckoned. They were trapped, trapped, and no one would be coming to save her from what horrors would come next.
Luella trembled, shoving at the Tenebrae behind her. "Let me go, please—what’s happening? What is this?"
The little light that came from the full moon faded as a large shadow cut beneath its shape.
A worried murmur took root in the company of the Umbra.
