A quick shudder rolled through my shoulders. “We might not be. Depends on what kind of magic we’re dealing with. Mauldrene can apparently create as many caves as she wants. If she can keep changing almost everything about herself, she could lead us on indefinitely.”
“Which translates to us being stuck inside Mauldrene’s guts forever.” Now he shuddered. “What should we do?”
I signaled to the book. “Maybe something with this? I mean, I have no idea what, but…”
Baz rubbed his thighs while we ruminated in silence.
“Maybe,” I said. “What if we try to talk to her? Have you ever tried to have a conversation with her?”
“I’ve cursed her out plenty of times. Does that count?”
“Ha. No, it doesn’t.”
“Then no, I haven’t. Where do we start?”
“How should I know?” I tipped my head back and called out loudly, “Mauldrene?”
“That’s a name I made up for her. She might not respond to it.”
“Okay.” I called again, “Uh, castle? Ah…” Shit. What did one say to a castle who did what she wanted, when she wanted? If I weren’t stuck inside her, I’d probably admire her for it.
Absurd as it might be, my diplomacy experience kicked in. “My name is Soravelle Davana. I’d love to make your acquaintance. I’m princess heir of the D’Arcos, and daughter of a Tulon. You may know her. My mother by rebirth is Rafaela Eudova.”
The cave trembled so hard that its many smooth surfaces squeaked as they twisted. Fine droplets of … ugh, who knew? … misted down on us. While the tunnel floor shook me, I hastily shoved the book back into my waistband.
The cave walls squeezed inward then outward, inward and out, their movements plainly visible even in the near-dark. Like a heart, the cave pulsed and pumped. My power, forced to slumber, woke and attempted to sense for blood. But there was no blood—because there was no power.
A moan whistled like the wind. Again came the moan, setting the fine hairs of my arms on end.
It wasn’t the moan of a castle, but of a person in horrible pain.
Chapter 15
The First Time Baz Learns What It Truly Means to Have Enemies
The moans were delicate, whimpering whines that knocked Baz back centuries. It was as if Velle no longer sat beside him, when touching her was practically all he’d been able to think about since he’d first met her.
Behind closed eyes he didn’t recall shutting, he saw himself, on that warm autumn day that had earlier felt so perfect, and that was now forever seared into his memory, arriving at his family home in a crunch of crisp, fallen leaves. He hadn’t yet been a sänglure. Still, he’d sensed something was gravely wrong even before crossing the threshold of his home, the exterior of which was untouched.
When he entered, fear had rooted him to the spot, taking over until he shook like a leaf. Blood pooled in slick puddles across the tile floors; it spattered the walls and furniture. From the entryway, he could already see servants littering the sprawling rooms, some in pieces, their bodies contorted at unnatural angles.
His voice had cracked when he’d called out for his wife, for their wee daughter. Their lack of response shattered his courage. He’d stumbled over bodies and slipped on gore as he ran through spacious rooms that had once felt safe, comforting even. Despite his parents’ protests at the match, he and Arabella had made a home, and then they’d been blessed to welcome Carina into it.
Baz finally found Arabella sprawled beneath a rosebush in her favorite garden, her face, once so animated by joy, obscured by its lowest branches. Even before looking into her blank eyes, there was no hope. Her body was too still to contain life—especially since it was being slowly eaten. Starsuckers had slipped beneath her skirts and suctioned their many mouths to her skin. After draining whatever blood hadn’t pumped out through her slit throat, their tiny teeth that resembled rose thorns had begun gnawing at her flesh.
Carina had been curled in a tight ball beside her mother, her small hand clutching Arabella’s so fiercely that Baz had later left their hands entwined when he’d burned their corpses on the pyre. Carina had tried to flick the starsuckers off her dead mother. His brave little girl had killed two of them, smushing their hand-sized, gelatinous, star-shaped bodies until their eyes—one each per their five arms—had popped, oozing a foul-smelling, white pus. But when they’d climbed on Carina herself, their numbers had quickly overwhelmed her. She’d been so young, and a deep slice to the abdomen had already been zapping her lifeforce.
Baz had screamed while he tore the grotesque parasites off his daughter, cursing his family’s murderers along with Isai, wherever the fae was, in whatever world he was currently befouling. Until Isai had opened his portal, the Opalese hadn’t been cursed with starsuckers. With murderers, however, yes; the Opalese had always had plenty of those.
Carina’s eyes still brimmed with the spark of her essence when he cradled her against his chest, but they were already seeing beyond this world and into the Etherlands. She hadn’t uttered another word, hadn’t called Baz her poppy one final time.
But she’d moaned—oh, how terribly she’d moaned—piercing his broken heart so that he would never forget the wretched sound. His Carina had keened and whimpered like every passing second was killing her anew, like every breath she succeeded in dragging into her small chest was a fresh torment.
The blood gurgling from the slice to her midsection was dark and poisoned, and the curero Baz kept on staff to care for his people had been separated from his head.
Baz had swept the blood-spattered hair from her forehead and kissed it, then closed her unseeing eyes. He stabbed his own daughter—swiftly and cleanly—through the heart. Instantly, her moans had silenced—except for in his nightmares, where they lived on forever.
That was the first time Baz learned what it truly meant to have enemies. It would be far from the last.
