There is only the Tower.
The great doors groan open. The sound rumbles through the earth, through my bones, shaking loose whatever part of me still believed I could outrun this.
A figure stands at the threshold.
His fanged, silver mask gleams in the dim, waterylight—expressionless, endless.
White robes spill around his feet, across the stone, untouched by the wind that whips through my hair, the salt-laden air that burns my skin and fills my mouth with the taste of sea and ruin.
I take a step back.
The Tower pulls me forward.
No matter how far I run, I will always end up here.
Thirty-Two
The Masked guards close in around me. A wall of steeland flesh, faceless and merciless, pushing me toward the Tower. My gaze skims frantically over their shoulders, searching for Alder. But he’s gone.
A shuddering breath catches in my throat as I’m shoved forward, my feet stumbling, my heart thundering behind my ribs like it’s trying to escape. My body shouts at me to fight, to run, to do something, but I’m out of options.
The priest’s voice rises over the howling wind.
“Tonight, we are delivered,” he proclaims, lifting his hands. “And tomorrow, we shall rejoice!”
He walks slowly, the fabric of his white robes whispering over the stone. His silver mask catches the torchlight, glinting like a blade.
I try to dig in my heels, but the guards drag me into the Tower like a doll.
The machine rises before me—an ancient, monstrous thing of silver and stone, its gears and levers frozen withtime, with starvation. The skeletal remains of withered apple blossoms cling to its base, their brittle petals tangled in the rusted framework.
Hands clamp down on my shoulders and shove me against the machine. I thrash, kicking wildly, twisting against the hands that hold me. A scream tears free, guttural and desperate, but no one flinches. No one stops. Cold, rusted metal scrapes my back, pain biting into me like hungry teeth.
A sharp, metallic clank—one shackle. Then another.
Iron snaps around my wrists. My arms are yanked upward until my shoulders shriek with pain, my back arching from the unnatural angle. The guards loop my shackles over a rusted iron hook. It catches on my forearm and tears into flesh as my shoulders strain against the weight of my own body.
A warm line of blood snakes down my arm in a crimson ribbon that slides slowly and steadily toward the crook of my elbow.
The first drop falls and splatters against the machine. The steel beast exhales, a sound like the rusted rattle of something long dead.
Another drip of scarlet rolls down my arm, hitting the metal with a soft, sickening pat.
A shiver racks through me, every muscle locking tight as the machine against my back begins to hum with anticipation, with hunger.
It’s been waiting—for me. For this. For blood.
I was so sure it wasn’t sacrifice that the machine needed. It thought it was balance, choice, connection, love.
But maybe I just needed something to believe in,something to make this whole world make sense. Maybe I couldn’t see past my own desperate hope. I wanted so badly to rewrite my story.
But I was wrong. The machine isn’t stirring for love or devotion or any of the sacred things the Lovers card is supposed to mean.
It’s responding to blood.
A wave of nausea crests in my throat.
But…why?
