AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He stares into the mirror for a long minute, fingers paring over his face and pressing against the scar on his chest. The rest of him looks human enough. Does he feel human?
What do I say to him?I’m sorry I tried to kill you?It’s so easy to take a life—just the single swing of a blade, done in anger. Flesh gives way so effortlessly. It should be more difficult to do something so monumental.
“I understand why you wish you never met me,” I finally say, as close to an apology as I’ll get.
The candles are low; they’ve been burning since before I got here. It’s a wonder that we haven’t been discovered yet. How will Cyrus explain what transpired? No one will believe any story I put forth. I won’t be forgiven for this, and I don’t suppose I should be.
Cyrus finally turns from the mirror with a weary stagger. “Let’s go.”
So forward we go, trudging into the future we’ve chosen.
Cyrus scavenges a bathrobe from the claw-foot wardrobe before we head out the door together. He leans on me for support. His right ankle doesn’t look like it shifted back correctly, now that I see it in better lighting, or maybe it’s just twisted and swollen.
I peer out into the hall. We’re somewhere in the west wing of the palace, far from the audience chamber. At my feet are two guards who died choking on roses, their bodies punctured by thorns. A breath shudders beside me.
We trudge past them.
The palace is eerily quiet. When we arrive at one of the side ballroom doors, the crack of light shines upon a slick red floor. I don’t want to look further. I know what I’ll see.
When we glance in, I clasp a hand over my nose and mouth to cover the stink and to hold in my retching. Bodies strewn everywhere—and not all human. Petrified and rotting vines spiderweb from floor to ceiling, their roots feeding off the death at our feet. Leaves and stems crackle as they spread, unheeding of any horror.
The sight imprints upon my mind like a brand until I think I might bow from the pain of it. Cyrus slumps against the door with a shaky, wet breath, fist pressed against his temple.
A noise, like shambling, behind us. We jolt.
“We should…” Cyrus mumbles as he glances at the hallway’s alcoves and shut doors.
Then, around the corner, a hulking, horned shadow.
We both stumble backward, hands and arms pulling each other in different directions. A rose-horned beast comes barreling at us on thick-trunked legs.
This beast is farther along than Cyrus ever was, but their gait is human enough, some remnant of panic hurtling them forward.
We haul each other down the hall we came from, certain that at least that space was safe when we’d left it, but the distance between us and the beast is narrowing fast.
I dart to the closest room but find the door locked. I lurch to the one across the hall, but that one’s locked, too. Cyrus bangs his shoulder against it.
The floor rattles with the beast’s steps. Shit, shit, shit.
I tear a pin from my hair, but my hands aren’t steady enough to jam it in the lock, let alone try to pick it.
“Help!”Cyrus bellows. He coughs fitfully.
As if in echo, the beast moans, “Help…”
Blood will transform them back. But this beast’s bared teeth are snapping without much restraint and I’d lose a whole hand to them.
I push the pin through the lock. A claw yanks me by thesleeve of my chemise, spinning me around, and I scream inches away from the face of a fanged monster.
Their next words come out garbled, and in my open-mouthed shock, I’m too numb to shove it away. The beast rises stiffly, slanting to one side as green sap flows down their neck.
Another flash of a blade, and they fall, headless, victim to Camilla behind them.
She is panting and stricken, grime splattering up her trousers and bare arms, sword heavy at her side. She nudges the body over so it looks less grotesque, staring at it as if she’s unsure of how to mourn. They were human not long ago, after all.
“Are you all right?” she asks hastily.
Cyrus looks about one breeze from fainting. “No.”
