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There were people here. It wasn’t about the grounds or the castle. I recalled the faces all trapped in moments of suffering. I’d passed so many on the way here. They needed someone to set them free. The longer I hesitated, the longer they were stuck here.
If I didn’t do something, then no one would. The Seelie were all waiting for directions from their princess. If I had to play that role to save these people, then I would.
Beryl stepped around behind me. She slid a hand over my chest and made my heart thump in fear. To that, she laughed. The sound almost made my ears bleed. Again, it was just a littletoo much.
“I’ve killed almost every other version of you already,” Beryl crooned in my ear. “Do you want to join the pile of your bodies waiting in the center of the castle?”
My breath hitched. Beryl’s hand slid higher. Her long nails grazed the scar on my throat. A tremble overcame me as memories of Alvin’s brutal hands came flooding back all over again. I thought I’d locked them away for the day, but Beryl brought them out like trained dogs.
I shoved her hand away.
She laughed as if that meant nothing. The Unseelie Queen knew she still had more power. I wondered what she had up her non-existent sleeve.
Damn, that dress dipped really low and revealed…nothing.
Beryl was flat-chested today. I could see every bone in her body. She’d donned this visage to intimidate me. She seemed soother. The woman wanted to be monstrous.
And she was. Her visage wasn’t the monstrous part of her, though. It was in her cruel intentions, the way she kept my court trapped here like a menagerie of pain that she could peruse any time she wanted.
This was my legacy. These were my people.
I’d failed them by coming here. I realized that now.
Beryl gripped my chin and turned my attention towards her. I stiffened and glared up at the woman towering over me. Though Addie was elsewhere, doing her best to hold my fraying timeline together, I’d failed to keep myself safe. Beryl would end every timeline right here and now.
In my mind’s eye, I could see Beryl dragging my dead body through the maze so she could throw it into a pile with her other trophies. Then the court would be lost forever. No one would dare stand up to the villainous queen. Those who tried would be strung up the same way she’d hung Taliesin. She would bathe her loyal servants in the blood of her conquests.
I grimaced and squeezed my eyes shut like that would banish the cruel vision inside my own mind. It did nothing. Guilt still weighed heavy in the pit of my stomach—but it sat so close to the garden filled with arcana inside me. Could I turn that shame into power?
Beryl’s claws dug into my cheeks while she laughed. To her, she was a spider with the fly trapped in her sticky web. I wasn’t ready to let her win, though.
28
RHOAN
More beast than man, I rushed down the winding stairs of Beryl’s domain. Oily black feathers protruded from the outsides of my forearms. My fingers hooked into black-stained claws. Talons burst out of my steel-toed boots and pierced the metal stairs beneath my feet.
My surroundings bled from one image into another. The dark stairwell vanished, and a familiar kingdom sprawled out around me. The smell of pain filled the air. It reminded me of blood, in a way.
With my beast so close to escaping my body, I could see auras brighter than ever. Every little being danced with brilliant, flickering light. Yet, the last time I’d been here, there’d been a stronger aura smothering the landscape.
Beryl’s curse over the Seelie Court no longer hovered in the skies. The sun shone down on the place once more. For a heartbeat, I stood there and stared into the light. Tears of relief filled my eyes. I couldn’t afford to linger and let them run down my cheeks.
There was a hedge maze ahead of me. The green walls trembled. Though I didn’t want to give my beast any more ground, I had to escape the maze as soon as possible. I could already hear Beryl’s triumphant laughter.
Can we call a truce, I asked my beast.
The creature growled in response. That would have to be enough. I couldn’t waste any more time. I flung open the path between us and let a little more of the nightmare beast surge through my body.
Great black wings burst free from my back. I lifted off from the ground, leaving behind a rain of oily black feathers. My heart stretched towards Cerri, deep in the maze. From here, I could see the crumbling ruins of her legacy. Her ancestral home, the castle that marked the heart of the Seelie Court, was falling apart. It could come crashing to the ground for all I cared. My concern was for my princess.
The beast gashed its teeth in agreement. It poured Unseelie power into my veins. As badly as I wanted to push it back, I knew that I would need the nightmarish power that the pookah creation could give me. This deal that I’d struck to become stronger would kill me someday, but not before I saved Cerridwen.
Cerri
Annoyed,I jerked my face out of Beryl’s grasp. My lungs trembled and made my breath shallow, but I wasn’t going to stand here and let Beryl bully me before killing me. That just sounded doubly annoying.
She narrowed her eyes at me when I met her gaze head-on. Though she let her hand fall back down at her side, I knew that she wanted to hurt me. I could see it in the shake of her entire body. Here, I was, the heir that could take away everything that she’d rightfully stolen, and I was giving hersass.
