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Salenia reached out and grabbed the woman before her, dragging her onto the altar where two sorcerers stood waiting. The woman screamed, her voice reverberating as they tightly bound her wrists to the cold, stone slab. I recognized her as a woman from the castle—she had been a guest of a lord. Salenia grinned sadistically as she plunged her hand into the woman's chest, tearing at her ribcage until her heart was in her palm.
With a malicious gleam in her eye, she tore the hearts of her victims into pieces and tossed them into the raging fire one by one. I watched with a sickening dread in my stomach as she moved on to the mortals, savoring their fear and despair as she destroyed them mercilessly.
She moved from victim to victim, her feet sinking into the damp ground with each step. Their eyes filled with terror, and their skin turned ghostly white. As she pulled back each hood, the sorcerers chanted louder and louder. Finally, with the seventh heart clutched in her fist, she hurled it into the raging fire.
Finally, she turned to me. “Now her.”
A lump formed in my throat, my vocal chords lost as I pivoted to face Elizabeth, covered in dirt, kneeling against the ground. “I’m sorry,” I said again, sobbing as I dropped to my knees in front of her. Suddenly, I was colder than I’d ever felt, nausea consuming me as I reached for her neck.
“Over here,” Salenia said, and I sucked in a deep breath. I held Elizabeth in my arms, stroking her arm with my thumb, crying into her hairline when I placed her on the altar where her dead sister’s blood wasn’t even dry.
The night sky seemed to shake and ripple, and a chilly breeze blew across my skin. Elizabeth’s tears glistened under the moonlight, and I was only glad my blood healed the evidence of my bite so Salenia wouldn’t suspect.
Even then, it didn’t always work. Some mortals just never woke up at all. Was there enough venom in her veins?
“Get on with it,” Salenia snapped, and the chanting grew louder around me. I was going to tear Salenia apart limb by limb for this. “Elizabeth,” I said as my hand pressed against her chest, the desire to claw inside of her and rip out her heart stronger than ever. “I love you.”
Elizabeth's lips trembled, but before she could say anything back, Salenia knocked me to the side. My mouth fell open, the world going into slow motion as she glared at me.
“No!” I screamed as Salenia ripped into Elizabeth’s throat, blood dripping down her arm. Unlike the others, she lifted Elizabeth’s body, throwing her entire body into the fire with far more vigor than necessary, and I dropped to the ground.
A brilliant streak of lightning lit up the dark trees, casting an eerie glow around us. Salenia fell to her knees, her body shaking as if she was possessed. A deep hole opened beneath her, and the earth shook and chipped away like dust until Salenia's true form rose from the dirt, cloaked in a shimmering veil of blood, and Gwen’s body lay motionless next to her.
Avyanna stepped forward, her crimson cloak billowing around her. She bowed deeply at the waist, then gracefully leaned forward and lowered herself to one knee, hands clasped in front of her in a sign of utmost loyalty to Salenia.
I was going to kill them all.
THIRTY-TWO
Niall
Ipressedmypalmstogether and closed my eyes, a silent prayer escaping from between my lips. I bowed my head, and a soft breeze floated in through the open window.
“Elizabeth,” I whispered over her heavily scarred body. I looked down at my fingers, the burns from when I’d pulled her out of the fire, already healed. I prayed it wasn’t too late, that she wouldn’t be too far gone and would still return, but over the decades, I’d seen far too many mortals not return from death. Sometimes there wasn’t enough venom or blood in their bodies, other times their deaths were too grisly to come back, so it was a good thing Salenia didn’t remove her heart and instead threw her whole body into the fire. Without a heart, there was no way Elizabeth could come back.
At least now there was a chance, however slim. I ran my fingers along the scars, then placed my hand against her chest, praying again for a miracle. It had been four hours, and nothing had happened.
My head ached as the night lightened into morning, light peeking through the crack in the drapes. The visions kept threatening to spill over, my mind going between reality and flickers of scenes that didn’t last long enough for me to understand what they meant.
But most of them were of Salenia and Elizabeth, which led me to believe she had to return. Why else was I having visions of her if there was no future?
Voices echoed in my head, the chatter rising until I couldn’t stand it. I pressed my hands over my ears, trying to block out the noise, but it only grew louder.
“Vener?” Salenia’s voice sounded from somewhere. I looked up, then to the door, unable to place it. She must have finally found him, or he came to the castle.
I stumbled away from the bed, and out into the corridor. As soon as I opened the door, a vision consumed me. Throbbing spread across my sinuses and down the back of my throat.
“Vener!” Salenia’s voice boomed.
The scene unfolded in front of me, the mist hanging over my mind parting. The veil in my mind lowered, and the person I was on the other side floated back.
The scent of lavender surrounded me as I stood in a field, Salenia’s voice tinkling, a sweetness to each word.
I let out a scream as everything flooded back, dropping to my knees.
They weren't visions. They werememories.
They came to me in waves, dragging me deeper through the depths until I was drowning in the fractures of my past I’d forgotten.
