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3
RHOAN
The apartment was empty.
I could smell Cerri everywhere. The sweet and herbal aroma lingered on everything and made my heart thump a furious beat as I cleared every room. There was still no sign of Cerri. Panic turned my chest tight. I picked up the pace, rushing from the bedroom back out to the living room. The windows were covered with panels of wood from when Delphine shattered the glass with her crossbow bolts. I could see nothing outside the apartment, which seemed wrong.
Hadn’t we gotten them fixed? I could have sworn we fixed it. There should have been a cityscape outside. Instead, I stared at the flat, empty plywood panels that smelled of processed woodchips.
Shaking my head, I turned and lurched towards the door. Cerri needed me. I could feel it deep in the pit of my stomach. Something told me that she was in the enemy’s web. I had to get to her.
Rushing to the exit, I grabbed the door handle and pulled. The door refused to budge. It’d somehow turned into an immovable object. The knob would not turn. The latch would not budge. No matter how I pulled or pushed, no matter how I rammed my shoulder into the door or kicked at the panels, it would not move.
This whole apartment waswrong.
Where was I? Had Faust trapped me in some sort of nightmare?
My princess needed me. Nothing would hold me back so long as Cerridwen was out there.
The truth fluttered through my mind before quickly disappearing. The light sensation of a revelation hit my body and made my head spin, but I couldn’t grasp onto the thought for the life of me. It was out of reach, nothing more than a memory that’d turned into a blur.
“What is happening?” I muttered under my breath as I turned.
I took in the room, searching for signs of the nightmare. This wasn’t exactly what I’d expected from Faust. The anxiety crackling in my core was nothing compared to the kinds of fear that the nightmare king could conjure.
This had to be something else because this wasn’t vile enough to be Faust’s doing.
That could leave one other answer.
My beast.
The creature had tried to protect me once before. It must have shoved me in here to save me from Faust’s influence. Beyond the windows, beyond the immovable door was the real nightmare. The beast put me in this cage and kept me safe from all that was outside.
Because I’d tripped the clause in my contract a little too soon.
I was Faust’s beast now.
Rage hit my chest and turned into a fiery ball that wanted to climb up my throat and out my mouth. My knees hit the floor, but the impact did nothing to shake me free of the torment gnawing at my insides.
I needed to get out. Cerri was alone.
I couldn’t let her down like this. She was the one person in this world who had faith in me. She’d brought me back from a dark time, and I’d held her as she’d changed from sunlight to moonlight. There was no me without Cerri.
“I’ll find my way back to you,” I growled.
Around me, the room blurred. The dream protecting me faded. With determined claws, I dug my fingers into the floor. The beast could only protect me for so long until it became imprisonment.
Let me go back to her. Let me save her.
The dream slipped out from between my fingers. I fell into the nothingness of my own dreams. Though I howled, the void swallowed it.
Cerri
Ness flungher arm towards the restaurant door we’d just exited. “What the hell was that? We’re leaving empty handed?”
As much as I hated to admit it, yes. We had to leave Beryl’s court without our friends and family because they weren’t here. Beryl didn’t have them on hand to give back to us, which must have been her plan all along.
Though, I wasn’t sure why Beryl had lured me here. She’d wanted to torment me, but I knew that there had to be another motive.
