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Until exhaustion weighted my muscles, and I collapsed forward. Breathing. Just breathing.
The haze lifted.
I tipped my gaze to him and took in the horror of what I’d just done. The scratches down his cheek. The split of his otherwise perfect lips. The blood from my nails smeared across his chest. Trembling, I sat up from him, my body numb and cold with shock. “What have I done?”
He grabbed my wrists again and pulled me into him. “Don’t you dare feel remorse. You just showed me the pain inside of you. Your pain is my pain. When you suffer, I suffer. These hits are nothing to the ache in my heart.” He tipped his face to mine, and his kiss was so gentle. Gentle in a way that made me feel undeserving.
A sob shook my body as I lay forward, pressing my ear to his chest. And with the sound of his steady heartbeat, I closed my eyes.
46
JERICHO
On my way to the dungeon, so many thoughts swirled inside my head.
The baby. My father. Vengeance.
Memories took me back to the night when Lustina had passed and I lay at her side, hoping to spend just a few more moments before the Sentinels would come for me.
A frail old woman had hobbled up to us as we lay on the ground.
“My Lord, you have lost so much,” the strange, elderly woman says, standing off just a short distance away.
I’ve never seen her before in my life, and given the state of Praecepsia after having burned it to the ground, I was hard-pressed to believe she was from here.
“If only you had helped me, I could have saved her.”
I frown, and raise my head, studying the old woman with white, straggly hair and weather-worn skin, bent over herself where she leans into a cane. The audacity of her words strike me like a slap to the face. “Who are you?”
“You do not recognize me?”
“I would not have asked, if I had.”
Her wrinkled lips stretch to a smile. “Liar,” she hisses.
The creeping tendrils of familiarity dance over the back of my neck, and a cold chill climbs my spine. “Syrisa.”
“I know this pain. For it was your father who cursed the only one I’ve ever truly loved. He banished me to this world, and now he’s stripped my soul and forced me into this frail and tired body. Allow me into yours, as I have taken this one, young lord, and I will exact vengeance upon your father. For he is the one to blame for thisatrocity. For all your pain and suffering.”
“I would sooner swallow flames than let you anywhere near my body.”
She lets out a dark chuckle and points a long-nailed finger at me. “I have seen the future. And you will be punished. All will be punished.” Her gaze falls on Lustina beside me. “But she will return. And when she does, I will be waiting.”
Had murdering my child been her vengeance against me? Could she have possibly survived all those centuries to punish me for not having helped her?
Vaszhago called out to me from behind, interrupting the memory. He strode up to me, his face carrying what little remorse the demon was capable of showing. “I’m sorry to hear the news.”
I gave a sharp nod, the sting of loss still burning in my throat.
He reached into his pocket and retrieved an object. “Kezhurah left this in the event that anything might’ve changed with Farryn. I only hesitated to pass it on because, well, see for yourself.” He deposited the cold object into my hand–a glassy black stone that reflected the frown on my face.
“Witch’s Call.” The stone was said to have belonged to a witch named Venefica, who resided so deep within the mountains of Obsidia, her existence remained questionable. She was rumored to have lived in the time of the ancients as their most prized alchemist, who concocted elixirs said to have enhanced their powers. Demonic powers, as she could not harness that of vitaeilem, as desperately as she’d been known to try. The stone was a free pass, of sorts, to request a favor from her. Again, all of it was rumor, as the stories about her were hearsay. “I do not wish to enhance the powers of my demon half, seeing as that is what she’s most renowned for, though I appreciate the gesture.”
“She has been known to practice a darker form of medicine. One Kezhurah wasn’t comfortable with, to lure a soul from the body. However, there was the issue of the baby. She would have surely demanded it in trade.”
Soulless creature. “And what would be the cost without the child?”
“I wouldn’t begin to know. It is why I did not feel compelled to pass it along. But I did not want to keep it from you, in case you found it useful.”
