AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ana shook her head in confusion, but he only pumped his arm harder. Still bewildered, she was trying to follow his frantic gesturing when she saw it.
The wooden bolt.
He jumped up and down in excitement, nodding furiously.
Ana glanced back at the doors. She’d not considered, until that moment, how she might solve the greatest trouble of her life with something as simple as a locked door.
She shuffled to the buried plank and lifted it from the snowbank, but she didn’t move back to the cellar doors right away. Her hesitation was a mystery even to her. Was she really going to murder the woman? It was exactly what Magda deserved, but could she, Anastazja, be the one responsible?
She could feel and hear Varradyn’s panic behind the domed glass.
“You have a choice,” she said to herself, to her conscience, and yet to no one. “You always have a choice. It’s the price you have to live with.”
Ana settled the bolt onto the doors and locked it into place, choosing peace for her family and the Ravenwoods in exchange for what remained of her conscience.
Ana flew faster than she’d ever flown in her life. She landed just outside the doors of Fanghelm in a dead sprint, sending guards and courtiers scattering in the wake of her urgency.
Hope sent her bursting into the Great Hall, but her father wasn’t there enjoying a meal. The room was cleaned and cleared. On her way back out, she ran into Ludya.
“What’s happened to you?” Ludya demanded, pacing her on her way to the central stairs. “I can see it in your eyes, Anastazja.”
“The witch is dead. Or will be,” Ana said and raced up the stairs so fast, she stumbled and landed on the heels of her hands. She groaned and pushed on. “Please tell me my father is in his room.”
“As far as I know. But Ana—”
“What?” Ana asked without stopping. She charged down the hall toward her father’s apartments. “But what?”
“He doesn’t want to see you.” Ludya stopped in the middle of the hall.
“Herdoing. But she won’t be a problem anymore.” Ana rapped on the door.
Her father’s footservant answered. She didn’t wait to be invited in, brushing past him to Arkhady’s bedside.
Her father lay under the covers, gaunt and blank-faced. He stared up and into nothing, his eyes pools of hollow despair. She hardly recognized the man in the bed at all.
“Ota.” Ana lowered into a crouch and reached for one of his hands. She folded it into her own and brought it to her mouth with tearful kisses. “Ota, we’re leaving. Tonight. Right now.”
Arkhady cleared his throat with a rattling sound. His dry, cracked lips parted. “You are...”
“It’s me, Ota. It’s your Anastazja. Your Pjika. Your little bird.” She kissed his hands again, sobbing against his bony flesh. He’d deteriorated so fast, he couldn’t last much longer.
“Who?” He puffed the word on the end of a ragged breath.
“Your daughter. Anastazja.”
“I...” His jaw flapped. “Have no daughter.”
Ana whipped her head at the servant, but he had disappeared. To inform the koldyna,probably, like they all had been doing for years, but he’d be on a fool’s errand. Ana’s evil stepmother would never emerge from the cave of horrors, and it was a fitting place for her to meet her end, surrounded by the hearts she’d stolen.
“We can discuss this later.” She jumped to her feet. “On the road. We’ll... It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. But we have to go now, before—”Before they figure out what I’ve done.“Come. Forget your trunks. We’ll send for whatever you need, or buy it when we get where we’re—”
Ana stumbled back into the wall, her hands clapped over her ears. The wail emerging from her father was preternatural, deep and morbid, like death itself had clawed its way up from his chest to announce itself. She watched in creeping dread as he rose from the bed, compelled by an unseen force.
He stayed like that, his arms out and his mouth crooked and hung unnaturally wide, howling for so long Ana, started to scream with him.
Then he stopped. His head—only his head, the rest of him remained disturbingly still—slowly turned her way. His mouth gaped even wider, flesh splitting at the corners. Blood ran down his face, dropping onto his nightgown and blanket in fat, grisly blobs.
His bloody lips stretched into a grin so wide, it transformed his entire face. He was no longer the great Arkhady Wynter but a ghoul, a vessel for the damned.
