AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Only, there was nothing to thrash against. No walls caging her. No ground beneath her boots. Nothing to cling to or provide leverage out of what she was beginning to believe was madness or the underworld.
Why hadn’t anyone helped her? Healed her? She screamed into the abyss until her voice went ragged. Part of her expected Ames’s cold magic to wash over her. To hear his voice. But Ames was dead, and her father had proven the depth of his love.
There was no one left to save her. No one else tocare. A decade of studying and chasing magic in hope of saving her family. All of it a waste.
A small, blue ember carved out the darkness, startling her from a whirlwind of furious thoughts. It dipped and bobbed like the lure of a carnivorous fish, slowly drawing her body down until her boots met blissful, solid ground. The little flame pulsed brighter, almost eager for her presence. Its haunting glow illuminated the shredded remains of her dress and the darkening bruises along her wrist and knees, though they no longer throbbed with a heartbeat of their own.
Limbs heavy, she trailed the flame through the darkness. Two tall, black marble columns materialized. She paused before them, running soft fingers along their ridges, impressed by their seemingly infinite reflection in the polished black floors. The flame glided onward, revealing more evenly spaced columns.
Something lurked in the space with her.
Goosebumps rose along her skin, her heart lurching into her stomach. She kept her gaze on the flame as it stopped above a pool of dark blue fabric. Someonewashere. Had they been watching her the entire time? Taking pleasure in her terror?
The flame expanded, washing the entire hall in blue light. She took in the male perched on a black throne. A sculptor might have carved him from stone, his features were cut so sharp. His brows were dark slashes angled up into a mess of reddish-brown hair. And his eyes were half-lidded, heavy with menace. One shimmered like liquid mercury, and the other burned a haunting, animal orange that had her pulling her arms in tight against her chest as if to make herself smaller.
“Come here.” His voice was a smooth baritone.
Hot energy pumped through her then lurched her forward against her will. Was this some sort of test? Judgment into the underworld? Or was she still ensnared in her father’s wicked magic?
“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice wavering.
He stopped drumming his fingers on the stone armrests. The large, blue gem in the ring on his index finger gleamed between tiny silver wings. It looked disturbingly familiar, but when Tenah pushed to remember where she’d seen it, her head lashed out with a sharp whip of pain.
The ebony crown atop his head crackled with ribbons of unholy, black energy. “I’m nothing more than a lost soul like you.”
Tenah licked her chapped lips. The terrifying, beautiful king leaned forward on his throne. His honed focus brought alarming heat to her skin.
“I…” She pushed out a jagged breath, infuriated by the tremor in her voice. “I didn’t know who I was calling for.”
“That’s not true.” His mismatched eyes turned molten. “Deep down, you knew you needed me, Tenah. Not some god. Not someone of your own blood who betrayed you and leashed your very potential.”
Her face scrunched. “Leashed? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know you.”
The king brushed a finger under his lip. “No? I suppose your father’s accomplice robbed you of that too. After all this time apart, you are still soweak.”
She curled her fingernails into the soft flesh of her palms. Ames had made it clear he would never tamper with her mind. Too often, alterations went wrong, even for a highly skilled master like him.
But then, what had he been doing in her head right before his death?
The king’s expression darkened. “The fact that your recollections of me are nonexistent should be proof enough. That Ashenwreckedyou.”
Tenah winced, his words cutting deep. “He wouldn’t do that.”
The blackholes in her mind were just a side effect of living under the same roof as her father’s infection.
The king used his thumb to spin the winged ring around his finger. “Deny it all you wish. Death doesn’t care.”
Tenah blinked up at him, her heart sinking deeper into her hollowed center. Shewasdead then. Bile rose up in her throat, but she forced it back down, not wanting to embarrass herself further.
Her own father had murdered her.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, dipping into anger.
His inferno eyes glinted. “Everything. In exchange, I will grant you a second chance at life.”
She bit down on the inside of her lip as her mind whirled to process this horrid situation. Why was it so hard to recall anything beyond the monotony of recent weeks? Her memories lurked in a fog she’d never been able to clear, not that she’d tried very hard in the past. Healing her father had been the most important thing in her life.
“Why?” she asked.
