AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My only hope is that she wanted the first three in hand before revealing the final one…
I take the last steps from the path to the porch and bite down on my bottom lip. Then, with a steadying breath, I open the door, and step through.
All three vampires stand and face me—eyes questioning, studying, and curious as to why I look like a drowned rat. But past them, Ophelia’s smile slips from her face.
And it’s that small detail that confirms my failure.
Chapter Nineteen
Clara
“There was nothing,”I say.
Cassius speeds across the room and lifts my chin with a knuckle. I look up into his worried face. “You’ve been gone for two days, and didn’t find anything?”
“Two days?” Confused, my brows crash together. “It was only a few hours.”
He rubs his hands up over my arms, and whispers, “No, little bird.”
“Time is not always linear in the forest,” the oracle partially explains.
I can’t focus on the magic of the forest or how it works. Because, more than losing too much time, three words reverberate in my skull with a dull pain:I have failed.
“It doesn’t matter…” I murmur. “I—”
Ophelia cuts me off with a cough. When I turn my gaze on her, she motions me over. I shake off Cassius’s hands, and walk around him.
“You have not failed yet, child,” she says.
Yet?That one word revives my hope.
The oracle mutters strange words under her breath. Magic crackle on the air, making the hairs on my arms stand on end as it builds. My ears pop and the sound is punctuated by three heavy thuds from behind. I spin to find the vampires crumpled on the floor.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
Ophelia ignores my question. “The final item,” she says, reaching into her wide sleeves, pulling a vial from one and a long blade, needle thin from point to hilt from the other, “is blood from the heart of a lover.”
My pulse roars in my ears. “How can I offer you Alaric’s heart when I am trying to save him?” I ask, fighting back the tears prickling behind my eyes. “If I knew he had to die, I would have ended him at Nightwich.”
Otherworld damn Varin and this doomed quest they sent me on.
My blood chills, turning my veins into icy rivers. The demon betrayed me.
The oracle says nothing, but her gaze slides toward Cassius’s unconscious form.
“I don’t understand,” I say. My tongue feels thick and awkward in my mouth.
“He loves you even if he has forgotten what that means exactly.” She stretches out her hand, offering the blade. When I don’t take it, she shoves it into my palm, and squeezes my fingers around it painfully. “His heart will do.”
I take a step back in horror, as the meaning of what she intends for me to do becomes clear. “He has nothing to do with this… we’re not lovers.”
Ophelia looks pityingly on me. “A lover does not need to have their feelings returned. I warned you before that the spell you seek comes with a heavy price. Now, finish what you came to do.” She gestures to each unconscious vampire. “Any lover will do. It matters not whom they love, just that they love.”
I have come this far to save Alaric, and in return, I must kill one of them. How could I, when they all risked Elizabeth’s wrath?
“They are not mine to give.” I loosen my fingers. The dagger slips from my hand and clangs against the floor.
Ophelia scoffs. “The flower was not yours to harvest. The saaer was not yours to kill for its tooth. The witch was not yours to kill for her eye, and yet you did all those things.” The witch throws her hands up. “I cannot help you if you are unwilling to pay. Magic demands sacrifice. To obtain anything worthwhile, you must give something of equal value in return.”
