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Doesn’t trust her.
I can’t seem to make myself turn away. It’s a fear whispering that if I do—if I get too close—she will reach out and kill me. Despite the unnatural way, she didn’t react as Kharis clawed at her. That the torn flesh around the arrow lodged in her chest and the sores spreading over her body, blistering, consuming, won’t stop her.
But I cannot remain standing against the wall, frozen. I have to move, have to check on Alaric… on my friends.
There is a shuddering gasp to my right, but it’s a quiet weeping that breaks the spell. I drag my gaze from the strange and grotesque scene before me over to the Voice. She kneels, bowed over, staring at her hands. Tears fall into her open palms.
Not her hands—her bare wrists. Two metal cuffs lay open in front of her. Shackles. The silver bands I mistook for bracelets earlier.
Staying pressed against the wall, I inch away from her and toward Alaric. I’m not sure if she can be trusted or what her role in all of this was.
I bend down to pick up the dagger, and another, stronger wave of dizziness hits. Unnatural cold encases my skin, beads of sweat breaking out across my forehead, over the back of my neck, slithering down my spine.
I stagger.
Varin, what is happening?I ask, but the demon is unnervingly silent.
“Is she—” My head spins, feeling heavy. “Is she dead?” I demand, putting as much force behind it as I can.
Logically, I know Elizabeth and Kharis are dead—but I have to know. Have to hear it spoken aloud. Ineedthat conformation.
There’s a crash of glass and leathery wings taking to the air as Asmod frees Cherno.
The Voice gasps, startled. She lifts her head, staring at me with wide, wild eyes with too much white showing around her vibrant pink irises as if she forgot I was in the room.
Surprise slips into clarity. She assesses me for a long moment before turning her attention to Elizabeth’s body. Snow frost lashes flutter, fanning her cheeks as she contemplates.
Alaric still hasn’t moved—his expression slack, gaze unfocused, but he is breathing, and the wounds on his chest have stopped bleeding. It’s like he is in a trance.
“She was the first of her kind… the only one. I never dared hope, not for a single second. I…” she says, her voice frail and distant. Her cheeks are wet, but her expression is entirely blank. “I should hate her… I should feel…”
I don’t know if she heard me or is simply ignoring me. I squeeze my eyes shut, gritting my teeth in frustration. “Is she dead?”
“Yes,” she says flatly. “She is dead.”
“What did she do to him?” I point to Alaric with the dagger.
If she notices my irritation, she doesn’t show it. “He will be fine once the sun rises. It was only a potion to keep him docile until daybreak.”
“Why?” I struggle to keep my rapidly waning strength from showing.
Rising gracefully to her feet, the Voice edges forward. Her head lists from side to side, reminding me of an animal, curious and uncertain about the potential prey in its sights. “So, she might attempt the very thing you were trying to stop. She wanted his power—needed it—to make up for what hers lacked. It’s what she has been after since the beginning.”
I lift the dagger, pointing it at her. A warning not to come any closer. Her eyes flick from my face down to the weapon, then back up. Then she stops, waiting.
“Unchain him.”
Without protest or hesitation, she obeys, gently easing Alaric down onto his back.
My vision wavers until the world doubles, shivering and vibrating, weaving in and out like a kaleidoscope. I squint, willing my eyes focus to return. Slowly, everything shudders, trembles, then goes motionless again, but everything has taken on a soft haze.
Varin! I shout down to the demon again, but still, they do not answer.
I shake my head, trying to clear it, and lower my arm to my side. Tired. Too tired and weak to hold the dagger up anymore. “What do you mean ‘she wanted his power’?”
“It wasn’t the spell she thought it was, that broke that day in the field,” the Voice says, once more inching closer. “When Mr. Devereaux went to you on the dance floor, she realized her mistake. If her curse still had him in its grasp, he never would have done so.” A cold smile spreads over her lips. “He hid it well.”
The curse….
