Page 131 of Into the Heartless Wood
He hauls me down the row of cells, to the place where my father drew his last breaths. His body is gone. No trace of him left.
The king opens the door to the cell across from my father’s. He throws me in, and I collapse with a grunt. Tears leak from my eyes. I don’t attempt to lift my head. “How long?” I ask, and hate myself for it. I don’t even know what I’m asking, exactly. How long will he keep me here? How long do I have to live?
He smiles at me in the flickering torchlight. “Until I have need of you, Owen Merrick.”
I shut my eyes. I turn away.
The cell rattles as he shuts the door. The key grates in the lock.
His footsteps fade down the corridor.
I am alone in the dark.
Chapter Fifty-Two
SEREN
BLOOD DRIPS
from my mother’s horns.
Her face is peeling, caught in the midst of
shedding her skin.
She is clothed in briars,
wrapped about her like shiny, lethal snakes.
She used her power to pull me down from the tower,
away from Owen and the Soul Eater.
Now,
she
will
kill
me.
She grabs my shoulder, her claws digging deep.
She hauls me upright,
holds me so my feet dangle helplessly
while my shoulder tears and
blood
pours
down
my
