Casteel would’ve done it.
I couldn’t think of that as I rolled onto my side, willing myself to return to sleep.
It did not come.
Because I also couldn’t stop myself from thinking about what Isbeth knew when she plotted Kolis’s return—when she ensured that Sotoria would be born again. What if she knew everything? What Kolis had done to Sotoria. What he’d likely want from me.
My skin warmed uncomfortably as my stomach turned.
I didn’t know why I was shocked and repulsed. After all, she’d known what had been in The Star. She knew exactly what she was doing when she took possession of the Star diamond and what would happen when she freed…Sotoria’s soul. Sure, she might have been given the brainwashed Callum version of events, but still. Her actions were already abhorrent.
How? How could anyone do that to a stranger, let alone their child?
The silence of the chamber gave no reply, nor did thevadentia.
Frustrated, I closed my eyes. I tried to sleep for what felt like hours but was likely only minutes before my eyes reopened. Through the gap in the curtains, I saw that the sky beyond the window was dark and endless. With no moonlight, I could only make out the shape of the cliffside. I couldn’t look away. The pull was too great. And no longer entirely inexplicable, was it? I was drawn to the Cliffs because I’d first died—
Stop it.
I was her butnot. That’s what I’d told Tawny. It’s what Kieran and Casteel had both said. So had Seraphena. Still, some tiny parts of me must belong to who she was, who I used to be, even though I felt nothing while holding The Star or while standing on the Cliffs.
A restless sort of nervous energy built inside me, making me want to squirm and kick my legs. I held myself still, like when I was a child and woke in the middle of the night convinced that the Craven had crawled out of my nightmares and into my bedchamber.
Only you can kill him.
My breath snagged in my throat.You won’t have to convince him.
As I lay there, the hazy fragments of the nightmare swirled, almost as if they sought to piece themselves together. The gilded cage and the chests. The bed and its chains—gods, there had been chains. And, somehow, I knew they hadn’t always been there. They had been added, though not after the first time. Or even the second. The—
Stop.
I needed to rest, but here I was, standing at the—
I sucked in a short breath, my entire body jolting. Jerking back a step, I spun around.
I…I wasn’t in bed.
Dear gods. I didn’t even remember getting up, walking to the glass wall, or putting on and buttoning the robe I was wearing.
Lifting my trembling hands, I ran them through my hair. How could I do all of that and not even realize it? Sure, I’d been so caught up in my thoughts at times that I’d done things I didn’t remember. Like getting a drink. But notthis. Standing here, I felt like I was losing my mind. Because I knew—gods, I knew—that I’d been standing here for more than a few seconds.
Something like this can’t be okay.
I lifted a hand and pressed it against the cool glass. The fragments continued swirling in my thoughts, each coated in bitter fear, soaked in pity that turned to icy hate, and drenched with shame. They were trying to piece themselves together to tell a story I didn’t want to learn.
Slender beams of silver moonlight broke free, creeping across the Cliffs’ pale, jagged rocks and climbing the rock face as the clouds passed overhead. Moonlight reached the—
I went completely still as the pale light washed over the peak of the Cliffs, momentarily bathing the meadow in light. I saw it then—the still, shadowy form of someone standing. Watching.
The moonlight faded, once more obscured by the clouds. My heart thundered against my ribs as I stared into the darkness, unable to see anything now but knowing what I’d seen in those brief seconds.
I yanked my hand back. My breath came in short bursts as I opened my senses. I didn’t feel Kolis.
So much so that he refused to let her go.
Kolis wasn’t here.
Even in death.
