The needle sinks into my flesh, and I don’t flinch away from the feel of it. I simply turn to hold the king’s manic gaze as he pushes every ounce of the cold liquid into my veins.
When he pulls away, while the effects start to fall across my drowsing mind, he speaks again. “Someday soon, you’ll be retrieving the most powerful souls from the depths of the underworld.” Everything goes fuzzy, and the sound of his voice fades in and out. The blur that is Merrick’s form takes a step back. “I’ll be cleaning your room today too. I’ve been told there’s an abundance of trash in there.”
Basilus’s pleased smirk stretches across his normally charming features as his fingers interlock with Jeriko’s. The gleam in her eyes, a look of hunger, sparkles against the dark scars that glint across her face. Dangerous hunger.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nollix
It takes everything in me not to slit his throat before the king even fully injects her. The three of us stand at the door, peering past it just as he sinks the needle into her arm. My jaw clenches tightly when he pulls back from her.
What is the point in all this? What is he putting his own daughter through? What does the sedativereallydo?
I hold my sword in my right hand, ready for the plan that is clicking into place. Cameron stands behind me and Carver behind her. She’d made a joke when we’d stalked here as a group.
“I’m in the middle. Like a sandwich. Or a sandwitch... if you will.” Then she’d snorted, and I’d avoided interacting with her since.
The Witch is powerful. I’ve seen it myself, but the walls of this place oppress us. The quicker we can get this over with, the quicker this woman can be on her way, and we can go back to the solitude of the Wild Hunt.
The walls start to quiver, shaking with a sound of metal scraping. Carver glances at me from the corner of his eye. I feel it. I feel everything about her anger and power rolling through my chest with waves so intense, it makes it hard to breathe.
From between her father and Jeriko, I see her back arch, her fingers tensing as they tremble uncontrollably. It’s the painful sound of her scream that yanks me forward. I’m moving faster than I’m thinking. Rushing forward, I barely manage to take a step before Carver grips my arm and hauls me back into the shadows before I do something that’ll ruin the plan.
The skinny man with black hair braided down his back, one of her scheming brothers—Basilus—writes furiously. His hand glides across the page, jotting down note after note with every wave of power that jars through the room.
“She has almost doubled her power since yesterday. Ten times the power pulse as she had the first time. She must be almost ready.” He tips his chin up to the king and starts to nod.
King Melic takes a step back from Violence’s trembling body. Her shouts rip through the room, piercing my eardrums. “I think she is. If we sent her into the underworld, she could be powerful enough to retrieve the darkest souls lurking in the depths,” he shouts over her cries.
“What if she’s not?” Jeriko looks to the king, flinching when Vi lunges toward her with a manic screech and bared teeth.
Violence’s veins have turned black, her pupils cutting like vertical slits through her wide eyes. The leather straps groan against her.
“Then we’ve wasted a very valuable asset.” He nods, stroking his long beard back into place. “The souls we have now are fresh and life-sustaining. The souls there, those souls are resilient. They’ve taken the darkness, fed off of it, embraced it, and have grown stronger because of it. The Book of Severed Souls says it’s the key to true immortality.”
“And we could finally explore the possibilities of strengthening the souls into solid forms. Imagine the kingdoms that would fall at our mercy, Father.”
“I said no, Basilus.” The king’s sharp tone makes him shrink back. “Nothing good can come from bringing those dark souls into a solid form. They reside within the underworld for a reason.” He cuts his son a look that I can’t see, but he has made a valid point. For once in his life, the Mad King appears rational.
The crown prince lingers in the room, too, but with every passing second, he inches closer to the door, face paling.
“Of course.” Basilus nods and keeps his gaze on the pad of paper in his hands.
King Melic turns from them, his coat billowing with the sharp movement. It’s nearly a hundred degrees in this damn steam box he has built, and he’s wearing a heavy fur-lined coat.
“I have some guests who are less than welcome in my home. Keep an eye on her progress. If she becomes too violent again, you know where the antidote serum is.”
And so do we.
He takes a few steps across the room, and in one uncontrolled instant, we’re face to face. I don’t know how I ripped out of Carver’s hand so fast or when the snarl that threatens to shatter my teeth started. The king’s slender frame crumples as every ounce of my strength slams into him. What little breath I had leaves me when our bodies smack against the floor. The shining tip of my blade sinks through the king’s abdomen.
That vicious half of me that I suppress daily slips out of its cage with elongated fangs. My skin splits to allow two black, twisting horns to part my hair. It’s a pain like I haven’t felt in centuries. The monster under my skin has always been there, threatening to pull me over the edge of insanity.
Basilus rushes toward us, and it’s then that Cameron and Carver move from our hiding spot. The prince is too busy tearing me off of the king to notice what’s happening across the room. I stumble back. My sword is yanked with a slurping sound of blade sliding through flesh and thrown to clatter into the far corner. Ring-clad knuckles collide with my jaw, and the impact of it leaves a crazed smile on my face.
Pain echoes inside my skull, but I eat it up, absorb the blow into my very being, and cackle.
With the Reveries’s offering held in Carver’s grip, he stands on one side of her while Cameron stands on the other. The Witch’s jaw locks into place as her lips purse, but she does manage a single spark. The smallest of magic and the dry herbs flare to life with thick white smoke. Carver’s hand waves, drifting the scent into her gasping and screeching mouth.
