The Frozen Prince (The Beast Charmer #2) - Maxym M. Martineau Page 0,107
get word to Leena.
Dank, wet, and reeking of dirt, the small cavern was a jagged maw full of stalagmites and stalactites. The beast clung to the ceiling and moved about them on dew-flecked threads. Muted-red lichen glowed faintly along portions of the rocky floor. She’d strung me up relatively close to the entrance, and I was just able to crane my neck enough to get a glimpse of the endless dark expanse behind me. A wheezing current skated through the air and churned the milky fog along the ground. Magic. Dark and alluring and damning. It surged around me and beckoned from somewhere deep in the cavern.
Devil’s Hollow. A burial ground for dark mages who had sought to take down the Five—Nepheste, Silvis, Oslo, Tyrus, and Yuna—long ago. Their magic was so corrupt, so foul, that even in death it lingered in this gods-damned cave, pulsing around me. Red tendrils bloomed in my peripheral vision as though they’d finally been given the nourishment needed to grow. To spread like a weed and wrangle conscious thought from my mind.
The fog beneath me turned into a bloody mist, and Bowen appeared. The world blurred. Then steadied again. A hidden heartbeat pulsed from somewhere deep in the cavern. If I didn’t lose my body to the putrid magic of this cave, my mind would surely go.
Bowen sighed. “You had the chance to end this. Now, look at you.”
“Get out of my head.” My voice was more of a croak. The spider turned, her legs scampering against stone in a hair-raising scuffle. She lowered herself on a thick thread from her spinner and looked around. Bowen was invisible to her. It was no surprise the beast couldn’t see him. If anything, it only proved how far I’d fallen to the oath. Or how strong the cave’s magic was. It was suffocating. Endless. A constant weight pressing against my consciousness.
The ache in my head intensified. After several moments, the beast narrowed her eyes and ran sticky hands over my face. Once she deemed I was still thoroughly caught, she retreated up into the dark network of the ceiling and continued decorating the stalactites with webs.
The ghost of Bowen arched a careful brow. “Cozy.”
Not real. Not real. Not real. The mantra did nothing to lessen the oppressive magic.
A swirling wind churned the mist beside him, and Amira appeared. “Oh, Aleksander. How did you end up here?”
“Gods.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I counted three breaths before opening them again. Deep, foreign laughs rumbled from the back of the cave, each one more grating and damning than the last. The oath was called to the dark mages’ spirits. Pulling power from their cursed existence. The cave walls closed in around me.
Amira shook her head. “Did you really think that would work?”
“One can only hope.”
Hurt flickered through her golden irises. “I’m sorry it pains you to see us.”
A brittle chuckle pushed through my lips. “You have no idea.”
“You don’t think it’s painful for us too?” Bowen stalked forward with his hands fisted at his sides. “Seeing you with her? Knowing you have the power to grant her, grant all of us, peace?”
Silence. The sharp tang of magic spiked from the back of the cavern.
Amira gently rested a hand on his shoulder. “Bowen is right, Noc. Give Leena what she truly wants. An eternal life by your side.”
My mind spun. Their words sounded so right. But I knew they were wrong. They had to be wrong. “I can’t do what you want. I can’t kill the woman I love.”
The red fog sharpened around Amira. “Why? You killed us.”
“I didn’t have a choice!”
My exclamation echoed through the cave and crashed back into me. The weight of that truth was so heavy, magnified by their presence before me now. Amira inched closer. The spider had strung me up between two massive stalactites, so all I could do was look down at the mess I’d created. At the lives I’d stolen. They looked up at me, eyes wide and pleading, and the edges of my vision shook. I hurt. My head. My heart. Everything. The cave walls threatened to crumble around me.
Bowen’s expression broke. “But now you have a choice to save us all, and you’d still deny us?”
Amira sighed. “I thought we meant more to you than that.”
Agony arced through me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew they weren’t real. No matter that Bowen’s deep chuckle was a sound my ears had forgotten they missed. No matter that Amira’s