me. And she was a fighter. Of course she fought for her freedom.
I just hadn’t expected it to happen at that moment.
My room was silent when I entered, until the bird gave a loud, distressed cry. After I’d woken to find Seraphia gone, I’d sensed the creature’s presence on the castle wall outside my window. It hadn’t been there when Seraphia and I had been, or I’d have felt it. The creature must have returned, but it had been too smart to sit on the sill. I’d found it sitting to the left of the window, clinging to one of the iron fixtures that decorated the stone.
I’d grabbed it before it could fly off and put it in a cage, then I’d gone after Seraphia.
I strode toward the cage where the bird flapped frantically within the bars.
“I don’t know who you are,” I said. “But you’ve helped her.”
It had been an oversight of mine—not realizing that Seraphia might have someone to help her. Someone who cared about her enough to risk visiting the underworld.
People had other people.
I’d forgotten that in my long, solitary existence. I’d never seen the need for other people, nor desired them, but the benefit was now clear to me. I should have realized. Should have anticipated.
The bird stopped flapping and glared up at me. It could probably disappear as soon as I removed it from the cage. The magic surrounding it was strong. But the gold bars bound its magic.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
The bird continued to glower, eyes bright and hard.
Some creatures could speak while in their animal forms, but not all. If this one could, it refused.
Seraphia loved this bird. I’d seen it in her eyes when I told her that I’d caught it.
I stared at it, clenching and unclenching my fists.
Kill it.
The darkness whispered through me, commanding me.
I swallowed hard.
Kill it.
I opened the cage and reached inside, my hands trembling sightly. Disgust rocketed through me.
What was becoming of me?
Kill it.
I gritted my teeth as the darkness surged inside me, commanding.
Seraphia loved this bird.
I picked it up, hands gentle despite the urge to snap its neck. It struggled, trying to break free, but my magic prevented it.
My soul thrashed like a beast in its cage, fighting the command of the darkness and the command of something else I couldn’t identify. But something screamed in me not to hurt the bird, screamed louder than all the darkness in the pit beneath my castle.
If it was the light, I ignored that fact as I walked to the window with the bird in my grasp.
“Go.” I released the bird into the night. “And never return.”
The bird took off into the sky. I captured it with my magic, making the air glow bright around it, then evicted it from my realm, sending it back to wherever it had come from. It would arrive there unharmed.
Shuddering, ill, I stepped back from the window.
The darkness wailed within me, shrieking like an enraged ghost had inhabited my soul. I shoved it down and turned my back to the sea. Now that I had felt the bird’s magic, I would be able to bar it from entering my realm again.
I looked down at my hands.
I’d been unable to do what the darkness required of me. Had been unable to obey.
I plunged them into my hair and pulled.
What was happening to me?
18
Seraphia
I woke the next morning, head pounding and stomach sour. I hadn’t had an ounce of alcohol, but it felt like the hangover from hell.
Carefully, I rolled out of bed, barely making it to my feet.
I’d spent the entire night crying, worried about Beatrix.
What had he done to her?
Had I ended up killing her?
I swallowed hard, shuddering, and went to the window, hoping to see her.
Of course I didn’t. The sky was orange with the rising sun, though I didn't see the brilliant orb itself. Beneath it, the sea was deep and black.
Was she down there?
Had he killed her and tossed her into that deep, dark sea?
I shuddered and turned from the window, bending over to retch.
There was nothing in my stomach, and the dry heaves ended eventually. I stood, shaking and cold, and sucked in a breath. I couldn’t lose my shit now. More than ever, I had to escape. If Beatrix really had died, she’d done it to save my life and Mac’s. I couldn’t let her sacrifice go to waste.
It took everything I had to eat one of the last three protein bars that Beatrix had brought me and