Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,44

says. “With much thanks to your Heartless.”

The eyes move, all seven pairs of them at once, from Lucien to me. I swallow the urge to run, all the magic in the air crystallizing and prickling against my skin. A promise of needles. A promise of pain.

“There’s no use in placing blame,” Lucien starts instantly. “My sister would’ve gotten the tree eventually.”

None of the monoliths speak. Lucien angles his body in front of me, between them and me, and my blood thrums.

“She’s none of your—”

“She is precisely our business.” A monolith flares to life, the voice furious.

“With all due respect to the High Ones, I’m telling you,” Lucien insists, his own voice blooming anger. “My sister—”

Every other monolith lights up, sound and light gearing to explode in argument.

“Heartless,” the middle monolith croaks—no booming, no blades. Just slow, ancient words from an old, old witch encased in glass only as a head. A head with frazzled white hair, whose mouth never moves. His speech silences the room, silences Lucien and makes the other six monoliths go dark again instantly. He’s…talking to me? He must be, because he waits for me to acknowledge, and I start forward.

“Y-Yes?”

“You have taught a valkerax to Weep.”

Not a question. A statement. I nod. “Yes. Sir.”

“Has the valkerax told you your true name?”

“Yes.” I try to hold my chin up, but the magic bristles heavy at me.

“Would you say it before us?”

A request. Not a gentle one—one made of old, old bone and old, old steel. I want to dart my eyes to Lucien, to ask with my eyes if it’s all right to tell them. True names mean something. Witches seem to value them highly. But I can’t move.

we are in danger. we can’t disobey. The hunger slithers through me uneasily, around the cracks in the magic, around Lucien’s unbridled, uncontrolled feeling of worry. say it.

“Starving Wolf.”

The silence that follows my true name reverberates in on itself—deep and long—and then the monoliths light up. Softly. Their whispers flicker crimson into Lucien’s abyssal eyes, watching me wordlessly. And then they stop, suddenly, and the center one, the old witch with just a head, speaks again.

“At the end of the world, there will be wolves.”

I’m utterly lost, so I croak, “Sir?”

“A saying,” he continues. “Passed down many a generation. Long forgotten in origin but true in nature.”

Evlorasin’s words, mad as they were, stroke eerily at the back of my mind.

A wolf to end the world.

One of the monolith’s whispers is too loud. “They cannot fly. They’ve lost the knowledge. Even if she’s taught one, it is just one—”

Lucien squares his shoulders and braves speech.

“I came here, High Ones, to ask your aid. The Bone Tree is an Old Vetrisian invention. Surely you must know a spell that can interfere with it.”

“Why would we interfere with that which keeps the valkerax in check?” A monolith flares to life.

For a fraction of a moment, Lucien looks like someone’s hit him. Alarmed. Fione’s eyes widen, and Malachite’s narrow.

“They aren’t in check anymore. My sister has it,” Lucien argues. “My sister controls it!”

“You are presumptuous.” Another monolith lights up, blade-voice snickering. “And very confident in your sister’s abilities.”

“This magic—the Bone Tree is half the witches’ doing!” The prince’s brows knit deep, anger edging his cheekbones. “You would take responsibility!”

One of the monoliths bleeds black from its base, the glass turning from transparent to opaque as animate midnight slithers up the facets. It happens so fast—Lucien’s whole body giving instantly, forced to his knees. He grunts and snarls as he fights the invisible weight, magic crushing in on him.

I lunge at him, and Malachite draws his weapon, and in the next second all I can hear is a ringing in my ears, my head on the slate floor and my body crumpled against a wall and dozens of feet away from Lucien. I taste blood on my lips. Malachite’s fared no better—his broadsword spiraling up in the air and sinking deep into the slate floor. He runs over, trying to pull it out, but even with his beneather strength, it won’t move an inch.

“Listen well, Black Rose, and carefully,” one of the monoliths says. “The Bone Tree requires a powerful witch to feed once every century. Of this we are sure. It chooses this witch and consumes them. Of this we are sure. The Laughing Daughter fights it, but it will consume her as it has all the others. She uses it, but it will use her, in the end. And when it is