This close, I could see my own face over and over in the pile beneath her. I told myself that this was a glamour. It was an illusion meant to intimidate me. However, I could remember each and every death I’d endured in my nightmares. The mortal wounds in each body added up.
They were real.
Beryl waved a hand at the heap. “I will send a gift to your friend, Adeline. She did me a favor when she split your fate thread for me. It was all too easy to pick off the other pieces of you.”
Dead.
Dead.
The other versions of me were…
The throat burned. Alvin’s hands returned. I could feel Bastien’s grip crushing my arms. My knees gave out. I dropped to the floor and tumbled forward, the books falling from my grasp.
Beryl laughed while I relived all the times I could have died.
The future I wanted for myself slid out of my grasp. I would never be safe again.
While I knew that this was a panic attack, the swirling thoughts wouldn’t stop. More black ichor bubbled out of the wound in my hand. The wilted blot in my arcana seemed to pulse. Bitter darkness gathered on my tongue.
Rhoan
Cerri screamed when she fell.The sound shook the walls. Green life burst out of the pile of bodies—the pile of dead Cerridwens…
The bodies turned into vines and trees and flowers. Petals and pale green leaves floated on a wind that tore at my feathers until oily black feathers dotted the air, too. I reached for Cerri to help her up, but the wind pushed me back.
“Cute temper tantrum,” Beryl said under Cerri’s screaming.
The thick tree boughs all bent towards Beryl. I rushed for Cerri right as the branches all descended upon Beryl at once. A gleaming black pool covered the floor under Cerri. It sank into he stones and turned the walls dark. Black veins climbed the trees and stained the hearts of the flowers growing on them.
I grabbed the fallen books before pulling Cerri into my arms. Carrying all three was a bit difficult. The beast offered help. It could transform my body in a great number of ways, but I didn’t want to give in to the darkness of it just yet. We could still escape this.
I didn’t have to give myself over to an Unseelie creation.
Cerri’s weight was solid against my chest. Her presence settled the beast inside me. I thought of her lips against mine up in the tower, how she kissed me so thoroughly that I thought she would absolve me of the darkness still lurking in my core.
Not even the princess’s soft kiss could cure me of my past sins. I’d made this mistake all on my own, and I would have to live with it for the rest of my life.
“What will you do when your knight turns on you?” Beryl asked.
Gutted, I faltered. My feet tangled beneath me. Only my wings kept me upright as they beat against the air to keep me from falling.
“Little Cerridwen, with your trusting soul. Do you know what your knight has done? Do you know the darkness that resides in him?”
I glanced back, over my shoulder. Beryl was trapped behind a celtic knot of tree branches. They reflected light like metal, proving just how fortified they were. Cerridwen had done her best to keep the queen at bay.
But the monstrous Unseeliewenchswiped her talons across the wood and sent it all crumbling to the ground. She stepped out from the cage and dusted off her dress. When she looked up, she tilted her head and pinned me with her predatorial glare.
Beryl’s magic lanced out at me and slammed into my spine. I bucked as her ghostly talons grabbed my beast and dragged it out of me.
“No,” I growled.
Cerri raised her head. Black ichor covered her chest from where she cradled her bleeding hand to her heart. “You don’t scare me.”
The words stole my breath. My knees hit the ground. This time—perhaps for the first time ever—when my beast tore its way out of me, I wasn’t afraid. Four massive taloned paws touched the ground. I shook out my black fur and tossed my horned head.
I had the face of a lion and the horns of a goat. The chimera creature that the pookah had shoved inside me had a taste for blood, but I padded over to Cerri and gently licked her darkened, bleeding hand. It should have tasted bitter, but there was a sweetness in it that made my head spin.
Cerri smiled up at me. Her eyes went wide, brows flying high like she was looking at an adorable puppy and not a nightmare dreamed up by the Unseelie armies.