Page 24 of A Bond of Ice and Glass
But something inside me had already decided to do it, and that terrifies me more than anything. What’s happening to me?
“Yet you did,” Lochlan replies quietly. “And now the rest will talk.”
The prisoner who offered to speak clutches the bars, watching me with terrified, bloodshot eyes.
He’s not afraid of Lochlan. He’s afraid of me.
I step back again, shivering. The frost has reached the toes of my boots, and I realise I still can’t feel my hands. My entire body feels numbed right down to the bone. I used to think Lochlan was the one good thing I had left in this world.
Now I’m not sure what he is anymore.
Chapter 8
“Come on,” Noble says, taking me by the wrist. “Let’s leave here.”
I can only nod, worried if I do manage to speak, it might be something I’ll regret. How could Lochlan do such a thing?
I keep my eyes on him as Noble leads me away. Once more, Lochlan is crouching in front of the bars. I have never questioned him. Never doubted him until now. But now that doubt coils in my gut.
I don’t know what’s real anymore, like the mist in my dream is fogging my mind.
Before Noble takes me out of sight, I catch a strange light enveloping Lochlan. It glows silver-blue at first and then darkens, bleeding into black as if the shadows have twisted around him. There’s a flare of red inside it—and then screams.
Screams so deafening that I freeze in my tracks.
“You gave – your word!” a prisoner screams out.
Lochlan’s reply comes so calmly, so coldly, that bile rises up my throat again.
“I said I’d end your suffering, which I’m doing.”
Noble’s grip tightens on my arm, the only sensation I can feel over the sinking of my heart.
“Let’s go,” he growls, dragging me away.
My legs move with him, but it doesn’t feel like I’m the one doing it. It’s like I’ve been ripped out of my own body and forced to watch everything take place from above. Did I really just see that?
My best friend killed someone.
No, not just someone. Several of Erax’s soldiers whom Lochlan promised to help. Instead, he just killed them all. And he used magic to do it!
Since when could Lochlan use magic? And why did he never tell me?
My boots echo up the stairs behind Noble, every step too loud, too gut-wrenching. I can’t believe what I just saw. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
Noble holds the door open for me. I stare at it, unable to move, but I don’t need to. Noble practically drags me through. I blink up at the brighter lights and clench my hands into fists, squeezing them until I feel pain from my nails digging in. Anything to just feel something. To remind me that thisisreal. That I’m not dreaming this time.
I’m vaguely aware of Noble’s hand still on my wrist when he pulls me forward. He leads me through the halls and up several stairways until we’re inside a large private room. The maps on the walls, the books spilling over stacked shelves, the relics hanging like tapestries everywhere, oddly remind me of Noble. It must be one of his rooms in the other wing.
He nudges me towards the sofas nestled around the fireplace. The dark emerald leather looks like liquid under the sharp gleam of firelight. They look like they could swallow me up and drown me if I sat down on them.
For some reason, that thought snaps me back into reality.
I pull away from Noble, my panic suddenly rising until words pour from my mouth. Words that don’t make sense, apart from?—
“What the fuck? What thefuck!”
I head for the circular window across the room, overlooking the gardens below. Digging my nails into my arm, I pace back and forth, trying to make sense of what just happened. There must be a reason he did it. Maybe he didn’t think I could see?
