Page 91 of The Cursed and the Broken
“Dante.” I hated myself for the whimpering tone, for asking anything of that traitor. But fear washed over me, sinking into every pore, my hands trembling beneath the restraints. I was vulnerable, trapped. My chest screamed with agony and my vision was failing. I looked at the world through a blurry lens, my pulse fading, my heart beating a little less bravely with each passing moment.
Blood seeped from my wound, pooling on the stone and dribbling down the slab. The cultists outnumbered the táltosok, spurred by the sight of their mistress, the triumph of their queen returning.
“Dante!” I screamed, seeing the flash of skin and bone behind that whirlwind, the blood used in that ritual now morphing into flesh.
“I’m coming,” he shouted back, running to his mother’s side. Mama had pacified her with vines, but she laughed manically, the sound echoing around the clearing. “She has risen,” she sang. “She’s alive!”
Dante knocked her out with the hilt of his sword, clawing at her throat and ripping a necklace with a key suspended on the chain … the key to my restraints. With steady fingers, he pried the locks open at my wrists and ankles, gently pulling me to his arms.
I stumbled from the stone, allowing myself a few precious seconds in his warmth before shoving him away, barely managing to stay upright. He pulled the shirt from his back and I took it begrudgingly, covering up what little remained of my dignity.
Mama ran to my side, her brown eyes wide, curly hair standing at odd ends. “We need to go. Now.”
I didn’t need telling twice. I took a step and collapsed, clutching Dante’s slick arms. He swung me into his arms and I didn’t have the strength to protest. My vision spotted from blood loss and pain, and each step he made sent agony down my chest, but we had to carry on. We had to—
Cultists blocked our path and I set my jaw, calling my power to my fingers. I almost wept in relief as it flooded through me, surging up, up, up. The beast inside me roared and thrashed and, for the first time, I didn’t hesitate. I unleashed that dark creature and set it free.
Red. It surrounded us, enveloping us in a different mist, the smell of copper singeing the air, the taste of blood on my tongue. The cultists in our way winked out of existence and I pushed the power onwards, letting it curl around every enemy, destroying organic matter like fire blazing through a forest.
The power surging through me filled me up like a pleasure I’d never known. Addictive, enthralling. I wanted to drown in its ecstasy. A small part of me warned that this wasn’t right, that killing was wrong, but the bigger part—the stronger part—delighted in every cultist I wiped off the face of the earth.
The power surged towards Sylvie, crashing upon her like a wave against the shore. It seemed like time stopped as everyone watched that mighty red arc slicing through bodies and air alike, and I dared to hope, dared to think that perhaps it might be enough.Imight be enough.
She held out a hand and the power just … stopped. Bursting like a cloud, drops of red splattering and turning to fog upon the ground. The mist cleared and a figure stepped out, whole and terrifyingly alive.
Sylvie Morici. She was the embodiment of beauty?or would be in perfect health. Her skin held a sickly pallor, her flesh sagging over bones still lengthening and adjusting into shape. She had tawny skin, long legs, brunette hair falling in a straight sheet to a narrow waist. Her eyes were a mystery, her mouth was sin, and she smiled with bow lips. She was utterly naked, but she wore power like a crown, even in her weakened state. The Dark Queen, risen from the ashes.
Her eyes met mine and it took everything in me not to tremble at her form, the ancient, wicked weight of her very presence pressing down on me. “Not your power,” she hissed.
My skin prickled, every cell in my body shrivelling at that voice.
Dante turned to my mother, to the táltosok, fear swimming in those brown eyes. “Run.”
We bolted, the path now emptied of cultists as András, Dante, my mother and the soldiers ran for our lives, scurrying towards safety. I glanced over my shoulder, waiting for the strike to fall, but Sylvie watched eagerly, drinking in every detail with glittering eyes. Why didn’t she follow?
Because she was too weak, I realised, watching the skin still bloom over her bones. I had sacrificed blood, but it wasn’t enough. She needed much, much more.
Sylvie’s laugh followed me, her power licking at my heels. “Fly, little bird,” she called. “I will find your nest. I am the black within your heart. The hatred in your soul. You will take my hand and kneel or be the blood against my lips. Fear me, mortal. For I am coming. I am already with you.”
A coldness swept over my bones, settling in the pit of my stomach as we ran and ran and ran. We might have won the day, but those words, they repeated in my mind, haunting my every aching step.
The Dark Queen had returned and the battle had just begun. We might have won our lives today, but the fight for the Kingdom of Hungary would be long, brutal, and bloody.
“I am coming.”
My fingers curled into fists, my rage amplifying with each step through the dark wood. I had been stabbed, drained, betrayed and used by táltos, witch, cultist, and demon.
I would not bend.
I would not break.
And I would stop at nothing until that wretch was rotting in immortal hell in Death’s dungeons. She wanted a war?
Fine.
Bring it on, bitch.
FORTY
