Page 74 of Necromance
My body lay still, regal and composed, my skin pale but not sickly, like marble. My mouth was relaxed, the faintest crease of a frown still etched into my brow. My hands rested over my chest, fingers slightly curled.
But I was breathing.
Relief swept over me.
The painting was nearly gone, my energy depleted, but there was still hope.
I hadn’t heard Mia’s summons, if she’d tried. Another lie I’d told her in the void. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear her summons, but I’d had to make her leave.
It was the only way to keep her safe from Serena even if it meant I would die.
I’d had no real plan at the time… not until Serena demanded that I steal Mia’s dagger to destroy my body.
If I was lucky, it would work and Mia would return to the castle before the painting completely faded. Perhaps even now she was realizing that summoning me wasn’t working.
Serena moved around my body, her cold blue eyes locking with mine. “Don’t look so upset, my love. We havealways been destined to be together.”
I narrowed my gaze on her, fighting the urge to scoff. “Let’s get this over with.”
I pulled Mia’s dagger out, slowly twisting it in my fingers as I moved toward my body… toward Serena. She smiled up at me as I came to stand next to her, but I didn’t even look at her. Instead, I focused my attention on my body, hoping she couldn’t see the betrayal beneath my expression.
“Go on, Lucien,” she urged, her eagerness marking her tone. Her eyes gleamed with victory, and her smile stretched wider. “Straight through the heart.”
I lifted the dagger, positioning it over my body, my hand hovering just above my heart for a moment. Waiting.
From my peripheral I watched Serena’s gaze move from my face to the dagger, her attention entranced now. A gleeful, wicked grin spread across her too thin lips, hungry, knowing, as she waited for me to plunge the dagger into my body.
I closed my eyes, picturing Mia’s face–warm, fierce, loving.
I swung my arm quickly, arcing the blade outward instead of downward.
The dagger plunged into Serena’s heart, straight through the center of her form. For a moment, she stood frozen around the blade, gaping at me in disbelief.
Tears filled her eyes as she wrapped her hands around mine where I still pressed the dagger into her. Shetried to pull it out, her sobs now a raging panic, but I held onto it, digging it further and further into her body. Her scream tore through the crypt like a storm.
She wretched back, determined to break free, but I gripped the back of her head with my free hand, pulling her against me. The dagger embedded even deeper, only the hilt in my palm exposed now.
I leaned my mouth close to her ear, the scent of rot and decay assaulting my senses. “We were never meant to be, Serena.”
Then with one swift movement, I shoved her hard, the dagger ripping from her chest as she stumbled backward and crumpled to the stone floor.
I didn’t even spare her a second glance as I turned to leave the catacombs, hoping Mia had realized that I wouldn’t come and had returned to the castle.
Before I could even take a step, however, a bone-chilling scream echoed through the catacombs, so loud and guttural that it rattled the stone. The air turned frigid, then snapped warm with fury in an instant.
A spectral form emerged from the darkness, writhing at the mouth of the corridor.
Serena stepped out of the shadows, her smile almost teasing yet, laced with pure rage. Her face contorted, twisting with fury. The room began to tremble and the castlegroaned and wailed like a dying thing.
I stumbled back, my eyes wide. Confusion stirred inside of me as I watched the woman I had just killed with an enchanted blade move toward me.
“No,” I breathed, my brows furrowing. “How?”
Serena laughed, a grotesque sound that grinded against my nerves. Then her eyes moved from my face to behind me where I’d left her body just moments before.
A panic flooded my body as I slowly turned to follow her gaze.
The world stopped, my heart shattered into a million pieces.
