Page 154 of The Nightmare Bride
Only it went on. Shadows boiled in my bloodstream while the storm’s vastness pressed me to a paper-thin shard. I was nobody. Nothing. Just a water droplet flung at a conflagration, so meaningless I exploded into vapor before even touching the flame.
The mutant creatures cackled and danced.
And I screamed, until my voice faded to a rasp and scalding tears coursed down my cheeks.
Then, when it still didn’t end, I went right on screaming.
3.
In the morning, I awoke to silence.
A groan crept from my cracked lips as I pried my lashes apart. Across the room, my balcony doors hung askew, admitting sunlight so cheerful it threatened to make me retch.
I closed my eyes until the urge passed, then took inventory. My wrists and ankles burned where the manacles seared my rubbed-raw flesh. Meanwhile, someone had put my limbs through a sausage-grinder, and a throb had cemented itself to my bones.
But I’d lived, which meant I could go to Amryssa. That was all that mattered—her, and the fact that there would be no wedding today. Not when the prince was dead.
A grin pieced itself together on my aching face. Sweet Zephyrine, my prayers had actually been answered. Now the urge to kiss someone filled me. Maybe next time I passed Merron in the hall, I’d do just that. Months had passed since the last time, but today called for a celebration.
I just needed to unchain myself, first.
I raised my head. My keyring lay ten feet away, where I’d hurled it against a baseboard last night in a bid for survival.
I whispered to the dagger at my waist. I couldn’t reach the hilt, but I didn’t need to—the dagger awoke, its energy curling in my mind like a question mark.
Yes?
“Keys,” I rasped. “I need my keys.”
The knife’s energy flared. The keyring arced through the air, landing against my palm with an abrupt jangle. The dagger’s sizzle subsided as whatever consciousness lived inside fell into slumber once more.
I thumbed through the keys with stiff fingers, then flung my chains away and stumbled out into the hall, where another key scraped in yet another lock. I shoved Amryssa’s door open and lurched through.
The sight of her, wan and exhausted, shredded my heart, but at least she’d survived. I fumbled with her restraints. She watched with limpid eyes, too depleted to even greet me.
Which was probably was for the best. If I’d spoken, the truth of the prince’s fate would’ve leapt from my swollen throat. But I refrained, knowing we’d have to feign surprise at breakfast. Someone would inevitably rush in, shrieking about the royal corpse in the drive—or the front hall, or whatever resting place Kyven had made it to in his final, ill-fated seconds—and Amryssa had zero capacity to lie.
Of course, I’d still tell her the truth, once I’d played dumb for Olivian. I wouldn’t even protest the seneschal’s punishment, as long as it didn’t cleave me from Amryssa’s side.
I helped my best friend from bed. While she clung to a bedpost, I exchanged her nightwear for a proper gown. My own dress—of burgundy cotton, its bodice stiff with dried sweat and blood—scraped at my skin, but I didn’t have the stamina tochange right now. No one would expect much of us this morning, anyway.
“Breakfast?” I managed.
Amryssa nodded.
We hobbled down the grand staircase together. In the breakfast room, sunlight stabbed through the windows, the air already verging on musty. By midday, the temperature would be unbearable in here, but we’d be in the rooftop cupola by then, seeking a reprieve in the meager breeze.
Apparently, Olivian had beaten us down. He sat at the head of the table, his black locks springing in every direction. He’d managed to don a waistcoat, though he’d neglected to fasten his topmost shirt buttons.
He didn’t acknowledge us. He simply glared at the corner, which apparently he’d been doing for some time, because his chipped plate lay untouched. I followed his gaze to a brass torchier, then shrugged.
If he’d rather stare at the furnishings than interrogate me, fine. I just hoped the news of Kyven’s untimely death would arriveafterI’d had my coffee.
Amryssa collapsed in a high-backed chair. I went to the sideboard, where an array of platters and teapots awaited—Miss Quist’s work, which never ceased to amaze me. No matter how brutal the nightmare, our cook always dragged herself from bed early and stocked the breakfast room with biscuits and eggs and a variety of other foods I couldn’t have forced down my raw, stinging throat if I’d tried.
Amryssa shrank from the steaming tea I set before her. She looked so frail that she reminded me of the starling that had once crashed against these very windows. The bird had fallen to the gravel outside, and when I’d scooped it up, I’d found a creature of the poisoned bayou in my palm, with an extra eye in the middle of its forehead and seven toes on one foot. I’d tried torevive the poor thing with my dagger, but, when that had failed, I’d settled for hoping the bird had savored the wind in its last, explosive moments, and died with a song in its throat.
Because I didn’t hate animals the way I hated people. Animals were innocent, only cruel when they had to be. Meanwhile, people injured each other for fun.
