Page 27 of What Whispers in the Dark
He was tempted to smile at it, at the story Alora had recited; their daring encounter with a rieke—their teamwork. Instead, he focused on the glass of vanilla and oak liquid forming condensation around his fingertips when his Guardian spoke again.
“What would Aiden say?”
Stifling the urge to snarl, he cocked his head in warning. “Aiden would know to keep his mouth shut or find himself thrown in a river before I force him to walk to Alynthia.” The glass reached his lips, allowing the sting of liquid to burn his throat. “We leave within the hour. Inform the generals.”
Thalon pushed off the table, turned, and leaned, pressing his fingers into the maps. His glowing golden assessment bore into the mark, displaying Alynthia’s supposed location. “Perhaps today the legion could rest. After everything that happened the last few days”—he shifted his weight, cautiously glancing overhis shoulder at Garrik refilling his glass from a filled decanter beside his chair—“and … of course. Your birthday.”
At that memory-cursed word, warm bourbon burned down Garrik’s throat again when he tossed back his sixth glass that hour. It did little to diminish his rising discomfort. Not so few glasses, and not this early in the morning. Lately, he used the burn to remind himself he was still alive, especially when his skin reminded him he was akin to a corpse drifting on the icy seas of Krysenka, where shadows and Darkness reigned in an eternal night—or were rumored to. In all the histories, there were no accounts of anyone ever crossing the waters to its shores.
“What’s one more day?” Thalon shrugged with his palms against the table; the golden Earned in his hair clacked together with the movement.
Beyond Thalon, a timid voice chuckled outside, along with a hollow thump he recognized came from a book, and ignored those, too.
A stuttering breath was Garrik’s answer, recovered by the quick clearing of his throat because that word … that wretched word pounded from a door deep and sealed, echoing along the shackles inside his mind’s prison and around every sharpened piece of twisted iron and rock and barb he had constructed to keep those memories buried decades ago.
Hisbirthday.
The cursed day was carved into the year like one of his scars. The word elicited a deathly chill waving down his spine and caused his lip to curl.
He had never told themwhyhe hated to celebrate.
If they knew …
Only, he would never enlighten them. Never allow his darkest secrets and deepest shame to surface. Today was more vital for his legions’ morale than celebrating the tragedy that washis cruel and regrettable birth. It had meaning behind it. Like the games in the arena, they needed this day—just one fucking day—to release the pressure weighing on them.
And to forget, if only for a fleeting moment, what Magnelis had done—and what he would still do…
Though it felt like hopelessly drowning from the depths of a bottomless sea, for them all, he would choke on this day just as he had in the silence of his screams. Like he had on the nights that only pure, undulated terror reigned. He would endure with no one knowing what had happened to him, the things that had been repeated on this day for thirty years in that starsdamned rotting dungeon cell.
When they?—
Whenshe…
Black, viper-like tendrils slithered around his arms in a vapored illusion.
They were not truly there, but still, he quickly tugged his tunic sleeve away from his skin as Thalon’s voice muddled into the distance.
He tried to fight it, tried to steady his vision, shake his head?—
A stoned hallway tunneled before him, lined by torches that cast his crumpled shadow along the walls.
Ebony gloves gripped his bound arms behind his back, shielding a dark-haired High Fae male from the festering burns he had scorched into Garrik’s body as they went up, up, up into the castle. Garrik could feel the simmering heat of dormant flames from within Malik’s palms as he led them past one … two … three torches flickering against filthy granite walls. His burned feet could barely move, barely stand being dragged over each bloodstained graystone. The sound of the scraping, the smell of his burned flesh, and nausea as he fought to keep his eyes open…
“Garrik?” Thalon called, his voice kingdoms away.
Six more steps and the door would bare him to her. Six more steps?—
“Happy birthday, my pet.”
Red. Everything was covered in flowing, viscid, warm pools of red.
“Garrik? Did you hear me?” echoed that voice again, but Garrik hardly heard it. Because… in that blood-covered darkened room, surrounded by a blackened abyss, staring into solid onyx eyes above him … someone was screaming.
Hewas screaming.
Garrik barely felt the glass shatter in his hand.
“Garrik!” Something like fabric tearing scratched the air. Movement below his chair … then warmth. On his shoulder. A light shake— “Brother, what is it?”
