Page 146 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
She stretched her hands toward me. I mirrored her movements, unsure. She glided her palms over mine, leaving a crimson streak in her wake. Blood. I fought every instinct to keep from shuddering.
“I will flow through your veins,” she said and it suddenly seemed like a thousand people spoke at once. Screaming and laughing at the same time. Taunting.
Then she pressed her thumb against my forehead, leaving a similar sleekness behind.
“And I will tunnel into your mind,” she went on. “No secret you have can hide from me. Do you accept?”
I nodded.
I was ready.
Then the pain began.
Chapter
Forty-Six
EVIE
Ihad a million spiders crawling through my veins, trying to tear me up from the inside.
It was the only explanation for this agony that threatened to burst me open.
“Kneel,” hundreds of voices murmured in my mind. Softly. Calmly. Like they were giving me the best advice in all of Malhaven. “The pain will stop.”
Lies, I roared in my mind, but it only came out as a whimper.
Everywhere I looked, everywhere I turned, all I could see were tall, dark walls dripping with blood. Caging, threatening to drown me.
“It’s so easy,” the voices went on, as if whispering from the blood itself. “Do it and this stops.”
No. Not when I had an entire Clan who valued strength above all else looking at me, waiting for the Protectorate brat to fail.
The pain burned. Gods, it hurt so bad, ripping me apart. That was my blood rushing at my feet, it had to be.
“Kneel,” the chorus gained momentum, the word echoing on repeat so that it didn’t end.
It would never end.
This agony was endless. Boundless, shredding me from the inside out.
“You will die,” the voices shrieked viciously.
Death meant I would no longer hurt. Death meant seeing grandpa Constantine and my parents again. Uncle Alaric?—
“But you will lose someone else,” the voices howled.
More pitiful lies, my thoughts countered.
A cackle ripped itself from my throat. It came from some part of me I didn’t recognize. A resilient side, that knew a truth I couldn’t even begin to unravel.
In the midst of the darkness, a glistening golden dragon appeared. It snarled at the blood, threatening to destroy the walls.
Its great gleaming wings swooped down behind me, sending a warm gust of wind my way.
It gave me even more force.
Then we will reunite when he crosses as well, that same resilience from deep inside me spoke.Death is inevitable.
