Page 168 of Promise of Darkness
Somewhere, deep beneath the earth, I can feel power welling, whispering to me. It’s almost as if some enormous force has turned its head toward me, waiting with bated breath for me to make the next move. I don’t want to think about what that force might be.
I slice the dagger across my finger, and blood wells. “If this doesn’t work, then ride back to Valerian and tell Thiago I loved him enough to try.”
“Along with the fact that I rode with you and let you get yourself killed? Thanks,” Eris snorts.
I shoot her a smile. In another lifetime we might almost have been friends. “If I die, then I bequeath the Erlking’s oath to you. Along with my collection of lurid romantic tales.”
Eris rolls her eyes. “Just do it, will you?”
I lean down, examining the stone at my feet. Thirteen grooves are cut into the tiles, and as I squeeze my hand over the center well, I feel the air around me suddenly stir. The Hallow needed a kingly sacrifice to trap an Old One, but if I’m right, then I won’t need to kill anyone. It worked at the Erlking’s Hallow.
Blood calls to blood.
Like to like.
Leanabh an dàn .I think I finally know what that means.
Blood drips from my clenched fist into the small well, and as if by magic, it shoots along all thirteen grooves toward the standing stones. The ground is shaking, little shards of stone shuddering across the tiles. A hollow boom echoes through the earth, as if entire continental plates shift beneath us.
“Vi,” Eris says nervously, one hand settling on her sword.
Look at that. No more Bitch Queen’s Little Pet. I think I’m starting to grow on her.
“It’s working,” I whisper, painting blood across all three runes I’ve identified.
I don’t get a chance to even smile.
Light blazes from every glyph carved into the stones. The ley line suddenly ignites, raw power shooting up toward the stars. Wind whips past me, my hair whipping around my face.
But it’s the sensation of something reaching for me and grabbing my mind, my magic, that makes me flinch.
“Princess!” Eris screams, but it sounds so far away.
Finally, something whispers in my ear.
Something dark and dangerous, with a laugh like dry leaves rustling against each other. I have a moment of sheer terror, a moment where I realize I may have made a crucial mistake in thinking this being can be bargained with.
And then the Hallow implodes, taking me with it.
* * *
There’s a sensation of falling.
It lasts both seconds and eons, until I’m barely aware of the world flashing past me. Little claws pick at my mind, unravelling pieces of me, as if a dozen hungry creatures are eating those memories and finding sustenance.
I see my sister and me running through a meadow as girls. Laughing, carefree, and happy. My mother watches the pair of us like a hawk from the edges of the meadow, and the cold, calculating gleam in her eyes bothers me now, though it didn’t then.
Then the memories twist, and I’m screaming at my mother, “Give her back! Give her back!”
Another flicker. “You little slut,” my mother hisses, lifting her hand to lash me with her claws. But it’s Andraste who captures her wrist and forces her back.
“Think about it,” my sister yells, standing toe-to-toe with the queen. “You can use this. You can trick the prince into a trap of your own choosing.”
And though it terrifies me at the time, I know I’ve been granted clemency.
Again and again, I hurtle through memories I’ve never seen before. My sister. My mother. My stepbrother. Thiago. Thalia. Eris. Even Finn and Baylor. The Mother examines them all until my head feels like it’s going to explode.
Splashing into ice-cold water slams me back into my body.
