Page 1 of Thief of Souls
1
Idrown a thousand times.
Every day, for months. Sometimes twice a day. Sometimes three times. In the cold, dark silence of the Abyss it’s difficult to keep track, so it’s only when the winch starts clanking that I get my first warning that we’re going to play this game again.
My stomach tenses, and I jerk out of the half-comatose reverie I’ve been existing in.No. No, not again. Pain screams through my shoulders. I’ve been hanging in these chains for so long that the only time I can feel my arms is when they threaten to dunk me into the pit of water below.
My throat is raw from screaming, and there’s no point.
There’s no one here to hear me anyway.
This is the cost of failure.
As the chains lower me back into the watery pit, I can’t stop myself from shaking. I don’t want to do this. Not again.
But when I returned from the Court of Dreams without the Dragon’s Heart I was sent to steal, my father sentenced me to three months in the Abyss.
Three months hanging in chains over a watery pit, just waiting to drown again.
It won’t kill me.
I might, however, begin to wish I could drown and be done with all of this.
That’s the problem with being a half-breed. The fae are long-lived, and wraiths are difficult to kill. I can heal from almost anything, if given the chance.
It’s both a gift and a curse.
Because the ability to heal from most things means the ability tosurvivemost things.
The first shock of frigid water hits my bare toes.
“Stop!” I grab for something to save me—anything—and then I suck in an enormous breath.
The chains rattle faster as I’m plunged into a watery grave. The cold iron that burns around my wrists shoots straight for the bottom, taking me with it.
No matter how many times this happens, I still fight. Far above me, high in the tower, is a single lantern, and I can see that firefly glow slowly fading as the chains haul me lower.
A bubble escapes me—an unconscious cry of fear—and then several more as panic starts to set in. Kicking hard, I yearn for the surface, but the weight, the wretched weight, is dragging me down, down, forever down—
Pressure crushes my chest.
Please. Please, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fail. I won’t fail you again, Father. I won’t. I promise I won’t—
It’s so hard to keep holding on. My lungs kick like a mule, heaving at my ribs. Nothing. There’s nothing there. Only my ears threatening to pop, and bubbles slipping from my mouth as I try to capture them with my hands and hold such precious oxygen in….
The first mouthful is the worst.
I scream, but there’s no air. Only thick, wet weight that sinks through my lungs and the anchor that hauls me to my doom. Maybe this time will be the last time. Maybe this time my father will keep me down long enough that evenmybody can’t heal itself.
Darkness roars over me, but it’s not the warm cocoon of nighttime. It’s a greedy fist locking around my throat and choking me.
Please! Please help me!
A little spark of light burns to life in my chest like a hot coal.
Magic. Pure magic.
I reach for that spark with desperate hands.
