A thousand thoughts and possibilities ran through my mind, but I couldn’t be sure of any of them.
“Who are you talking about?”
“It’s not your precious prince or your king. But it is someone close. After all, his mate is your Familiar, is she not?”
I froze, blood now pooling at my feet. Braelynn hissed, fire spewing from her mouth but not reaching any of the others.
Luken.
Luken, the bastard as others whispered about him in hushed tones, was the son of The Gray.
And I knew deep in my heart that he had no idea.
The Gray wanted him. And what The Gray wanted, he got.
As Durlan moved forward again, The Gray talking some more, I tuned all of it out, holding back my screams. Even though the cuts went deeper this time, my flesh parting with ease around the steel of the blade, I remained silent.
Braelynn hissed again, but she couldn’t help me. Her fire couldn’t penetrate whatever wards The Gray had put up.
Luken was The Gray’s son.
And my friend’s mother?
His mother was out there, as well.
Chapter Four
Lyric
Chained to the floor, my body shook, but my mind was still alert. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t… I was afraid what would happen. I refused to break here. I would not allow The Gray and his ilk to do this. I had to get home. I needed to get to the others. But what if I couldn’t? What if this was the end, and the others died because I wasn’t strong enough?
I let out a shaky breath, and Braelynn meowed above me, a little puff of smoke wafting through the shadow cage and hitting my face. I leaned into the warmth and tried not to sigh. It had been so long since I had been warm, even though I didn’t know how much time had passed.
Had the others fought a war without me? Had they fallen?
Perhaps the beginning of the fracture, the new Fall, had already ended and they had won. Maybe I was left here alone, chained in the Shadow realm, never to find an ending. Never to find salvation.
“You seem to have lost it all, haven’t you?”
That voice. I hated that voice.
I loathed it more than the blade the other brandished.
Durlan cut. He made me bleed. He grinned as he did it, clearly enjoying it. But he had the face of the enemy. He was precisely who he said he was. A brute who liked to torture. One who wanted to kill. He worked directly for The Gray and enjoyed his job. I knew what he would do and how I would hurt as a result. Durlan wasn’t who I feared. He wasn’t who I hated.
The Gray should have been whom I hated the most. For what he had done. For how he helped to orchestrate the Fall and was now helping to cause the second. But he wasn’t who lay across my heart as a scar. A symbol of shame and regret and horror.
The Gray was a horror to me, sure. A representation of evil and terror. Not a mere symbol, though. No, he was those atrocities. He scared me more than I cared to admit because of what he could do to the others. Because of what he was doing to them. However, he wasn’t the only one to fear.
The one who crept across my dreams whenever I got to sleep scared me beyond reason.
And that was the voice in front of me. The one who made my spine stiffen and scared me more than anything.
The Whisperer. The man who’d killed my parents.
The wretch who lied.
“You,” I rasped, my voice dry from screaming, hoarse from having no water.
I could do nothing to ease the pain.
Not yet. They weren’t feeding me, weren’t giving me liquids. Still, somehow, I was supposed to survive.
My elements were coming back, though. I could feel them, moving in inch by inch, day by day. I just didn’t know if it would be enough.
What would ever be enough?
“You’re not going to speak to me? Really? You just say my name like you’re in pain, like the little trash bunny you are, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? You could have had everything. You could have had power beyond recognition. And what did you do? You used it to get in bed with a king and pretend to be the people’s savior. You are a waste of space. A desecration of that power. You’re lucky The Gray doesn’t just kill you now. But he needs you. Needs you for something. I don’t care what. It means nothing. You are nothing. Just a sad excuse for a power you could have had. Power you could never be strong enough to truly understand or hope to possess.”
I forced myself to sit up. Chains rattled. Even though my bonds were made of shadow, they still made the same sounds as those forged of steel. Apparently, The Gray liked the effect.
Braelynn hissed from her cage above me, and while Garrik glared at her, he didn’t do anything else. Good, because I would have found a way to kill him for that.
She started to shake even more, and I looked up at her, risking a glance as she began to grow ever so slightly. I didn’t think Garrik noticed, but maybe this was good. Perhaps she’d be able to break free of her cage. As long as she didn’t hurt herself, I was fine with whatever she did. Together, we would find a way out of this.
It was odd. Just moments before I had been lamenting that perhaps I might die, that maybe I had been forgotten and everything was lost.
But the idea of Brae and I coming together to kill this man? To find a way to end him? That changed everything.
It was an ending I could put a face to and was one that gave me the strength to keep going. In the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t just him. It was the others, too. It was Easton. But thinking of him hurt. Just thinking his name hurt my soul. So, I pushed those thoughts away. I could only work on the tangible. On those I hoped were looking for me. Although part of me didn’t want them to. They needed to protect the realm—not only its Priestess.
I held my shoulders back, my bones aching, my stomach growling. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten. It had been before the battle, I knew that much. And that seemed like ages ago.
I knew who I was, who I needed to be. I would not feed on my anger, my pain.
I would not become bitter. I would not become cruel. I would not allow this man to take everything from me—everything I had left anyway. He had already taken so much. Had literally ripped my soul into a thousand tiny pieces. I had somehow glued them back together. I wasn’t going to let him do it again.
“You look so angry for someone without power. You don’t even have your Wielding. Your precious magic that was supposed to protect the realms. And yet, The Gray snapped his fingers, and you have nothing. You are chained, restrained. You were never supposed to be anything. Were you, Lyric?”
My Wielding took that moment to slowly slide through my body. Not a rush, not with mighty force, but as a trickle. I could feel the Earth beneath my feet, the Air dancing in my hair, the Water trickling behind me as it edged ever closer. I could feel the Fire of the burning lamps on the other side of the iron gate. And I could feel my soul wavering on the edge of an abyss. One that could change my destiny or keep me on the path of truth and wholeness.
I didn’t know where that would lead, but I could feel my Wielding coming back. And that was enough for now.
I just needed to wait him out a little bit longer. I let him continue talking, rambling on, trying to torture me with his snide remarks.
“You talk a lot for a man who’s fourth in command,” I taunted. I had to keep him talking because my magic was coming back. And the closer I got to having the ability to use my Wielding, the closer I was to escape. At least, that was my hope. I didn’t have a plan beyond one step at a time. But Easton had gotten out of this realm before. I would do the same. I risked another glance up at Braelynn. I saw that she was once again growing. Not so much that anyone who didn’t know her well would notice, but still...