Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
Wordlessly, I curled my fingers around the bone handle, welcoming the cool weight once more. I looked into the cell again.
“He doesn’t speak now?” I asked. The Ascended hadn’t been able to keep quiet before.
“I tore out his tongue,” Kieran announced, and both Casteel and I looked at him. “What?” The wolven shrugged. “He annoyed me.”
“Well,” Casteel murmured. “Okay, then.”
The Ascended made a pitiful whimper, drawing my gaze back to him. All the empathy welling up in my chest nearly strangled me.
But it wasn’t for the monster before me.
It was for Mrs. Tulis, whose neck he’d snapped without even so much as a thought. And for her son, Tobias, who I knew no longer had a future. It was for the man the knight had slaughtered on Chaney’s command, and those who’d died. It was for the ones who lay in the room off the banquet hall, and for the woman who was most likely dead by now. The burn in my throat and in my eyes was for the boy, who the Ascended had killed just because he could.
Just because he wanted to.
“Open the cell,” I ordered.
Kieran stepped forward and unlocked the cell door, and my feet carried me in.
Perhaps this was wrong. Definitely not something the Maiden would do, but I wasn’t the Maiden anymore. Truthfully, I’d never been. But even so, a life for a life wasn’t right. I knew that. Just as I knew that the hand that now held the dagger had held the hand of the wounded, easing pain instead of causing more.
Casteel or Kieran could end Chaney’s life, as could any number of those within the keep who were also owed retribution. The blood didn’t need to be on my hands.
But blood had been spilled because of me.
I stopped in front of Lord Chaney and looked up, staring into the one burning eye. There was so much coldness there. The emptiness was vast as he glared at me, straining against the shackles, drawing more blood as he attempted to reach me. A reverberating, whining groan emanated from the Ascended. If he could get free, he would come at me like a Craven, teeth snapping, tearing into my flesh. He would kill me in his hunger, consequences be damned. What I was to the Ascended wouldn’t matter. He would feed and feed, and if he hadn’t been the one to come to New Haven, he would continue to kill and kill. I stared into the eye, and all I saw were his victims’ faces, knowing that many more would remain nameless.
The dagger practically hummed against my palm.
What I’d done to Lord Mazeen had been an act borne of grief and rage, but it still had been an act of revenge. There had been something in the core of who I was that had allowed me to strike the Ascended down. Whatever it was, it was something that Casteel recognized. It was why he had given me this gift. He knew I was capable, and maybe that should disturb me. It probably would later.
Or maybe it wouldn’t.
I no longer knew what would haunt me, if what used to keep me up at night still would. I was changing, not just day by day, but hour by hour it seemed. And what had governed me before when I wore the veil, no longer ruled over me now.
I held Lord Chaney’s gaze. I didn’t look away. I didn’t say a word as I accepted the Prince’s gift, thrusting the bloodstone into the heart of the Ascended.
I watched until the red glow faded from his eye. I watched as his flesh cracked and peeled back, flaking off and scattering as the shackles clattered against the stone wall. I didn’t turn until nothing remained but a fine dusting of ash, drifting slowly to the floor.
Sometime later, I sat at the desk in the library, skimming the Atlantian records. I barely saw the letters, even the ones I could read. My thoughts were in a million different places, and I couldn’t focus. Sitting back in the chair, I sighed heavily.
“Is there something you wanted to discuss?” Kieran looked up from whatever book he had been thumbing through. Casteel had left him in charge of me while he met with the families of those who had lost a loved one. He hadn’t asked if I wanted to take part, but I had enough common sense to realize that my presence would either be unwelcomed or a distraction. What he was doing right now wasn’t about me.
“Or is there something you want to ask?” Kieran added. “I’m sure there is something you’d like to ask.”
I frowned at the wolven. “There’s nothing I want to ask.”
“Then why are you sighing every five minutes?”
“I’m not sighing every five minutes. Actually, there is something I want to ask,” I realized, and his expression turned bland. “This bond you have with Casteel. What does it actually entail? Like are you able to know his thoughts? If something were to happen to him, does it happen to you.”