Page 122 of Vasmora

We faced each other, completely naked. Vulnerable. Yet, I felt like I carried a belly full of secrets. I knew things about him that he’d never tell me. I’d heard his screams. His pain. All of it lived and breathed inside me like a parasite. Something I’d never rid myself of.

He pushed a stray hair behind my ear.

I scooped up water to wipe away the blood on his arm.

His fingertips met my elbow beneath the water, and he gently tugged me closer until his body eclipsed mine. So close, I could feel the heat radiating from his skin.

I slid my hands to his back, and he lifted me into his arms, sinking lower into the water, wrapping my legs around him. His broad shoulders and strong arms enveloped my body that’d grown thinner. Weaker. Tattered ribbons wrapped around steel. And for the first time since we’d left that palace, I felt safe.

Home.

Resting my head against his shoulder, I closed my eyes over tears. In silence, I mourned the girl from only weeks ago, who hadn’t yet known the fear of losing him. How utterly devastating and empty the world could possibly be. I’d been shown a new dimension of love–the darker, more terrifying plane where pain was inevitable. We weren’t guaranteed eternity, and I’d gotten a glimpse of the heart’s fragility. How easily it could be torn open and left to wither.

We stayed that way long enough that, at some point, I’d fallen asleep and woke to find he’d carried me all the way back to the camp, wrapped in his cloak. He gently laid me by a warm fire, though I had no awareness of where, whether in the cave or one of the many tents. I heard snippets of distant conversations, some bathed in a merriment that reminded me of holiday nights, when I’d fall asleep beside Aleysia to Grandfather Bronwick and Father laughing and drinking wine. Those were the nights I’d felt coziest and safe.

By some miracle, Zevander made me feel the safety of a child again.

And I drifted into the blissful void.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

MAEVYTH

“Wake up, little dove.” It didn’t matter that the words arrived softly, the grating tone of Loyce’s voice scraped over me like shards of broken glass.

I jerked awake with a startled breath, eyes darting over the surrounding darkness. A narrow strip of light from the cracked door barely illuminated the cramped space, but I could make out gray stone walls and the silhouette of a hulking figure standing in the doorway.

Long blond hair. A glint of gold.

My head refused to acknowledge her, gaze skimming past, desperate for something familiar.

The putrid stench of rot clogging my nose dragged my attention to the half-decayed corpse beside me, the blood long dried in red stains across the floor. Beetles and flies gathered in clusters over the bits of meat still left on her bones.

Melantha?

A low, steady panic thrummed beneath my skin. “How did I get here?” I murmured, staring down at where sharp bones protruded from my arms and legs, as if I hadn’t eaten in weeks. My threadbare dress clung to me in tattered shreds, saturated in gods knew what.

“I’m surprised you’re still alive. I thought you’d long died. Like the beautiful celaestriosz I’d once captured. A vicious little creature, starving and suffocating in your cage.”

“No,” I whispered, cold dread settling to my stomach. “Zevander, he … he came for me.”

“Zevander is dead.” Her biting words snaked beneath my ribs and chewed at my heart. “He isn’t coming for you. No one is coming for you.”

Prickling across my skin warned of the numbing shock settling over me.

A dream? Had it all been a dream?

“You will die in this place. Cold and alone. Forgotten,” she taunted.

“No, no, no.” Hands pressed to my ears, I screwed my eyes shut and frantically shook my head. “No, this isn’t real. It isn’t real!”

“It is real. I cannot die. I will never die, so long as you breathe.” Her bellowing laughter bounced off the walls, growing louder inside my head. “Free me. Or this shall be your prison.”

“Zevander!” His name tore out of me as a crackled sound. “Zevander!”

* * *

“Zevander!” I kicked backward, my spine smashing against an unyielding wall. Piercing blue eyes watched me from the dark corner. Cruel eyes that squinted with amusement.