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Without a word, I call on my shadows to slither through my veins and expel from my fingertips. Whipping this darkness outward to wrap around the torso of the male who gasps for breath once Whiro releases him. I lift his body off the ground and hover him just above the metallic water shimmering with soul-sucking magic.
“P–please! I’m Vincent! T–tell my mate… I l–love her.” The male chokes against my hold, spluttering as he tries to gasp for air when I squeeze tighter.
I’m not sure why I pause, my eyes boring into the male who confesses his final words for another. In half a heartbeat, he tightens his jaw in defiance. A different look infiltrates his features instead of the fear-stricken one that has consumed every Fae I’ve killed. He is the first who is not showing weakness before death, only a steeled spine of contempt. Refusing to beg to be saved when he understands his fate is already sealed.
But something deep within, that small voice buried beneath the whispers, doesn’t want me to let him fall. A cold draft brushes up my spine, leaving chills in its wake. It’s almost like my father’s power is growing impatient behind me, and that’s when I blink away the hesitation.
My power relinquishes, and I watch Vincent’s entire body submerge beneath the surface in the span of one steady exhale. He neither makes a sound nor closes his eyes. Instead, they follow me with a look that makes me feel like he might see more than just a she-demon with a corrupt soul. Eyes that infiltrate past the frozen shell encasing my heart, finding a minuscule crack and seeing what might dwell inside.
But I don’t tear my gaze away even as his eyes stay glued to mine while he continues to sink. No bubbles rise to the surface from his final breaths, the mirror-like liquid too dense for air to pass through.
My mouth parts when a glow begins to radiate around his body as it becomes still underwater. The light separating from his body detaches completely, becoming blinding before it’s snuffed out. Now Vincent looks just like the rest of the corpses that float beside him, colorless and frozen. The white light is nowhere to be seen, and I realize that was his soul.
With a quick dart of my eyes, I peer at Whiro before I’m stuck on the reflective pool that drinks away one’s life. I notice his gaze is focused on something behind me, but I don’t think much of it. Instead, I ask, “Where did it go?”
I feel his presence move to stand beside me, his arm brushing against mine. I can’t help but imagine what the sight looks like, just two vessels with the same mutilated soul—death standing next to his executioner.
“The in-between.” He pauses for a moment, seeming to think of what he wishes to tell me. “I don’t usually trap a soul like his, and I don’t truly need it. But I wanted to demonstrate how my treasured pool works. His soul is not alive, nor destroyed. It’s simply trapped, existing in the afterlife without the ability to move on. I hold their physical form, and the afterlife holds their soul for eternity.”
I stare in bewilderment at the unmoving water, at how something so magical looking can glitter among all the lifeless bodies floating beneath it. Words begin to trickle up my throat, but before they can become sound, Whiro continues to speak.
“Now you see the true beauty this room holds, but the Sea of Souls won’t be satisfied until it has the soul chosen for this fate.”
I twist my head to look up at him, the braids of my hair falling back behind my shoulders. “The heir of Asiza.”
He nods once. “You will return to Deyadrum and continue the act of being betrothed to the new prince of Asov. It will be a sort of peace offering from me and I know his father will eagerly accept now that he is being crowned king. He won’t turn away from power joining his side, but this will also provide me some entertainment.” A sly smirk spreads maliciously on the one side of his mouth. “Your presence will help draw out the heir of Asiza, and I do love to play with my prey before I trap them.”
Silence grows heavy in the stagnant air surrounding us.
“So, hear me now because I won’t say it again. Bring. Me. Prince Draven. It’s one life, or every soul.” Somehow the cold depths of his eyes grow darker, the veins webbing around them swelling. “You have until the next full moon. But understand,” he seethes and drops the pitch of his voice, “it won’t be my hands that take the souls of every person should you fail.”
I head to my chambers shortly after I’ve been tasked with my next victim, but the thought of luring the Dark Prince here unsettles something inside me. As if my heart is trying to kickstart and thaw the ice clinging onto it.
The narrow spiral staircase dizzily twirls up to the highest peak, spinning my thoughts in a whirl of disarray. Each breath creates a misty fog in front of me, the chilly air heavy on my lungs as I count fifty more steps taken. I could simply shadow myself to my room, but I find comfort in the mindless task of climbing the steps. It soothes the unease in my stomach that has me questioning the lone voice warring against the whispers in my mind. Or the warm feeling that has taken root in my chest ever since I crossed realms.
Another fifty steps left behind, my legs growing weary as I continue the climb. The events of today have taken a toll on me, leaving me desperately wanting to rest before my role as fiancée begins. I try to latch onto that one warning voice fighting against the whispers, but the exhaustion wins, and the voice gets drowned out. The whispers just keep growing more excited with the fun yet to unravel.
I push off the final step and twist the onyx handle to my door, clicking it shut when I cross over the threshold. The only thing I can make out in the dim, flickering light is the small bed in the center of the room, with a candle burning weakly on the ground beside it. The small clusters of wax solidify, barely dripping from the wick as the air freezes them before they can reach the dish below.
The mattress is firm when my body slumps down onto it, my muscles releasing some of the tension as I embrace the silence. I throw up a pathetically weak mental wall to block the whispers, something I’ve been practicing every day. Steadily weaving a web of power dense enough in my mind, until it separates my psyche from the maddening force.
Pressure builds against my skull as my brows deepen with focus, struggling to hold the shield as a few webs of power snap out of place. A small grunt slips free as I gnash my teeth to stop the shield from weakening so I can let my mind think freely. Trying my best to keep a firm hold as I seek that warmth in my chest again, wanting to brush against something familiar.
A small ember basks in a kernel of hope deep down and I try to grasp it. Light. The part of me that will blind this darkness from keeping its hold on me. It sparks brighter than I’ve witnessed before as I reach for it, but it fades after every attempt.
Suddenly, my mental barrier comes crashing down and the heat slowly flaring under my skin extinguishes. I blink once, my eyes targeting a piece of ash suspended in the air as I stare blankly at it. The cold settles in once again, icing over the sliver of hope that was pumping into my veins. That shred of longing that makes me believe in something good is gone in a flash. Which is why hope is such a fragile, dangerous thing to try to cling on to.
The darkness swarms around me, hugging close to my body with its voice of temptation filling my skull with thoughts to destroy. To ruin without mercy. My lips twitch with a haunting grin as I take pleasure in the terror others feel towards the dark and the shadows that cling to it. But I am the darkness, and these shadows are mine. If they are scared of the dark, then they will fear me.
Whiro wants me by the side of the male who is weak, but bubbles of excitement rise at how easily I can snap Aiden’s neck if he wrongs me. I’ll follow along and play the game to lure the Dark Prince to me. I don’t know why he’s the chosen one for the Sea of Souls if not for some kind of revenge. Even with what he said about his power. But my coal-stained heart doesn’t care to know. I’m now the queen on the board who has become the hunter of the king. I am nothing but a weapon: honed to perfection, sharpened, and ready to strike.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Draven
Awhistle pierces through the fog in my head as I attempt to peel my eyelids open.
“I told you to get rest, not to pillage your room.” Fynn. His voice is bright and cheery against the relentless pounding in the front of my skull.
