Page 119 of White Raven

Sweat dotted my forehead and I squeezed my thighs together, the pulse painful.

“Now return to your husband, knowing you let his guard—a lowly thrall—tongue-fuck you without hesitation.”

The finality in his words, the disgust in his expression, turned heat to chagrin. Not able to sit still, I climbed off the large bed, my skin itching to crawl off my bones. The stained white dress lay in a heap on the floor, blood spattered over it as though the White Raven had been shot down by an arrow, her naïvety and innocence hemorrhaging on the ground.

Panic gripped my senses, stealing my air, and I stumbled into the lavatory. A mirror reflected the girl staring back—pale skin, silvery-blue eyes, and long white hair, her skin dried with flakes of blood. No longer just Brynden’s blood, but everyone who had died because of me. The trail of bodies left in my wake. Their voices crying out, their life draining from their eyes.

And Sarina’s voice was the loudest.

You failed me. You failed me. You failed me. The chant looped in my head.

“I know.” A sob worked up my throat, my hands gripping my head as her voice grew louder.

It should have been you.

“I know.” I gasped for air. “I’m so sorry.”

This is all your fault. I would still be alive and happy if it wasn’t for you.

It was my fault, and every day I caused more harm and death. How many more died that I didn’t even know, to protect the White Raven?

I couldn’t catch my breath, my guilt dragging me to the depths of despair. The only thing I understood was that I wanted it to end. The weight I had carried since I was a child, the responsibility I bore.

My legs wobbled under me, my vision blurring. I gripped onto the bathtub, sitting on the rim. Dark thoughts coiled in my mind, and I stared at the water, still filling the metal drum from my bath earlier that evening.

Even if my father came, by our laws and customs, he had no right to me anymore. I was King Helvig’s wife, his property until my death, which would be only a handful of months away.

You failed me. You failed me. You failed me. The voice was no longer Sarina’s, but my father’s, his disappointment and anger sneering at me.

“I know,” I whispered. I was never someone who felt defeated or wanted to give up, but I couldn’t fight the quicksand pulling me down. The guilt which consumed me like a drug, hauling me down. I had no power over it. “I am so, so sorry I disappointed you.”

It wasn’t the fact I was kidnapped—as though I could somehow have stopped it—but the corruption of my character, my integrity, that my father would find the most offensive.

“Why did you lie to me?” I whispered. Hopelessness swallowed me, pulling me down into despair. I was going to die soon anyway. Why not do it under my own terms? Blackness bled into my vision, and I felt myself let go, falling into the tub, sinking under the water. My lungs spasmed for air, but I dove deeper into the darkness, searching for peace, to finally be free.

To fly with Huginn and Muninn.

It should have been my fate the day I was born.

A high-pitched sound drew me from the serenity of my death, a tiny arm flapping through the rippling waves of water. Huge dark eyes stared at me with frantic concern from the rim of the tub. Munch twittered, tears building up behind his lids.

I was failing even him.

Fight, Wren! What are you doing? Yet I closed my eyes, feeling my brain slow, the will to fight leaving my body. Somewhere in my gut I knew it was wrong, this was taking the cowardly way, but I just wanted all the lies and pain to stop.

Peace brushed my fingertips, the promise of serenity just in reach when pain shocked my senses. Fire scorched down my neck, exploding over my chest in searing hot pain. Wrath and fear come to life. A hand wrapped around my shoulders, yanking me up from the bottom. Air stung at my face and burned down my airways, as water spewed up my throat. Coughing and sputtering, I wheezed in and out, my lashes fluttering open.

“Breathe,” Onyx demanded, my body doing his bidding. “Again.”

I took in shaky breaths, hacking up more water, Munch twittering loudly next to me.

“I said again.”

Coughing, I sucked in cool air until my muscles started to sag against the tub. Onyx’s cold black eyes pierced mine, fury rolling off him along with the heavy stench of alcohol.

“Hva. Faen?” What the fuck? He seethed in and out, every syllable sparking through his teeth. “What were you doing?”

My body quaked with cold, but heat pumped down my neck and through my chest like embers.