Page 37 of Haunted

I refuse to believe that the empress was always a monster.

A monster made her.

A strangled cry escapes the empress, and I almost bolt into the room. I hold myself steady with every ounce of my strength. By using the dark power, I heighten my senses a hundredfold as I strain to understand what’s going on. The stench of coppery blood assaults my nostrils. I expected blood with torture, but this much? The room must be pooling in it. Foolishly I swore I wouldn’t enter. What would the empress do to me if I broke my promise?

More cries. Gasping. Labored breathing. Whatever the empress is doing, the pain afflicts both mother and daughter. I straighten my back and glue my feet to the floor. This is a test. It’s always a test with the empress. If I charge into the room, I will lose her trust. She will sack me as chancellor, and Siarl’s plans will fail.

Agony rips through me, a fire in my throat and stomach. I tighten my abdomen as I grunt in pain. What my intuition tells me shocks me.

These sensations are from the empress.

How? How is this possible? I sense her anguish as if it were my own.

Impossible. She has no light for me to discern. She, as a Dark Emrys, can’t forge bonds the way Half-emrys of Light can.

But I feel her.

My knees grow weak. The empress continues to swell with pain.

She grows weaker.

I must put a stop to her pain, to the torture that surges through my veins.

Her veins.

I step toward the door but freeze when my vision fails. Then her sight becomes my sight. I’m in the room, as the empress. She contorts in pain, and my body reacts the same.

I force my eyes open. So much blood. The floor is slick from it.

I lift my gaze. Mother Siana dangles from her wrists by chains attached to the ceiling. She wears two pieces of skimpy clothes that do nothing to protect her modesty. Most of the cloth is saturated with blood.

Sorrow cuts to my core. Is this my reaction or the empress’s?

One more time, a slippery, vile voice in her head whispers. You must taste her blood one more time.

I double over on the hallway floor. How can I hear this? How is this possible? Who are you? I gasp.

Yes, the empress cries. As you wish.

No. Don’t. I’m not sure if she can hear me as I hear them.

Taste her blood! the voice cries.

No. I must stop her. I must save Mother Emrys. I don’t care if the empress kills me.

As the empress gropes to her feet, I crawl to where I know the door is in front of me. I feel the wood even though I see the interior chamber. I don’t have the strength to push the door open.

The empress touches Mother Siana’s stomach, which sends pain into my fingertips. Then I see the gleam of a knife seconds before the empress drags the blade across Siana’s bare abdomen. The cut is shallow, but Siana still cries out.

With the blade coated in blood, the empress brings it to her mouth and licks the metal. The blood burns down her throat and scorches her airway, forcing a scream from her.

I gasp, without sound, partially paralyzed, a prisoner to the torment as much as Siana. The empress’s pain from drinking her blood must be the same as touching her mother’s skin. But this is not her mother’s skin; the empress is drinking blood from an Emrys of Light.

No wonder we burn.

The empress gasps for breath and falls to the floor. I’m right there with her, on the other side of the door.

The room leaves my sight as visions fill my mind. Memories that are not my own. Memories that are not the empress’s either.

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