Page 16 of Shattered Jewel

The knife descends, slicing through my black shirt, parting fabric and flesh with equal ease. Blood wells, a crimson tide spilling across my skin. I bite back a scream, my body fighting the restraints.

Each cut is a masterpiece of agony. He peels back skin, exposing muscle and sinew. I writhe, swallowing my howls until I’m suffocating and unhinging my jaw to the point of dislocation.

My world narrows to white-hot fire.

Time loses meaning, reduced to an endless cycle of torment. The Sovereign’s blade dances, leaving ruin in its wake. My blood paints the ground, rivulets filling the symbols carved into the stone underneath me.

Through the haze of pain, I cling to one thought, one image. Elara.

I will endure. For her. For the chance to hold her again, to lose myself in her warmth.

She hates me, but her body is made for me.

As I might be made for her.

An eternity passes before the Sovereign retreats, admiring his handiwork. The lead Sovereign begins chanting in a language I don’t understand, part Latin, part guttural horror.

The curse. He’s reinforcing it onto my flesh. I’m doomed. My life is forfeit…

I lie shattered, my chest a ruin of flayed flesh. Each breath is agony, my lungs straining against the ravaged cage of my ribs.

“Cross us again, and this suffering will seem a mercy.”

My depraved surgeon turns, his crimson robes swirling, and strides from the chamber. The lead Sovereign finishes his chant. The initiates release my bonds, their hands slick with my blood.

I struggle to rise. Every movement is a new discovery of pain. Kaspian and Wilder are there, lifting me and supporting my weight. Wilder looks like he wants to throw up at the sight of my chest. Kaspian deliberately keeps his attention on me from the neck up. I’m too exhausted and dizzy from blood loss to see what, exactly, they’ve done to me.

Axe stands guard against the overexcited initiates, his face pensive.

We stumble from the chamber, leaving a trail of ruby droplets in our wake. The tunnel stretches endlessly before us.

I’m not going to make it. Am I ever going to make it?

I lean on my brothers, drawing strength from their presence.

The iron doors slam shut behind us with a final, punctuated clang.

We pass under the girls’ dorms, where Elara is likely sleeping, completely unaware of the eternal cruelty occurring beneath her feet, leaving nothing but blood beneath her dreams.

Chapter 4

Elara

The moon is a thin crescent, barely casting a glow on Farrow Estate as Sasha and I make our way through the small garden path on the west side. Farrow Manor, my mother’s sanctuary and prison, looms like a sleeping dragon, its silhouette an ominous cut against the starless night sky. Sasha and I slip through the wrought-iron gates, our presence nothing more than whispers, fully committed to sneaking in.

I unlock the towering oak door, then inch it open. My racing mind juggles apprehension and courage while I scan the unlit corners for any sign of my mother’s notorious traps.

“Remember that time your mom set up fishing line at ankle level?” Sasha whispers behind me as we creep in. “I’m pretty sure I still have a scar from tripping into her ‘intruder alert’ system.”

I warn, my own voice barely above a breath, “She’s gotten more creative since then.”

“Booby traps by Elara’s Mom: because who needs home security systems when you’ve got yarn and bells?” Sasha replies with a grin that I can feel rather than see.

I stifle the need to admonish Sasha for talking about my mother that way. “She doesn’t trust any security installations or the people who install it.”

Sasha has always had this knack for slicing through tension with her humor, even in the most harrowing situations, and I know she’s doing it to help, not to insult. It’s absurd, the lengths my mother will go to protect herself. Paranoia paints her world in bright colors of danger—every shadow a potential threat, every silence a harbinger of death—but I will always want to defend her, even as she peels off a bit of my soul every day she doesn’t get better.

“Seriously, though,” Sasha adds, her voice dropping an octave. “Yell out if you spot anything that looks like it came out of a spy movie.”

---