Page 93 of Hallowed Games

The soft embrace of the ground folds the mortals into itself.

I drank in the sounds of their last breaths. The death rattle was a soothing lullaby to my ears.

I am death’s hunger, and I will never have my fill.

My mind flashed with bursts of memories. There was Anselm, still just a boy, binding our hands together with a green silk ribbon, promising me it meant we’d marry one day. Lydia, threading together crowns of ivy, meadowsweet, and pale yellow primrose. I wasn’t invited to the masque because I wasn’t nobility. But she said we’d throw our own masque at night by the sea, and the music would be the nightingale song and the rhythmic crashing of the waves, and no one would be allowed but the three of us.

I saw Leo sleeping soundly, horizontal on his bed with his skinny limbs sticking out of the blankets. Maelor sitting at his desk, frantically writing and trying to feel something again. He turned to look at me, his eyes as dark as the magic spilling from my fingertips.

Time consumes all in its path.

The Serpent swallowed my memories, leaving only his own desires.

He wanted me to drape a pall of death over the kingdom, to unfurl a ravenous, withering cloud that spanned from the sea to the walls. Fear blossomed in the air, sweet as honey on my tongue.

A dead army lay before me. A fallen king. I’d march across the earth and take the rest—

Hands grasped me, the scent of sandalwood. Powerful arms pulled me into an embrace. I struggled against the confinement, but his grasp was iron. I heard hooves beat against the earth, and wind whipped at my body. I turned to look back at my greatest work. My masterpiece—the phalanx of corpses, piled so beautifully on each other. Hearts still at last, chests no longer moving.

On foot, the other Penitents ran from the castle until the shadows swallowed the world again.

For a moment, understanding flickered. We’d won. Maelor and I were fleeing on horseback—free. The Penitents were scattering into the welcoming embrace of the night. I was on my way to Leo, to keep him safe.

But that understanding was gone in the next heartbeat.

Because I’d taken too much. And now, there was nothing left but the Serpent’s hunger…

CHAPTER 41

Tendrils of shadow bound my wrists. Under my ribs, sharp yearning gnawed. I needed to free myself, to paint the kingdom with ashen hues of purple and gray. I must feed the soil with the dead.

I’d roam the streets, pound the earth amid a symphony of final breaths.

Except there was someone to remember, wasn’t there…

Dark hair…

A boy with thin arms and so many questions. What’s your favorite bird? What’s your favorite pie?

And another—a beautiful man in a room of brass instruments, smearing red and orange paint over an ink drawing of a butterfly, trying to bring colors back into his world.

“She’s almost back, I think.” A familiar feminine voice floated through the air.

Darkness slid over my thoughts again.

* * *

My gaze flicked open, and he was the first thing I saw—eyes violet-blue as the sound of an O, bright as the heavens. “You’re back, Elowen.”

I wanted him to come closer, but he stood across the room. I flexed my sore wrists, frustrated to find they were still bound in his shadows.

“Can you let me go?” Somehow, everything in the room seemed blurry except Maelor.

His eyebrows rose. “I haven’t decided yet.”

My heart started to race, and my gaze flicked over the room. Small and simple, with white walls and a fireplace. Wood beams crossed the ceiling above. It smelled of a fireplace and also like I hadn’t bathed in weeks.

I licked my dry lips. “Where am I? What’s happened?”

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