Page 64 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

If they did not leave his head alone …

Where was the voice?Please, come back. Don’t leave me.

Malik stood and waved his hand lazily in the air like he could not be bothered with the order. “Drug him and drag him.”

The guard opened his mouth to protest, but night-blue flames engulfed his throat. Pleasing gasps for air escaped his lips.

A strained smile ghosted Garrik’s face.

Covered in flames, Malik’s hand clenched into a fist. Reptilian night-blue eyes engulfed by blue flames burned at the guard.“Not.Another.Word.” Voice as searing as fire, yet stunningly ancient in its tone.

Garrik gasped as he felt the sting of the needle inserted into his neck.

How he felt any sort of pinch was a mystery because sharp pangs of pain constantly surged through him. He tensed with small spasms, then relaxed as if all his muscles—what was left of them—had given in and left him utterly helpless.

Laying on the cold blood-covered stones, his heart dropped, ashamed he could not muster the physical strength to fight. No matter how tenacious his mind was, his body left him incapable.

“Drag him to hernow,” Malik ordered, still crouched over him. Then he said to Garrik, “This doesn’t need to continue. Give your father what he wants. You can be free, Garrik. Why do this to yourself?” He almost sounded like he cared.

Garrik knew better.

“Never,”Garrik choked out, throat raw from his screams hours before.

A burning reptilian sneer twisted Malik’s sharp face before a foreign tongue scraped along the walls of the dungeon. By some fleeting memory, Garrik understood the cursed words.By the Flames.Then the common tongue returned, “You’re a fucking fool.”

Garrik could not discern what they were saying.

His mind was so close to unconsciousness while his blistering infected feet scraped over the graystones permanently stained by his blood. Up, up, up a winding staircase from the depths of hell … up into Castle Galdheir, they dragged him.

The smells of his rotting cell faded behind them as …

Rain?Was that truly rain falling outside a square iron-barred window?

He certainly hoped for it. Malik was less prone to extensive torture sessions when it rained. However unlikely, he seemed to adopt a gentler mood, more patient between Garrik’s screams. Even ended his fiery attempts at persuasion early like he couldn’t get under the weeping sky fast enough.

If onlyshewas the same …

They arrived at a blackened door fit for a monster. He had been there countless times before. Knew what waited for him inside.

Greeted by slithering darkness—Snakemaresshecalled that magic—as they escaped the cracks around the stone frame, he watched them coil along the wood. A warning to anyone who dared to disturb the creature lurking behind the barrier.

Malik hesitated mere breaths before his clenched fist beat on the blackwood.

Each bang sent shards of pain through Garrik’s ears like freshly sharpened knives. Too loud, too much light. Everything was agonizing?—

“Open. The damn. Door.”Malik sounded pissed and spoke in stops like he addressed a simpleton. She would take offense to that. Garrik would suffer for it. Typical when anyone made Malik wait. He was not prone to patience and hoarded his precious time like a dragon hoarded gold.

Maybe they could tear each other apart when the door opened.

Malik viciously shouted her cursed name and pounded again.

A hiss seeped through the blackwood, and Garrik desperately used whatever strength he had left to keep from trembling. It had come to this—cowering at a lick of her voice.

“Enter.” A seductive melody. No wonder Magnelis made her his revered Washer. And there were rumors slithering around that Magnelis had her entertain in the royal bedchamber, too. Disgusting how his mother’s memory was tainted by the likes of this serpent. She would never be High Queen.Never.

The door swung open in slow motion, hinges groaning.

Inside, a horrifically haunting, beautiful bedchamber awaited, everything covered in a black that seemed void of all light. Wooden floorboards cracked with each step the further they pulled him inside. Curtains hung from the ceiling to the floor over sky-high windows that overlooked the mountain the castle was built into. Incredible crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling.Tomes sat open atop a long table with eight chairssettled on a reike pelt between the bed and door. Bottles of liquids sat upon long shelves on the walls.

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