Page 27 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

A clicking sound, like stone scraping stone, brings me back around to find that Kiera is more than several paces away, her steps eating up the distance as rustling towards the next aisle of cells can be heard.

"Kiera, don't?—"

She stops abruptly, whirling towards one of the cells, and I nearly drop the damn torch at the man that appears beyond the bars.

Sunken eyes that appear almost black in the lack of light peer out from a face so devoid of life that the skin has withered to a gray. The flesh pulled taut over bone and marks and scars slashed across his cheek, brow, and throat. Blood stains the dirtytunic he's wearing, but even beneath the foul odor that emanates from him, I can identify him.

I come to a stop alongside Kiera as the two of us stare back at the man and he does the same to us. When he smiles, his teeth appear to gleam in the darkness.

"You found me," he murmurs casually, his voice gruff and hoarse as if it's healing after screams stole it away.

"I dreamed of you," Kiera replies. Then her gaze turns to the cell adjoining Caedmon's. Yet another wall of brimstone bars separate the God of Prophecy from the woman in the cell next to his. "And of you."

Caedmon looks back at the woman hidden in the shadows. The only reason I even know she's there is the way the torch light I'm holding flickers and steals over bone-white flesh and threadbare garments that are held too stiffly to be anything but a living body. Even corpses cannot remain that rigid.

It's Caedmon who speaks first, turning to the woman and holding out a hand as if she can pass through the bars and join him at his side. "Come, Ari." His hand falters as a hacking cough overtakes him and he doubles over, blood dribbling from his dry, cracked lips. When he finishes and rights himself, he passes the back of one hand over his mouth, ignoring the stain of red on his skin.

The figure in the corner finally moves, turning their head and shifting an inch or two closer just enough that I catch sight of her features. Familiar features. I go still where I stand, my eyes narrowing.

"It's time to meet her," Caedmon continues, gesturing once more with his hand.

Kiera is just as transfixed by the woman as I am. She isn't merely watching the other woman, she's staring at her as if she can peel back the layers of her flesh and examine her insides. Storm cloud gray eyes are fixed, the color disappearing rapidlyas the pupil expands. I return my attention to the stranger as she unfolds herself from the corner and steps forward.

The torch does drop from my hands then, the illusion of flame going out in an instant as the wood crashes into the stone floor and splinters apart. Even as the light disappears, though, the damage has already been done.

I see the woman and I recognize her from the glass painting in Caedmon's office.

The woman who looks like Kiera.

Chapter 14

Ariadne

10 years ago…

The line between right and wrong is so thin that it’s impossible to know if you stand on one side or the other. What I know in my heart, though, is that right and wrong mean nothing to mothers.

Mothers live by a different code of honor—one in which death, murder, and violence are nothing but stones to climb. Whatever it takes. Whoever I must face. They are nothing but obstacles in my path.

Dark tendrils of shadow seep from my fingertips, curling along the length of my side and then sliding upwards to lick against where my cheek is bared to the icy air. I turn my cheek and press a soft kiss to the power and it shivers in pleasure before disappearing back into my flesh.

All it took to realize the change that had been wrought within me was a silver-haired, gray-eyed infant. With clouded exhaustion and blood seeping between my thighs, the feel of that small, infinitely fragile form against my chest made all of the agony, all of the months of fear of discovery, all of the yearsunder my father’s thumb and the secrets of my lover and what we had created worth it.

Even now, as snow climbs up my legs, rising nearly to my knees as I trudge into the darkest part of the Hinterlands, it’s worth it. The smallest chance of finding her—of being with her—is worth all of the bodies I have left in my wake.

Whether he realizes it or not, Tryphone will know when he sees the last of his minions that I dispatched and the message on their bloodied, broken forms. His rage will be great and yet, I can’t find the energy to care. All of the power in the world and he still cannot control me, and I will die before I let him attempt the same to my daughter.

A decade of searching. Ten years of hunting and dodging those that would chain me. Now, I've finally made it. I've finally found them. Henric and ... her. There's a piece of me that resents Henric for his ability to hide from those who would hunt him. After what he's lost because of me, though, there's a glimmer of pride too. He has kept our child safe, hidden, away from the fate that would befall her if her existence were to be made known. I can only pray that he knows that I have not stayed away because I don't love him, because I don't love our child.

A single tear tracks down the side of my face, but it's gone almost as soon as it reaches my jaw due to the viciously cold wind that slaps me in the face. I stomp forward nonetheless. My hands curl into fists.

Caedmon's face appears in my mind's eye as I march up the next hill, the dark of night shrouding all of this piece of the Hinterlands in nothing but white flurries and slits of trees.

Betrayer.

Deceiver.

Monster.

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