Page 33 of Spark of the Everflame

My feet moved again, dragging me out from my hiding spot behind the crates and into the open.

Thishad never happened before.

I waited for them to spot me, yet somehow, I stayed veiled from their sight. Their voices grew—a whisper, then a murmur, louder and louder until their shouts rang through the alley.

“A bargain was made,” the Prince jeered, his scar twisting with his irate features, “and now the Crown is calling it in.”

“I won’t do it. I won’t serve you.” My mother’s voice sounded peculiar, not entirely her own.

“Foolish woman, it’s far too late. You can’t beat us. You can’t escape us.”

“I’ll leave—I’ll go far away from here where you’ll never find me.”

“Then the boy must pay.”

“No!”

I wasn’t sure if the word came from my mother’s lips or my own.

The Prince’s mouth hooked into a cruel smile. “The Crown is owed a life debt. If you do not fulfill the bargain, the boy must. It’s your life or his.”

I reached out to grab my mother. I had to stop this from happening, had to warn her.

“You or the boy. Who do you choose?”

My hand brushed past her hair to settle on her shoulder. She started to turn, and the Prince snatched her elbow to hold her in place.

“Who do you choose?” he demanded.

I yanked hard, forcing her to heave backward until she finally turned to face me.

Only it wasn’t her at all. It was my mother’s body, her fiery hair, her aged hands—but staring back at me, silver eyes wild with terror, was my own face.

I lurched back. “No,” I whispered, voice shaking.

The Prince gave a dark laugh, quiet at first, until his head fell back and his powerful body shook with the force of it. There was no happiness in the sound, only the vicious satisfaction of a man who knew he’d already won.

“Please,” I begged. “Let us go!”

He sauntered forward until he stood directly in front of me. His shoulders were so broad, his chest so wide, he seemed to blot out the world. Slowly, his hand curled around my throat. He leaned forward until his breath warmed my lips.

“One of you will be mine. Tell me, Diem Bellator—who do you choose?”

* * *

I bolted uprightand clutched my neck. The brisk night air was a shock to my still-naked body.

The fire had faded to a pool of sparks that cast a faint orange glow across the campsite. In the dying light, Henri’s breaths kept a sleep-soothed rhythm, a marked difference to my own heaving, panicked gulps.

With trembling hands, I crawled out from under the blanket draped across us and fumbled for my clothes before staggering out of the clearing.

I walked deep into the moonlit darkness until the campfire was a distant red blur, and I fell back against the trunk of a towering oak. The heels of my palms pressed against my closed eyes.

The release of sex had been hollow and short-lived. I could already feel tension twining inside me all over again.

The nightmare had rattled me. I’d relived that afternoon a thousand times over, asleep and awake, until I was no longer sure what parts of my memory were real or imagined. I’d prayed the answer to my mother’s disappearance was somehow hidden in the details, a puzzle I could solve if I only looked closely enough.

The mystery of the Descended man’s identity had been unraveled, at least—but it left utter madness in its wake.

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