Page 34 of Unraveled
I’m going mad.
Yet every single hair on my body stands on end as I stare unblinkingly at the sculpture in the corner. Somethingisdifferent. The beautiful fae is just as she was before, but there, behind the massive wings that cover her face, there’s a soft red light highlighting her stone feathers. My mother’s amulet.
But instead of relief, dread sinks into me, and I’m unable to move a muscle to cross the space to retrieve it.
The early evening moonlight rolls across the statue’s surface.
I attempt to push aside the irrational fear inside me, and my natural instinct demanding that I run away. I take a step around the desk, and then, the sound of stone scraping again. A shiver races up my spine, and I stare in horror as the statue comes alive.
Her movements are impossible. They defy reality. As if she were flesh instead of marble, a beast unfurls before me. Her massive white wings stretch outwards, framing a body of haunting beauty and a face of nightmares.
I stumble back against the wall of books behind me, gasping as the creature takes a hesitant step forward, as if testing the weight of her body and the limits of her mobility.
In the center of her naked chest, the silver of my necklace shines against her pale skin. The stone glows red with the rhythm of my heartbeat.
Thump, thump, thump.
With a trembling hand, I pull my small blade out of my dress. Red irises that burn through the milkiness of her eyes follow my every move.
A snarl leaves her throat, lips parting to reveal rows of jagged teeth protruding from bleeding gums.
Perhaps she isn’t rabid, like the beasts roaming the castle’s courtyard. Perhaps... she’s like Alaris in the kitchen, or like Morgana. I’m frozen, unblinking, while fear rushes through my body.
She lunges across the room without warning. Her movements are eerily silent and too fast for a thing of her size.
I scream and bolt. The desk behind me splits under her weight as she crashes over its thick wood to slam against the bookcase to my right. It collapses on impact, wood splinters from the broken bookshelves raining down on us. Artifacts fall and shatter on the ground, and I jump over them. Leather-bound tomes hit my shoulders and head, no matter how much I try to duck on my way to the door.
The air shifts, warm and humid. The statue is far too close.
I reach with my empty hand for the handle, but a claw snags on the edge of my dress, yanking me back. I turn, barely keeping my balance, and swing my stolen letter opener at her face. She is undeterred and unharmed.
My eyes meet hers. Red is all I see right before she collides with me and my blade bounces off her smooth stone skin.
We tumble to the floor, and the adrenaline tingling through my body keeps me from fainting. I strike at her again and again. My knuckles split, and my blood stains her white face.
The scent of her sour breath fans over my cheeks, making my stomach churn.
I tighten my grip on the hard surface of her, fighting with all my strength to push her body off mine, but she doesn’t move an inch. The pressure of stone pressing down against every soft part of my body is too much. The weight of her steals my air.
The lunargyre snaps her jaws at my hands and my face, and drool slides down my cheek, blending in with my tears.
Pain radiates from my old wound as stitches tear open and my muscles strain to keep her vicious teeth away from my face. I’m barely holding on.
This is how I die.
Something deep inside my stomach stirs as my amulet, hanging from her long neck, swings closer to my heart. Heat flows through my veins with a familiar magic. A power that surges, making my skin tight and hot. It claws at my insides, demanding to be unleashed.
A cry leaves my lips, and my elbows shake with tension. Confusion clouds my panicked thoughts. I don’t understand where the pressure in my stomach originates from. The depths of my gut? Or is it from the amulet hanging so close, though still out of reach?
The power lurks hotter inside my body, but I can’t wield it—not unless I can snatch my stone from her.
“Nera!” A deep male voice booms from the hall outside, and the door blows open a second later.
A tempest of gold ink and black mist bursts into the room just before Ash’s body collides with the white-marble beast, sending them both tumbling to the ground and away from me. A pile of feathered wings tangles in a whirlwind of snarls and claws.
They move too fast for me to follow as I crawl back until my back hits whatever’s left of the bookcase behind me and then scramble to my feet, all without tearing my eyes from the beasts.
I should leave now. I only have minutes at most before one of them is dead and the other hunts me down.
