Page 75 of The Hidden Falling
My stomach swirls with nausea as I look further in the direction he’s taking me and notice we’re inside the castle walls. They’re tall, a dark imposing form that sends dread through me. The darker stone gleams off the sunlight and I recognize the flags of the Highers that float from the top of the battlements from the books Edward has given me. A green and black symbol of the moon cycle above a howling wolf, twin daggers resting on either side of it. It’s the emblem of Wolvorn Castle, and a mockery of everything that the Highers are supposed to be.
I see guards around the area. Their armor is black with green straps compared to Darius’ red and gold. They stand to attention, weapons at the ready as they watch Darius pull me along behind him. One of them spits at my feet as he opens a side door to the castle, leading me down a cold, narrow hallway. The sun shines through the high arched windows as we pass them. He takes me down more hallways and up another set of stairs before we finally reach another door.
This door has two guards standing on either side of it. They nod to Darius, opening the door so we can step through. The slam of the door behind us echoes around the large space. Tapestries of battles line the walls of the large torch-filled, domed space. Intricate patterns embedded into the marble floor along with the Highers insignia as we walk forward to two huge, dark oak doors at the opposite end. Darius nods to the guards beside it, and my heartbeat pulses in my ears as they open them. The creak of the hinges rattles against my skull as they push the wood, opening up to what must be the great hall.
People fill the space. The scent of wolves, witches and others hitting me strongly after days of smelling the few same things in my cell. Even though my senses are weakened, the hall is so full of beings their scents assault me almost painfully. They turn when they see Darius and I enter, sneers on their faces as they make way for Darius to pass as I stumble along behind him, curling in on myself. The people surrounding us take their seats on the dark tiered benches that go at least fifteen stacks above me. Darius continues dragging me forward and then comes to a sudden stop. I collide with his back. I want nothing more than for him to shield me right now, enemy or not, but he pays no mind as he tugs the chain linking my hands and drags me forward forcefully until I’m in front of him.
A ragged breath leaves me at the sight of the chairs raised on a dais in a semicircle across from me. The chairs are elegant with green and black stitching against the pale seating pillows, with the largest one in the center curving high at the top with the Highers emblem hovering above it. Four hooded figures are lined below the dais steps facing us, their robes reaching the floor as their hands are clasped in front of them. A sound comes from a lower sunken level of the room before me, and my gaze lowers, following the few steps down with my eyes until I see Kade in the center to the right, and then Josh to the left. Their wrists are bound in chains that are connected to the floor between their feet, and I hold back the tears that want to escape. Josh turns his head to look over his shoulder, his gray eyes widening at the sight of me, full of worry.
One side of his face is covered in dried blood. He has a cut on his lip and temple with bruising on his jaw. His clothes from the day we were taken are filthy, mine faring no better. Kade on the other hand has clean pants and a t-shirt on, his hair clean from what I can see from the back of him as he hasn’t turned his head toward me like Josh has.
A hard shove at my back sends me down a couple of steps before a hand on the back of my neck grips me tightly, guiding me to the center to stand in between Kade and Josh. I look down at the chain attached to the floor beneath me and Darius picks it up, attaching it to the chain connecting my two wrists. I feel his eyes on me, but I don’t take mine off Kade. He’s looking straight ahead, looking to be deep within his own thoughts. A tug at my chain has my eyes snapping to Darius, his green eyes hard.
“Dar—” I cut my self off with the snarl on his face. It’s cruel, twisted. He turns and walks toward the steps that lead toward the hooded figures and then stands to the side of the dais. He turns and looks down at us as the people in the room finish taking their seats around the hall. They stop around the edges of the sunken floor we are standing in. The cloaked figures shuffle to the side as Leo, Damian, Zaide and Jarrod come forward and stand at the edge of the dais with Darius, who looks toward them briefly before he folds his arms, watching the three of us.
My eyes go to Josh, looking at his bruised and bloodied face as his now dull eyes nod off to the side, the tightening in his face showing his unease. I follow the direction and the breath whooshes from my lungs as I see the people I never, in my life, wanted to see again. Oh, Gods. Brown hair, brown eyes. Blond hair, blue eyes. My heart rate picks up as my eyes swing to Kade, panic rushing through me. I go to step toward him, trying to reach him, only for me to jolt back when the short chain restricts me from going any further.
“Kade,” I whisper, my voice trembling as I see him shake, his own fist clenching as he scrunches his eyes closed. “Kade, look at me. Just stay here with me. I’ll get you out of this okay,” I assure him, looking back over the people that haunt my memories and see their smug smiles and hostile glares.
I pause as I look them over, my own body beginning to tremble as I face some of my own monsters for the first time in eleven years. My Aunt Selena looks at Kade then back to me, her blue eyes lighting up as she folds her arms, a sadistic smile upon her lips. Uncle Paul stands next to her, the same tall and imposing figure I remember. His dark brown eyes flick to me before he turns his head to the side and starts talking. When my gaze moves to the male beside him, I stop breathing. Blue eyes so full of cruelty meet mine, and I can’t hold back the shiver wracking my body as I’m locked in the stare of my cousin, Patrick.
Runa whimpers inside of me, retreating into a corner as she sees who I’m seeing. The people that were supposed to protect me, but instead helped have me tormented and tortured for years, never allowing me to leave the room that I thought I would die in.Wanted to die in.They didn’t care that I was their blood, didn’t care that my screams of pain radiated through that room. Some even joined in, one in particular, wanting to be in good favor of those in power.
I eventually break his stare, looking over at my other cousins, Richard, Alister and Sophia, before my eyes land back on Aunt Selena. The way she’s looking at Kade, the way her eyes light up in delight and with a knowledge that I don’t know of threatens to cave my chest in.
“Darius.” I look up at him in panic, ignoring his warning to keep my mouth shut and shake my head. “Don’t do this, you’re making a mistake.” The room goes silent as I speak, but I don’t care who listens. I just keep my eyes on him. “We made a vow with the Gods as our witness,” I breathe, ignoring the scoff of people around the room at the mention of our Gods that they think have abandoned. My pulse pounds at Kade being in this room with these people. He can’t be here. “Don’t go back on it. You can’t, please.”
He stands there, unmoving, his bored stare leaving mine to look around the room. He ignores me, pretending I’m not even here, like I’m not right in front of him. His men grunt and scoff at my words, looking at the three of us with sneers upon their lips. They won’t hear me, none of them will.
“Kade, listen to me,” I rush out, as I turn to walk as close as the chain will allow me toward him, stretching as much as I can to be near him.
“You lied,” he says in a tone I have never heard from him before, and my body tenses. “You lied abouteverything. I don’t have to listen to anything you say. I won’t.“ He finally looks at me, betrayal and anger shining in his eyes as I shake my head at him. “You stole me. You stole me from my family, from a life I could have had with my pack, but you kept me in Eridian.” No, no, no, I try to tell him, but my throat has seized up, my mouth unable to make a sound. He remembers I took him from our old home? “You messed with my memories, hiding them from me, but I have them all back now. The ones you tried so hard to block out. My life would have been so much different if you hadn’t taken me away. I could have been with my mate, happily living the way I was supposed to, but instead, I was trapped in Eridian, my mate died and I had my memoires fucked with. You did that, and I will never forgive you for it. Never,” he spits so vehemently at me that I jolt.
I back up a step at his words, pain slicing through my soul and cracking me open. I blocked his memories because he was suffering from nightmares from when he was in their hands. I didn’t know what else to do. If he had his memories back, he would know what they did, what they all did. I look toward my blood family and see their heads lowered to hide their smiles at the words Kade just said. And it’s then I know… I know they’ve done something to him. They must have.
“Kaden,” Josh calls to him, but he just scoffs, looking around me to see him.
“You’re no better than her. You both took me away, and for what? To make sure my family suffered because you couldn’t handle my father becoming Alpha? I was just collateral damage for your fucking twisted minds. And then you help her unleash a curse on Vrohkaria? You’re both sick.”
“What?” I gasp. that’s not true. “What curse? No, Kade that’s not—”
Circular barriers suddenly appear around each of us separately, and I tense. The shimmering pale violet floats in waves around me before disappearing, but the barrier is still there confining us inside. A door to the right of the dais opens and more cloaked figures enter the hall, but instead of joining the other cloaked people, they walk up the steps of the dais. Maize follows behind them, her black hair elegantly up on the top of her head in a bun, smiling down at us before joining the Elites as the figures each take their seats. Darius still stands before the dais, his men near him, as new arrivals sit themselves in the empty seats.
The people around the room all bow their heads in respect, all but the Elites, whose stares mainly bore into mine. The cloaked figure in the center of the chairs then clears his throat and pulls down his hood. Dizziness overtakes me, and I sway on my feet, my fist gripping the chains attached to my wrists as hard as I can to keep me standing. My eyes freeze on the man in the center as he looks directly at me, the air disappearing, a bolder on my chest cracking me open. His eyes light up slightly before they roam over my body in satisfaction, making me want to peel the skin from my bones so he could never look at it again.He knows who I am.I swallow roughly, trying not to throw up as I hear his voice for the first time in so many years.
“Let’s begin the trial.”
Forty
Rhea
Lord.
Higher.
Charles.
His voice echoes throughout the hall. That deep sound is so ingrained in my mind that I squeeze my eyes shut to gather myself, to stop my racing heart from bursting and stopping all together. I haven’t heard it in so long, but I remember it well. I remember it laughing as I cried, mocking me as I screamed, taunting me about my mom and dad dying, giving me false comfort only to take it away in an instant, I remember it making me always wonder when he visited me which side of him I would get, until it was only ever pain.
