Page 146 of Riftborne
“Believe what you want, Princess. I don’t have time for this. I have a realm to save from those monsters you seem so fond of.”
If he calls me Princess one more time, I’m going to explode.
He turned for the door, pausing for a moment before walking out. “Apologies. We don’t have any gowns for you to wear. But there’s a change of clothes if you’d like.” He motioned towards the pile of fabric.
Wait, what did he say?
“That’s fucking rich. You come into our land and kill indiscriminately, but we’re the monsters?” Anger surged through me.
He stopped dead in his tracks, slowly turning back to face me with a new crease between his brows. I could nearly see the heat emanating off his skin as his eyes sparked with silent rage.
“I’ve been fighting for the freedom of Umbrathia since I crashed into its rocky depths a lifetime ago. The ones you align yourself with have been draining this world, taking everything from us. People are starving. Children are dying. Warmth has allbut disappeared. Soon, there will be nothing left. They’ll do to us exactly what they did to Riftdremar.” His gaze drifted down, lingering on the marking sprawled across my left hand. Those golden eyes burned into a liquid bronze.
“They branded you?” His voice was hoarse, tinged with something dark.
I could almost feel my Riftborne mark searing further into my skin. Fears from my past began to trickle into my mind, the ones that used to plague my entire existence, keeping me chained to the shadows of life. The ones I had grown out of. The ones that were based on misbelief…
I shoved them to the furthest reaches of my mind. I would never return to that place.
That weakness.
A mixture of rage and uncertainty poisoned my blood, numbing my veins. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. There was no way I could trust a single word out of his mouth. These were tricks—lies—meant to disarm me in some way.
How many of us had he murdered? I thought of Gentry and Val. The air being forced from their lungs, their bodies twisting and contorting as they fought for life. For survival. The closed caskets that their parents buried.
No.
“I won’t fall for your manipulations,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
The room went deadly silent as my heart pounded in my chest. For what seemed like an eternity, our eyes stayed locked in a death grip.
Suddenly, the air sparked with energy, and Aether shot towards me, wrapping his hands around the bar of the bed frame. Fear raced over my skin as his knuckles turned white. Those golden, terrifying eyes flickered again, anger brewing in their gilded depths.
He didn’t come any closer, but the space between us seemed tothin, like the air was being siphoned. My eyes were trapped in this moment, forced to sear into the ones of the man before me. My hate mingled with something far more terrifying in the depths of my core, something that felt like a betrayal. Something that felt like it would be my undoing.
Time stilled as energy crept along the surface of my skin, prickling my hairs, dancing across my shoulders. Worming itself into my mind. It was the wind, the vastness of the sky, the whisper of a thousand stars. It was the sting of rain, the bite of a blade, the caress of silk. It was a warmth–an overwhelming sun, blazing through time and space, burning through the walls of this stifling room, straight into my soul. It was like something snapped, breaking the universe in two.
Our weighted breaths were the only sounds that permeated the silence.
I had to break free, to sever this connection before it consumed me whole. A pain seared through me as I tore my eyes from his and gasped for breath, curling my fingers into the ashen sheets. He stumbled a few feet back, balancing himself on the wall behind him, spinning around so that his face was obscured.
What the fuck was that?
“You’ve been lied to.” His words ignited something deep in my core, urging my rage to a boil. Violent pulses echoed from within me, sending my mind into the darkest of places.
I couldn’t handle it anymore. The feelings were too much. Too confusing. Too powerful. I was going to explode. I summoned the web, desperately trying once again to reach his mind. But this time, I was going for the kill.
As swiftly as I pushed it towards him, it was returned to me. The blowback was so intense that I felt the searing pain radiate through my mind.
“You’ll have to be quicker than that,” he spat before trudging out and slamming the door behind him.
I wanted to scream.
I stood up, pacing the room. Irritation was heating every vein in my body, and I had no intention of quelling it. What was the worst I could do? They would end up killing me anyway.
Better now than later.
I’d cause absolute pandemonium. I’d scream so loud that the entirety of this cursed realm heard my cries. I’d drag myself out of here with missing limbs if I had to.
