Page 90 of Lost in the Dark

“Time ran out. I’m so sorry.” She pointed to the remains of her ritual. “It didn’t work. I thought I could free you.”

You never could,they whispered.

We lie with our bones.But you have freed our voices. They ringed her bed, shapes flickering like the dance of a candle’s flame. Faint and ephemeral as the morning mist. Strength he takes from our bodies.

Their hands reached for her.Our hearts.

She touched the necklace. “Hold my heart…He said that, when he gave me this.”

Yes.Fingers brushed her cheek.Hate for him rolled off them in waves, twisting through the air and matching the rage in Anna’s heart.For without your heart, his would cease to beat.

“I… I understand,” she whispered.

The mora were more than the wives he’d killed before her—they were witness to his power. He had stolen their lives, bound their souls to the estate, and they in turn had seen the truth of his.

TheyknewRathbytten.

Good. Because Anna no longer felt like giving up.

Her birth sisters might be beyond her reach, but she was not alone. She reached for their hands, sucked in a breath when cool shadows grasped her. Their whispers circled her, cushioned her with words she hasn’t heard since she’d sat by the fire with her grandmother. If the mora claimed she could defeat him…

“What do I do?” she asked.

Prepare, whispered the oldest.

Gather your strength, said the next.

Feed, ordered the youngest.Eat the bird.

“Yes,” said Anna, looking down at the red dress—beautiful and fit for a queen of this castle—coming to life in her hands. And as she picked up her needle, a plan came to her as well. “I will feed. But not the bird.”

Before the sun rose over the moors, Anna rose from her bed. She left her dress—carefully crafted and red as blood—draped across the end. It’s time would come. But not yet.No. What came now needed nothing more than a robe, and the will to do what was necessary.

Bracing herself against the cold, she slipped onto the balcony.

Hands on the carved stone rail, she let out a breath. It was a short jump to the next room’s window, and a much longer fall to the ground. She looked down and the blackened stone seemed to taper into a swirl of gray grasses and mottled heather that dotted the base of the castle.

“Oh, Gods,” she gasped. “What am I thinking?”

Wings fluttered at her elbow, followed by a soft cooing. She tore her gaze away from the ground and smiled at the dove, nesting in a nook in the exterior, where stone railing met the outer wall.

“Hello, my friend,” she whispered. “I wish you could lend me your wings.”

It blinked round black eyes at her, as if saying, in the kindest possible way,You will have to make your own.

“A robe is not quite the same thing,” she said dryly. “But I suppose it shall do.”

Golden Gods preserve her, was she truly going to do this?

She slung a leg over the railing and bit her lip. One tiny jump, and she would be free of her room—free to take what she needed and maybe, just maybe, change her fate. Already her body quickened with thoughts of what was to come. With desire and need. Her thighs flexed and her cheeks heated.

Yes, oh yes. She would do as the mora bid, and take what she needed.

Holding her breath, she leaped.

A rush of wind and ground, and she landed on the neighboring balcony. A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. Even with her flowing robe and soft slippers, that had been too easy.

She slipped through the room—a dust covered memorial to times past, she crept into the hall.

---