Page 63 of The Curse of Ophelia

“Oh, shut up, will you?” The second voice sent a tremor up my spine, but I righted myself before they could see. He had returned. That explained the secrecy.

I fought to shake the remaining tethers of unconsciousness. I needed to be alert. Sliding my eyelids open slowly, I surveyed my surroundings. This was a new one: They had me chained deep within a cavernous room, wrists restrained above my head. Cracked rock walls surrounded me, reaching to the wide mouth of the cave. There was no door—they clearly did not expect me to get out of these chains—but the tunnel outside the cave’s mouth branched in three directions and stretched on, an orange glow ebbing in the distance.

“Change of scenery today?” I projected my strained voice as best as I could, words slurring slightly. I felt oddly tired; the wound from the blow to my head was healing, but the dregs of drowsiness remained. More drugs, I reasoned. They were certainly becoming more liberal with their use of the substances lately.

My captor prowled closer, gray cloak dragging across the ground. The end and collar were in tatters as though picked apart by nervous fingers, and the thing smelled slightly like he hadn’t taken it off in days. My skin tingled with each step he took toward me; even my body was aware that his recurring presence meant nothing good.

“You insolent fool.” He looked over with a searing stare. “You never will learn, will you?” His words landed heavily, like rocks dropping into my stomach one after another, but I kept my expression neutral.

“Appears I won’t.” I shrugged my shoulders as much as was possible with the position of my arms. The mouthy guard pulled my chains tighter. I released a pained groan but took the hint. Movement would be punished.

Even my captor flinched at the involuntary noise that escaped my throat.

“I’ve tried so hard to show you, Malakai.” His eyes were dazed. Pupils wild. Unhinged. Nothing that I recognized lurked in there, like something inside of him had snapped. The leash he’d worn for the past two years tugged ferociously, pulling him deeper into the darkness that festered within him.

I knew that with each tug he fell further away from humanity, and that could mean nothing good for my future here.

I struggled against my chains, but they pulled tighter, twisting my arms. “Show me what?” I grunted. The scar his ring left across my jaw the last time we met twinged.

“The truth,” he snapped. “To make you understand why it must be this way. Why we must be this way.”

He was inches from my face now, and I searched his expression for any sign of remorse.

I was met with cold, uncaring steel.

“You’ve shown me nothing,” I rasped.

“You have not been ready.”

“You’re vile and moronic.” We threw the accusations at each other, both waiting to see whose insults would land first. When he did not react, I added, “It does not need to be this way.” I would not beg, I would not plead, but I was not above persuasion.

He shook his head, hands coming to my face, dirty nails curving inward. With each one that dug into my cheeks, the rocks in my stomach piled higher. I tried to wrench my jaw from his icy grip, unable to bear the feeling of his fingers on me, but his nails gouged further. I was sure I’d have ten matching crescent marks on my cheeks.

“I am the truth, Malakai. I am power and destiny and unification.” His voice rose to an airy, triumphant sound that ground an unsettled feeling deeper into my gut. In the years I’d known him, he’d changed. In those swirling, manic eyes, there was no hint of the man I thought I knew. Distantly, I wondered what had happened. How we’d both ended up here, chains around my wrists and darkness in his soul. But when he curled his fingers deeper against my cheeks, I shook off the questions.

“Not like this,” I growled.

“There is only this,” my captor snapped. He released my face and took a step back. As his eyes traveled over my body, catching on the many open wounds I had suffered at his word, I hated him more than ever.

He met my stare, eyes framed by dark brows and purple circles. “The reckoning is upon us. I fought so hard for it to not come to this, but the other players in our great game of fate are relentless. They were not easily deterred despite my greatest efforts.” He shrugged, black hair skimming his shoulders, and lowered his voice. “So be it.”

He gathered himself, raising his chest in a show of power. The air around us stilled, and I felt the bomb he was going to drop just before it exploded. “She is here. And she will die.”

It erupted, shrapnel shredding every inch of my skin, the heat of the metaphorical blast burning my eyes, blood, and heart.

“She…” My voice faltered, bile creeping up my throat. She…no. That was not possible. I lost all pretense of calm. “You can’t!” My words tore through the air, my stomach contracting as heaves rolled through me. The rocks overflowed my gut now, filling my chest cavity. They would be my anchor, dragging me to my death.

I thrashed wildly against my chains, kicking until the cavern was filled with nothing but sounds of metal against rock and his haunting words echoing in my ears. My drugged muscles screamed in agony, straining against the cuffs that bit into my wrists and ankles.

My brain couldn’t form words. The unconscious haze—whatever they had worked into my system—tried to take me again.

The one thought that had become my sanctuary turned to dust as his words sank into my bones. She is here. And she will die.

The promise that lit an ember of hope within me these past two years shredded.

The spark extinguished.

I was broken.

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