City of Thorns (The Demon Queen Trials #1)(60)

My mind shimmered with the memory of the key I’d seen flickering in and out on my arm. Had there been a skull there, too?

I hoisted myself out of the pool, my heart slamming hard. As my mind churned, I wrapped his sheet around me like a towel.

His gaze flicked down to the sheet. “You know how you were talking about guilt? Do you feel guilt for soaking my sheet in seawater?”

I looked down. “Sorry, I was distracted. Orion, what the fuck was my mortal mom doing with a key to a building in the abandoned Asmodean Ward?”

He turned it over in his hands. “If we locate the right building, I think we’ll find out.”





Chapter 34





We didn’t start looking around until night had fallen and moonlight bathed the Asmodean Ward in haunting silver. For once, I wasn’t wearing some sexy gown—just black leather leggings and a dark sweater. We weren’t planning to be around anyone else, and it was the best way to blend into the night.

Tonight, the air in the City of Thorns was a little cooler than it had been, a nip along with the ocean breeze. The wind rushed through my red curls as we walked the empty streets.

Side by side, we followed the dark canals. Silent buildings loomed around us, the paint faded and chipped. Inside the once-grand houses and halls, we found portraits with their eyes crossed out, statues defaced. We tried the key in every lock we could find—the front doors, the bedrooms, the closets and drawers.

A sense of tragedy pressed down on every house, the sadness heavy in the air. And when we crossed into the building we’d been in before—the one with smashed busts and abandoned crystal decanters—Orion went very still. He stopped to look up at the ceiling, at the image of the nude woman with the snake wrapped around her. Only a thin sliver of moonlight cast a ghostly light over the place. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the curtains and furniture looked scorched in many places, and the glass of a mirror had been blackened.

Lost in thought, Orion was as still as the broken statues. The air seemed to grow darker around him, the room hotter. The weight of an oppressive sadness thickened the atmosphere.

“Do you remember this place?” I asked quietly.

He let out a long sigh. “I used to stare at her. I remember lying on the sofa and thinking I would marry her someday, and that I would save her from the serpent wrapped around her body. I can see now she doesn’t actually mind the serpent. I didn’t know she was the mother of our gods. I thought she belonged to us and that she needed me.” He turned, looking around the abandoned hall. “I remember the day the soldiers arrived.”

“The king’s soldiers?”

“I wasn’t scared of our king’s soldiers. I was scared of the mortals. They brought guns with them. But the part that scared me was the looks on their faces. I’d never seen such pure loathing like that before.”

I stared at him. “There were mortals here?”

“The king surrendered to them and agreed to let them round up the Lilu like they wanted. It was the last time he allowed mortal soldiers into the city.” He breathed in deeply. “I can’t say they had any signs of the morality you keep talking about. I think they thought we were like animals.”

“I'm sorry.” My heart broke for him.

“It’s not your fault,” he muttered.

“But this must be so painful for you.”

“I’ve thought about that day every day for hundreds of years.” He crossed the living room to a patch of wooden floor that had been stained darker than the rest. “This was where they cut out my brother’s heart. He fought back because he was trying to save our mother.” He traced his fingers over the stained floor. “He was the one…” His sentence trailed off, and he stood again and turned, pointing to the hall. “And that was where they cut out my father’s heart.”

I could hardly breathe. “I guess this answers my questions about why you have such disdain for mortals.”

His eyes gleamed. “It’s confusing to me that I have such a high regard for you, but you’re not what I expected.”

The floor creaked as I crossed the room to the mirror, and I stared into its blackened surface. “What’s with all the scorch marks? Did they start to burn this place?”

“That was from me. I couldn’t control my fire then, but if I could have, I’d have burned the entire army down. And most of the demons with it for turning on us.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Five.”

The breath left my lungs. “They put you in prison when you were five?” I asked, a little louder than I’d intended.

I crossed the room and looked into another of the scorched mirrors, half my face obscured by the smoke. But I could see my eyes, my cheekbones. Moonlight streamed in through the old, warped windows, tinging my face in ghostly light as I looked at myself. “What happened to the other Lilu? Were they killed right away, or were there others in prison with you?”

“That would be a good question for Mortana.”

I felt it again—that rising anger. He’d only been a little boy, and he’d watched mortals cut out his brother’s heart right on his living room floor. I felt like my chest was splitting in two when I thought of it.

My anger was rising again, like magma buried in a volcano.