These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)(125)

The halls of this fortress are quiet at night, but not empty. Arya has guards standing every few feet along the corridor leading to her bedroom. Light shines so brightly from every direction that her sentries have to wear face shields to protect their eyes.

Chuckling silently, my shadow self slithers along the bottom edge of the wall, undetectable to even the guards’ keen fae eyes. I creep toward her door, past the males who stand on either side and past the guards who stand just inside.

Anger pumps through me, feeding this unfamiliar form. I itch to take their knives from their scabbards and plunge them into their chests.

I whisper soothing promises to that angry, vengeful part of myself. I promise that if she’ll be patient, she can have the queen’s heart—and the queen is who she wants.

Deeper and deeper into her chambers, where I pass under another door and find myself in the room where Arya sleeps on a bed of light. She’s lying atop piles of fluffy white blankets, her beautiful blond hair fanned out around her. And there, right by her side, an iron and adamant dagger gripped in her palm.

I smile at the sight of it and slowly peel her fingers from the scabbard one by one. One. Two.

Three.

Her eyes fly open, and she yanks the blade back, driving it toward my heart. I laugh, disintegrate, and reappear on the other side of the bed, where I take advantage of her shock to snatch the blade from her hand. I plunge it into her chest, right into her blackened, bitter heart.

Her scream is so loud, my ears hurt, and I hear it all the way from in my tomb. My shadow self skitters, almost retreating, but I take a calming breath and tighten my leash on her. We’re not done here.

Alerted by her terrible scream, guards rush into the room. I stop one with a single hand to his neck, and his eyes go wide as he takes me in. I love to imagine what he sees—a female formed of shadow in this room full of light. I smile and saunter slowly toward another, swinging my hips to the silent beat of my vengeance.

He draws a sword from his waist, but I snatch it from him before he can strike. I drag it across his throat, all while smiling at the guard behind him.

I use my blade quickly. My shadow self wants to play in their blood, torment them for all the pain they’ve brought to the Unseelie Court. I rein her in and slaughter them one by one.

Maybe it’s because I’m already so weak, but for once I can almost pinpoint the tether between myself and Finn. I feel his power flowing through me—not in sips or gulps, but in this steady stream. I focus on that flow as my shadow self works her way back to our tombs.

She releases Sebastian first, using her knife to break the lock holding him inside, before turning to mine.

Like a whip cracking, my shadow’s gone, and I’m back in my own body. Light floods my prison as my tomb opens.

I stumble forward and fall to the ground. Next to me, Sebastian is weaving on his feet, squinting into the light that’s painfully bright after so many days of being locked inside that darkness.

My body is heavy with the queen’s poison, so I close my eyes and focus on that tether for two more breaths, letting Finn’s power rush through me.

Please be okay, Finn. Please don’t let me take too much.

When I open my eyes, Sebastian’s next to me. His eyes are wide as he turns to me. “You killed her. The queen . . .” He blinks, and a thousand emotions cross his face in that moment, but relief and devastation are the last two standing. “She’s dead?”

“How do you—the power passed to you?” I ask.

“Yes. I feel it.” He grimaces and swallows. “Wearing both crowns is . . . they weren’t meant to be together.”

“Are you okay?”

“We need to go,” he says.

I shake my head. “Jasalyn.”

He closes his eyes. “Get her,” Sebastian says. “I need to find Riaan.”

I obey, leaving him because I have no choice. I will not leave this place without Jasalyn. I run and stumble toward the stairs, weak and groggy, but determined, crawling on hands and knees up to the battlement.

I see my sister in the darkness, tied to a pole at the end of a plank, her blood slowly dripping from the gashes on her legs and arms into the icy river far, far below.

“Jas,” I gasp.

She doesn’t turn to me. She’s too tired, too weak. But I see the shallow rise and fall of her chest and know she’s still breathing.

I scramble toward her, going for the rope that’s tying her to the post. I fumble with the knots with blurry vision and clumsy fingers.

“Abriella,” she rasps. “You need to go. You need to run.”

I shake my head. “Not without you.”

When I get the last rope off, she collapses into my arms and I sway on the plank.

I’m still too weak from the toxins. Even with Finn’s power flowing into me, my muscles are useless from the time inside the tomb. Months? Weeks?

Or has it only been days?

I can barely stand on my own, and the weight of her slight form threatens to topple me. I waver under her weight toward the river below.

Jas straightens before I lose my balance, and together we scramble off the plank.

I reach out a hand to help her take the final step onto the safety of the roof, but I’m stopped by a sharp, burning pain through the back of my leg. I look down in time to see Riaan’s blade sticking out through my thigh before it’s yanked out of me, leaving a white lance of pain in its wake.