These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows, #1)(111)

I believed I had friends here, actually felt less lonely than I did in Fairscape. But Sebastian is the only real friend I have, and I have broken his trust too many times to count.

Slowly, my eyes adjust and I have to bite back a sob. I don’t know what I expected to see. These are his catacombs. Of course the dead are kept here. But even so, I never expected this.

The catacombs hold row after row of glass coffins. I rush forward. The woman inside the first one is young—probably my age—and her long blond hair is pulled over one shoulder, her eyes closed. Her hands are folded across her stomach.

She wears a soft white gown of lace and looks like a bride ready for her wedding. I put my hands on the glass—to push it aside, to wake her up, to . . . Save her?—it won’t move.

I press my hand against the glass. “No.”

I step to the next and see a young man. He has sunken cheeks and sallow skin. He was probably starving when he offered himself to Finn. Maybe he was like me and had a younger sister relying on him. Maybe he handed his life over so someone he loved could survive.

Coffin after coffin, human after human, these catacombs tell a story of a monster who was willing to take the lives of men and women to protect his own. When I come upon a coffin with a familiar face inside, I lean on it and choke back a sob.

Kyla. I watched as she offered herself to him. Sacrificed herself because whatever life she’d been living had been worse than this fate—eternity in a glass coffin.

I wanted to believe that Finn was good. When Bakken told me about the curse, I wanted to believe that Finn would never take a human life, that he’d let go of his magic and sacrifice his own immortality before falling victim to the awful choice offered by the curse. Part of me knew—part of me has known for a long time—just what it means to be a tribute.

I wanted to believe we were friends and that the connection I felt when we touched meant something. Instead, the connection was nothing more than a crown I don’t want. A crown he needs. A crown he planned to kill me to take.

“I keep them here to honor them.”

I spin around in the darkness. Finn stands behind me, the orb of light floating at his side illuminating that criminally beautiful face. That lying mouth. Those deceiving silver eyes. “Are you going to finally ask me to bond with you? Or maybe you’re too much of a coward to take the crown you and your friends have been grooming me to hand over.”

He leans one shoulder against the stone wall and closes his eyes as if he is very, very tired. “Then you know everything now?”

“I know you planned to kill me from our very first dance.” I can’t keep the pain from my voice. “Everything you did to win me over you did for the crown—to get me to bond with you so you could be sure the crown would be yours.”

Straightening, he drags his hands through his hair in frustration. “I can’t solve the problems of my court from exile.”

My hands shake, but I’m not scared. I’m . . . hurt. My gaze scans across the row of coffins, and the room tilts around me. I press a hand to my stomach and feel the sticky warmth of Mordeus’s blood. Of my blood, still oozing from the dagger’s shallow strike.

“And while you worked to manipulate me, you were killing all these innocent people because you believed your life was more important than theirs.”

When I turn back to him, he doesn’t deny it. A mask of resignation covers his face, and sadness glistens in those silver eyes. No, not sadness. That’s what he wants me to see, and I won’t be manipulated. Not anymore.

I swallow hard, but it does nothing to push down the ache in my chest. “Did you kill them all?”

“No, but enough.” He walks to the first coffin and gently presses his fingertips to the glass as he studies the woman inside. “Too many.”

“Do you even know their names?”

“Every single one.”

I nod to the coffin his hands are resting on, the one holding the bride. “Who’s that?”

“Her name was Isabel.” His voice cracks, and he lifts his head to meet my eyes.

I remember asking him about Isabel—who she was, what happened to her. I remember the anguish in his eyes when he replied, She was mortal.

“You killed her,” I whisper. “You killed your own betrothed.”

“Yes.” It’s hard to hate him when he looks so broken, but the facts make it easier. He is not the male I was beginning to believe he was.

“The king is dead,” I say. I want him to know what I’m capable of—that I’m not so easily manipulated or bested. I want myself to know.

“I know.”

I pull my dagger from my calf but keep it wrapped in shadow in my palm. “I killed him.”

“I know. He underestimated you from the beginning. But your mother didn’t.”

An image of her smile flashes in my mind. “Don’t talk about my mother.”

My eyes burn. I can’t think about that. Not when I’ve spent the last nine years so angry with her for abandoning us. I can’t think about all the anger I’ve felt that she didn’t deserve. I can’t think about how much she sacrificed for me. Not yet.

“I could have forgiven you for the deceit, but this?” I wave my hand toward the coffins. “I’ve lived my whole life in a world that thought humans could be bought and used. I will never give the crown to someone who is part of that problem.”