Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My skin burned with the magic which roared inside me, a taste of every kind of power rioting in my veins and my mind spinning with the weight of it all.

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl, a voice hissed in the dark. My voice. And it wasn’t coming from some corner of this cold and barren space, it was coming from within me. A voice which was my own and wasn’t. Me and yet someone else entirely.

“Where am I?” I breathed, pushing onto my hands and knees while the magic crashed through my limbs like a tempestuous sea, and I fought to keep my balance.

I got to my feet and moved to the closest golden wall, my hand pressing to the cold metal as I looked at the gold roof above my head, the perfectly flat disc which held no doors or windows.

Trapped. We’re stuck in here because of you, stuck and alone and lost.

I started walking, then running, my hand skimming the curved wall as I moved, hunting for a hidden door, a seam, anything at all, but the metal remained smooth and solid no matter where I searched.

I needed something to help me break out of his place, but there wasn’t anything here, not so much as a speck of dust to colour the golden space surrounding me. But as my thoughts began to spiral into panic, a heavy mallet appeared in my hands out of nothing at all.

I stumbled back in shock, dropping it but then hurried to grab it again, lifting it between my hands and slamming it into the wall as hard as I could. Nothing happened. Not a dent or scratch was left behind, and the panic began to claw its way up my throat as I struck the wall repeatedly, screaming and cursing as it failed to make a mark.

As I hefted the hammer again, my mind buzzed with the echoes of memory, and I cursed myself for forgetting. I didn’t care about escaping whatever this was. I only wanted the release of death now anyway.

The hammer fizzled away to nothing in my hands, a wicked dagger appearing at a single thought in its place.

“I’m coming, Aalia,” I breathed, hoping my words could be heard from the Garden.

I turned the blade towards my own chest, closed my eyes and thrust the dagger straight through my heart.

Agony stole through me as I crumpled to my knees, blood spilling all around me as death came sweeping in on furious wings, and in less than a breath, I was gone, drifting, falling into the embrace of the dark…

I sucked in a sharp breath as I woke. The dagger was gone, and my flesh was unharmed where it had been punctured, the golden prison still intact around me.

“No,” I gasped, pushing myself up as I hunted the dark corners of the round room for any sign of blood or the weapon, but it was all gone. As if it had never been.

Slave to the coin, the voice in my head mocked hatefully, and I recoiled from her words.

But before I could attempt any other form of escape from this uncertain fate, a thread tugged on the very centre of my being and the world fell away around me, the golden room disappearing before I found myself on my knees in a clearing in the woods, fat petals drifting past me on a gentle breeze.

The soft swish of fabric drew my attention to the ice-white robes on my left, and I turned to look up at Kalir with nothing but purest hatred in my eyes.

The need to destroy him rose up in me so potently that the power I had laid claim to began to glow beneath my flesh.

I made a move to stand, but before I could get my feet beneath me, he spoke.

“Kneel,” he sneered, and my knees slammed into the dirt as the power of his words consumed me.

I parted my lips on some barb or curse, but whatever it had been was lost to me as a white light flared at my throat and I realised I still wore that iron collar, the thing tight to my skin and the spikes impaled deep in my flesh. I gasped as I clutched at it, fighting to get it off me even as the light flared brighter and a thin, golden chain appeared from the front of it.

My eyes widened in horror as the chain snaked away from me, slithering through the grass towards Kalir before shooting up and snapping itself tightly around his wrist. The chain yanked tight, and I cried out as a connection formed between the two of us like a bridge between our souls, his dark and twisted essence worming its way inside of me while he groaned in a show of ecstasy.

The chain faded away but the tug of it didn’t diminish in the slightest, and as the corners of Kalir’s mouth lifted, I felt fear unlike anything I’d experienced before.

“You are remade, Esworn,” Kalir cooed. “Born into eternal power and robbed of all free will. The master of your destiny is the one who owns your coin.” He lifted the golden coin before me and I lunged for it, trying to snatch it from his hand. “Stop.”

His command was like the toll of a bell within me, my body jerking to a halt, my fingers brushing the edge of the coin while he smirked at me triumphantly and my heart thundered to an impossible rhythm.

“From now until the end of time, you will exist in this form. Death cannot release you. Pain cannot end you. You will be The Blessing to all who possess you, though no doubt it may seem more like a curse to you.”

“Why?” I breathed, unable to take in all he was saying.

“Even I cannot lay full claim to the power of the gods. But you, what you now are, you can. You are the most powerful creature on this fair earth, and everything is possible to you, aside from free will. You will bow to the word of your master, and together, we will remake the world as I see fit.”

“No.” I tried to back up, shaking my head as I reached for the collar at my throat once more, fighting to rip it from my flesh while begging every god I could think of to save me from this fate. But they were gone, their backs turned on me and my kind, no lingering spark of them remaining.

Death was what I sought, a place in the Garden at my sister’s side. This fate was too cruel, too wicked. I couldn’t be a slave to this monster. I wouldn’t.

But as Kalir parted his lips on his first command, all free will fled from me entirely, and the power which had been forced upon me rose to follow his will. Whatever demand he made of me would be done. I would forge his every wish from this tempestuous power in me and hand them to him. Blood, glory, death, destruction. If he willed it, he would have it all. This monster made into a god by the magic he could command through me. And as I gazed into his cruel eyes which held nothing but malice and greed, I knew I would soon be the maker of purest evil and all I had once been would be forgotten.

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Continue the series now with A Game of Malice and Greed.

Once upon a tangled tale of broken hearts and blackened souls, comes this dark fairy tale retelling from the Wall Street Journal and Amazon.com #1 bestselling fantasy romance authors of Zodiac Academy.

A twisted heart, a hollow soul.

A broken warrior, lost gods of old.

A thief of shadows, blessed with light,

A single lie which stole their might.

A princess to win, in a brutal game.

A great empire falling to a monster’s claim.

A forbidden love, a curse untold.

The last immortal trapped in a coin of gold.

Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti have sold millions of books worldwide and have become known as the ‘Twisted Sisters’ due to their dark and decadent romances full of heart-stopping angst. Step into this world of Fae, gods and curses unlike any retelling you’ve read before.