CHAPTER 4

There is something chomping, digging , writhing in my mind.

I want it out. I want all of it out .

Sweat breaks over my skin as I feel my body slump. Feel hands catch me. My ears are ringing…but the sound feels far away. I feel far away.

What is happening?

I don't know. There's no clear thought, no clear memory I can cling to. I'm blowing in the wind.

"Auren!"

I blink around blearily, lost, confused. I can't hold my body up. There's a man yelling, looking right at me. Tan skin, black hair, brown eyes, a wound on his arm. He looks frantic. Terrified.

What's wrong?

I'm flooded with panic, though I don't know the source. My head is pounding. Sharp smacks that make my eyes sting.

"Leave her alone!" the man shouts before he tries to surge forward, and then he blows out a big breath that seems to glimmer…

The hilt of a sword is slammed against his temple, and he's instantly knocked unconscious.

Another person cries out. "Wick!"

My eyes follow the sound to a woman who's lurching toward the slumped man, her fingers scrabbling down his arm. Something flickers along his wound.

Strange. I thought there was a flash of gold there…but no, his wound is bright red with blood.

The sensation of something tunneling through my mind makes my whole body shudder.

The woman is wrenched away from the man, pushed onto her knees by someone dressed in armor.

Soldier?

Wrong…this feels wrong…

The soldier yanks her back by her orange-tipped hair, exposing her throat. I try to get up, but the hands holding me tug on my arm, and I cry out from debilitating pain.

Why am I in so much pain?

"Vulmin filth," someone spits.

I blink through the tears in my eyes. There's a man wearing a crown standing over the kneeling woman.

My stomach twists and twists so much it's going to get knotted in place.

"You are a traitor to your species," he spits venomously, and she starts to shake. "You don't deserve to call yourself fae."

He nods, and someone moves, blocking my sight for a second. It all happens so fast I don't see until it's done.

Until she's screaming .

A soldier has a dagger in his hand that now drips with blood. The woman is sobbing, her arms still held back, but her ear…the top half is now missing, a chain left to dangle from her lobe as blood pours out.

"Emonie!" A man with blue and white hair behind her shouts her name and tries to get to her, shoving at another armored soldier.

One second, he's trying to get to her. The next, there's a sword poking out through his chest. He looks down at it, like he's surprised to see it there. Bright teal eyes lift up to me, and then he falls.

Doesn't get up.

Blood blooms. Rivulets seeping out onto the ground.

More screams.

I'm in a dream.

A nightmare?

As if the horror is contagious, I look past him. Beyond. There are more bodies. Unmoving, drenched with spilt blood.

The word comes up, floating forward.

Dead.

That's what they are. They're dead .

My twisted stomach swells, the knots bloating with bile.

Then the three of them are dragged away. The unconscious man, the sobbing woman, the dead one whose blue eyes are shut and red blood still flows.

Where are they taking them?

I struggle, even with the pain, because maybe I can wake up.

I need to wake up.

But hands clamp over my ears, and sharp nails dig into my skin. Though there's a deeper digging that goes past my skin, past my skull .

Holes.

So many holes left from the hostile burrowing, making the throbbing in my temples amplify even more.

What is happening to me?

I try to shake my head, try to clear it. I can't latch on to anything but perforated haze. The digging writhes down my ears, making me shudder.

I need it to stop .

My body jerks so violently that I manage to dislodge the hands at my ears, manage to yank away from the one holding back my arms.

A snarl tears through the air, and I realize belatedly that it's coming from me.

Then something wet slicks from my hands, and I look down to see liquid gold pouring onto the ground. Inside of it, the thinnest black roots writhe. My gaze gets stuck to it, attention transfixed.

Either he moves very fast or my mind is moving very slow, because suddenly the crowned man is before me, and he holds something sharp against my throat.

There's a flash of a different crowned man…a different blade…a pain at my throat as I was held back.

My head swims.

Someone is behind me. Touches the back of my neck. I hear him make a noise—maybe in surprise? I start to turn my head, but his hand pulls away as quickly as it came, and I'm distracted again by the crowned man in front of me.

"I should kill you, Turley scum, and be done with it," he seethes at me, his eyes glaring.

More holes burrow.

Should I feel fear, as the sharpness of his blade settles against my vulnerable flesh? Should alarm bells peal at the trickle of hot drips tickling out?

I don't know what to think. I don't know what to feel. There should be something solid in my head that I can grasp onto, but there's just…a sieve, letting everything trundle out. Past and present trickling.

Is this here? Then? Now? Never?

Why can't I wake up?

Another man steps up from behind me, coming around to my side. A patch covers his right eye. There's red cloth tucked in front of his throat, but my neck is the one bleeding.

"Look at her, Your Majesty," he says smoothly. "A gilded Turley. Everyone who sees her will realize what she is. She is the symbol that the rebels have been squawking about."

"So I'll slit her throat here and now!"

The one-eyed man shakes his head, even as the sharpness digs into my throat like the stinger of a wasp. More dribbling. Landing on my collar, freezing my swallows.

"King Carrick, look at the power you could wield through her. You could ruin the rebels through her. Don't give them a martyr. Give them a mockery ."

The sharp threat against my neck stops digging in.

Holds still.

My heavy eyes drag up to stare at the man with the blade. He's staring back at me, his eyes hard as stone. Both in appearance and demeanor. The crown he wears is like a boulder ready to topple and crush me with its weight.

"A mockery…" he repeats.

"Yes, Majesty. Flaunt her. With your memory fae's magic, make this Turley a spectacle. A laughing stock of this so-called symbol for rebellion. Make her kneel to you and show them all what a traitor she is, and you'll make their insurgence fail. Without her, the Vulmin will have nothing to fight for. You'll cut this uprising off at the knees. Don't waste her. Use her , and you will be that much more powerful."

Use her.

Those words echo down the hollowed-out pits in my head, not just in his voice, but in many. So many saying that very same thing.

use her use her use her use her use her use her

The sharp blade peels away from my throat. In its place, there's a hand at my ear. A cold, slick something digging into the canal.

I sway, head drooping. Can't hold it up.

The crowned man—King Carrick—stares down at me, and now, there's a twisted smile curving along his taupe face. His skin looks hard enough to crack. Beneath his feet, lined gold is hardening into stiff puddles. I can see the reflection of the one-eyed man within the gleam.

"She's much more valuable to you alive. Look at this magic alone."

They both look down at the gold spilling off my hands and pooling on the ground.

My own reflection looks distorted. I can't quite see me.

"She's malleable , Your Majesty. So make her into whatever you like."

Something wet peels from the corner of my eye. Splashes upon my shirt. I don't know why.

The pain in my body, the hollows in my head, they win against the adrenaline and confusion.

And I?

I slump. Plunge.

Because this is what it feels like to fall into the pitted, overwhelming dark.

And yet…somewhere in these shadows, there are veins of black that don't succumb, but that spread .