Heir of Deception

Chapter 22

The world went black, then white, then gray—the same gray as the stone steps beneath her. She sucked in a breath and clawed at the wall, trying to stand, still not processing what had just happened.

She was still so dizzy, but now her brain had been rattled in her skull, and the pounding was too painful to think beyond. Her body burned hot between the drumming in her head. The two took turns, alternating between which one dominated her senses. Nausea coiled in her stomach, working its way up and out. Only to be interrupted by a boot crushing into her ribs.

Right. Someone was hurting her, attacking her, picking her up off the floor, slinging her over their shoulder, and moving deeper into the passageway.

Della might have groaned, but she undoubtedly coughed up blood. The movement was painful, and more blood filled her mouth, her throat, and her lungs. She wanted to scream but was choking, unable to think past her gagging.

She could make her captor choke, too.

Della flung her magic out wildly, uncontrollably, ripping the air from her own lungs in the process, but it did the trick. He dumped her back on the floor while he clutched at his throat, desperate for air. She did the same, reeling her magic in, trying to recover, but he recovered first. He grabbed her by the throat, lifted her limp body, and pinned her against the wall.

"You stupid whore!" he seethed. He squeezed tighter and tighter around her neck, seeking immediate revenge for her panicked attempt to thwart him. Della's sight faded, the blackness at the edges of her vision taking over more and more. She clawed at him, desperate. She could see nothing now, his hand so tight around her throat that she thought even if he released her, she still wouldn't be able to summon air. Her limbs felt heavy, and the darkness in her vision began to spread to her mind.

"Marco!" a voice shouted, penetrating the darkness. "Hurry the hell up!"

The hand finally released her throat, only to relocate to her hair, and he dragged her behind him toward the stairs on their left. Della sucked in air, then sucked in more, desperate to make up for the breaths she'd lost. But each breath burned; everything burned so badly. Her blood and bones felt molten inside her. Again, her suffering saved her as she remembered her gift of ice.

He was dragging her down the stairs now, still pulling her by the hair. She half crawled, half limped behind him. She hoped he'd release her hair when he fell, that he'd prioritize breaking his fall rather than dragging her down with him, but she was wrong.

She blasted ice at the steps just before his feet. The blast was still uncontrolled in her terror, but he fell, tumbling head over heels down the flight of stairs. Again, she did the same, falling right after him, her bones crying out in pain, her skin splitting open in each place she met those unforgiving stone steps.

The two of them crashed into the third man at the bottom of the steps. Their fall was so quick and furious that he had been unable to get out of the way fast enough

She lay there on her stomach yet again, staring at those cruel, gray stones, in too much pain to even groan or scream. They, though, were not. They groaned loudly and cursed even louder, calling her all kinds of horrible, vile names, and then, yet again, they recovered first. She could hear them standing, whining, moaning, and howling their pain, all the while calling her insults she'd never even fathomed. But then the sound of chains clinking interrupted their vile words, and that chain was so much worse than anything they'd said.

Della pressed her hands to the floor, tried to summon the strength to get up, to run, tried to summon her magic, but her vision flashed black to white to gray again. Cold iron bit into one wrist, and she looked up to see Marco reaching for her other wrist, but white flashed across her vision again. Marco was no longer in front of her, but to the left, and she could hear him screaming. Now, red was bleeding into the gray stones below her. She looked left, and the white was actually a white wolf, and he had Marco pinned beneath him, blood dripping from his maw. She looked forward and saw the other man turning to run away, only to be stopped by a wall of fire. She looked right, and Rowan was crouched beside her, reaching for her, Aelin behind him, with guards behind her.

Her vision faded to black, but she could hear Fenrys snarling on her left. She could hear Aelin in front of her shouting to Fenrys to leave them alive, despite them not deserving it. She could hear the flames crackling, and the other man already begging, already telling her how sorry he was. Whether he was speaking to Della or Aelin, she couldn't tell. To her right, she could hear Rowan demanding the key.

What key? she thought to herself. But then, a moment later, the biting cold in her wrist shifted to the same burning sensation that had spread through the rest of her body.

She blinked her eyes open, trying to force away the darkness. Above her now was her father. He was blurry, fading into the background behind him, but she knew it was him. She could scent him—that comforting smell of snow and pine. It enveloped her like a cool hug, soothing the burning inside her, brushing against the skin at the back of her neck and filling her lungs. She realized that he was willing his wind into her lungs, realized that he was carrying her, rushing. The background behind him raced past. She realized that he was talking to her.

"Hold on, Della," he pleaded. "Just one more second, and then the healers can stop the poison."

He glanced down at her, or at least she thought he did. But now he was shouting about how they had to hurry, how he needed the antidote.

The abyss narrowed to a coolness pressed to her lips.

"Drink it, Della. You have to drink it," her father's voice was calm, but there was an edge to it. Still, she obeyed, taking one pitiful, painful swallow before stopping. It hurt too much—drinking, breathing, even thinking—all of it hurt too much.

"Again," he urged, his hand coming behind her head, propping her up so that she might drink more. She drank once more, then again. And then, the coolness swept through her body as darkness swept through her mind.

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