Black Blood

-B2- Chapter 39

His eyes slide slowly over me as I keep my lips tightly sealed. Unfortunately for him, the person he knows isn't sitting in front of him.

'No word from your friends?' I don't even shake my head. My expression as lifeless as my so-called "friends."

The grin on Christiaan's lips keeps growing as if he's winning the game that this one-sided conversation represents.

'The black witch. That's what they call you now? A veiled name for a murderer, thief, and above all, a whore. Too bad there wasn't enough blood in Walmoet's body to speak, or to breathe. I would have liked to hear if 'you're finally better in bed.' He takes a step back again.

'You know it's forbidden to marry two men at once, don't you? Let's see what Daddy has to say about that, shall we? Guards.' As the words leave his mouth, two guards enter my field of view and the tortured man's screams stop.

Christian takes a few steps back before the blue-armored men open the door to my cell.

I lie still on the ground as the black heavy shoes enter my cell and remove the chain from my wrists. They pull me upright by the handcuffs. My cramped legs struggle to stand upright. The wet skirt of my dress sticks to my bare skin.

'You have looked better,' Christiaan laughs as I'm pushed past him into the dungeon. The cold, pointed stones under my feet, the staring eyes of the rotting prisoners, and Christian's triumphant grin. I should feel no more than a pig going to the slaughterhouse.

But what these men seem to forget or miss is that this pig possesses more magic than before. A combination of the magic of all the killing and the knowledge of combat techniques makes me much deadlier than the 19-year-old of the past.

There are two things that give me the power I lacked before; knowledge and the lack of fear of losing something.

I've lost everything I used to fight for. Rave is dead, the night riders are dead, my secret is revealed, Novak hates me, and Elien has become my father's target. I have nothing to lose, except my own life.

I'm pushed to the end of the hallway, to the chariot. The pink inset stone in the wall is the only way out of this coffin.

When the dungeons were built, my grandfather didn't want an opening for escape. Prisoners have a spell on them that makes the chariot refuse to teleport them. Without removing that spell or having a physical connection with an authorized person, it's impossible to leave these corridors.

Christian is the first to put his hand on the pink stone before disappearing from the hallway. The two guards hold my wrists and place their hands on the chariot at the same time. A dark pink color takes over my vision for a millisecond before we stand in the right tower of the castle.

This rat hole will always give me chills. The cold, the darkness, and even the subtle sound of the wind along the high tower immediately lock up my body. The only advantage over the dungeons is the warmth. For the first time in hours, my body stops shaking.

I have little time to see if they've changed the room in the past few years. Christian opens the steel door and walks ahead of me and the guards into the familiar long corridors of the castle.

I remember these corridors as cold and impersonal. I don't know how, but my father has managed to make them even colder. There is even less decoration than before, and the little that is there is black or dark blue. The dark blue curtains give a little atmosphere to the otherwise empty corridors. The once wooden doors are now dark blue and have black nameplates. The number of weapons on the wall suggests that it has become a military base.

Even the servants' clothing is darker. The gray-blue dresses have no decoration except for the black ribbon around the waist. The hood covers the little personality the ladies still possess. If I manage to discern a face under the hood, the pained faces look at me in surprise for a second before bowing deeply to Christiaan. The wolf and the sheep.