Princess of Fire (The Light-Bringer Trilogy, #2)

Twenty

Cal awoke to the white ceiling of the hospital in Soturi above her. Her fingertips moved over her chest, feeling the rough bandages under the white hospital tunic. She raised her hands and stared at the bandages and splints binding her palms, wrists, and forearms. She dropped her hands to her sides and winced at the dull ache from the impact on the mattress.

She turned her head to the left and saw her brother sitting on a wooden stool. He was looking down at an unconscious Lance, whose leg was in bandages and a splint. Lance's forearms we're also wrapped in bandages.

Cal swallowed, her mouth as dry as the Verzengend desert. "Lucas," she rasped.

Lucas's head snapped to face her, and his green eyes lit up. "Cal," he said. "How are you feeling?"

She chuckled humourlessly. "Like I got the living daylights kicked out of me." Cal narrowed her eyes and realized hat her brother was wearing bandages under his scout's uniform. "What happened to you?"

"I tore my stitches during the attack," he replied.

"What about Lance?"

Lucas sighed and scratched the back of his head. "After Luna Andhera knocked you unconscious, Lance tried to restrain her. However, she broke his leg and escaped. He won't tell me, but I know for a fact she said something to him because he tried to take his own life two days ago-hence the bandages on his forearms."

"Oh gods," she muttered.

"The medics are keeping him unconscious until after his wounds have healed so they can take his stitches out."

"How long have I been out?" she asked after a few minutes of silence.

"About a week. Three broken ribs, two cracked ulnars, a concussion, and four stitches is what you got out with," he answered.

Memories of the attack hit her. Luna beating her bloody, Luna saying that she hated her. Luna, Luna, Luna-

Her ribs ached, stabbed, and burned as she gasped for air, a few of her tears escaping despite her efforts to shove them down. She wasn't going to Easter her tears on an Andhera.

-

Lucas left as the sun began to set, leaving Cal alone with her thoughts.

I hate you repeated in her head. Over and over and over. And it always sounded like Luna Andhera.

She shoved her emotions down, refusing to cry. She wouldn't cry over the ghost of a girl. She refused to cry over Luna Andhera.

"I poisoned Matias, and I cured him.

"I hate you.

"I was sent to break you."

She wouldn't feel anything. She didn't want to feel anything for House Andhera.

I don't want to feel this kind of pain again, she thought as her eyes began to droop. I won't let myself get close to anyone ever again.

-

Cal sat on her hospital bed, one of the medic assistants braiding her hair.

"You sent a message for me?"

Cal looked up and saw her father standing at the foot of the bed. She plastered a smile on her face. "I did," she said, forcing emotion into her voice. "Did my husband come visit me at all?"

Akaljot and Lucas blanched, looking at each other with wide eyes.

"He can't," Akaljot said slowly.

Cal furrowed her brows, her smile disappeared. "Why not? Is Matias alright?"

Lucas pursed his lips. "He's... Matias is a little... incapacitated, at the moment."

Cal's blood ran cold and she swallowed the lump forming in her throat. Her pulse pounded a thousand miles an hour. "Where is he? Where is my husband. What happened to my husband?"

Her father and brother exchanged another look.

"It's easier if we show you," said Lucas.

-

They walked into the darkened warehouse, the sentinels watching their every move. Akaljot led them into the warehouse, a ball of light in his hand.

"What are we doing here?" Cal wondered aloud.

"Just wait," Lucas said from beside her.

Akaljot slid a heavy metal door to the side, revealing a large room in which the only source of light was the shaft of sunlight filtering through a window in the ceiling. In the centre of the shaft of sunlight, a man-in a black tunic, black pants, black boots, and a black frock coat-sat in a chair with his hands chained behind his back and a hood over his head.

"Why does he have a hood over his head and why is he bound in chains?" she asked.

Akaljot crossed his arms. "Approach carefully, but don't cross or disturb the salt circle. You can only remove the hood."

Cal slowly made her way towards her husband. Her boots gently splashed in puddles of water and she looked back at her family members. Her father gestured her forward. Go ahead, it seemed to say.

She continued to move forward and stopped at the edge of the salt circle. She reached out with a shaking hand and grasped the rough fabric of the hood in her fingertips. Cal yanked it off of him.

"Matt?" she whispered.

He looked up at her, a cruel grin on his face. Cal gasped and staggered back. It wasn't Matias's familiar steel grey eyes looking up at her.

Instead, Calista saw the hellish orange eyes of Prince James staring back at her.