Castle of Time and Ash

CHAPTER LIII

CHAPTER LIII

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Wrong."

That one word sent surging chills coursing through her veins. Not because of the meaning, the truth it held, but the voice and the tone expressed through the letters pronounced. Her mind replicated the sound and reran it again and again, through her body, her heart, her blood and flesh. It was all there, deepening and growing, a heavy melody of death and undoing.

It couldn't be – it couldn't be here right now. She didn't want it to be. She had never wanted it to come find her and stir up the memories and darkness and fear that she had long buried within the ridges of her mind – the darkest corners no one would dare to search.

The creature slithered around her legs, its long, slimy tail like vines and chains that circled around her ankles, a pair of distorted shackles that tightened themselves around her. Her breath hitched. Not again. Not the manacles, the fright, the hopelessness and desperation. The two men – their faces were forever etched inside her head. The glassy, unseeing eyes; the transparent and unremorseful look each of them had on when she kicked and thrashed around to try and free herself, all of it in vain.

"I know your secrets, girl..." the creature said, its voice terrible but as velvety as night. "You cannot hide from me."

Valentine slipped from within her clutches, dropping to the ground like a rag doll, the blood on him the only thing Althera could make out through the spinning of the room. She crumbled to her knees, shaking her head to try and clear away the voice – but it was no use. It wouldn't go away. And she knew it never would.

There was a horrible hiss that sounded far too close to her ear. "I feast on your nightmares and I drink up the displeasure you feel. All that fear and guilt inside of you – you know it is eating you whole." When she didn't do so much as make a low groan from the back of her throat, the creature went on. "And I enjoy watching your suffering, how those regretful expressions you compel yourself make in the mirror at night cause you such aches. You have more blood on your hands than the king, the prince-"

"Stop," she heard herself demand. "Stop this. I don't want to remember.

"You are a murderer, a traitor, a fugitive running from her past. You thought you could hide this from anyone – you thought you could hide this from me? I know everything, the lies, the truth. I have seen it all." The creature was too calm. Too calm.

It gave her a moment to take in the words before continuing, "Such stubbornness and stupidity from a young girl. Your father asked you to kill and you did it, without a second's hesitation. Nothing short of a monster."

No, it was back. That feeling she had committed something unforgivable and didn't feel ashamed at all for doing such a thing riled up inside her. Another whip to her heart. But it wasn't the pain she felt – it was rather the delight and sense of completion that swept her into its embrace. The sensation of her father's praise and satisfaction at her for killing – for killing those dukes she had been made to welcome and take to her bed, where she was then to murder them and throw their corpses into the sea. It was a good death for those criminals, her father had said. And she had believed him.

Monster. Monster.

That was what she was made to be.

Monster. Monster.

"And it is a wonder why you have kept those things locked up for so long. Not wanting them to shred you to pieces, I take it. But you... You will always be your father's daughter." The windy voice blew at the tresses of her hair. "That is something you can never change."