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Chapter fifty-three

HYACINTH

My eyes were heavy as they blinked open against a dark, dank cell. I reached for my necklaces without thinking, without remembering that they were already gone.

I needed them to tell me this gaping hole in my chest, this agony that was flooding my soul, wasn’t true.

That Landers was okay.

Coldness seeped into my bones, curling around my heart as if forcing it to burst. The pain was so sharp, so unrelenting it felt as if my very soul had been cleaved in two.

Nothing had ever hurt more than this .

I threw my head back, a scream tearing free from my throat, so loud, so hollow, it could have cracked the sky itself.

My magic surged from my veins, unchecked, wild, violent .

The cell shook around me, the air charged with raw energy, but it did not seep out through the gates, did not destroy the way it should have.

But then as quickly as it had come, the pain was gone, vanishing from my body with such force that I gasped against it, coughing as my palms slammed into the stone.

He had to be alive, he had to be okay or I would still feel it.

I would still feel every ounce of the pain.

I clung to the thought, dragging myself to the bars of the cells, chains rattling at my ankles as I squinted into the dark.

“Asrai?” I called out, waiting, praying for her response.

But it was not her voice that answered.

“Cin?” Pri’s voice rang through the dark and rage bloomed in my chest.

“How could you do this?” I screamed the question as my fists pounded against the bars.

I pushed my hand through the small space between them, a light igniting in my palm as the other side of my cell lit up. The sound of scurrying and chains clanking ringing out into the stale air.

It wasn’t a corridor, or the entrance to the dungeons, like I expected her traitorous voice to come from, but another cell. And in the corner, Pri sat shaking and wrapped in chains.

My eyes widened as they fell on her, fell onto the gash that was dripping with blood that poured over her face into matted hair.

A sharp gasp fled my lips.

She was so dirty. So thin .

“Pri?” I whispered, my voice softening as I pressed my face to the bars.

Her chains clanked as she answered, her voice raw. “I am here.”

“H-how did you get here? How long have you been here? I just saw you. I just saw you—” My frantic stream of questions halted as the sound of a metal door scraping against stone erupted into the corridor and a flurry of voices flooded the prison.

“That is your princess and you will treat her as such. I told you to bring her to me not to chain her and throw her into the dungeons like some animal.” A woman’s voice rang throughout the dungeon as I scrambled to the back of my cell.

“I am sorry, my Queen. It will not happen again.” Rilius’s voice rang out as the frantic apology slipped from his lips.

He was scared—I could hear the fear tangled in the thread of his words. A snap echoed from the woman’s fingers and the chains around my body vanished as my cell door flew open.

She raced toward me as I pressed my body against the stone, my heart thundering against my chest. Her knees collided with the ground, a teary smile seeping onto her face as she lifted her palms to cup my cheeks. I jerked away from her hands.

“Who are you?” I snarled, trying to put distance between us, but there was nowhere else for me to turn.

She said nothing as she lifted her hands again and cupped both sides of my face.

Memories crashed into me with such force my head snapped backward, my skull crashing against the stone at my back. Every moment of time I was missing before I was left at the academy gates flooded my mind in a chaotic stream of consciousness.

My grandparents, my mother, my home in Idradora— I remembered it all .

I gasped as the memories latched into place, choking on the air collecting in my lungs.

Slowly, I lifted my head, my eyes locking on to hers. “Mom?”

A pained whimper sounded from her throat as she pushed her hand back to my cheek, her thumb brushing over my skin. “I have been waiting so many years, been working so hard to bring my daughter back to me. Welcome home, Hyacinth.”