Page 29 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

Paesha

T he burning had gone completely. No more summoning. No more freedom.

“Be still,” Alastor purred in my ear. “Don’t speak. Don’t move.”

I couldn’t breathe. That would have required moving.

He crossed his arms over his chest, standing feet away as he assessed me. “Oh right. Mortals. You may breathe and blink.”

Asshole.

Standing in the middle of the Vale, with absolutely no one at the merchant stalls, Alastor’s Remnants roared to life, given silent instruction by their master.

They formed intricate patterns in the air before pressing against my skin with an icy touch that burned like frostbite.

I felt them seek out the marks on my neck, the delicate snowflake and the rose.

Their damn handy work. They paused at my back, drawn to a spot between my shoulder blades.

The mark I’d been too afraid to look at, the one that had appeared when I’d learned the truth about Thorne.

I stood there for about thirty seconds before I remembered my own power.

My Remnants had been conveniently quiet and I had no idea how to call them forward.

Anytime I’d needed to use the power of the Huntress, it’d been as natural as breathing, but that was something I was born with, not something I’d taken. Not the monster living in my mind.

“Where are they?” Alastor asked, stroking a tattooed thumb along his jawline as he waited.

I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just as I’d been ordered.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said. “You may speak.”

“My father gave me an apple once. After my mother abandoned us. It was half rotten and smelled like the rats that sometimes?—”

“Stop!”

I smiled. “Problem?”

He stepped closer, grabbing my face.

I looked down, refusing to let him lift my chin. “I’m not allowed to move, remember?”

His smile was complete venom. “That smart mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble.”

“In case you’ve forgotten how I ended up here, I think it’s fair to say it’s far too late for that threat. Maybe you could try again. Really mean it this time.”

Alastor’s eyes narrowed, his grip on my face tightening. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? A few quips and you gained the upper hand?” He leaned in close. “Let me remind you of your position, little Huntress. You belong to me now. Your power, your mind, is mine to command.”

I met his gaze, refusing to be cowed. “And yet here we are, already having to remind the little mortal girl who’s in charge. That probably isn’t really godly of you. Don’t worry. I won’t tell the others.”

His lips curled into a snarl, revealing teeth that seemed a touch too sharp to be human. “I could break you in ways you can’t even imagine. I could strip away everything that makes you who you are until there’s nothing left but an empty shell, begging for my guidance.”

“Ooh, very scary,” I drawled, rolling my eyes. “Tell me, do you practice these speeches in the mirror? The delivery could use some work. I’m not afraid to become nothing. Feel nothing. I’ve done that before. I thrive there, just so you know.”

Alastor’s hand slid from my face to my throat, his fingers pressing against my pulse. “Perhaps you need a demonstration of how precarious your situation is.”

The binding marks on my wrists flared to life, sending searing pain up my arms. I gritted my teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.

Truly, I hoped he would break me. End it now.

But he wouldn’t. We both knew that. No matter how many times he cracked the whip, I’d always get back up.

Because I refused to be broken at the hands of any man. Ever again.

The pain intensified, spreading through my body like liquid fire. My muscles seized, every nerve ending screaming in agony. But still, I held his gaze, refusing to break. “Is that all you’ve got? I’ve had worse paper cuts.”

Alastor’s eyes flashed with a mixture of fury and… was that admiration? He released my throat, taking a step back. “You truly are remarkable, aren’t you? So much fire, so much defiance. It’s almost a shame to break you.”

“Then don’t,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Let me go. Find someone else to play your twisted games with.”

“You will only speak the truth to me. Do you understand?”

“We speak the same language, so it’s fair to assume I do, but if you need verbal confirmation, yes. I fucking understand.”

He began to pace, thinking through whatever it was he wanted to ask. His strides grew quicker as he moved. “When we were in the meadow in front of that home, you had power I’ve not seen from you before. For a moment, I thought… but it couldn’t have been. But then you put yourself in that dome.”

“Was there a question there, or are we thinking out loud now?” I asked, my muscles aching from standing perfectly still.

“Where did that power come from?”

“Wow. Okay, all beauty, no brains. Let me see if I can simplify this for you.”

His Remnants surged, snatching my arms and pulling them away from each other until I wondered if they would rip me in two. The pain was bearable, but only just, racing through my nerves like wildfire.

“Be careful how you speak to me. They don’t take kindly to disrespect.”

“So you don’t control them?” I asked, genuinely curious.

His eyes narrowed. “Do you control your shadows, Huntress?”

“Perhaps.”

He grinned. “She learns.”

“Did you acquire a greater depth of power when you killed the prince, or do you have new abilities?”

“I don’t know.”

I could have always had people talking in my mind and shadows dancing around me.

Definitely could have been so subtle I never, ever noticed.

For sure. At least that’s what I told myself to circumvent his ‘no lying’ command.

I’d learned long ago you only give the information you have to and nothing more.

“Bring them out,” he demanded.

My body trembled with the compulsion. I wanted to. Needed to. It was all I could think about the second the command left his lips. But nothing happened.

He stared for a long time, waiting patiently before he said, “No matter. Perhaps they just need a little persuasion. Let me see your full potential, Huntress.” Alastor’s eyes gleamed with cruel anticipation as he raised his hand.

The air thickened, crackling with dark energy.

I braced myself for whatever torment he was about to inflict, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.

His Remnants surged forward, sliding down his arms in a tidal wave of shadows that crashed over me with devastating force.

The impact drove the air from my lungs, leaving me gasping as darkness coiled around my limbs, sinking wicked talons into my flesh.

Pain exploded through every part of me, white-hot and all-consuming.

My own Remnants erupted in response, bursting from my skin in a chaotic storm. They clashed with Alastor’s shadows, hissing. The collision of our powers sent shockwaves rippling through the air, shattering the empty merchant stalls and cracking the cobblestones beneath our feet.

As the two forces battled for dominance, my mind splintered. A cacophony of voices flooded my consciousness, drowning out all rational thought. They whispered and screamed, cajoled and threatened, a thousand conflicting impulses tearing me apart from the inside.

“No,” I yelled, covering my hands with my ears. But the voices didn’t listen. They never did.

So weak.

You’re not supposed to break.

I could see Alastor’s lips moving, his face contorted with fury as he shouted commands, but his words were lost in the deafening roar inside my head. My own screams echoed distantly, as if coming from somewhere far away.

The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of pain and fractured memories.

It started with heat that seared every nerve.

A thousand swords could’ve plunged into my back and I wouldn’t have felt it beyond the absolute skin-ripping agony that overwhelmed every piece of me.

I was never a child. Never a woman. Never loved.

Never betrayed. Never anything. Only pain. Always pain. Suffering.

Suffering.

The agony crescendoed until reality fractured, splintering like glass beneath the weight of a thousand screaming voices. Each one tore through me with savage glee, ripping away pieces of who I was until nothing remained but raw nerve endings exposed to bitter winter winds.

Pathetic. Worthless. You deserve this pain.

I couldn’t remember where I was. Who I was. The pain consumed everything, burning through muscle and bone. Whatever point Alastor meant to prove, I hoped this was everything he had to throw at me. I hoped this misery would sweep me away and end it all.

He saw right through you. You were never worthy. Just the bait.

Just the bait.

The bait.

My skin felt too tight, like it was shrinking, contracting around muscles that wanted to tear free.

The world spun and tilted, reality bending until up became down and darkness became light.

I tried to cling to something, anything real, but there was nothing to hold on to except the voices and their poison-laced promises.

Until whatever Alastor’s intention was shattered, and I was left to fade into nothing.

When I finally opened my eyes, I was sprawled on the cold stone floor in an empty room. The silence should have been a relief, but it only made the voices louder. They bounced off bare walls, echoing in the hollow space where my thoughts used to be.

Find your strength or lose yourself.

Don’t bend.

Not yet, Huntress.

I could barely manage to swallow. “Please,” I begged behind cracked lips. “Stop.”

I could handle Alastor. I couldn’t handle the voices that haunted me so relentlessly.

Fight back, then.

“Tell me how.”

Not yet, Huntress.

That voice was singular. One woman. One. One single voice. I blinked.

Focus.

An apparition appeared before me, nearly invisible in the dark room.

Her white wedding dress was covered in blood and her face, though beautiful, was haunted, plagued with misery as she looked down at the sword buried in her belly.

She reached a bloody hand toward me before I met those eyes that were twin to my own.

Another Huntress. Another of Thorne’s conquests.

I’d seen this death before. Not like this though. I’d seen it through the eyes of a sympathetic woman, falling for a man. Now, it was different. He was the reason. I knew it as thoroughly as I knew how to breathe. How to be.

She stumbled forward, staining the pure white snow with her blood as she fell into Thorne’s arms. I knew it was him without seeing his face.

He reached for her, fingers trembling, exactly as I remembered in the vision Alastor had shown me.

Only this time, the second before she died, she turned and looked right into my soul. The vision faded on her eerie scream.

Pain started building again, different this time, focused and sharp against my thigh. It burned like brands being pressed into my flesh, like molten metal seeking bone. My hands moved without conscious thought, clawing at the source of the heat until my fingers closed around gold and parchment.

Thorne’s book.

The voices screamed louder, became more frenzied, more desperate. The pain intensified until spots danced across my vision, until my breath came in ragged gasps that barely brought in enough air to keep me conscious.

Destroy it.

With the last remnants of strength I could muster, I hurled the book across the room. It hit the wall with a dull thud that echoed for eternity, then fell to the floor, its pages splayed open like broken wings.

The voices didn’t stop. They never stopped. But as I watched the book lying there, something inside me fractured in a different way, not from pain this time, but from the hollow emptiness that follows when you realize you’ve lost everything that ever mattered.