But she couldn’t be the culprit. Why would she make Rayse want to kill her?
Still, he hadn’t finished the deed. Maybe she’d wanted to send him away.
Constance had told him that their bond was faked. Was that only one of her secrets? Did she have more?
Was she a false mate sent to ruin him? Did such things even exist?
He didn’t want it to happen, but seeds of doubt had planted themselves in his mind.
Chapter 15
Constance’s eyes blinked open to another scene.
She stood at the outskirts of a festival, watching as Edrienne and Adriana danced in the center of a blazing fire. They looked like the happiest couple in the world.
An incessant pain pulsed on Constance’s left cheek. It traveled down her face and to the soles of her feet. It wouldn’t go away. Only when she slept did the horrible sensation rest, and it was only then that she could escape this living hell. She touched her face, then sucked in a sharp breath at the stinging sensation.
Aesryn had lost her smooth skin. Her looks had been disfigured. She dared not look at mirrors these days. In them she saw the monster she had become—a disgusting, mottled creature. The roughness of her skin felt like scales. Looking at herself made her want to throw up, and she felt like a prisoner in a foreign body.
“Oi,” a man behind her said. “Get the hell out of here, you fucking monster.”
He shoved her roughly as he walked past. She fell to the ground. The dirt scraped against her burn marks. She winced from the pain.
Aesryn despaired at her fate. Edrienne would never glance her way now. He avoided her gaze each time she gave it to him, preferring to look at anything else, even a dead cockroach or lizard. She could no longer marry. Even if she stopped setting her sights on Edrienne, the other village men deemed her unworthy. She was cursed to be a spinster.
She hadn’t been considered a beauty. Her sister had inherited most of the good looks from their mother. But Aesryn hadn’t been ugly, either. She could have found herself a decent man. She wouldn’t love him, not like she did Edrienne, but at least she wouldn’t be alone.
The rude man, Jurick, hadn’t walked away. Jurick had always been the biggest bully in their village, and his similarly pompous friends liked to cause mischief with him.
Aesryn brushed her hair out of her face. She slid her feet to a standing position and pushed herself up. As she did, she looked up to face Jurick and his companions.
“Gods fuck me, she’s hideous,” one of them said.
“My skin crawls just looking at her,” another added.
Jurick laughed. “She’s a good witch. Could bring riches to you if you marry her.”
The man next to him spat on the ground. “Rather have my balls pulled off than wed a creature like her.”
She tried not to let the comments get to her, but tears welled in her eyes.
She spun around, choosing not to start a fight with these men, even though she could kill them with a flick of her finger. They would suffer what they deserved eventually. She padded forward.
“Yeah, fuck the hell off!” Jurick shouted. “Don’t come back. Nobody wants to look at you.”
Aesryn’s anger stirred. She couldn’t sit by and do nothing anymore. She ran back to her house and slammed her door shut. The villagers were still celebrating the festivities outside. Laughing, singing, dancing without her. She could never be part of it all. She didn’t deserve to be happy, and she hated that.
She paced to her desk and sat down. On the table were stacks of paper. They had endless amounts of ancient writings on them.
Constance stirred in Aesryn’s mind. She tried to focus on the spells, but the writings wouldn’t show. She could only make out a meaningless word or two. Whoever was showing her this vision didn’t want to share the knowledge with her. She continued living as a passenger in Aesryn’s thoughts.
Aesryn fumbled with the texts. She circled a passage with a quill, scratching into the paper with hungry fervor.
“What are you working on?” came an icy voice from behind her.
She spun around. Adriana stood at the doorway, wearing a flower wreath on her head.
“I saw you running away like a little dog.”
“Nobody wants me there.” Aesryn glared at the blonde. “Because of what you did.”
“You’re welcome.” Adriana walked closer. “Edrienne kissed me today.” A vicious grin spread across her lips.
“Congratulations,” Aesryn spat. Her disgust brewed within her. Adriana never stopped taking. She was always trying to take everything from Aesryn. And finally, Adriana had succeeded in stripping everything away.
I will not suffer this lying down.
Aesryn had nothing to lose. She could burn it all to the ground and not care.
The vile witch squinted at the piece of paper. “Interesting. It’s complicated. More than I’d expect of you.” Her fingers brushed over the scribblings. Aesryn’s chest tensed. She had only taken these out because she thought Adriana would be out for a long time today. She hadn’t expected her sister to come home so early.
Adriana scrunched the spells into a ball and threw them into the fire pit.
“No!” Aesryn screamed. She ran to her work, now in tatters and burning. She had finally made a breakthrough. That was months of toiling away—gone. She heard the ruffling of parchment behind her. Adriana was tearing up her scribblings.
“Please, stop,” Aesryn begged. She choked on her own tears.
Adriana narrowed her eyes. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you. I’ve just seen what you’re plotting. You act innocent and weak, but you’re every bit as vicious as I am.”
“I’m your sister,” Aesryn said. “You’ve tormented me enough.”
Adriana snorted. “That reason has bought you more time than you deserve. Explain why I shouldn’t squeeze the life out of you right now.”
Aesryn clenched her fists. “Because you toy with me. You treat me no better than a plaything. You can’t stand the sight of me, but you also enjoy torturing me. Once I’m gone, who will you play with?” Adriana treated everyone in the village with respect. To the rest of the villagers, she was kindhearted and perfect. Only Aesryn knew about her true, sadistic nature.
Adriana laughed dryly. “Do you know why I hate you?”
Aesryn swallowed. Constance wanted the vision to end. She wasn’t learning anything useful, and was certain Adriana was about to do something dreadful. Her eyes had darkened, and she was looking at Aesryn the same way the Dragon Mother had looked at Constance when they first met. The resemblance was uncanny.
Is she…?
“You were always the favorite one. Mother always pampered you because you acted like you were weak. You think I’m the bully, but I’ve seen the evil in you. Yet our mother treated me like the big bad. You were sweet Aesryn. Infallible Aesryn. You’d do everything to me, and worse, given the chance.”
“Nothing like the pain you’ve inflicted—”
“Shut up. My hurting you is a result of your own doing. I’d be the one at the tip of the sword if I didn’t strike first. It’s who you are.”
“That’s nonsense. You can take my flesh, take my future away. You can even take my life. But you cannot strip my mind from me. I will not be fooled by your weak justifications.”
Adriana smirked. “I don’t need a justification. Do you know what you did, baby sister? I loved you. Oh, how I loved you. I swore I’d protect you with my life. Then I saw the real you. The child who reveled as she tore the limbs off mice as they screamed in agony. The adorable two-year-old who couldn’t speak properly, but even in her limited language, managed to threaten to kill everyone in this village if she didn’t get her way. But our mother saw past that—”
“Lies.”
“—and she loved you even after seeing the messes you made. She scolded me for trying to stop you. I was the one in the wrong. Can you believe that? You were getting too full of yourself. So, when Mother died, I h
ad to put you back in your place.”
“You’re doing it again,” Aesryn said. “You’re tormenting me. But not physically this time. Just mentally. Always trying to bring me down so that you can inflate your falsehoods.”
“Believe what you want, sister. I’m only being honest for once.”
“I don’t believe you. I would never—”
There was a foreign look in Adriana’s eyes. Almost like fear. But it was silly to think Aesryn’s sister would fear her.
Adriana dragged up the sleeves she often wore down, revealing a long row of burns. Scars just like Aesryn’s. “It’s not all meaningless. Who do you think did this to me?”
Aesryn shook her head, unable to believe her sister was justified in her actions. The years of torture she had put up with were supposed to be meaningless. “An… accident… of some sort.”
“It was you,” Adriana said. “Before you were even able to walk. And as I screamed, you giggled like a babe, wiggling in your cot with delight like the little demon you are.”
“You’ve inflicted those wounds on me tenfold. Our scores are even.”
Adriana snorted. “It’s not. It’ll never be even between us. It’s either you or me.”
She snapped her fingers and summoned more fire. The abuse was going to happen again, but Aesryn was prepared to protect herself this time.
Marzia hid in her cave, huddling in front of the fire.
She was shaking and terrified for her life.
One last killing. That was all the Mother had asked. And she had failed miserably. She hadn’t expected Shen to spot her misdeed and swoop in to save the day. She cursed at Shen, wishing him the greatest downfall. The goddess would have her head now.
And as if one failure wasn’t enough, Rayse had come and spotted her as Constance. She didn’t know why the Mother wanted her to hide in an illusion of Constance and appear to the victims before each murder, but Marzia had done as told. The act seemed to have fostered hatred toward her friend amongst the clan. Perhaps that was the goal.
The screams of the woman who had died under the Mother’s spell echoed in her mind, accompanied by the voices she heard in her head. She tried to shake them away, but they continued to sound, growing each time they spoke a nonsensical muttering.
She wanted to claw her mind out to make it stop.
It was getting worse, and she was slipping into madness.
She couldn’t take it.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she told the voices in her head.
They continued to chisel away at her brain. They wanted her to break. She clenched her fists so hard that her skin broke, and she smelled her own blood.
It was cold… so cold. The wool boots and the thick coat wrapped around her body did little to stave off her shivering. The fire crackling in front of her was too dim. She kept adding more wood to it, but couldn’t seem to stop her own shaking.
There were wolves out there. The barrier would protect her, but their constant howling reminded her of the danger she was in. She hated the sound of their calls whenever they punctuated the stillness of the air.
Her sparrow-vellum lay in front of her, unanswered.
She had written to Fraser and he hadn’t replied. He always replied quickly. The blank sheet worried her. She needed him around so the voices torturing her would stop. She wanted to at least get a last word to him. All her struggles, her suffering, and it had come to naught. She longed to see him again.
A goodbye would at least appease her aching, trembling heart.
Was he safe? Did the Mother do something to him because of her failure? Marzia prayed to the goddess to be merciful. If anything happened to Fraser because of her…
She heard the sound of something snapping. She startled, stifling a scream. Her pulse calmed after her mind came to its senses—she had set a trap outside for food just yesterday. She would have something to eat tonight, at least. But she didn’t want to leave these confines. She wanted to wallow in the darkness for a little while longer.
She hugged the fur coat to herself and cried into it.
How many more visions was Constance going to be put through? Each one of them had made her go through Aesryn’s suffering. She sat, as herself, curled up on the glowing ground. She was aware that her skin was unmarred, but it itched anyway. The memories made her believe that she was disfigured, but each time she checked her hand, it was the same pale white that belonged to her, and not the spotted red and gray of Aesryn’s scars.
She tried not to let more tears fall. She yearned for this suffering to end. Her mind was failing in this loneliness, and she wanted to be able to speak to someone. She even missed Greta’s scolding, and the knock on her head whenever she didn’t pay enough attention to her teacher. She sought release from this hell but wasn’t so lucky to find a reprieve.
Aesryn’s hatred for her sister had seeped into Constance. She had begun to share the same sentiments as the younger witch. She detested the blonde beauty so much that she wanted nothing more than to wring her neck.
Each time Aesryn tried to fight back, the closer to winning she got. But Adriana always overpowered her in the end, pushing her sister down into oblivion and stripping away whatever resolve she had mustered.
Aesryn’s face had been completely disfigured in Constance’s last vision. No one in the village could stand to look at her. Her once-beautiful face had been mutilated into a reddish, scarred mess. It even affected her vision. The poor woman couldn’t see properly anymore.
Tired. Constance was exhausted. It seemed liked months had stretched by since she left Dragon Keep. There was no one here to talk to. She was either in her host’s body, suffering scorn and physical abuse, or in complete solitude on the glowing platform.
She had broken down in tears multiple times, venting at the dark, endless space. No one was there to listen.
She wanted to kill herself. But she didn’t even have the option to do so. Could one die in a dream? Would her real body pass on if she bit her tongue so hard that she bled to death?
If it worked, she would never get to see Rayse again.
Would he be well without her? Was the clan still trying to undermine the both of them?
She would do anything to see his face once more.
She blinked. Ominous white flashed in her eyes and her dream transported her into another vision. Her stomach sank. She didn’t want to go through that hellish torture again. The agony of green fire was ingrained into her mind. The way the flames singed and licked flesh was forever burned into her memory.
“The la…a…st one…” echoed a voice in the distance.
She must have truly wanted this misery to end.
Heat scalded her skin. Aesryn opened her eyes and scanned her surroundings.
Fire.
There was fire everywhere.
It burned with a ferocity that was almost poetic. It had taken on a life unlike any object she ever seen. Its colors were vibrant—red, magenta, indigo. It reminded her of the reflective scales of the Dragon Mother.
The flames were scorching. Smoke clouded the air, making breathing almost impossible. She gasped for oxygen. Her chest was tightening, revolting against the lack of breath. She looked up the sky. It thundered with a dark red. She sensed the anger of nature. It was not happy at what had just happened, and wanted balance to return. Rain fell from the clouds, but it did not put out the colorful flames.
Aesryn’s body shook with uncontrollable fear. Get a hold of yourself. She couldn’t think properly, and wanted nothing but to freeze on the spot. She was terrified, but not because of the fire. There was something chasing her.
She ran as quickly as her legs could carry her, even as they threatened to stop working. The thing that was coming was something large and abhorrent. It stalked her like prey, toying with her to draw out the entertainment of the main course. She recognized the helpless feeling of being chased like a rabbit. Her blood thumped loudly in her eardrums and white-hot panic rushed through her body, f
rom her temples to her fingertips.
The monster roared in the distance. The thumping of the large beast’s feet on the dirt ground amplified with each step it took.
She was going to be eaten.
And Edrienne, the only man she’d ever cared about, was gone. Everyone was dead. This monster had killed the whole village. It had left her lover in a gray and gruesome mess.
But she shouldn’t have felt for him.
He had wanted to kill her before he collapsed into his death. She saw murder in his eyes. She couldn’t bring himself to hurt him, and so he trod toward her with his hands outstretched and reached for her throat. He had been trying to squeeze the life out of her before losing his own.
That betrayal made her mind race. She grieved, but her thoughts were confused as to whether she should.
Where was she running to? There was no escape from this creature.
Hide, her instincts told her. She wanted to succumb to the loss and anguish, but her body wanted to live. Fueled by fear of the monster, she searched the area for somewhere to hole up. Everywhere and everyone was burning. The structures of the village had collapsed into ashen debris. Charred bodies littered the ground. Many of them were emptied and gray, sucked of life.
Goddammit. She could become one with the fire. Would that be a better death than falling into the claws of the dragon?
She didn’t want to live anymore, not with her life in shambles, and with nothing to look forward to. If she saw past this day, then she would have to rebuild all alone, in a foreign world, with no family, and no one to love. That future was as terrifying as death, but still she ran, for she feared pain, and she didn’t want to experience the agony of having her skin torn and her guts spill out.
The fires continued to rage on, colorful flames consuming everything they could, trampling whatever stood in their way into the ground. Nothing could stop them. Not even the water falling from the sky.
The creature was nearby. It would have her any minute.
Shadowed Lies Page 15