Page 31 of Shattered Jewel
I blink, struggling to focus.
Three shadowy figures hover nearby, their hushed voices urgent. My brothers. They did their best to patch me up, but this is beyond them.
We’re in danger. All of us.
I have to remember what happened.
Who attacked me.
Why.
The room spins slightly as I try to piece together the fractured memories of what brought me here.
Sovereigns.
The knife plunges into my flesh, carving agonizing sigils of worship meant for the Sovereigns, not me.
Do the Sovereigns’ talons now have a permanent grip on my soul?
I trace the fresh cuts, hot and swollen under the bandages, the ridges forming a map of ancient insignia across my chest that seem to dance and shift under my touch.
I’ve been here before, trapped in this cycle of torment. How much more can I endure before their perverse faith consumes me completely?
The Sovereigns’ monotonous chant during our constant rituals creeps into my thoughts—rhymes uttered by candlelight, marks that bind, and curses that follow bloodlines.
My eyes sting with a mercurial rage I can’t quell. “What have they done to me?”
My voice sounds foreign, clogged with the dust of defeat.
But the pain is almost welcome in its intensity. It’s a reminder that I’m still here, still fighting, even when my soul screams for surrender.
The boys may not believe in the dark magic the Sovereigns like to tease or the ravenous beings the Sovereigns are beginning to serve and covet, but I do. They’ve made me believe in dark things, writhing things, terrible creatures that will hunt and hunt and send you to madness if you don’t fulfill their orders.
I groan, wincing as my fervor tightens my body, tensing the sliced muscles and prodding me to beg for mercy.
How does one fight an enemy that brands your flesh and leaves you destroyed in the darkness of your room? How do you combat a curse that has torn through generations, leaving nothing but ruin in its wake?
The symbols on my chest throb in response, sinister heartbeats mimicking my own.
The moment dawn peeks through the gap in my curtains, I push myself up, ignoring the protest of my battered body.
The ruby Heart—this is the key. It has to be.
Sarah Anderton’s legacy, this curse, has clung to the Nightshades through centuries. But now, with each throb of the symbols etched into my flesh, I feel it—an urgency that borders on madness.
To find the Heart is to break these chains.
The door swings open, followed by several pairs of skilled, stealthy footsteps, as well as a singular, lighter pair, darting in the lead.
Elara’s hooded face appears in my vision, her amber in her eyes piercing through the gloom coating her face. She pushes back the hood of the cloak and presses a hand to my forehead. “How long has he been like this? He’s feverish.”
She doesn’t falter at the sight of me, half naked and wounded. Her attention rakes over my bandaged chest, blood leaking through where the marks cut the deepest, the Sovereigns’ symbols seeming to glow beneath her gaze.
They want to hurt her. The Sovereigns want her.
“Damn, Cav, you look like hell,” Kaspian quips as he slinks to the foot of the bed, clutching his left shoulder tenderly while his left arm is in a sling, his posture stooped.
“No worse than you,” I slur, pushing to rest higher against the pillows, but my eyes are on her, capturing every detail. The way her chest rises with each breath, the honeyed fire in her gaze that burns brighter than any ire within me.