Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
It has been two days at least. Perhaps three. That’s what tonight’s darkness tells me. I will do my best to remember tomorrow, and the day after that, though I do not want to think far beyond another few days.
I could save you from your fate.
“What fate?” I murmur the question I had for Hades at the unsuspecting table. “You have made this my fate. You have made me a prisoner.”
The table does not answer. I go back to the rug and sit, curling into a ball and holding myself as tightly as I can.
I could save you from your fate.
Hades’s words repeat in my mind. No matter how many times I dismiss them, they repeat again and again. Chills follow the promise.
What does he know of my fate? And how did he know of my powers?
I hunch over my bent knees, resting my chin there. It’s so cold, and my stomach is hollow from the lack of food. I’ve only slept a little, and I can’t afford to fall asleep again. I’ll wake up next to Hades, and I won’t do that.
It is shocking that my mother and father haven’t sent someone. They cannot come themselves. The realms aren’t open for all to enter, even the Gods, but surely—
Surely they should have sent someone by now. Some word. Some acknowledgement that they know I am missing and are planning a rescue. If they even know who took me. My heart squeezes at the thought that they may not even know I was taken. They may think I’ve left of my own accord.
No, no, I refuse the thought. My mother knows I’d never leave her side. Not without telling her. Not without a goodbye.
Someone will come soon. In the meantime, I need to focus my energy on thinking of my own plan.
I squeeze my eyes closed and try to concentrate. The cold makes it difficult because I’m shivering so hard. I would do anything for a bowl of warm broth.
Almost anything. I will not submit to Hades.
Maybe a protection spell would work. I don’t have my altar, and I don’t know if there is power for me to draw on in the Underworld, but I can at least try. If I believe—
If Beatrice could do such things, then it is possible I could cast a spell to help myself even in the Underworld.
The words slip through my mind, faint and hard to grasp.
The power inside me craves the light
Bring me the warmth of fire
And take from the powers to my right
My eyes peer open to observe my right. A sleek obsidian wall.
I repeat, “The power inside me craves the light,” I say into the cold sweeping in through the windows. I imagine being safe and protected. I imagine being freed. I imagine the hunger and cold disappearing. “Bring me the warmth of fire, and take from the powers to my right.”
“The power inside me craves the light,” I repeat, forcing my voice to steady. It’s the chains I want gone. I want my body to be my own again. I imagine the heat of a fire that could burn through the magic but leave my skin untouched. I imagine the chains falling away. “Bring me the warmth of fire, and take from the powers to my right.”
I hope, and I hope. I can hear the snap of chains. The metal clanking on the floor.
But then - a noise distracts me and I have doubt.
The only thing that happens is a hunger pang. My stomach twists around its own emptiness. My throat is dry, every word scratching on the way out.
I’m on my feet before I understand what I’ve done. I stumble across the room to the table as if the chain itself is drawing me to the bread and the wine and the pitcher of water and the shiny, red pomegranate.
I can’t touch it. I cannot touch a single thing on this table, or I will shove it all into my mouth and eat like an animal. I should sit, and wait, and be still. I should not give in to this temptation.
But my stomach hurts too much.
I find myself reaching before I can stop myself. I claw into the flesh of the pomegranate and lift out one shining seed.
It bursts between my teeth. Only a taste but such sweetness and divinity lies in its nourishment.
I swallow the juices with a moan, tipping my head back and closing my eyes. It’s delectable. I’m not sure if it’s the betrayal, the starvation or the sheer deliciousness that adds to the pleasure. I’ve never been so satisfied yet craved much more with such a thing.
Before I know it, the glass of wine is in my hand. It’s dry and rich, and smooth with no bitterness. A small moan slips from me into the glass. I’m sure I appear mad to any onlookers. Let them savor the vision as I savor the divine wine. The thought brings a smile to lips.