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Oh! I couldn’t breathe! I was suffocating, choking on too much pain and not enough air.
Breathe!
My body ignored the command.
Muscles refused to stretch and expand, leaving my chest collapsed around a ball of terror. It burned along my breastbone, searing into my core, burning toward my spine.
Choking me.
Suffocating me.
“Your wife’s mind is such a noisy, incoherent place right this moment, it’s driving me insane,” Yarin ground out. “Keep her like this, brother, and her soul will fall into such despair that not even I can fix it.”
Enosh’s eyes clenched shut, and three loud heaves wheezed through the hole in his cheek before he growled, “Rise!”
I filled my lungs with a deep inhale, immediately regretting it when the sickening stench of charred flesh and singed hair choked the back of my throat as I wailed, “My ba—”
Enosh gripped my throat as he roughly lowered me onto my swaying legs. “I believed you. I trusted you. I sacrificed myself so you may escape, only for you to abandon me. To break your vow as quickly and easily as any of your abhorrent kind.” His hand slipped off my face, the loss of its warmth harrowing as he brought one step of painful distance between us. “My wicked, faithless wife… I adored you like no other.”
I shivered, the empty space between us like a wall of frigid ice, chilling the still blood in my deathly quiet heart. He’d gone mad with rage. Why else would he talk about betrayal without even a mention of my baby?
Our baby!
Driven toward him by desperation and lured closer by his body heat, I reached my hand for his chest. “I can explain everything, but I need to know—”
“Shh…” He pressed his hand to my mouth, offering a precious glow that tingled along my lips. “I will hear no more of your lies, little one. Your flesh and bone are growing anxious, longing for the Pale Court. It is where you belong, after all, among the remnants of the dead, my cold, cold wife.”
“Mm-hmm—”
Horror filled my chest as I swung my hand toward my mouth. I let my fingertips dig beneath his, brushing over the rough patch of skin covering the area, like leathery parchment glued to my lips. I doubled over and sunk to the ground, surrounded by the yaps and snickers of Yarin’s corpses.
My soul died a thousand deaths as I reached my arms up to Enosh, begging for comfort as my mind chanted, Master, master.
“Yes, I am your master, and death is your true eternal prison.” Nothing but the dismissive swat of his hand hauled me onto my shaky legs before he curled his fingers around my chin, lifting my gaze to meet his lopsided smirk. “I shall be your guard, your judge, your punishment, but— Ah… never your absolution.”