I was sure I was awake, although I wasn’t positive why I had been sleeping in the first place.
I wasn’t certain of anything, really, except for the dim, red hue that cast over my closed eyes and the soft, rough feel of old cotton sheets against my skin. Those I was sure of, but where I was, how I had gotten here, and in some small respect, even who I was remained a mystery.
Muscles ached and throbbed over me as I shifted my weight, trying to pull myself to sitting, only to have my muscles ache more in protest. My eyes were a soft weight as they fluttered open, the bright and dark of the strange red light burning through me as they attempted to adjust.
When they did, they only brought more confusion. They only brought tall, sweeping ceilings and old buttresses that, while part of me thought they should be familiar, they weren’t.
Nothing about this was familiar.
You’re home.
The voice was a distanced growl within me, a hum that bridged the reality of now and before.
I jerked.
It was a hollow sound that moved through me and became something deeper. Something more frightening.
It was then that it all came back.
I could see it all. The city we had worked so hard to get to. The rumble of the earth as the sky had dimmed around us. The screams and wind as the Vil?s my father had mutated attacked us from all sides. Mostly, it was the voice—the voice that had rampaged through me, terrorized me. The taunts I had hoped would have become more manageable; instead, they had become an uncontrollable force I didn’t think I could have defeated had I tried.
And I had tried.
You haven’t tried hard enough.
But I had.
I had tried until the moment I had begged Wyn to remove the painful voices from me, until the world had become black. And now I had awakened in this strange place with the hollow sounds of breathing filtering toward me from all sides and distant footsteps echoing through the cavernous space.
The space I knew I could recognize even if it wasn’t familiar.
This cathedral was one I had only heard tell of—the massive holy place that stood in the center of Prague. And now I was here.
I’m here, too.
So is Ilyan…
You should kill them…
No.
Kill them all.
“No.” The word was calm as I stared at the ceiling, listening to the voice that had once been so loud and sure and was now distanced and fragmented, like the transmission was broken.
No.
Like the receiver had been removed.
The shard had been removed.
You can never escape me.
I think I already have, Father.
He yelled in anger at my reply, but the sound was distanced, my mind almost peaceful. It was like waking up from a deep sleep and having everything around me be new. Even if the voices were still there, they only seemed like a distanced memory now.
My hand shook as I lifted it to my chest, my fingers fluttering against my bare chest as they trailed toward my heart, toward the dozens of scars that had been cut through the skin straight to my heart. Straight to that battered, beating thing my father had used to control me and everyone around me for so long.
For the first time, right in that moment, I had regained control. My heart was mine once again.
Not completely. Not quite.
I couldn’t help smiling at the faint taunt, my heart not even so much as twisting in response.
Everything had changed.
The pain that had been there for so long was no longer an ache. The heaving agony of what he had forced me to endure was no longer a torture.
The voices were still there, but the sound was distant and easily forgotten. Although the madness was still pulling at my gut in all the wrong ways, something had changed.
The remote control they had instilled in me was no longer controlling my every move.
I pressed my hand against my chest, as if waiting for the sign that it was still there; however, it was nothing more than the heaving beat that promised me I was still alive.
Suddenly, the large stone archways that hung above me did not seem so old. The stone seemed brighter, the red hue of the sky giving everything a glistening, rosy glow.
You are still right where I want you.
Strangely, I didn’t care.
“It’s the St. Vitus Cathedral.” I had only heard the depth of his kind voice once or twice, but even now, in the strange place, it filled me with the same calm it had before.
I turned toward Dramin’s voice. On instinct, I almost expected the old man to be sitting beside me, drinking out of one of those ugly mugs. However, there was nothing, only the cavernous space of what had obviously been a dorm.
I would have expected pews; instead, there were rows and rows of the same beds. White wrought iron frames and sagging mattresses made up with over-washed crisp sheets. It was like something I had seen in a million movies.
An orphan grew up in some church setting, only to be inducted into some bizarre adventure. There was a book one of my nannies would have read me about that. Something along the lines of girls and lines and a tiger with bathroom issues.