DOTD Chapter 20

The missing piece of the necklace. The wrath of the Viel Mother.

“ It would seem fate has brought you to me twice,” she croaked from inside. “ Enter!”

The door eased open to reveal an…empty room?

Where was she?

Goosebumps prickled my skin.
It was dark, too dark, making it impossible to see anything. A gust of wind whipped by me, its temperature cold, like death. More candles lit, their dainty flames illuminating the room in an uncanny yellow. I was suddenly very aware of Lucien’s dagger clutched in my right fist, its presence a small reassurance.

“ Whatever you want to call it. I have questions— questions I can’t find answers to.”
My voice echoed through the room like silent steel. I knew why I was here. I knew what I had to do.

An elderly, odd laugh rumbled off the dingy walls, like she was here… like she was everywhere. I stepped in further, refusing to let fear cripple me.

“ Foolish, Clinkling.”

Another icy chill blew through my hair, this time settling behind me. I whirled around, more candles catching flame. Dread coiled around my spine like the fingers of the dead. She was right in front of me.

Shit.
I’d forgotten how horrifying she was.
Maybe this was a bad idea.

Something sinister tugged at her crepey lips, pulling the loose skin up to reveal a few blackened teeth. Her eyes lit like muted flames, the grimy yellow of worm skin. My stomach turned.

I willed my spine to straighten, my legs to stand tall. Swallowing a shard of glass, I declared my terms.

“ I don’t know what’s happening to me. There are things about me, about my…” I hesitated, the words refusing to leave my tongue.

“ Your…magic.” She finished my sentence in an awestruck whisper, eyes sparkling with obsession.

My ears went numb.
She did know.
She knew about me.

“ Yes, Blueblood, I know.”

I stumbled back slightly at her response. I’d forgotten she’d invaded my mind once before. My fingers began to tremble, trying to keep the dagger steady in my palm.

“ What makes you so foolish to think I would help you? You break through my walls and you bring with you a weapon,” she quipped, pointing a bony finger at me.

My pulse began to race.
“ I have something you want. The dagger is merely the means to retrieve it.”

She dropped her hand, a slimy grin spreading once more. “ Clever girl.”

Her words scraped against my bones. There was no way it was that easy. There had to be a catch, a trick. A thick uneasiness spread inside me like a disease.

She limped towards a rickety stool by the hearth. Waving one crooked hand in the direction of the fireplace, a fire roared obediently. I stilled a moment, shocked at how easily magic flowed from her. Now that a fire had lit, I could see the room more clearly.

The steady unease within me swelled like a wet sponge. Mirrors. Every inch of the walls was covered from floorboard to ceiling in mirrors. All shapes, all sizes, all with the same foggy, tinted glass. Smoke seemed to curl around them, kissing the faded reflection with charred ash. I watched myself move and shift in them in ways my body was not. It was like they were alive. Alive and watching with black, glossy eyes. Hesitantly, I followed her, the many reflections making me dizzy.

She plopped down on the wobbly stool and laid a large shard of mirror on the flimsy table in front of her. She beckoned me to sit.

“ There are many reasons you’ve come to me. Reasons that please me. Reasons that threaten me. But fate has spoken. I must yield.”

The splintered floor nipped my bare feet as I crossed the room to join her by the hearth. The flames were almost blue, shedding cool hues across her wrinkles. Everywhere my eyes met, I saw myself, but she…her reflection was not there. Blood hastened through my veins as I sat on the stool across from her.

“ What do you mean by fate?” I asked, tentatively.

From the worn pockets of her wool shall she placed a small box between us. A dainty locket hung from the golden capsule, guarding its mysterious contents. My necklace began to pulse with an intensity that had me questioning the correlation.

What was in the damn thing?

“ Open it,” she commanded, watching me with uncanny knowing.

“ Not until I know what’s inside.”

Like hell I was going to be lured into opening some ominous box and exposing my ability!
What was in there?
A curse? A demon? Some sort of death trap?

“ The reason the winds whispered to you tonight lies within this box. The key to the key. Open it.”

She picked up the mirror shard and held the pointed tip towards me. My heart thundered behind my ribs. I stared at the broken piece of glass, terror poisoning my veins, unable to look away.

The necklace burned harder. Hot pressure slithered stealthily along my arm and surged at my fingertip. Even my body was pressing me forward, as if this moment was written into the books of time and space. As if fate itself had indeed brought me here.

My finger twitched with anticipation.
I cleared my throat, swallowing a large lump. Hesitantly, against all my better judgment, I lifted my heavy finger to the pointed edge and pressed down. The sharp pinch trailed into my skin like molten metal, as if the mirror shard carried a presence of its own. I sucked in a breath. I could feel it mingling with my blood, morphing— atoms shifting, excited. Ink oozed in its wake.

The witch licked her lips, watching closely, too closely as I pressed the bleeding pad to the locket. The moment the cold metal kissed my skin, small bursts of heat broke free inside me, like fireworks. The locket fell open obediently.

She gasped in awe, her hands trembling with excitement.
“ Reveal your destiny! Detege fatum tuum,” she chanted in Latin, mumbling the same phrase over and over.

My arm felt as if it carried the weight of an entire ocean, soaked with a heavy entity. Whatever was in that box, whatever she called fate… it wanted to be found. It was desperate. I could feel it pulling me— body, mind, and spirit. I lifted the lid.

Inside, resting against a rich velvet cushion, was a small black stone.

“ Take it! Take it,” She trilled, her voice climbing higher. “ Detege fatum tuum! Detege fatum tuum!”

“ What is it? What is all this?”

“ Take the stone!” she thundered.

I felt as if all of gravity had abandoned nature's laws to latch onto this moment, to latch onto me. My finger burned. Burned. It had only felt like this once before…the door. Unable to resist the urge, I reached a shaky finger for the stone. The second the stone met my skin, it sucked me in. Searing energy shot through me like lightning. I couldn’t move, couldn't break my stare. I was beheld to it…it was beheld to me.

Something dark caught my eye, dragging my focus to the black trail now slithering from the stone underneath my skin. My pulse hastened, terror of its presence immobilizing me.

“ What is that!? What’s happening!?”
My voice broke.

“ Yessss! Yesss!!!” cried the crazed witch. “ It has begun!”
She threw both hands into the air in a victorious flare.

My chest was heaving, tears threatening to explode. “ What has begun?! What have you done to me?” I was shrieking, stammering.

“Pull back,” a voice whispered…his voice. “ Pull back now!”

Hot tears fell as she boomed her chants.
He was here! He was with me!

“ I have done nothing, Mercy of Murk! This will come to pass!”

My entire body was shaking, trembling with no control. The acid wrapped its claws around my arm, slowly dripping into my chest. I could see the shadow snaking up my body, searching. I yanked against the pull with all my might. I was thrashing wildly, willing my body to fight the poison entering my veins. My efforts did not prove successful. I was glued in place, no matter how hard I fought it. Blood dripped down my arm in troves now, spilling out of the small wound like lava.

Pain.
I felt it touch my heart. I felt it burn the beating muscle.
I saw death. Death of my mother. I saw murder. Murder of Edwin. The duke’s cruel smile flashed before my eyes, tobacco smoke smothering my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. Another picture blanched into my vision. Aurelia, taunting, mocking, spitting. Another— Rune pressed against Salome, a wicked, satisfied expression wet on his lips. Pain, rage, grief, betrayal, they strangled the life from me.

A cry tore from my throat, as the images, the emotion continued to torment me. It bounced off the walls, the foggy glass of the mirrors, and off the empty soul of the witch across me.

“IT HURTS! Make it stop!!”

“ You cannot stop the will of the Gods! Drink the pain! You must return the stone to its home!”
Her chanting grew louder, deafening.

Without my consent, my fingers wrapped around the stone and began lifting the piece to my chest, to the… the necklace.

The empty prongs.
The missing piece.
‘ …return the stone to its home’

My flesh was on fire, bringing the black ruin to its rightful place.

“ Don’t let it consume you,” the stranger whispered. “ My power is blocked from entering here. You have to resist it! Don’t let it flood you!”

The stone clicked perfectly in place. My body lurched forward, back arching in one unnatural movement. My breath was stolen, arms flung behind me, chest pulled into the air. The corners of my vision began to darken, black smoke curling around it.

“ Resist, Fluer!”

I was drowning. Just like the nightmare. My lungs were filled with black sludge.
“ Pull away from it!”

My body was a shell, a host. From the soles of my feet to the rim of my collar bones, I was swimming in black oil. Through foggy lenses, I watched the veil mother bring the shard to my wrist. I couldn’t move away. Without hesitation, she dragged the glass across my skin. Sharp pain erupted across the marred flesh. A scream, from the pits of desperation, tore from my flooded lungs.

She licked her lips, bringing a thin, shallow bowl underneath the cut to catch the dripping stream. No… not a bowl, I realized, a cracked human skull. I gaped in horror, helpless to do anything.

My blood……
It was black. Black as pitch.


Her eyes lit with greed, strangled grunts gurgling in the back of her throat.
Drip, drip, drip. It fell like thick, hot rain.

“ Fight it! You can do this! Reach within yourself!”

I squeezed my eyes shut, calling to every muscle, every nerve receptor in my body. I pulled and pulled and pulled. My finger twitched. I reached down again and peeled my spirit from the black, like separating skin from boiling tar. Over and over and over. My other hand closed around Lucien’s dagger.

“ Again!”

I obeyed, this time throwing the very threads of my soul into motion. My arm released. A screech left my mouth, following the momentum and swinging the dagger with all my might at the Viel Mother. It flew across the table, slicing across her cheek.

An animalistic cry shot tore from her like a wounded vulture. She and the weapon flew to the floor with a thud. My bloodied arm unfroze, dropping onto the wooden table. I ripped free from the hold, one tear at a time, one limb at a time.


She stumbled to her feet, a mad-capped fury dancing in her eyes. Hoisting the dagger above her head, she screamed.
“ Ungrateful, wretched, maggot! You… lit wax soon to be snuffed, fate be dammed you… WILL BURN!”

She charged towards me. Instinctively, my body coiled in and then… released. The presence shot from me like arrows in every direction, sending her sprawling into the flames of the hearth.

Screams. Ravenous screams.

“That's it. Not too fast or you’ll burn out.”

There was no stopping it. It surged from me as fast and furious as light. It drained all at once, everything compacted and purged from me in one foul swoop. My head spun. My vision blurred. I was light, lighter than air.

Vertigo consumed me. Once a step back. Another.
My legs shook, wobbled, and gave.

I crashed to the floor.
Black.