Blood So Red by Gockel C

Author:Gockel, C. [Gockel, C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Amazon: B09QNK7HJT
Goodreads: 60760637
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Published: 2022-07-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Cherie paced her cell. She was to be a sacrifice, a pawn to the Queen, a thing to be used, to be tortured.

Better to be eaten by the Minotaur than to be a pawn of the Queen. She tried the door of her cell. Again. It was locked. Crying out in anger and despair, she threw herself against it. Her teeth rattled. Her bones protested. But no response came from the guards or the monsters of the Keep.

Gram had said specifically that Jack—Major DeWitt—should see Cherie’s pain. Which meant a mirror, and Magick the exhausted Queen didn’t have … not yet.

Cherie sucked in a long breath. She should rejoice in this reprieve, no matter how short, but knowing what would come made it impossible.

Sitting down and wrapping her arms around herself, she bent her head to her knees. A sob wracked through her, and then another, and she found herself rocking helplessly on the cold floor. She’d never felt so hopeless. So alone. She was overwhelmed. The Queen had won.

Lifting her head, she wiped her nose. A flicker in the cell’s single mirror caught her eye. Her head jerked up and her heart beat wildly. She shivered, though the room had grown no colder. Was the Queen spying? Was Rana witnessing Cherie’s despair and enjoying it, or worse yet, playing it for Jack?

Cherie fiercely wiped her eyes, faced the mirror and attempted to scowl, but there was nothing in the glass except her own reflection. It was as though a ghost had walked by. She blinked. Grendel said that Nnenne’s ghost was always with Cherie, that Nnenne had drawn Grendel to her that night in the snow, and Cherie had seen Nnenne’s ghost when the Vampire pulled her into the out-of-time. Rising, Cherie approached the mirror cautiously, hand extended. The glass felt colder than it should, but she didn’t see her grandmother, just herself. Cherie swallowed. Which didn’t mean Nnenne wasn’t here.

What would her grandmother think if she saw Cherie now? What would Nnenne do in her place? Nnenne wouldn’t crumble. Nnenne knew the pain cancer would bring her, and she’d joked about it. She’d been brave.

Cherie stared at her reflection. Sometimes she could take away her own pain. She hadn’t been able to when she’d been attacked in the forest by the bus driver, but she had been able to when she’d first been abducted here. It took concentration …. She couldn’t maintain that concentration for very long.

Nnenne’s voice whispered, “You’ve never tried,” so clearly Cherie was sure her ghost stood next to her. Fiercely wiping the remnants of her tears away, Cherie imagined it: the Queen torturing her and not provoking any reaction … no screams, no tears, and no begging for mercy. Cherie lifted her chin. She wouldn’t be a sacrifice. Not the way the Queen intended.

She would practice now. She slid her bare foot across the floor. In the Keep, she’d never want for Ember—it flowed through the Keep’s stones. Taking a breath, she drew all the ambient Ember in the air into her.

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