CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

 

 

Blood covered the walls.

I stopped dead, gawking at the spirals, triquetras, and triskelions etched in vivid crimson.

“He’s trying to psych you out,” Joss murmured in my ear.

It’s working. I balled my hands into fists to stop from grabbing Joss and making a run for it while we still could.

“Welcome, Holly Burton. So nice of you to finally join me.”

I flinched despite my best efforts to appear calm. I hated that voice, that flat, cold monotone, so much scarier live than in my visions. It ripped through my fake bravado and tied my insides in painful knots. Fear churned like scalding acid in the pit of my stomach.

No way would I give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he terrified me.

Determined not to show my fear, I took a step forward. I couldn’t even see him. “Where’s my mom?”

Cadifor’s glacial chuckle draped over me like a frigid cloak, intensely suffocating. “Impatience in one so young. Not a good trait to possess if hoping for a long life.”

Joss stiffened at my back, his implied threat obvious.

“Let’s cut the chitchat. You have something I want, I have something you want. So I repeat, where’s my mom?”

“Your mother is awaiting our presence in the next chamber. I will call her in shortly. But first, step forward toward the altar.”

I took a step forward and Cadifor bellowed, “Alone!”

Joss stiffened, but didn’t budge.

It’s okay. We need to do as he says. It’s the only way we’ll have a chance of getting out of here alive.

Joss traced the word no on my back.

He won’t try anything until I have Arwen, and that won’t happen until the sun hits the altar. It’ll take a few minutes. Play along.

Joss didn’t like it.

“Now!”

We both jumped at Cadifor’s shout.

I took the next few steps without Joss. He listened, his presence a comfort despite the increasing distance between us.

“I’ve waited a long time for this moment, Holly Burton.”

It really pissed me off how Cadifor kept saying my surname, but what was I going to do, complain?

“I hear you’ve been down here a long time.”

Oops. Maybe not the smartest move to antagonize the monster.

Joss snickered softly.

I couldn’t see Cadifor beyond a robed shadow several very welcome feet away, so when he moved into the light I braced myself.

“As a descendant of the infidel that put me here, you’d know exactly how long I’ve been incarcerated.”

Another step toward me.

“Robbed of my powers.”

Another step closer.

“Forced to exist here rather than rule the Inner and Outer worlds as I should.”

This time, he didn’t yell. He didn’t have to. He punctuated every precise word with venom.

I still couldn’t see his face beneath the hood and that unnerved me as much as his restrained rage.

“So tell me, descendant of Belenus, how long is too long to wait for justice?”

A loaded question. “You’re immortal. Time means nothing.”

“Does it now?” He swung away from me, his cloak bellowing out behind him like an oil slick. “If time means nothing, tell me this. Have you spent the last sixteen years wondering where your precious mother was? What she was doing? Who she was doing it with?”

My stomach churned at his taunts, but I couldn’t let him see how his poison stung.

He swung around so fast I took a step back. “Take your sixteen years, multiply that by a hundred thousand, and you’ll have some idea of the torture I’ve endured being cooped up here.”

“I’m not doing a thing until I see Mom.”

“Very well.” He inclined his head. “Enter, my Elphame. We have guests.”

I’d mentally prepared for this moment for weeks. Years, in fact, counting all those secret wishes I’d harbored that one day I’d get a chance to see Mom again.

Now that the moment was here, I felt empty and drained and unprepared.

My mom stepped into the Cave of the Sun. She looked exactly the same as the photo I had by my bed at the cottage: long auburn hair flowing past her shoulders, blue eyes so dark they bordered on navy, flawless cream complexion. The visions hadn’t done her justice. She’d appeared vague, fuzzy, washed out. In reality she was still stunning. And still the woman who’d run out on me and stood by this monster for sixteen years.

“Holly … ”

I didn’t know her voice. How could I, when she’d abandoned her baby? But somewhere, deep down on an instinctual level, I wanted to hear her talk. I wanted to hear her apologize and say all the comforting words of affection I should’ve heard all those years.

Cadifor turned to me. “As you can see, Holly Burton, your mother is perfectly well. Now for your end of the bargain.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Despite Cadifor’s reassurance she was well, I didn’t buy it. Why was she propped in the doorway like a mannequin? Why was she so pale?

“You said the whole process would take several minutes.” I pointed upward. “And the sun isn’t even overhead yet to pierce the hole in the roof. Let me talk to her.”

I expected him to refuse, so he surprised me when he said, “As you wish.” Turning to Mom, he said, “Rhiannon, my Elphame, come greet your long lost daughter properly.”

As Mom stepped into the cave, I gasped.

The bastard had lied. She looked like she’d gone ten rounds with a prizefighter and lost. Livid bruises ringed her neck and arms. Finger marks traced from her collarbones to her ears, thumbprints near her carotid arteries. Deep purple edged in blues and golds, like kaleidoscopic proof of his cruelty. Despite my intense dislike for her, I instantly wanted to go to her.

Questions reeled in my head, but only one tumbled from my lips.

“Why?”

Mom didn’t respond, her unwavering stare beseeching. For what? Forgiveness? Understanding?

Cadifor’s chuckle pierced the silence like a chisel scraping on metal. “Go on, Rhiannon, tell her why you chose to abandon her. Why you took the other one.”

The other one …

She took the wrong one.…

I dragged my gaze from Mom to Cadifor, chills racking my body, making me sway. “What did you just say?”

I couldn’t see his face, but I could imagine a predatory grin, pure evil.

“It’s not my place to tell you about your twin sister, Holly. That’s your dear mother’s job.”

Twin? Sister? No freaking way!

“Mom?”

Blood pounded in my ears, not loud enough. I wanted it to drown out my thoughts, my horrific, catastrophic thoughts, all of them centered around one horrible truth.

I had a sister, a twin, and Mom had taken her and left me behind.

Acid bubbled up in my throat. I clutched my stomach and moaned, a low, gut-wrenching groan of pain, of suffering. Joss was beside me in an instant.

“Get back!” Cadifor thundered. Joss didn’t listen, sliding his arms around me and pulling me backwards.

“Get back or she dies!” Cadifor pointed at Mom, and in that instant I didn’t care. I wanted her to suffer, just like she’d made me suffer all those years, which was nothing compared to what I’d suffered these last few minutes, learning I’d been dumped in favor of a sister I never knew I had.

“Go ahead,” Joss said, inching me back toward the exit.

The rest happened in a blur.

Joss’s arms were around me one second and gone the next. He crumpled to the floor. Keenan towered over him, holding a club and smacking it against his other palm.

The guy I loved lay on the ground, motionless. I froze, desperate to scream but unable to squeeze air through my closed-off throat.

I can’t lose him, not now.…

Keenan grabbed my arm and I struck out, swinging and kicking and writhing. It did nothing. Keenan dragged me toward the altar as the sun trickled through the roof aperture.

Cadifor laughed, an eerie humorless sound that chilled my blood.

Mom crossed to stand by Cadifor’s side, so close they were touching.

I wanted to be brave, to face the monsters head on, but one glance at Joss lying stationary on the ground had me clutching the altar for support.

All eyes were on me as the sliver of sunlight started inching along the floor, creeping closer …

None of us saw another person in the archway.

None of us saw her enter the cave.

None of us registered she was close until she uttered one word.

“Mom?”