To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker

Every footstep is a proclamation, like I’m staking war with the stone. There are no torches blazing my path down this staircase, the darkness almost too dense to breathe through, let alone see anything. But I’ve walked this staircase thousands of times.

Toomany times.

I’ll probably walk it a thousand times more.

My grip tightens on the hooves, the stag’s sodden underbelly warming the back of my neck. The ground is slippery beneath my boots, and not just from the blood running down my body, wetting the floor, casting the otherwise stale air with the stench of death.

This deep below the castle, the walls seem to weep.

Perhaps they’ve seen too much over the years ... I know I have. My eyes are just as weary as my soul, but unlike these walls, I’m all dried up.

I come to a landing barred by a door with a small grate inviting a peek into the room on the other side—a little less obscure than the stone stairwell I just descended.

Balancing the animal on my shoulders, I clank the deadlock aside and kick the door. It swings open, rusted hinges protesting with a squeal.

The hairs on the back of my arms lift.

She’s looking, watching ...

I step into the holding chamber the size of Orlaith’s quarters, stone walls on three sides and strong, metal bars lining the other. A round shaft of silver moonlight shoots down from the high rooftop window, offering little reprieve other than to etch out the shape of the square room and to highlight the blood on my body, casting it black.

I let the stag slip off my shoulders, landing behind me with a wet thud. My hands drop to my sides, and I crunch them into fists, chin falling to my chest ...

My wrist feels too light.

You lied to me.

Her voice may have been fragile, but everything else was the opposite. Her upper lip was curled with hate, she had fire in her eyes, and she looked at me like she saw through my skin to the monster I am beneath.

Part of me was relieved—screamed for her to look deeper. To delve until she ripped herself on all my sharp bits. Perhaps then she’d see why I’m stuck in her orbit ... unwillingly. Why drifting too close would destroy everything.

But instead of looking, she told me to go.

Guess I should be happy.

I shake my head and sigh, knuckles popping, wishing I could pop the bubble on my fury just as simply. It’s knotted in my shoulders; my neck. It has claws dug into my back and my lungs and my fucking chest.

Stepping toward the bars, I look down at the chain bolted to the ground. It’s thicker than my arm, tugged taut, traveling straight to the roof where it’s threaded through a hole in the stone.

I grip it with both hands, lean all my weight back, and yank.

There’s a shuffling sound in the distance, a soft mewl as the length of chain wrestles me. But inch by stubborn inch I lug it through the hole, until sweat is dripping down my spine and there’s a mound of metal links coiled on the floor at my feet, rising to my waist.

I hook the chain on a prong protruding from the ground and let go, shaking my hands out, fighting for breath.

Always a battle. Not once has she made it easy on me.

The barred door has no lock. Just a deadbolt I slide across before kicking it wide. Turning, I look to my kill that has no blood left to spill.

I’m wearing it all.

I only meant to snap its neck—a swift and painless death. But then I heard the rip of flesh and muscle and sinew, and the head came away from the rest of it, forcing me to leave the remnants of my wrath in the forest for the flies to feast on.

A deep growl rattles through the room.

“All right, all right ...”

Hefting the animal onto my shoulders, I charge into the cell that smells like shit and piss and dead things. Like feral, chaotic rage that has nowhere to release.

I make for the middle and drop the stag, looking at the ravaged thing, aware that I’m being watched from a blackened corner. “Your favorite, minus the head.”

Her only response is a low, animalistic rumble that riles me more than it should.

I look to the roof—to the sliver of moon I can see through the hole up there. “Don’t be like that. You know I hate it when we argue.”

No answer.

My attention drifts to chunks of stone scattered about the base of the far wall, and I huff. “Been having another go at that hole, I see?” Arching a brow, I look back to the pocket of shadows by the bars, straight into black eyes glazed by a lick of silver light. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

One blink and a slight tilt of her head. Other than that, I get nothing but silence.

Always the silence, never anything more.

I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Don’t choke it down too fast,” I mutter, storming from the cell. I slam the door closed, slide the deadlock into place, and unhook the chain—watching the entire length whip back through the hole so fast it sounds like I’m standing in the heart of a thunderstorm.

Bones pop and crack and crunch, things splat, and deep, satiated rumblings have me rolling my head from left to right before spinning toward the door.

Sometimes, I imagine that thing is far more perceptive than it really is, but it’s all a lie I tell myself.

I exit the holding chamber and pull the door shut, ascending stairs veiled in darkness so thick it feels like a second skin.

You lied to me ...

Yes, I did.

Orlaith hates the mask I forced her to wear. Message received loud and clear. There is no honor in my decision, but I’ll stand by it until I’m shoved in the ground. Would sooner tear the world apart than let them catch a glimpse of her luster.

If that makes me a monster in her eyes, well ...

About fucking time.