A Curse of Shadows - Page 61

“I actually go by?—”

Her head shakes just once. “I don’t care who you believe you are right now—your soul is Isobella. If you can’t honor her, then you don’t honor yourself.”

Well, all right, then. I’m just going to keep my mouth shut.

“Good girl.”

She places a cold hand on my forehead and within seconds, the center of her palm begins to warm. “You’ve spent too many years locked away. Even now, there are restraints around your soul that need to be shattered. Do you feel them?”

“Uh, yes?”

She pinches my arm with her other hand. “Do not lie to me. We only have time for the truth. You either feel them or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.”

“I, uh, don’t feel them,” I say, reaching to rub where she pinched me, but she smacks my hand away.

“Stay still, then.” Elyn smirks. “This is going to hurt.”

The hand on my forehead lifts away, then slams against my chest so hard, the wind is knocked out of me. I try to breathe, but it’s like my lungs are filled with sand. Coughing feels more like choking and heat starts to unfurl within my chest, branding my bruised heart.

“What about now?” she asks, tilting her head. “Do you sense that which binds you?”

My eyes squeeze closed as I try to concentrate. “Something is burning my heart. Is that what you mean?”

“Ah, chains.” She clicks her tongue. “Not ideal, but I’ve dealt with worse. Though you’re not going to like me when we’re done.”

I start to ask what she means, but instead of words leaving my mouth, I choke on water. My arms flail, but again, her strength takes me by surprise as she pushes me further under the water.

Even beneath the surface, I can hear Asher’s roar of objection, but the seconds tick by and I’m still not allowed up.

My lungs start to fill with water and I expect pain, but instead, the grittiness from before is replaced with the soothing sensation provided by the river.

This is not how I imagined drowning to be.

I stop fighting, mostly because I’m running out of air and even if nothing hurts, I know what happens if I stop breathing for too long.

Dots start to appear in my vision and my arms relax, floating toward the surface.

Elyn’s fingers dig into my shoulders, and I swear, it’s like her voice is in my head as she whispers, “Try not to scream when you come back up.”

My head breaks the surface and whatever I thought pain was before is nothing now. My lungs feel as if they’re being ripped to shreds and I claw at my chest, desperate to rip my own heart out to stop the agony that grows within me.

“What is happening?” A firestorm is taking over my insides, destroying everything it touches.

“Someone cursed you, child,” she says calmly, as if me clawing at my chest were completely normal. “How did you die?”

“A dagger,” I screech into the abyss. “Someone stabbed me.”

“You’re really not going to like me after this.” She presses a finger into the center of my chest and it’s as if her nail cuts right through my skin. “Very powerful dark magic. No wonder you’ve been trapped.”

“Just fucking fix it,” I scream, my head thrown back and fists clenched.

“That’s not going to happen by my hand,” she says, “but I can do something for you.”

She shoves me back under the water and this time, I fight her. As the river washes over me, the relief is instant. The burning of my insides ceases, but after a few moments, I know what she means about the chains around my soul.

The weight of them presses in on my heart, tightening with every beat. It’s so subtle, but now that I know it’s there, I can’t deny their existence.

I reach for my chest again, pressing my palm against the heated flesh, but my touch is shoved away as Elyn does whatever it is she thinks will help me.