Brood of Vipers, Maggie Claire [e novels to read .TXT] 📗

supplies in the markets outside the palace walls. I am a kept woman. She silently berates herself, hating the idea of owing Ithel for this kindness. Helena has no doubt that Ithel provides this food out of his own pocket; Alaric may have great wealth at his disposal, but he’d never dip into his coffers to feed her. Guilt and embarrassment churn in Helena’s stomach as she whispers, “I didn’t know, and I did not mean to insult you. Thank you for feeding me, Ithel.”

“Wouldn’t do you any good to starve,” he grunts in response, his cheeks turning pink at her gratitude. “We’ll see if you still want to thank me after this afternoon. Now, I haven’t forgotten that you neglected to answer my question twice, Helena. Tell me your greatest fears. Immediately.”

“What have I to fear?” Helena exclaims bitterly, pointing to the scars on her wrists from the prison shackles. “I’ve been captured, whipped, and branded a traitor. I’ve lost everything and everyone that I have ever loved. I’ve spent my last years in the dark, dank cells of this horrible place. I’ve starved and longed for fresh air and sunlight. I’ve witnessed murder and grief and experienced every other foul human emotion we’ve got! What more can be taken from me, Ithel? What could I possibly have left to fear?”

Her guardian ceases his meal, his jaw clenching shut as he stares hard at her. “Everyone has something that terrorizes them, Helena. Maybe you know what haunts your footsteps. Maybe you are truly blessed to live in ignorance of what terrifies you. It doesn’t matter really; I’ll find out soon enough.” His words chill her to the core as she wonders at his cryptic meaning. “Are you finished eating?” Ithel wipes his face, reaching across the table.

As she hands him the weathered ceramic bowl, a movement catches her eye from inside it. Long, black claws curl around the rim. An eye appears next, then a wicked set of elongated, grimy teeth. “What the hell is that?” she screams, tossing the bowl to the ground. It shatters, pieces of glass skewering the shrieking monster that writhes at her feet.

“Hello, betrayer,” An eerily familiar voice whimpers from the wide-open mouth of the creature. Though it never articulates its tongue or lips, the words are clearly spoken in the king’s singsong tone. “You are a lovely liar, aren’t you? Don’t you think I know what you’re hiding? Don’t you think I’ve already seen what haunts your darkest dreams?” The monster cuts its dark eyes toward Helena when it hears her breathing hitch, its mouth finally closing into a cunning smile. It scuttles along the floor, creeping closer to Helena’s side with long, grimy claws reaching for her pearly flesh.

“Ithel?” Helena whimpers, her head whipping to keep one eye on the creature while turning back to her guard. “I don’t understand, Ithel! What is this?”

Yet Helena does not find Ithel standing beside her as anticipated. Instead, he lies on the stones at her feet, his body sliced to ribbons by the shards of her bowl. “Why do you hurt me, Helena? Why do you always hurt me?” His voice grows faint as she watches the light fade from his eyes, the piercing blue color leeching out of his irises with every rasping breath. “All I ever did…was love you. Was that so wrong?”

“No! Ithel!” Helena lurches toward his shattered body, her feet splashing in Ithel’s still warm, sticky blood as it pools around her. Helena balks, jumping clear of the gore. And when she looks back down at her feet, both the monster and Ithel’s body are gone.

“Remember what I told you about being drugged during our first training session?” The real Ithel asks as he edges closer to Helena’s wide-eyed form, his mouth a grim line as he waits for her to comprehend his meaning.

“You rat bastard! What was in that soup?” Helena steps forward, only to hear the crunch of bones under her feet. Skulls, hips, legs, ribs, and all other bones from countless human bodies are now mortared into the floor. There’s nowhere to step without landing on some poor soul’s decaying body.

Helena shrieks, jumping up into the chair as she surveys the gaping maws and eyeless sockets of the skulls that seem to laugh at her from their cement beds. “Hello, traitor,” they bellow and groan. “See what you’ve done? See how you’ve hurt us? How many must die before you see the real problem is yourself?”

Around the legs of the chair where Helena stands, a few grasping fingers, still connected by rotting ligaments and fetid tissues, clutch at the wood. These hands wrap around the rungs and feet of the chair, almost as if they are still alive, clinging to a raft to keep from drowning in the sea. Their haunting voices keen and wail as they reproach, “You did this to us, Helena! You betrayed us into the hands of our enemies! We are dead because of your selfishness!”

Then, these hands reveal their true purpose, slowly dragging the chair legs deeper down into the cement. Skulls light up with fire in their eyeless sockets, their mouths chattering with laughter as the monsters plunge Helena and her perch toward its mortar grave. “You will join us soon,” their voices groan as their jaws creak and clack to form the words. “Your bones will lie among ours before the sun sets!”

“Ithel! Help me!” Helena wails, rocking back and forth on the chair as she searches for an escape.

“Helena! You’ve got to learn to focus!” Ithel’s voice sounds like churning gravel, and when she looks at him, his eyes glow like burning coals. “Control it, Helena!”

She screams, jumping backward, only to wail when she demolishes another skull and hipbone under her heels. The sightless eye socket of the skull accuses her of the damage, its jaws clicking in disgust.

Ithel’s hands grip her shoulders, his touch scorching her exposed skin. She bellows and thrashes in his grasp, but the guard does