Covet the Night, page 23
"You can, and you will. Drink. You'll thank me later."
Toward the end of her fourth, Gwen passed pitiful looks to the other sisters. They remained unaffected by her plight. Only Poppy made any movement, looking to the thin watch on her wrist.
"We should go," she declared. "Let her use the bathroom, and then we'll depart."
Though Gwen was escorted to the common room by her sister line, she and the other initiates were led by Madame Roux alone by way of a cleverly concealed passageway and down a winding corridor. The experience vaguely reminded her of their harrowing escape from the Cellar. But instead of running from certain death, they marched toward the unknown, braced to test their worth and merit for the Roux once more.
The tapered candlesticks each initiate held cast a meager source of light to combat the clammy darkness, but they weren't completely necessary. Spaced generously apart along the walls were sconces that glowed with warm, soft light. More than once, Gwen startled at the sight of her own shadow sliding across the walls.
Now and then, a cool breeze sifted across the tops of her slippers. They weren't dressed to impress for tonight's test, but they were dressed identically. Each woman wore the same wide-leg silken pants, loose-fitting long-sleeve blouse, and slippers. The material was almost weightless, the outfit the most conservative thing the Roux owned.
Though the passageway branched off in many instances and twisted, turned, and wound up and down, they never strayed from the main path. It took somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes, Gwen wagered, for their party to come to a dead end. Like some scene out of a spy movie, Madame Roux pushed against one of the roughened stones of the wall, and it sank back with a grating and crackling noise as the entirety of the wall followed suit.
They walked through a plume of dust as they entered the hidden room. Gwen squinted against the microbial onslaught, her nose twitching irritably. She stopped as she glimpsed the room. Becca swiftly moved around her, casting her a sidelong frown that ushered Gwen back into motion toward the black marble tombs. Antonia caught her eye and flicked her gaze pointedly to the tomb directly to the right of the one she stood before.
Gwen walked to it, heart racing as she catastrophized. Please don't let them bury us alive. Becca blanched, standing opposite Gwen at her tomb. Liv was expressionless.
"You came to the Dark Court selfishly." Madame Roux stood at the apex of the four tombs, her fingers laced together in front of her. "You covet our eternal life, like so many others. But in you, we see raw potential. In you, we see a fire to rekindle our lust for life and devotion to one another. We, the magnificent Roux sisterhood, shall sate your salacious desire for eternal life, but not until you prove yourselves wholly worthy.
"We first asked you to bring the sisterhood something of true value and triumphed. Now we ask you to rid yourself of your lofty aspirations—the very ones which brought you here into our arms—and take up the aims and goals of the sisterhood. For your next test, we ask that you endure for us." Madame Roux looked over her shoulder to the poorly lit back corner. Gwen followed her line of sight and spotted two silent figures. They stepped out of the shadows, donned in red and silver robes.
Gwen clutched her candlestick more firmly. The Roux sorcerers. Why are they here? Trepidation ruthlessly sank into her spine.
"Sit," Madame Roux instructed.
Gwen set the candlestick down on the tomb and hoisted herself up onto its cold surface. She shivered. The lightweight and thin clothing choice didn't feel as nice now. She gulped. The sorcerers passed an object each to Liv and Becca, then aimed for Gwen and Antonia. It was a flask. She shook it lightly and felt the weight of whatever liquid lay inside slosh up the edges.
"Drink the contents," Madame Roux ordered. "Don't leave a drop behind—this is crucial."
The concoction was bitter and lukewarm. The instant it hit Gwen's tongue, she flinched and pinched her nose to endure the taste.
"You are about to embark on a journey few of the Roux have gone through. It is meant for you to lay your past to rest so you may join the sisterhood with open arms." Madame Roux turned in place to make eye contact with each initiate. The simple action made Gwen's head spin. Someone groaned. "Endure this reckoning and return with your flask refilled from the oasis to present to the sisterhood on bended knee. And one last thing," she purred. "Consume nothing in the Pasithea realm, or you shall face the consequences delivered by my hand."
The flask in Gwen's hand began to blur. Then everything but the flask blurred. Her groan joined the others. Being horizontal was starting to sound very appealing.
"The potion you've consumed will transport you to a place deep inside your mind where you may accomplish your task undisturbed," Madame Roux said. "You'll return to the land of the living when your task is complete—and only when your task is complete."
Hands were helping Gwen to lie down—gentle hands, warm hands. She glimpsed the red and silver robes before her heavy eyelids closed.
"Remember: Semper Paratus."
Madame's voice echoed inside Gwen's head, the last thing she heard.
"Semper Paratus," she mumbled before drifting off.
XIII
G
wen was having a difficult time wrapping her head around the fact that she had closed her eyes in a room full of tombs and opened them to find herself in a desert.
A freakin' desert.
The sun glared down at her and off the barren golden dunes surrounding her. She covered her eyes with a hand, remembering Madame Roux's words. They'd been tasked to lay their past to rest in a place where they would be undisturbed, deep in their mind and apparently in the middle of fucking nowhere. Gwen sighed and dropped her hand. In her other was the flask from which she'd drunk, and with it, the reminder of her second task.
Why couldn't she have been dropped off at a beach?
Her shoulders slumped as her eyes began to adjust to the blinding light. She hadn't had this much sun in over a week.
A sudden thought struck her: if she completed the initiation, she wouldn't see the sun or feel its hot caress for years. Fifty, to be exact. Maybe longer if the sisterhood didn't allow her to wear the sunlight ring she'd gotten from—
Gwen's lungs constricted. She didn't want to think about him right now. She couldn't afford to. What she needed to do was concentrate on the task at hand: laying her past to rest and filling the flask from the oasis. She used her hand to shield the worst of the sunlight from her eyes to study her surroundings—near and far—more closely.
There were two points of interest: a hazy mirage far out in the distance directly ahead and a slew of dark clouds approaching from behind, threatening to block the sun. For a fleeting second, she hoped it would. But her hope was swiftly dashed as a foreboding tingle spider-crawled up the back of her neck across her skull. Gwen tore her eyes away from the storm and faced forward.
Just as the storm warned her away, the mirage urged her closer, like a hook in her navel. Her lips formed a grim line. It must be the oasis.
Passing one last cursory glance over her shoulder to measure the storm's distance, Gwen stumbled forward at the sight that greeted her.
The storm had closed almost half the distance between them in the time she looked forward and back again—a thick lump formed at the base of her throat. The forbidding sensation prickled at the back of her neck. This isn’t—
A flash of lightning crashed into a dune, chased immediately after by a boom of thunder. Gwen jumped a foot in the air.
As she landed, the sand shifted loose beneath her feet. Not even her windmilling arms could save her from tumbling to her knees. The unrepentant sand swept her down.
As she stopped at the bottom of the dune, Gwen rose, a litany of curses streaming out of her mouth. She squinted back at the clouds.
Was that another mirage? It couldn't be, she thought with a surge of fearful anticipation because it was moving toward her.
It was the figure of a man. Gwen's mouth ran dry. Primal instinct propelled her in the opposite direction of it. Catering to the will of the sand, she wound through the untouched valley ahead.
Gwen had walked for hours—hours—without anything to show for it, save for some burnt skin and chapped lips. And the phantom figures following her.
She was growing tired. The phantoms were getting closer, and so was the storm.
With each lightning strike—five in total, one for each hour that had passed—they'd arrived. Gwen stopped looking back at three because she was able to make out their features by some stroke of luck… or trick of her mind.
Her father.
Her mother.
Her ex.
Gwen reminded herself that it was all in her head. Everything from the blistering sun to the storm hunting her. She knew she wouldn't be able to avoid them forever—it was the point of the test, after all—but she couldn't do it. Not yet at least.
She walked faster as the air subtly thickened with static electricity. She didn't witness the lightning strike, but as thunder shook the ground, she knew it had delivered another phantom.
Gwen squeezed her token flask.
She would not look back.
She. Would. Not.
Not when the wind lashed sand at her back in rebuke, nor when the sun was finally trounced by the encroaching storm. A droplet of water hit her shoulder. Another hit the top of her head, then another. A torrent of rain quickly followed.
Gwen kept her chapped lips firmly shut and ducked her head. She was enormously grateful for the water Laurel had forced upon her before coming to the test because she wasn't quite sure she'd have been able to resist the temptation of tossing back her head and opening her mouth as far as it could go for a single drop of water to quench her growing thirst.
“Consume nothing in the Pasithea realm, or you shall face the consequences delivered by my hand.”
Gwen meant to abide by her rules.
The fictitious pull still guided her, urging her left and right, up and down. Up, it urged. Now. Hunching her shoulders, she ascended another dune. The damp sand offered a better grip for Gwen's slippered feet, but still, she fell often. Cursing loudly, she climbed the remainder.
The beautiful twist Poppy arranged now hung in sodden strands about her face with pieces clinging to her neck and jaw. Once the dune's crest was in her sights, she heard a voice. Gwen whipped around, scoring the land for the interloper but finding nothing but dark skies and slanting rain. She swallowed thickly.
Maybe… maybe she'd imagined it?
But there it was again!
Gwen twisted around. Nothing. Worse still, the voice was clearer the second time around. And there… there it was again. A sweet, gentle voice brushing up next to her.
"You're nobody," it cooed.
Gwen threw herself to the side and slapped a hand to her ear, panting. There was nobody there, and yet….
A wave of goose bumps broke out along her back and down her arms. She could have sworn in that stilted moment as she caught her breath that she heard something else. The too heavy collapse of sand as if moved by some weighted force. A body, perhaps. Maybe three.
Gwen didn't think twice before throwing herself back on her feet and scrambling for the top.
"You failed your father."
"You're a worthless daughter."
"You're nothing but a quitter."
"Who could ever love you?"
"What makes you so special?"
Gwen stumbled and pitched forward. The voices kept coming. Their assault rode on the back of the wind. She wanted to shrink and hide, but she knew she couldn’t escape the words that had plagued her for years. She would have to endure.
Her entire body tensed at that, spine arching, head bowing, one hand grasping uselessly at the sand while the other clutched the token flask. She was tired of second-guessing her existence.
"What kind of daughter doesn't want to spend her last days with her family?"
"You're a cold-hearted bitch. You know that?"
"You'll never amount to anything."
Her body shook. Tears clotted her vision. She wanted to be more than what she was. She wanted to thrive for once and discover who she was unapologetically.
"You've never experienced the world. What makes you think you could survive out there by yourself?"
"Why are you wasting everybody's time? You're just going to run back home like you always do."
"Do you even know what love is?"
"You're weak. Pathetic. A quitter. Why pretend to be otherwise?"
Gwen bit savagely into her tongue. The bitter taste of copper filled her mouth. She spat blood on the sand, staring intently at the crimson blemish the rain couldn't seem to wash away.
Lay your past to rest.
Endure.
She'd do them one better.
Gwen pushed the hair out of her face, taking the onslaught of rain and wind with gritted teeth. She left her toxic home, stepped out of the shadow her mother left behind and didn't need some lover to wax on about her beauty or wit or any of that bullshit. She was worthy of love and respect—it had only taken her twenty-eight years to realize it.
The column of her spine stacked pin straight. That was what Laurel saw in her and made her choose Gwen. She was a flame that refused to be extinguished. At this very moment, her new family was waiting for her. They believed in her—believed she could be great and was a force to be reckoned with. And they were right.
Gwen rose and eyed the top of the dune with shrewd determination. At her first step, the wailing wind died. At her second, the rain sputtered to a stop. Above, the bruised sky stayed knitted together but made no attack as she reached the top. A small sob stuck to the back of her throat as she beheld her mirage in its true form: the oasis.
Thank God.
Lush green trees hugged a turquoise pond, fit snug between two dunes. Wetness gathered at Gwen's lash line. She almost dropped the flask in sheer relief. With a fortifying breath of the humid air, she marched on.
Those haunting words plagued Gwen for over a decade. They were affixed to her heart and memories, impossible to vanquish but, with practice, easy to ignore. In this strange place, the Pasithea realm, there was nowhere to hide so deep in her own head. She was grateful for it now as she climbed the next dune effortlessly without the weight of those words keeping her down.
Why did I ever allow the opinions of others to suffocate me? She filled her lungs before exhaling in a long, unbroken stream. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Is this what it’s like to breathe freely?
Gwen crested the top of the final dune and was rewarded with the return of the sun. Its rays shined down upon the oasis and its rich haven of greenery. Another weight slipped off her shoulders as she descended. It’s almost over. She'd endured and discovered a strength inside herself that left her brimming with confidence. The kind of effortless confidence that came with loving oneself fully. The exact same confidence she saw in each Roux.
A giant smile graced Gwen’s face as she glided around and under the thick shrubbery and low-hanging branches guarding the water. She felt like a nymph. A bubble of hysterical laughter climbed up her chest to spill out her mouth as she met the water's edge.
She darted her tongue out to wet her lips as she sank into the strip of white sand the water lapped at. For a long moment, she could only stare at the crystalline water. Then her thirst returned tenfold.
At the pond's shallow bottom, green weeds stuck out in patches, and little treasures glinted in the growing sunlight. She leaned closer, her sights catching upon an unexpected trinket: a music box. The pale pink paint was chipped in several spots along its surface. Little rhinestones formed heart-shaped patterns around the music box while a tiny dancer stood motionless inside.
Her smile sank quizzically as she leaned forward to study the object better. That was Gwen's music box. It was a present from her mother before she'd passed. It was her most prized possession.
A lump formed in the back of her throat as she looked away, only for her eyes to land on another familiar object of her past. Gwen's mouth gaped in a mixture of mounting dread and confusion. Is that my stuffed animal collection? After the car accident, her parents bought her a new stuffed animal for every week she was in the hospital so she would never be alone. And they were all here. How?
Her heart ached at the sight of such sweet childhood mementos. The same incessant tug at her navel pulled her closer and closer to the water's gleaming surface. Every time she tore her eyes away, they drew to some other childhood joy or remembrance. At one point, the objects manifested into recollections of the happiest moments of her life: the days when they were a family—a whole family.
She sat on bent knees, reliving her past until a drop of water tore her from her sweet reverie. Gwen wiped at her cheeks, clearing the remnants of her tears, but a new drop splashed down. She looked heavenward. The storm was back, more bruised and engorged than before. Her eyes swiveled back to the pond, where her precious treasures now seemed to litter the pool of water.
In the span of a moment, everything at once felt wrong.
She shouldn't have lingered.
Gwen unscrewed the flask with haste, nearly losing the cap as she thrust it into the water. A second passed before guilt slammed into her like a physical force, sending her flying back on her bottom.
Are you ashamed of them? Of your own family?
Gwen's head jerked up and stared aghast at the pond in mute horror. The voice which spoke belonged to her. She'd thought she'd forgotten it years ago.
Time moved precariously slow as the turquoise water glugged past the small spout. By the time she finished, the rain was back.
A thousand tiny pinpricks struck her legs as she stood and turned away from the pond, frantically securing the flask’s lid as the wind picked up. She dreaded the thought of her journey back through the valley of dunes and over their steep slopes. But what concerned her more was where she was meant to go. There had been no landmark to pinpoint her starting point. Was she even supposed to go back there?
