Sold to the Night Lord - Chapter 114: Chapter 114

“What raw beauty,” Ragna says with feigned admiration. “I’d heard of the White Banshee, but knowing you’re involved in this makes it all the more fascinating. Who were you running from with such desperation, dear?”
Evanora’s gaze lingers for just a second on Drystan’s before she looks away quickly. Ragna doesn’t miss it—she watches everything with twisted amusement. She almost seems to think we’re performing a tragedy just for her.
“Oh, I see.”
She grabs Evanora’s face with one hand and lifts her off the ground by sheer brute strength.
“They wanted to hurt you, didn’t they? Always so cruel to those who are not like them...”
While one hand digs her nails into Evanora’s skin, the other strokes the side of her head, tangling her fingers in her white hair.
“You must hate them so much for what they did to you… and yet that witch forced you to help Elara reach her potential. You no longer have to do anything for them, White Banshee. Now you can get your revenge—by my side.”
Evanora bares her teeth in a feral grimace and tries to break free of her grasp.
“They disfigured you, they beat you, they raped you.”
The words strike the banshee like sledgehammers.
“You deserve revenge—and I can give it to you. All you have to do is tell me what I want to know.”
I roll my eyes as I hear her same tired speech about vengeance and alliance again.
“Revenge?”
The question leaves Evanora’s lips strangled.
“At whose expense? I don’t want vengeance soaked in innocent blood.”
“Elara is not innocent.”
“You don’t know anything.”
Seeing that Evanora won’t fall for her cheap tricks, Ragna lets her poisoned smile twist into something darker. Her beautiful face disappears, and in its place remains the image of someone on the brink of madness. She lets herself be consumed by rage and hurls the banshee away from her. The impact of her body against the ground, the crunch of bones breaking, chills my blood. A sharp breath echoes through the hall—I know it’s Drystan without needing to look, but when I do, I see the face of a man who wants blood.
Evanora’s cries of pain take a few seconds to arrive—but they do, and they are some of the most gut-wrenching sounds I’ve ever heard.
Ragna rises from her throne and looks down on all of us from her position of power.
“Do you want all your sacrifices to have been in vain, White Banshee?” she spits. “I know what matters to you—and I won’t hesitate to take it from you to get what I want. If you won’t join me willingly, fear will make you do it.”
A smile that reveals her wolf-like fangs spreads across her face.
“She has your eyes, by the way.”
The banshee’s face, until now hidden beneath a curtain of hair, is revealed, covered in terror. She locks eyes with Ragna, and the fury I saw earlier is gone. Now there’s only despair, fear, pleading.
“Just tell me what I want to know.”
The shapeshifter doesn’t let her eerie smile fade.
“What must be done for her to reach her full potential? I don’t want her half-human.”
I hate how they talk about me like I’m not even here. And I hate even more that I can’t do anything about it. I feel the urge to dig my nails into this thing on my mouth and tear it off—even if it takes my skin with it. I glance toward Cassian and Drystan—both of them seem on the verge of madness. Neither handles powerlessness well. They’re tied hand and foot right now—anything they do could mean the end for one of us. Maybe not for me—apparently I’m too valuable—but I know Cassian would never take that risk.
A new cry pulls me from my thoughts, and I see Evanora trying to rise from the floor.
“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” she asks, her voice choked with pain.
“You have my word.”
“I don’t believe in anyone’s word.”
“Then you’ll have to have faith,” Ragna answers mockingly.
The words seem like a joke to the banshee, who tries to laugh, but instead a strange cough comes out. What spills from her mouth looks too much like blood, and her hands on her side make me think her ribs might be the problem. I look at her, begging her to give Ragna what she wants and save herself. She helped me escape—what does it matter if she knew something I didn’t? She gave me a chance to flee from my fate.
“She needs to kill her human side,” she finally says.
“How?”
Straight to the point.
“There isn’t just one way—it’s not something we know for certain.”
She pauses for a few seconds to catch her breath.
“An emotion too strong could be a trigger.”
“How strong?”
“As strong as possible—it must be something that destabilizes her.”
“Then I think I have something that will help.”
Her attention turns to some of her men, who nod and disappear—to bring with them the people I least expected. I don’t know who to look at first. I only know it breaks my heart to see them.
“Elara!” Abigail shouts.
She tries to escape her captors without success. They’re strong and won’t let her move freely.
“I suppose this is a good time for a little reunion with your parents, Elara. I’m sure you all have a lot to talk about.”
I can’t breathe.
In fact, I think that even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. When I look at the faces of those who have been my family all this time, I feel so many emotions at once that it becomes suffocating.
Dad and Mom wear gags and have their hands tied behind their backs. Silas is the same, only his rebellious nature makes him resist being held, and they’ve ended up pushing him to the ground. Then there’s Abigail, whose mouth remains free.
I look at Ragna and see someone calculating, someone who knows how to play with human emotions in the worst possible way. Of course she’ll use Abigail to get whatever she needs from me. No one needs to tell her that that little girl is my weakness—you only have to look into my eyes to know.
Her coppery hair is a mess, and her eyes look like she’s been crying for a long time.
“I don’t understand how you didn’t notice,” Ragna says in her lofty tone. “You must have looked like an ugly duckling in a nest full of swans. Look at you.”
She extends the palm of her hand toward me and then toward them.
“All blond with honey eyes, and you with that black hair that absorbs all the light and those lifeless eyes.”
Every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I wished I looked more like them and less like myself. Sometimes, when I was younger, I asked why I was different, and they always justified it by saying I resembled my grandparents.
Now I know none of it was true. There’s no resemblance between us because there was never any blood relation.
Mom’s eyes—she’s not Mom, screams my mind—are full of tears, and she shakes her head as if it’s not too late to deny the truth.
“I love family drama; it’s my favorite,” Ragna says, shrugging and turning to one of the men guarding my family. “Remove her gag—I want to hear the story of how Elara came into their lives. I’m sure she’s curious too.”
I am, though thankfully my inability to speak spares me from having to agree out loud.
They remove Mom’s gag in the roughest way possible—do they really expect me to believe they’re any less tyrannical than the vampires?
Truth is, I don’t see the difference.
“Tell us—how did Elara come into your lives?” Ragna demands.
“Speak, woman.”
My mother’s chest rises and falls with barely contained sobs. Her frantic gaze bounces from my face to my siblings’, and I know all kinds of thoughts are flooding her mind.
At her silence, Ragna sighs in exasperation and snaps her fingers, commanding one of her men to kick Silas. His body curls on the floor, but he doesn’t bow his head—he lets us all see the barely disguised fury in his eyes.
If he weren’t gagged, I know what he’d say.
We may not be siblings by blood, but there are things that can’t be erased—like the connection we share.
“Start talking or that little copper-haired darling will start screaming soon.”
I notice the movement in my mother’s throat as she swallows, and I don’t even wonder how I can see things in such detail.