Mark of Betrayal (Dark Secrets #3)(83)
Author: A.M. Hudson

“Wait!” I frowned and looked down at my hands, my arms and my stained dress. “Déjà vu.”

My heart faltered. Everything stopped.

I sunk down into my elbow and rolled onto the ground, flat on my back. “Déjà vu.”

Chapter Ten

With my hands clasped over my belly, the ability to cry deflated from my tired soul, I decided to let myself stay put and expire.

As midday drank the cool in the air and infected it with a gooey heat, I laid, watching memories like films in my head, while the bare branches above me joined hands again across the grey-white sky, applauding the movies as they ended. Everything seemed to move slightly around me, as if it couldn’t sit still.

Worse had come to worst. All the hope I thought I found was never really hope at all; it was positive thinking—just the thoughts of a stupid young girl who really believed that everything would be all right in the end. But it isn’t. It couldn’t be. Why would it be?

It was all Emily’s fault. Listen to my heart. What kind of stupid advice is that? All it’s done is get me into more trouble. I should have listened to myself and just given up a few sunrises ago. Then I wouldn’t be even more tired, even more beat up and bruised.

“Okay, fine. You got me!” I yelled at the forest. “I’m not afraid of you anymore. You want me, I’m right here.”

I flopped back down.

Forget them. All of them. None of it matters now. The monarchy will die. The people will go about their lives. And if Drake doesn’t kill everyone, Mike will probably go home, marry Emily. David will probably marry her too—some foul three-way. Morg will be with Blade, Sam will grow up and never think of me. And Jason—his face stole my thoughts, making me smile—Jason will be lost in his illusory dreams until I lose consciousness one day and meet him there. We’ll hold hands and lay in the grass all day, every day, for forever.

I rubbed that thought away from my hot brow with an icy hand. How could you think like that? I asked myself. How could you place your happy ending in some imaginary world with your husband’s brother?

“I love David. David.” I hit my temples. “David! David! David! David!”

“Sssure you do,” a slow, whispering hiss said.

“I do!”

“Then why did following your heart bring you back here?” It said very slowly.

“My heart didn’t bring me here. I fell.”

“You fell through the web of your own lies.”

I scoffed, staying flat on my back, my lip lifting. “The other path was blocked.”

“Blocked?” It said. “Or maybe you needed to fight harder to make it through.”

“What would you know?”

“I know all.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see what business it is of yours, evil-voice-that-doesn’t-exist.”

“It’s my job to see you find your way.”

“Well, you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me.”

“I just did.”

“Then, I won’t tell you what I came to say.”

“Fine,” I said to the nothing. “Then you’re unfired. Now, what did you want to say?”

“You need to follow your heart.”

I scratched my nose. “Did that. So, unless you can give me some good advice, buzz off and let me die.”

“Perhaps not advice. Perhaps I can tell you something you don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“Like what’s in your heart—what’s really in there.”

“I already know that. It’s David.”

“But you feel him, too!” It hummed.

“Who?”

“The brother.”

My chest lifted with a super huge sigh. “No. I keep thinking that, but it’s not true. It can’t be. And, so what if it was true?”

“The truth,” It hissed, “will be the one hope you can offer yourself—only then can you give it to others.”

“What would you know about it, you’re just a figment of my—” I pushed up on my elbows, “—Gah!”

A shiny black snake hissed back at me, its wide mouth gaping, showing pointy fangs. I jumped up, stumbling backward over a rock and fell on my hands.

“Afraid?” It crept forward, almost smiling with its soulless eyes.

“Get away.“ I screamed, brushing my legs with my hands. “You ugly, horrible little thing. Get away from me.”

“But I’ve come with a message,” it hissed without moving its lips. “One that will mark you on your way to being a great ruler.”

“What…?” I stopped wriggling, shrinking into myself with the snake’s advance. “What message?”

It stopped by my foot. “Get up!”

“Huh?”

“Hope is the light you follow; faith is believing there is actually a light—they are the refusal to give up when you have no reason to go on. Get up!” it hissed again. “Walk, Run, but do not lay there to die!”

“I did. I walked!” I yelled at the slithering guru. “I walked, and I never got anywhere.”

“Then you keep walking until you do!”

I looked away, allowing defeat to swallow the fight in my voice. “No. I can’t take the pain of believing in myself and failing, over and over again. Losing hope is worse than the actual failure.”

“Then walk, because there is no reason to believe you will ever get out, no reason to live, no reason to go on except that you must. You are stronger than you know. Now, get up!” It slithered closer; I tucked my ankle under my thigh. “Get up, and go on, or die.”

“For how long?” I cried out. “How much longer do I have to endure this?”

“Until you have fought with your last breath, walked every path which leads to nowhere and cried every worthless, faithless tear at the bottomless pits of Hell.”

“Why?” I wiped my eyes. “Why do you have to be so cruel?”

“It’s not cruelty, it’s a lesson. What does not kill us, only shows us where to find strength when we are in the dark.”

“But I can’t find it. I’m lost.”

“You’re not lost, Amara. You’re just not looking for the right question.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ask not why, ask not when, ask not what you need to do?”

“Then what do I ask?”

“Try asking, and I’ll tell you.”

My mouth sat slightly open and I looked to one side. What the hell is this slimy reptile droning on about? “What do you want from me?”