Page 67 of This Shattered Star

CHAPTER TWENTY

I crashed to the ground, knees barking in pain. And immediately I realized my mistake. Another scream left me as blood seeped into the material of my dress, turning the burgundy into a bruised purple. I knelt in an entire puddle of it.

A mutilated corpse lay before me, still bleeding from the deep gashes carved into his skin.

“Father,” I whimpered. So much blood. How could there be this much blood?

Most would barely recognize him. There wasn’t a single inch of his skin that hadn’t been cut open. But I knew. His hair was matted with blood, though the chestnut fighting to break through the crimson was unmistakeable. And those unblinking eyes… those were the same eyes that had read me stories when I couldn’t sleep. Eyes that had shown me relentless love and compassion.

A wet noise behind me raised goosebumps along my arms. Turning my head slowly, I beheld my mother, equally mutilated.

“Help!” I managed to scream through the short gasps of breath fighting escape my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.I couldn’t breathe.“Someone, help!”

There was no use. This building—this entire neighborhood, was abandoned. Abandoned, save for whoever had butchered my parents and left them here to rot.

I had to do something, I had to get help—

My eyes landed on a hooded figure standing at the opposite end of the room. Their outline wavered in the faint light.

“You did this!” I shouted, rage coating the accusation with venom and hatred. “You killed them!”

I didn’t care if I had no magic. That I would be entirely powerless in any kind of fight. But whoever this bastard was, they deserved to burn in the fiery depths of the Underworld for what they’d done.

Careful not to slip in the growing puddle at my feet, I stood on shaky legs, dread churning the contents of my stomach. “Who are you? Why did you do this?”

Before I could move, the hooded figure crossed the room in mere seconds, faster than physically possible. Their grating voice turned my blood to ice. “I didn’t kill them, Eloise. You did.”

Tears blurred my vision. They fell like steady rivers down my cheeks. “That’s not true!”

“You sliced them up like cattle with nothing more than a hunting knife.” They gestured widely to a knife on the ground that I hadn’t noticed before, laying inches away from my father’s body.

“How are you—” I went to point a finger at them, but somehow the tip of a blade pointed at them instead. My fingers clenched around the hilt of the knife. “How did—I didn’t…” I sputtered profusely. When had I picked up the knife?

Gasping, my fingers spasmed as if to let go of the knife, but it was like the hilt was coated in adhesive. Icouldn’tlet go. Blood—their blood—coated the entirety of the blade, dripping steadily down my fingers.

A whimper crept past my lips.What was happening?

Another hooded figure appeared beside the first. “Admit what you’ve done.”

I swiped wildly with the blade. “Get away from me! I didn’t kill them!”

My heart beat unevenly as one of the figures lifted their hoods, revealing my father’s clean, untouched face. “Oh, Eloise. How could you?”

The other figure lifted theirs, too.Mother. “We loved you. Why would you do this to us?”

This had to be another night terror. Nothing made any sense. They couldn’t be standing before me when I’d just found them dead. The Veil had failed us. That was the only justifiable excuse. And now skin-wearing monsters stood before me, accusing me of an act I never committed.

I didn’t kill them.

“Liar.” My mother leaned forward, stopping inches from my face. I could count the crinkles around her eyes. She looked soreal.Too perfect to be anything but herself—not some twisted copy.

Then she shoved me, sending me flying backwards, only to collapse into a wooden chair that groaned and wobbled under my weight. The knife finally clattered to the floor.

“I always knew you were as evil as everyone claimed,” my father sneered. “You are nothing but an abomination.”

“You don’t mean that,” I cried.

My mother paced in a slow circle around me, bending to whisper into my ear. “Useless. You have brought us nothing but shame.” Her hands snapped out, holding my wrists down onto the arms of the chair. “I’ve always wondered what I’d done wrong to have you as a child. I won the Starlight Trials. Always obeyed the king. Prayed to all the right gods. And still, they gave meyou.”