Chapter 166
ATASHA’S POV
“Who are you?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
Violet’s smile stretched in a way that didn’t belong to a girl who thanked me five minutes ago. It was too wide, too calm. Her eyes didn’t blink. Almost immediately, a thin tremor ran up my spine. The tiny hairs at the back of my neck stood up as realization hit me.
This wasn’t Violet.
“Who are you?” I repeated, sharper this time.
She tilted her head at a slow, unnatural angle, like she was studying an insect. “You shouldn’t have interfered,” she said. Her voice had Violet’s softness, but something else curled beneath it, like a second voice was speaking under her tongue. “You had no business touching what you didn’t understand.”
I moved one foot back, just a fraction. “What did I do?” I needed this entity to speak.
“You ruined it,” she hissed. “Everything I have been building. Everything I have been preparing. You tore her away from me.” Her eyes flickered, not like a blink. More like another set of eyes pushed through for a second and then vanished.
My pulse hammered against my ribs.
Violet wasn’t Violet.
She leaned forward. “You think healing is a gift?” Her voice turned sharp. “You think pulling someone back from the edge is mercy?”
Her fingers twitched, curling like claws.
“She was mine,” she whispered. “And you dragged her back.”
I held my ground, wondering why Grace hasn’t rushed back in yet. “What are you?”
Violet ignored the question. Her pupils blew wide until her eyes were almost black. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
The next moment happened without warning.
Violet jumped.
One second she was sitting. The next, she launched across the space between us like she was pulled by a wire. Her hands shot for my throat.
Instinct took over. I shoved the chair back and twisted sideways. Her fingers sliced through empty air, and she
crashed into the table behind me with a crack of wood.
Her head snapped toward me. She didn’t look dazed. She looked hungry.
This wasn’t possession like what I have read in the books. This was something worse. Something that had been using Violet like clothing.
Violet–or whatever was inside her–straightened. Her mouth twisted into a grin that showed too many teeth.
“You are in the way,” she said. “But I can fix that.”
She moved again. This time faster. I stepped back, heart slamming against my ribs.
The air in the room felt wrong. This wasn’t the trembling fear of an ill girl. This was malice wearing a human
face.
And I was trapped in a room with it.
For a split second, my mind tried to count my options. Call for help? No. This would only attract more attention and would eventually get Lady Kenneth’s attention.
Running? The door was behind her, and she’d reach me first.
My only chance was to keep moving.
She lunged again, fingers spread, jaw slack like she was ready to bite skin if she couldn’t tear it. I ducked low and shoved the table between us. She hit the edge with her hip, and instead of recoiling, she laughed, a thin, scraping sound that didn’t come from Violet’s throat.
“You’re quick,” she said. “That’s new.”
Her head tilted again, even sharper than before. Vertebrae shouldn’t bend like that. Her bones should have broken.
A cold sweat slid down my spine.
“I should take your hands first,” she continued, her eyes glinting. “Since you like to heal. Let’s see how well you heal without fingers.”
I kept my voice steady. “You’re not keeping her.”
Her smile dropped, replaced by something flat and hateful. “You don’t get to choose,” she snarled. “She belongs to me.”
“Not anymore.”
Her lips twitched. “You think dragging her body back changed anything? You don’t understand her value. She was… a doorway.”
She took a step closer, and I mirrored backward.
“What doorway?” I asked.
Violet’s body laughed again, but this time her mouth didn’t move. The sound vibrated from somewhere deeper, like something was laughing through her ribcage.
“You’ll learn soon.”
I shifted my weight. If she lunged again, I needed to be ready. My pulse pounded so hard I could feel it in my teeth. Sadly, I couldn’t just get my dagger, it could hurt Violet’s body!
She dragged her tongue across her teeth.
Then her body snapped forward again, faster than before.
This time she aimed lower, at my ribs.
I dropped to one knee and swept my arm under her momentum. She crashed into the floor, but she didn’t even grunt. She twisted like something boneless and rolled back to her feet in one seamless movement.
My breath caught.
She stared at me, pupils swallowing her irises. My blood ran cold.
Then her smile returned–slow, triumphant. “You broke the leash on him,” she breathed. “And now I am free to take whatever I want.”
Then she leaped again, this time with both hands curved like hooks aimed straight for my face.
Violet’s hands were inches from my face when the door behind her suddenly flew open.
“Your Highness-!” Grace’s voice cut through the room. Veris stood right behind her.
Both women froze at the sight in front of them. Violet’s body was hunched low, fingers curled like claws, her entire posture coiled forward as if she was about to spring. Her face was twisted with that same unnatural grin, nothing like the girl they had escorted in earlier.
For a moment, it felt like the time froze, and neither Grace nor Veris took another step.
Violet didn’t even glance their way.
She only raised one hand, palm open, fingers spread. The air shifted, like a sudden shove with no warning. Grace and Veris were thrown backwards, out of the room. The door swung shut with a violent slam before they could even scream.
My eyes widened. This was something else.
Violet slowly turned her head back toward me. The smile she wore was stretched and satisfied. “Shall we begin?”
I didn’t waste time.
My hand went to my side. The dagger left its sheath with a brief scrape of metal. I didn’t want to hurt Violet, but I was running out of options. It was either this… or I would die.
Violet’s eyes flicked toward the blade and she cackled. “Useless.”
And then she was on me again.
Violet slammed into me before I could even plant my feet. Her hands hit my shoulders and shoved.
My back struck the wall.
Air left my lungs in a sharp burst. A sharp pain shot up my spine, then disappeared just as fast as it came. My body had already healed. It only gave me a second, but a second was enough.
I surged forward with the dagger and drove the blade straight into her arm.
The metal sank in deep.
Violet’s body jerked. The smile dropped. Her head snapped down to stare at the knife jutting from her flesh. For one brief heartbeat, she froze, more in shock than in pain. She wasn’t expecting I would actually cut her.
She looked back up at me, eyes wide and furious. “You think that will stop me?”
Without warning, she ripped her arm back off the blade, skin parting, blood sliding down her elbow. She barely reacted. She moved closer again, slower this time, like a predator sizing the exact place she would sink her teeth.
The injury didn’t slow her. But the fact that I stabbed her at all changed her expression.
Her smile was gone now.
There was only rage.
“You are starting to become a problem,” she hissed.
