Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
ALLIE
T he moment the Commander closed the door, I felt more entombed in this room than I had in the coffin.
The silence reminded me too much of the middle of the maze.
The blood, the dagger, my father’s face.
My knees wobbled, all the fight and adrenaline leaving my body.
My legs begged to cave under me.
The bottle slipped from my hand–and with it, the illusion that I’d been keeping myself together. Both shattered into a million pieces at my feet.
Yet I refused to fall to my knees.
What if these massive antler trophies adorning the walls had eyes behind them?
I made my way to the closest window and leaned my hands against it, pretending to assess my location.
In reality, I stared at myself.
Stars above, I’d never look worse.
Dark hair a frizzy, tattered mess, cheeks sunken in, chaffed lips, and the veins on my neck sticking out.
But my eyes…they frightened me.
They didn’t hold the storm my father used to see in them.
The fire was gone, replaced with a sickly sheen and the stinging redness of unshed tears.
No spark.
No luster.
Only defeat.
Someone had truly stolen me and left a shadow in my place.
A stranger.
I’d never looked or felt so crushed. I’d never allowed myself to.
Even now, I pretended to scout my surroundings, like a good First Daughter, not dying inside. Just in case anyone was looking.
I needed to be strong.
I needed to endure.
I couldn’t.
Not right now.
My head caved between my shoulders, hair cascading around me and concealing my face.
The sting in my eyes turned unbearable.
I gritted my teeth against the tears.
Veghearas only cried at births and funerals, not on any random day, captive or not.
I was the First Daughter.
I had to set an example.
A laugh that sounded too much like a sob ripped my throat, slashing the silence which had engulfed me since the Commander had left.
I might not have been the First Daughter anymore.
I hated the Commander for planting these doubts inside of me–I already had enough of those without his help.
I hated myself even more for letting them sprout.
What if he was telling the truth?
Then right after my father had been assassinated, my uncle had stolen my throne and told everyone who would listen that I was a coward who ran away from danger. And I’d been set up in an arranged marriage with a stranger.
No, my enemy, through Clan and actions.
The Clan Council couldn’t have given such a decree. It was a trick, meant to keep me pliable and raging about the wrong thing.
If Evie had truly agreed to marry The Dragon, then the Blood Brotherhood would have royal Vegheara blood sitting on their precious throne. That alliance should have been enough.
Why would the Clan Council force the issue and truly incapacitate the best fighters and leaders in the Protectorate and Blood Brotherhood?
It didn’t make any sense.
Nothing did.
How would Silas have wormed his way onto my throne?
Worst of all…how had the Protectorate accepted him?
I couldn’t mean so little to my own Clan.
All those years of dedicating myself to the Protectorate couldn’t mean nothing .
The weeks-long hunting trips in the dangerous mountains when that awful drought hit Aquila. I wasn’t yet sixteen and took down the biggest bucks in the hunting party.
Those long, sweaty days on the training grounds, bleeding my arms and scraping my knees from the moment the sun scorched my back until the night shivers engulfed me.
The negotiations I’d been part of, staring down men twice my age and build, scoffing at their threats while I was quaking inside.
All those sacrifices had to mean something .
Loyalty, at least.
Had my Clan only listened to me when my father was alive?
Could I lead only when I was allowed to?
No , a forceful voice rattled my mind.
It hadn’t come from my missing power. The well inside me was as dry as before I’d gone into the coffin.
I dared another look at myself in the window.
That wasn’t the truth.
That couldn't have been the truth.
The Commander’s lies were poisoning my mind.
In the maze, all the Protectorate members listened to me, without question, even with their lives on the line.
When the Blood Brotherhood had crashed the wedding, they’d looked toward me for instructions.
Not my father.
Not fucking Silas.
Not even Uncle Maksim.
Me.
And nobody–no Commander, no Council, not even the gods themselves–could shake that truth away from me.
My reflection in the frozen glass changed.
The light was still gone from my eyes, but my face changed.
My eyelids narrowed into slits.
My lips tightened.
My Vegheara chin jutted out.
Maybe I wasn’t the First Daughter anymore, a title I’d inherited only by birthright and a technicality after Evie had gone missing.
But I would always be The Huntress.
I’d earned that title through personal losses nobody saw and bloody wounds I pretended didn’t hurt.
Allie could mourn everything she had lost and fret over what other obstacles she had to face.
But The Huntress couldn't afford to.
Through nothing but sheer will, I pulled myself upright once more, looking at my reflection like it had insulted me.
I couldn't keep doubting myself. Not now.
I had to survive.
My location was probably hidden from the Protectorate.
Nobody was coming to save me.
It was time I saved myself.
I wasn’t staying here, lies or not.
If I had to scratch and claw my crown and my Clan’s protection from Silas, I would.
The Protectorate would fall apart under his reign.
I couldn’t let it happen.
I needed to escape.
My gaze finally left my sad reflection and breached further into this strange, frozen land.
Where in the bleeding stars was I?
The Commander’s feared fortress, yes. But where ?
Beyond the white, spiny tops of the trees shaking in the wind, I could barely make out grey, jagged roofs stubbornly reaching for the dark sky. Icy snow pelted everything in its path, blocking my view.
In the distance, I could barely make out a dark wall much taller than any mortal hand should have been able to build.
I kicked off my useless shoe and marched to the door, fully expecting it to be locked by some kind of weird Blood Brotherhood magic.
If they could freeze people where they stood–a reality I couldn't dwell on too much right now or my panic would do the job for them and numb me–then surely their magic was more fearsome than any of us had feared.
The brass doorknob looked to have been crafted for giants. It took both of my shaky hands to turn it.
But it clicked open.
The Commander said I wasn’t a prisoner.
Not-prisoners were free to roam.
I chanced a look up and down the massive stone hall that greeted me, the air decidedly chillier than the stuffy, embered room at my back.
Empty.
No guards, no spears, no arrows.
I didn’t hesitate.
I rushed out of the room, my bare feet helping me move soundlessly despite the chill quickly seeping into my soles.
Stairs.
I needed to find stairs and the highest tower to get the best vantage point.
We were surely somewhere in the mountains, I just had to detect the range. Look at the stars’ position if the heavens allowed it and mark my location.
Then I’d find my way back home.
Somehow.
Stony hall after stony hall greeted me.
All of them empty.
All of them cold.
Perhaps everyone was hiding behind the massive wooden doors, huddled around fireplaces.
Or this was a trap and they wanted me to run away unimpeded.
My heart beat fast enough to wind me as I finally, mercifully reached a set of stairs. My foot had already touched the first step when my instincts roared past the haziness still keeping my mind captive.
This staircase was too grand, the wooden banister too ornate and too glimmering. This lead to somewhere important. To power.
Throne room, war room, the Commander’s room.
None of them places I wanted to find myself in.
Shivering from the top of my head down to my numb toes, I turned around.
The servants’ stairs spidered through every castle and fortress I’d even stepped foot in. Dax and Dara liked to hide in the ones at Grandpa Constantine’s mansion when we were playing, taunting Clara and I through the walls.
I rushed to the end of the corridor, making so many turns, I was sure I wouldn’t find my way back.
My gaze flitted from one doorknob to the next.
Too polished, too perfect.
The door I was searching for needed to look like it had been used by hundreds of overworked hands daily.
Finally, mercifully, my gaze landed on a simple door handle which had lost its lustre right in the middle.
When I opened it, a cold wave hit me so fast, I couldn’t breathe for a few moments.
My bloody, tattered dress was of no use in this weird place. I might as well have been walking around as naked as Lunara did during the full moon.
A spiral of stone stretched above and below me. The walls were peppered with small windows barely big enough to jut out a hand–or fire an arrow. The steps were indented and worn in the middle.
This must have been a defense tower used for everything other than warfare.
My bare feet slapped against the stone as I forced myself to climb. The stones were so cold, I was afraid each of them took off a layer of my skin.
The small windows and the snow beyond them made it difficult to discern more than I already had.
The surrounding buildings were starting to take a grimmer shape with each level. These houses were long and low, but their roofs ended in tall, mean points at the front and back, like they were trying to spear the heavens.
Arrogant buildings fit for an arrogant leader.
Cursing the Commander spurred me on, even as my lungs protested each step. Right now, it was easier to let anger guide me than have despair claim me.
The nerve of him, making me say please .
As if I didn’t have manners.
As if I was nothing but a youngling back in school, chastised by her strict, disapproving tutor.
And I was supposed to marry him ?
I would have rather chucked myself out of this tower.
By the time I reached the end of the stairs, I’d imagined a million different ways I’d make him sorry for treating me like that and for his lies.
I pulled myself up by the worn stone banister, rather than climb with my now uncooperative legs.
Just like the pain had faded during my training days in the sun, I’d get accustomed to this cold ache spreading through me now, long enough to find a way to free myself.
I leaned down, hands on my knees, back rippling with desperate breaths.
I didn’t know how long it took my heart to stop trying to beat itself out of me, but when I finally rose, I found myself in an octagonal turret, bare except for a fraying door shaken by the winds–and seven more stairs that stood between me and it, as if mocking me.
The gusts hissed between the door’s battered planks.
I knew I’d be facing a mean snow storm this high up, but I wasn’t prepared for the force of the wind to slap me back as I opened the door. I had to hang on to the chipping wood to keep from tumbling all the way back down.
Teeth barred, arms tensed to their limits, I pulled myself back toward the opening.
The snowflakes felt like daggers against my skin.
My hair whipped around my face painfully, and my cheeks had never felt so raw.
But I hadn’t made it all this way only to give up.
My shaky fingers dug into the doorframe, nails scraping the wood painfully as I tugged myself forward.
A flat narrow strip of planks speared the tip of the roof–the tiles had to be cleaned somehow.
Just as I fought with myself to step forward, a dark form appeared to my right.
I flinched back, only to see a black raven diving straight for me. On instinct, I reached my hands out to protect myself.
But the bird wasn’t interested in attacking me. He kept flapping its wings my way, as if trying to push me back inside.
He came close enough for me to notice his feathers were so black, they almost had a blue tint when the light caught the tips. His eyes were unlike any raven I’d ever seen–clear blue, bottomless, and ancient.
As I lowered my hands slowly, the raven relaxed and flew backward, landing on the narrow strip and looking at me disapprovingly.
As a Vegheara, I had a soft spot for birds of prey–especially ravens.
I’d seen them work together with wolves during hunts, play together, and mourn their dead.
Aquila had been named after one of their closest relatives.
But this raven unnerved me.
Not losing sight of him, I raised my foot slowly to step outside.
The raven flapped his wings maniacally and cawed at me like I’d insulted him.
I was in no state to entertain a crazy bird.
I placed my foot down, the snow and wind searing right into my bones.
The raven cawed louder and made a move to push me back again.
This time, I didn’t flinch.
“What, you think you’re the only one who can scream?” I stared at the raven and roared .
All the tension, all the anger, all the disappointment spilled out of me, rushing through the stones and clashing with the wind.
Let them all hear I still had enough fight in me to shake the mountains.
The raven stopped flapping, fell back, and cocked his head at me like I was crazy.
Maybe I was.
I licked my lips, my throat raw, and nodded at him. “That’s what I thought.”
Under its judgemental gaze, I finally stepped onto the roof.
The gusts were so powerful, they almost threw me off. My heart plummeted as my balance struggled, the ground not visible from this high up.
I crouched as fast as a pit settled into my stomach, digging my hands into the planks.
The raven cawed, more gentle this time, as if trying to say, “I told you so.”
I just had to find a condescending bird in this frozen wasteland.
No, not a wasteland.
A valley.
Past the buildings, which stretched farther than I had imagined, a great big forest rose and fell in menacing waves, stretching for too many miles to count.
That didn’t make any sense.
Why would someone build a great big wall beyond–
I narrowed my eyes against the storm.
That was no wall.
It loomed, taller than any structure I’d ever seen, darkening the horizon.
A five hundred foot tall rim–maybe even higher–rose toward the heavens with razor-sharp peaks as if someone had ripped the ground.
I rose to my feet, the storm now seeming such a small obstacle against the towering threat in the distance. I turned around slowly, as if afraid of what I’d see, my dread stealing my breath faster than the wind.
The massive rim surrounded me on all sides, like the earth had cupped us in its hand.
Sharp and unscalable, no sign of an exit or an entrance.
Myths and forgotten legends spoke of ancient places like this, where even magic didn’t obey the laws of nature.
This shouldn’t exist.
But it did.
This fortress stood in an impenetrable crater.
It not only loomed, its unscalable edges casting long shadows.
It waited, a silent guardian. Or jailkeeper.
I truly was trapped, swallowed whole by the ground.