Chapter 22
Cold iron-laden hands made a poor conductor for the Unseen Arras.
Semras knew it. She tried anyway. Again, and again, and again, long after her tears had dried and her fingers had grown numb from the stress she put them under.
Again.
But nothing answered the flex of her fingers. She couldn’t hold on to any threads long enough to weave them.
Again.
Blood seeped through the edges of the metallic hinges. It dried, seeped out, and dried again countless times.
Again.
There was a way out. There would be a way out. Even if she had to dig it out of the material world herself.
Again.
Even if she had to dig it out of the monster himself.
Again—
Hours after her mind gave up all hope, her body kept trying. Like a caged beast, it wanted to gnaw at its chained limbs to break free. But tearing apart her wrists to be rid of the shackles would have been vain; freedom without her ability to weave was just another cage.
Just another death.
After another failed attempt, a long, mournful wail ripped out of Semras’ throat. Exhausted, she looked around the room for the umpteenth time, as if one more glance would break the cage apart and reveal the way out.
Deep scratches were etched onto the wood of both doors.
Now shattered, the windows let through the cold autumn breeze in a cruel taste of the freedom lying beyond its metal grate.
The chair she had thrown at the glass rested abandoned next to its broken legs.
On the bed were the remains of what had once been luxurious linen sheets, now shredded by her rage.
Everything Semras could reach for had suffered from her pain.
But the one who should have suffered the most remained safe behind the small secondary door connecting their rooms together.
She knew the monster was still awake. She had pounded on the door for as long as she could lift her fists, had shrieked demands to be let out, had spoken empty promises of understanding and cooperation and even, at the height of her hysterical state … love.
His steps had echoed closer to the door then, but he hadn’t spoken. Her captor hadn’t retreated even now, as the sun grew higher and higher in the morning sky.
She couldn’t tell whether a single night had passed or many.
Her eyes closed against her will. They traitorously took her to a realm of vivid nightmares, made of memories from her first encounter with the monster to the moment he revealed his true face.
Each left her with the sensation of an increasing pressure around her throat, as if hands strangled her, choking the life out of her lungs.
As if she were dying.
When consciousness dragged her back to her miserable reality again, Semras didn’t feel any better. Neither did she feel worse. Nothing distinguished nightmares from the waking world anymore.
She found a platter of food on the desk, probably brought inside the room while she was unconscious.
It must have been hours ago; it was cold now that the afternoon was fading into evening, but Semras still ate.
She needed her strength back. Weaving hadn’t worked, and neither had wallowing, demanding, bartering, or battering.
Time for a new strategy.
After pushing the platter aside, Semras walked to the door leading to the corridor and knocked softly. A minute passed, and she received no answer.
She knocked again. Still nothing.
Again.
“Stand back and stay put, for the love of the Radiant Lord!” thundered the voice of Sir Ulrech. “I do not care what you want. I am not opening the door. Take it to the inquisitor if you want to be let out. I—I cannot. I am … I cannot.”
She stepped back without a word and waited.
Night fell, and she knocked again. Maraz’Miri answered by slipping beneath the door a thin flask of gin. The agent didn’t speak to her, and more knocking prompted no more offering. So Semras waited.
Morning brought in another cell guard, and this time, the rattle of her fist against the wood brought her a polite request from Sin’Sagar to state her need. The witch didn’t dignify him with an answer and retreated until the next shift change.
“Semras?” Themas replied at her next knock. “Semras, you … Are you alright?”
He sounded anxious, but it could be a trap. She remained silent.
“Inquisitor Velten told us you had a disagreement with him … that you were locked in here until you calmed down. For your … for your own good, he said.”
What a risible excuse her captor had given to his subordinates—and yet they all believed it so easily. They’d believe anything he’d say, and nothing she would.
Slumping down by the door, Semras waited for the young knight to prove her right.
“… It’s not true, is it?” Themas whispered. His voice came from the door’s keyhole. Such a little thing of metal stood between her and freedom, and yet she couldn’t get past it.
“Semras,” he called again. “He locked you in there because he did something he does not want you to speak of, didn’t he?”
Her heart skipped a beat. Could she trust him, after all? Or was it a test of her loyalty to the monster? Themas sounded too close to knowing the truth behind her captivity; it made her suspicious.
“Open the door,” she murmured in a coarse, strained voice.
“I …”
“Themas, open the door.”
A pause, and then, “I can’t.”
Semras closed her eyes. They felt too worn out, too tired and heavy and dry. Useless. He was useless.
“Give me time,” he said at last. “I cannot get you out right now, not without a plan. Let me … let me figure it out, and then—”
Approaching footsteps put a halt to his blatant lies.
Then, his voice rose in a threatening thunder. “Sir Themas, swap places with Maraz’Miri.”
“My lord, I—”
“Now,” the monster said. A storm was brewing in the rough, blank voice he spoke with—one she had nowhere to shelter herself from.
Panic rose in her throat. Semras fought it, lost, and retched next to the door. Her entire body shook—in fear, in distress, in pain. She tried to take back control of her breath between heaves, but only pathetic whimpers escaped her. She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe, and she needed to breathe, and she couldn’t breathe and she needed—
Air forcefully filled her lungs, bringing clarity to her mind. Breath by breath, Semras regained her calm. Footsteps walked away from the door, and she concentrated on slowing down her heartbeat. It took her several minutes before she returned to herself.
The monster was long gone by then. Dread released its grip on her.
Under the door, a small hand wrapped in dark clothes slid a flask of alcohol, and Semras took it with trembling hands.
Over the next four days, she came to learn her guards would change over three different time periods: the morning, the afternoon, and the night.
Those who kept her door were all part of her captor’s direct retinue.
Meals came in twice a day, along with a cleaning maid who always stayed silent.
Whenever the young woman stepped inside, Semras’ guard would force her to stand at the window to let her work.
One time, Themas was the one who let the maid in, and he kept his gaze lowered to the floor for the entire time, his hands clenched into fists.
The coward.
Sometimes she ate. Most times, she couldn’t force anything down her throat.
And one time, she stole the silver knife that came with the plates and hid it beneath her pillow.
Semras remained steadfast, all her energy and focus dedicated to a single purpose: finding a way out. She only needed one sympathetic ear, one disloyal soul, one careless mistake.
On the fourth night, she got it.
No one answered when Semras knocked on the door on the fourth night. The moon had been hanging high in the night sky for hours when she made her move. By her calculation, she expected Maraz’Miri to be on guard duty.
The silence surprised her. Until now, every time she knocked, she’d receive a reaction, either to demand she stop, to ask what she wanted, or to give her a little something to placate her.
This time, there was nothing.
A few more careful knocks confirmed to her that something was afoot. She tried the handle. Still locked—of course.
Semras looked through the keyhole and found no one standing on the other side.
Her guard could have simply been out of sight, but after minutes spent listening carefully, she heard neither movement nor breathing.
Her pulse picked up with excitement, and she did her best to quell it.
False hope would drain what little energy she had left.
It had become too precious a commodity to risk so baselessly.
The witch knew nothing about picking locks, but she had something the monster had forgotten to take from her: her sight of the Unseen Arras. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, then opened them again.
In front of her, the lock became an amalgam of pressed threads, as metal always turned into under the pressure of fire. Trying to peek further than its surface level was difficult, but it didn’t matter how long she needed. She had nothing else to do with the time on her hands than to spend it.
At last, her sight pushed through to the interior of the keyhole, and the bolts revealed themselves to her.
It took even more time to bend her bruised fingers into the right shape and grab the keyhole’s threads.
Blood seeped from her hands under the strain; her finger bones cracked.
Not for the first time, a chilling, numbing wave ripped through her, forcing itself under her skin, pulsating through her entire being to the rhythm of her heartbeat.
Concentrated, Semras gently pulled on the keyholes’ threads. Her fingers trembled as she slowly pulled the weft from under the warp and then, carefully, over it to—
The threads slipped from her.
It had all been in vain. She couldn’t weave.
Semras bit her lip to blood, then retrieved the kitchen knife from beneath her pillow. The keyhole was long and thin; perhaps the cutlery would fit in?