Chapter Forty-One
C HAPTER F ORTY-ONE
The entrance to the dungeons stares right back at me as I stay still, contemplating it all; my memories of staying here, and the damage that caused, never ease. Since Aurum, the cells are emptier than they used to be. Our only prisoner now is Sarilyn.
A fetid smell makes my nostrils twitch, and I shake my head before stepping inside the narrow hallways.
Behind me, Ruvyn says, ‘I should warn you; this isn’t a place that’s safe for you after what just occurred—’
I pause and spin on my heel. He accompanied me to the dungeons, and as much as I am glad, he is taking this role as protector too seriously after the events with Aurum. I need to do this on my own. ‘Ruvyn, I’m more than familiar with how the dungeon works and what safety measures to take if this place comes crashing down on me.’ I cock an eyebrow as he shuts his mouth. He knows not to argue with me. ‘I won’t be long.’
He nods, straightening his back and standing tall.
I leave him there and walk quite a distance until I reach Sarilyn’s cell. It stands opposite the cell which used to be inhabited by the shifter who fed me information long ago. Now it is long abandoned, with the remains of bones and blood scattering the cobbled ground.
Darius never did kill that shifter when they fought. And I never saw him again. I can only imagine he was shortly after killed by Sarilyn, or even Aurum.
‘Naralía.’
My head snaps forward at the sound of Sarilyn’s voice.
She appears behind the bars, smiling, though she seems to lack the cunning edge. Her usually luscious long hair is now matted, and dirt and grime cake her dress. Regardless, she still has an ethereal beauty to her.
‘Have you finally come to check if I am alive or not?’ She grins before falling into a fit of coughs as if she hadn’t spoken in weeks, since we locked her in here.
I step towards the bars separating us, the sconces on the wall outside her cell illuminating me enough for her to see me better. ‘The day I trapped Aurum inside the Isle of Elements, you helped me. Why?’
Sarilyn leans her head to the side. ‘Shouldn’t you be out there, protecting your thief and his people?’
I turn away from her. This was a stupid idea, so, so—
‘I felt the ground shake down here.’
She doesn’t wait for me to look at her. She can likely tell from how still my body is that I’m panicking on the inside.
‘It’s getting worse, isn’t it?’
I drag back an audible breath.
She chuckles. ‘Sooner or later, this world will be forgotten, left at the bottom of the ocean to rot.’
I whirl around, angry words on the tip of my tongue that are quickly cut off by someone else’s voice.
‘Nara,’ Darius says firmly. I look over my shoulder as his eyes flit from Sarilyn to me, contemplating whether to drag me away from her or stay.
Sarilyn gasps humorously. ‘Oh, look, if it isn’t the dashing prince – or should I say “king”?’
He ignores her, looking at me now. ‘We shouldn’t be down here.’
‘Why not?’ Sarilyn gets the words out before I can. ‘Does it bring back memories?’ She pouts mockingly.
I step back, watching Sarilyn and Darius interact. Their tension clouds the dungeons, masking the must already in the air.
Darius’s jaw works back and forth as he glares at her. ‘Don’t.’
When I look at Sarilyn, she is no longer smiling. Her gaze thins and I’m suddenly back to feeling angry over her having witnessed Darius’s torture for months.
‘Why did you save us?’ I ask once again, and this time, the demand in my voice makes her coil back from the bars. Her face hollows, her lips forming into a pout as she sucks on the inside of her cheek. ‘Like I told you once, I’m on whichever side I see winning.’
I shake my head, taking a step towards her. ‘No, that’s not it. You told me once that you saw something in me, enough to believe the words once spoken from a seer, so don’t lie to me, Sarilyn. Don’t be like Aurum; tell me why.’
There’s a poignant pause that lasts a lifetime.
Then, her lips tremble as she smiles. ‘Because you’re me.’ She looks past me to where Darius is. ‘It is only that you got the better Rivernorth.’
I steal a glance over my shoulder. Darius watches me thoughtfully from beside one of the lit sconces.
‘The one who does love,’ Sarilyn says. ‘The one who would sacrifice his life just to see you smile.’
Darius’s eyes never leave mine. I can see in his gaze the silent promise to Sarilyn’s words. And Sarilyn herself, of course, knows this because she saw it. She saw how Darius was, even when Aurum tried to make him forget me, saw how he acted when we were together inside the throne room on the night of Noctura. She’s known from the start.
Always.
My heart softens until it’s malleable enough to mould in my hands.
‘Everything I did to you was out of spite, Naralía.’
I glance at Sarilyn, her throat wobbling as she speaks.
‘I wanted to break you like I was broken all those years ago,’ she says between gritted teeth before stepping back and raising her chin. ‘And I will never apologise for that.’
For the first time against Sarilyn, I don’t fight off the smile that peels back my lips. It’s strange. For someone that I despised with my whole being, I now understand her – maybe even admire her.
I believed for so long that Sarilyn broke me. That day in Melwraith, I cried my soul out to Darius and lost all my confidence. And to this day, I fight with myself. I fight to have hope, not just for me, but for everyone else.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper, a weight lifting off me.
Her eyes narrow, confusion likely muddling her thoughts. ‘For what?’
‘For making me see that you’re just like everyone else,’ I tell her. ‘Normal.’
Her lips – no longer carrying the gold gloss she used to wear on them – curl into a slow smile, and something mutual forms between us.
I turn my back to her, now facing Darius. His smirk reassures me that he’s proud of how I handled myself. I walk over to him, ready to get out of this place.
‘Oh, Golden Thief?’ Sarilyn calls out.
We both snap our heads to her, my eyes going round when I see her pull out an object from the skirt of her gown. A hint of gold glints as soon as the firelight from the sconce hits it, and Darius turns to stone.
The Rivernorth pendant.
She passes it through the cell bars, the chain dangling from her fingertips. ‘Aurum almost destroyed it when he pried it from that man’s hands – Ivarron.’
My mind snaps to the very moment Aurum told me he killed Ivarron. I suck back a sharp breath, shooting Darius a look as he heads towards Sarilyn. He knows how complicated my relationship with Ivarron was, yet that never stopped him from comforting me over his death on the first night in the castle. It must have hit me harder than I thought, considering I was silent for most of the night, but I was also mourning Gus, and Darius cared more about how I felt than how he did.
‘Why are you giving it to me?’ Darius takes the pendant from Sarilyn, staring at it as if it might disappear soon from his grasp.
‘I’m defeated,’ Sarilyn says plainly, and her voice has a certain numbness.
My brows pinch, never having thought in a lifetime that Sarilyn Orcharian herself would admit to being defeated.
Darius must feel the same as he says, ‘You never give up. So why are you giving this to me?’
‘Eventually, we all give up.’ Sarilyn’s gaze flickers past Darius’s shoulder to look at me. ‘It just took me three centuries for that to finally happen.’ She turns away from us. ‘I suggest you make your way back to your friends. They won’t want to be alone once this world collapses.’
I don’t say what she would expect me to or what I truly wish to answer with. ‘Goodbye, Sarilyn,’ I tell her instead, already knowing I will be coming back here. And it will be to tell her that the world still lives on.