Chapter 33
I cannot find it! I’ve been searching for days, for weeks! It’s not here. But I know it’s here. A frustrated whimper escapes me as I plunge deeper into the halls of my childhood home. Shadows coalesce around me, and every few minutes, one of them will flicker into something I recognize: Amelia’s grin, Father’s clenched fist or his furrowed brow, a flash of petticoat and brocade.
None of it is what I’m looking for.
I shove past the shadows, fighting the instinct to reach out and grab Amelia’s hand. If I do, her shadow will simply melt through my fingers. It’s pointless.
Nothing matters until I can find it.
Whatever it is.
I’ve looked almost everywhere. My rooms, the main floors of the palace, the servants’ quarters. Even the throne room, the banquet halls, and my father’s private study. I’m not sure why, but this palace doesn’t feel like my true home anymore, as though my connection to it has worn thin.
There’s just one place I haven’t gone . . .
I shake my head. It’s somewhere else. I should go back to Father’s study, to the tearoom. Picking up my skirts, I hurry up another flight of stairs. My breathing turns labored, which seems odd. I’ve been running for ages. Why am I getting tired now?
Stella.
I pause, chest heaving, ear tilted toward the ceiling. I know that voice. When I try to place it, it’s like trying to remember a dream after I’ve woken up. It slips into the ether, further and further away. But my body, my very soul, knows this voice. It calls to me, warms something deep inside of me.
It makes me feel loved, cared for.
I want to hear it again.
Stella, darling.
I close my eyes, ducking my head instinctively to hide my smile. Why am I smiling? Why do I love when this voice says my name, calls me sweet things? Where is it coming from?
My mother used to sing lullabies to me when I was sick or hurt. Something about her song always soothed me, even when I was most miserable. There was one time when I . . . well, you’ll think this is very foolish of me, but I drank some poison at the goading of my friends. Have no fear, I paid the price for my folly.
This voice is so rich, so deep. And I am so very winded. Maybe for a few moments, I’ll just sit here and listen . . .
I was sick for days. I’ve never felt so awful in my entire life, and I cried like a baby when I couldn’t fall asleep for how much pain I was in. If you were awake, you’d probably arch one of those pretty eyebrows and tell me it served me right. It did, of course. But can’t you have a little pity? No one told me we didn’t have the antidote for this poison!
I sit on the top stair, leaning against the railing, smiling as I listen. I wish I knew who this voice belonged to! Whoever it is, he likes my eyebrows, apparently.
My mother heard my cries and came. At that moment, it was as though I looked on an angel of salvation from my misery! She’d never looked so beautiful to me. She clucked her tongue, running her fingers through my sweaty hair. I still remember the soothing way her thumb traced along my forehead. Like this. But imagine it being much softer. My thumb is probably too rough.
My eyelids hang heavily. What if I just stopped searching, took a little nap? Then I could . . . start searching again . . . later . . .
I lower myself to the floor. The polished tile is cold against my cheek, but it’s oddly soothing. My skirts flare down half the staircase, like a waterfall of silk and crystal.
Then she sang to me, and I’d never heard a more beautiful song. I forgot everything as I listened, and finally, I fell asleep. What do you say, darling? Shall I sing it for you?
Yes, I whisper back, the word barely a breath between my lips. Sing to me.
I’ll take that as a yes. But of course, you cannot tell anyone that I sang you a lullaby. It would ruin my reputation.
I chuckle softly, my awareness already slipping away.
A rich, warm voice floods around me, soft as a blanket and strong as a pair of arms holding me to a solid chest. Its low timbres are quiet, but I do not have to strain to hear them.
May you always find your way back home
Through darkened nights
On lonely roads
May you always find your way back to me
I will hold you safe and sound
My love, in my heart
For all eternity
Recognition hits. I push up on my elbows, my lips parting as the voice continues singing. I know this voice. This is Ash. My fae husband. Confusion rolls through me, but beneath it is a steady certainty.
Ash is here with me. He hasn’t left me alone. And I think . . .
He loves me.
Possibly more than anyone ever has.
That knowledge sends strength shooting through my limbs. It is the last piece of determination I need. I shove myself onto my knees, then get to my feet. Resolve hardens in my gut. I whirl, run back down the stairs, suddenly full of vitality.
I’m not afraid to look in that last place. No, I’ll confront it. And I’ll do it with Ash’s beautiful voice surrounding me, filling my soul. I run hard down several flights of stairs, turning down long hallways. Always taking the darkest, deeper path that leads lower, lower, to the belly of the castle.
Finally, I skitter to a halt before a large iron grate. Even from here, the stench reaches like tentacles toward me. That stench brings back memories—of being cold, alone, trapped in the dark. Memories of tears, of rocking against a cold stone wall. Of begging for Father, nothing but silence answering me.
Ash’s voice fades to silence, his song finished.
Part of me falters as that wretched silence fills my ears. Then I grit my teeth and take another step toward that grate.
Somehow, I know this world isn’t quite real, so I walk straight through the metal as if it’s nothing but a curtain of running water.
To the dungeon beyond.
I shiver, and my steps flag as the stink of rot redoubles. But I’m done cowering. I’m done letting fear keep me from doing the things I should have done long ago.
I march down through the narrow stone stairwell, cold slicing into my bare feet. Each step carries me deeper into the darkness that once swallowed me whole. And with each step, a new voice fills my head. Memories—of Father.
“It’s for your own good. You need to understand how this world works, and your place in it. You were not born a princess so you can live a charmed existence of balls and fine foods. Your duty is to serve your people.”
“I will, I will, Father!” My own voice, high-pitched and desperate, floods me with all the things I felt in that moment. I had to convince him I would do anything he said. I had to show him I wouldn’t protest or fight him. Anything he wanted—anything for my people, I would do it.
“I know, but you must understand the reality of war, and what can happen to you and your people when peace is compromised. I know you don’t want this—I don’t want it any more than you. But I must teach you, or else I will have failed you as your father and your king.”
“I do understand!” Pleading echoes through my mind, ceaseless and frantic. I keep walking down those steps.
“You think you understand now, but you will forget when you are older and stronger willed, when you long to make your own decisions instead of following your duty. I do this so you won’t forget.”
“I promise I won’t forget!” Tears roll down my cheeks, reminiscent of the ones I shed when I was only eight years old. How that frantic desperation and pleading turned to fighting when he pushed me into that cell, my cries to screams when the door clanged shut, my hands reaching through the bars, trying to grab for the fading shadow of my father.
My father, who left me alone in a dank, cold cell for the longest, most miserable night of my life.
I stop before that cell. I can almost imagine a little girl curled up in the corner, shivering and crying as the sting of betrayal coursed through her blood.
At some point, that child decided this was for her own good, and she hated herself for screaming, for crying. This was a normal part of being a princess. All her sisters had done it before her, and Amelia would do it after her.
The bar is cold in my hand. Bowing my head against it, I close my eyes and let those last reserves of tears pour free.
I’d never been the same after that night. I learned that staying beneath notice was the safest course of action. I learned it was better to swallow my tears, to submit, to not show a shred of defiance. To not make a sound.
That was when I’d started stuttering.
Perhaps it served me throughout my childhood and early adulthood. But it serves me no more. I grip the bars in either hand, and I do something I’m not sure I’ve ever done before in my entire life.
I scream with every fiber of my being—the loudest sound I’ve ever made. Again and again, I scream, until my throat is raw and my body shakes.
My fists clench around the bars, not flinching from the cold. Not flinching from anything. From this memory, from the dreaded nightmares that followed in its wake, from the smallness I’d made my own.
I’m not afraid anymore.
Not afraid of what others can do to me. Not afraid of the sound of my own voice.
“I am Isabelle Louise Stella Ashrift Solavirth,” I growl. “And I will claim my birthright.”
With that, I throw open the cell door. There, in the center of matted straw and piles of foul excrement, floating above the ground, is a small glowing orb the size of my fist.
I don’t know what it is, only that it is mine.
And it is what I have been looking for all this time.
I reach out and take hold of that deeper, fuller part of myself I’ve been so afraid of for so long. It’s warm, and touching it is like sinking into a hot bath during the frigid winter.
Throat scraped raw, my cheeks stiff from the salt of my dried tears, I smile.