31. Elara
Chapter 31
The next morning the Boy was not there.
The room was eerily quiet when I woke, the air chilled from the winter that was not far off. It was usually around this time of the year that I mourned the loss of the maid that would light the fire every morning while I slept, something that the Boy had begun doing a year or so ago.
That should have been the first sign.
The second was when I left my room and faced the same black shrouded figure I always did. The dark leathers, the inky cape that hung nearly to the floor, the sword with the white snake pommel. Except instead of the white snake brooch that held the Boy’s shroud in place this man’s tunic was embroidered with it.
He shifted as I entered, the snake appearing to slither over his chest as he faced me, the lack of shroud putting his face in full view. I had never fully seen the Boy’s face before, but it didn’t matter. I knew at once that this man was not him. The Boy did not have hair the color of dirt and a permanent sneer on a crusty lip.
“Who are you?” I stood frozen in the doorway, not wanting to move any closer, and not simply because the man was glaring with all the hatred and disgust I usually associated with my mother.
“I am your guard.” His lip curled, the motion revealing yellowed teeth.
“You are not from my father’s army.” I looked him up and down. I had never seen this uniform anywhere but on the Boy. Up until this moment I thought it was unique to him.
While the snake may have been different, everything else about it was the same. The leather bindings, the way the cape lay. It was obviously a uniform and not a new one, the man’s boots were scuffed with mud and something foreboding that I didn’t want to know the origin of.
“Where is the Boy?” I could have sworn I saw those chapped lips curl slightly at my question. He remained silent, that snake on his chest moving with each breath he took.
“Where is the Boy?” I asked again. His eyes nor lips didn't even flicker. “Answer me.” I tried to put on my best princess voice, not that I had one, but again the man didn’t even twitch.
I had tossed and turned all night, thinking of the Boys’ voice, of Batian and his bizarre behavior, and all the threats and promises that had been painted in the air.
One thing above all stood out, if everything Batian said was true, I really couldn’t stay there. Which meant one thing, I needed to speak to Father, and perhaps even my Uncle Jahn. If I was to escape, I would want them to come with me.
The Ramal, escape? The idea was ludicrous, and yet I couldn’t strip it from my mind.
I took one step forward, ready to head out the door but the man sidestepped, firmly placing his boulder of a frame right in front of the door.
“Excuse me, what do you think you are doing?”
“I am keeping you in your room, by order of the Ramal.”
“The Ramal?” I almost laughed. There was no way Father would order that, although I was sure many of the things he had recently ordered had not come from him. I straightened my spine. I only had one day before the Walk of the Maiden was due to begin. If I wanted to build any kind of plan, I didn’t have time for any of this.
“Good. That’s who I am on my way to see.” I took another step, but the man again angled himself before the door.
“Get out of my way.” I tried again, keeping my voice firm as I once again stepped toward the door and he once again stepped right between me and my only escape.
Every time he stepped, that ghost of a grimace played on his face. It was all a game to him. I clamped my teeth down, not wanting to give him the pleasure of a sigh or a scowl. I was sure it shone through my eyes anyway with how his lips curled in a slight victory.
This could not be happening. I needed to leave. There was the side passage, but that was clearly visible. If I was to slip behind the old tapestry that concealed it, I knew that this man would not keep its location a secret.
I tried again, but he kept shifting his body to match my own.
I had been a prisoner for years. It was not my first time to be locked in my rooms, but this was the first time I had been truly trapped in my rooms. I couldn’t get out. That trapped animal feeling coiled over my spine, my breathing picking up as all of that heat rushed over me, burning across the skin where the bracelet lay.
I lifted my hand, if the magic would erupt now it would definitely get me out of there, but again nothing happened but a tiny spark of light that he didn’t seem to notice.
I tried to move past him again, and again he stepped before me.
So much for not giving him the pleasure of rattling me.
“Move!” It was a yell, my breathing coming in sharp gasps as I dodged again, ready to heave him out of the way and make my escape down the hall. I knew enough about the Runturin that I could outrun him.
Grabbing his shoulder, I gave one big push only to be thrown back by a bolt of lightning that lashed over my cheek as the back of his hand made a hard impact with my jaw.
I shuffled back, my boots going out from under me as I slammed into the chaise.
My cheek burned, my jaw aching as I looked up to the man, his eyes were not even on me. He was back to staring forward, the corners of his lips upturned. I had never been hit before, not like that. I was the princess, you weren’t supposed to hit a princess.
You weren’t supposed to trap them in their rooms either. Something had changed.
He enjoyed hitting me. He would do it again.
“You may not leave,” he said, his voice harsh and low as he continued to stare forward. “I have been ordered to do all in my power to keep you here. To use any means necessary.”
I didn’t like the way he was looking at where I lay on the chaise, my skirts up to my knees. I pushed them down in a panic, keeping one hand on my cheek as the burning heat flowered over my face and stung my eyes in tears that I willfully pushed away. All that panicked pressure in my chest grew, the tingling fluttering under my skin as the woven circlet on my wrist warmed.
Refusing to cry, I stood, staring the man down as I flattened my skirts, well aware my cheek was bright red. His focus remained forward, the curve in his lips reappearing.
Batian’s words from the night before screamed in my ears, the promise to lock me in there alone and trap me away forever suddenly far too real. I had a good idea who had put me there. I wasn’t the only promise Batian had made last night, after all.
Which meant I knew where the Boy was.
My stomach knotted at the realization. It wasn’t right, none of it was right. It wasn’t right to lock me up, it wasn’t right for them to treat the Boy that way. We needed to leave, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen now. I needed another plan.
Wordlessly, I left the sitting area of my room, shutting and locking the door to my bedroom. Locking myself in my own cage.
I don’t know how many hours I sat there, staring at the lock on my door as I planned out how to escape. How to get the Boy and I out of the Runturin, to find a way to send notice to my father. I dreamed of some farm that we would run, of animals and open skies. I needed to get my father there too. I let the imagery flood me as the sun set, and the shadows of the bars that covered my windows became long stripes over my floor. It was only when the sun had nearly dipped below the Luftyn mountains that I heard the door to my rooms creak open and heavy boots thunder in. The floor rattled at the thunderous entrance, at least two pairs of boots stomping in. Someone laughed, the sound harsh and angry.
That wasn’t the Boy.
By the Goddess, it better not be more of them.
Dropping to my knees, I placed my eye against the keyhole, the shimmying shapes of three more black clad men coming into view. Their capes rippled behind them, the white snakes on their tunics the only thing I could make out as they moved like shadows through my room, depositing a fourth shadow onto the chaise.
“Remember what we promised, Boy,” one of the black clad soldiers snarled, streaks of blonde hair covering his face and a hooked nose as angular as the rest of his features as he leaned over the writhing figure of the Boy on the chaise.
Even from the other side of the door I could hear the moans, I could smell the blood in the air.
My fingers pressed against the wooden panel, heat whispering over my skin as everything grew warm.
“Here, Silas.” One of the guards said, handing the blonde one, Silas, what looked like the end of a whip. My bones turned molten.
“This is your last chance. You step out of line again and we will rip you limb from limb. Don’t make our Queen regret pulling you out of that gutter you came from,” Silas snarled, holding what was clearly the blunt and bloodied end of a whip above his head.
“I… didn’t…” Even though I had only heard that voice for the first time last night, I knew it, the sobs that lined those few words made my heart stop.
“No talking! Don’t forget your rules! Don’t make us rip her apart, too. Teach you all for defying those above you. Remember your place. Fucking half breed.” The blonde Silas hissed before laughing, all of the others joining in, white snakes slithering over their chests as they laughed their way out.
I heard the door, but I didn’t dare move. I was frozen, eyes still glued to the keyhole as I waited to be sure that no one was out there. There was nothing but the sobs and whimpers from the mound of shadow on the chaise.
I turned the knob.
It didn’t budge. The door rattled under the pressure of the lock that had been secured from the other side.
No, no, no, no! Not now!
“Boy!” My voice rattled with sobs as I shook the door, pushing and pulling as though I would break the large double doors down in my attempt to get to him. Perhaps I would. Soft sobs seeped through the wood, the pained noises rattling right alongside my furious attempts at the lock.
“Boy!” I called again, hands frantic against the knob before the lock clicked as the wide panels swung open to reveal the Boy.
I barely caught him, his heavy frame falling into me and sending us both back. The metallic tang of blood was everywhere, the musky scent of the rust making my skin crawl more than the ripples of heat that I was quickly becoming accustomed too.
“Boy?” I grunted under his weight, stumbling back and sending him to the foot of my bed, my hands desperate to find a grip on his leather tunic, his back damp and slick with warm sweat.
He landed with a grunt, the sound half sob, half moan as he sunk into the lumpy mattress. As the cape flopped to the side and revealed what I had been trying to grab.
It wasn’t sweat.
My hands were coated with blood, the color a deeper shade of red than I had ever seen. It clung to my skin, coating the back of his leather tunic where slits had been made. Not made, sliced. Slices that were everywhere.
They covered the leather, the marks crisscrossing over nearly every inch of his back. He lay there, moaning.
Batian had promised lashing, but this was enough to kill a man. To just drop him there, when I had no idea how to help him.
This wasn’t only a punishment and a warning for him. It was for me, too.
“What… what did he do?” My words strangled themselves on the knot in my throat, the panic catching as I stood there, hands hovering above his back as I tried to figure out what to do.
How to fix this.
He couldn’t stay like this, that much I knew. I needed to get him out of this uniform. To clean the wounds, he would need a bath. I ran to draw that first, cursing the lack of truly hot water that was available on this side of the Runturin.
I cranked up the knob that should have given hot water and ran back to where he was still moaning on my bed.
“We need to clean you up.” What I wouldn’t give for a sewing kit or any kind of supplies. If I had been able to truly train, I would know how to handle injuries, but I didn’t even know how to mend a hem, let alone dozens of whipping marks on flesh.
I moved to remove the cape, my hand clasping around the brooch on his neck but his hand gripped mine, his moaning sobs sounding far too close to ‘No’.
“I have to take it off. We have to take it off.” My voice was still choked in my panic.
“No.” That time I heard him.
“I have to help you.” I was well aware I was pleading, my hand still on the brooch as he turned toward me, the black shroud plastered against his face so I could see the outline of a nose.
“No. Catalyst.” He was barely able to get the word out.
“Catalyst?” How was that to help us?
“Need… catalyst.”
“Do you need a Catalyst?”
A nod. “Dalyah.”
The panic grew at the mention of my mother’s name.
“My mother’s Catalyst?” Again, a nod. But I stood frozen, hand stuck between his and a brooch.
“Please.”
“Where am I to find my mother’s Catalyst?” Especially without finding myself in a worse way. After this morning, I had a feeling everything would only get worse if she found me outside my rooms. “She will be with my mother…”
“Not… Catalyst,” he interrupted, his words still broken by moans. “Kitchen. Go to the kitchen.”
“The kitchen?” Which was it? He needed my mother's Catalyst, but not her Catalyst, and something in the kitchen. My panic was making it impossible to decipher, I couldn’t think beyond the knot in my throat, beyond the pounding of my heart in my ears.
“I don’t understand.”
“Kitchen,” he said again, the grunts fading into heavy breaths, the sound so low I could barely hear it above the water in the bath.
“Boy?” He didn’t answer. He didn’t stir. He just laid there, breathing as the deep shade of his blood dripped onto my bed.
Goddess.
I couldn’t help him, if only because I couldn’t see him. Curse old rules and whatever Mother had done. I couldn’t lose him! He needed my mother’s Catalyst, or something in the kitchen, but there was only one of those places that I could go.
“Please be okay.” I squeezed his hand before taking off, ready to race out the front door and right to the kitchen.
I froze before I even wrapped my blood slick hand around the knob. Booming laughs and taunting voices echoed from the other side, freezing me in place. The soldiers were still there. They stood there, laughing, trapping us inside. Keeping me from getting help.
What kind of game was this? Did they drop him there to die?
I turned, his still unconscious body struggling to breath where he lay on the bed, the blood that was rolling down his back soaking everything until it appeared almost back. They had expected him to die.
They wanted him to die, and they wanted me to watch.
Betrayal wrapped over my core, knotting against the panic that already lived there as I turned and practically threw myself out the heavy door hidden in the wall, my feet flying down the stairs.
The staircase wrapped itself into the dark, there were no lights there, but I had traveled it enough that I didn’t need them anymore. I knew every step, every hand hold. I knew where every door was hidden in the smooth stone that circled the old winding stairs.
I soared by door after door, skirts flapping wildly behind me as I counted the exits for the one I needed. Beyond my target, the stairs continued down to a large open pit far below the Runturin. The Boy and I had only gone down that far once before, only to race back up at the smell of death and dying that lingered there.
That hollow cavern was six doors down, I needed the fifth door down. The kitchens. The Boy and I would usually only go to the third, to a small storage room that led to the main hall. Every other door was harder to conceal, or had been covered by something. Like the kitchen.
I knew where the door led, but I didn’t even know if it would open. The second I burst from the corridor this exit would no longer be a secret, but I didn’t have another choice.
I knew the second I passed the third door, my shoes sliding against the extra layers of dust that lined everything below that from ill use. I barely slid thanks to the new boots, the grip holding tight as I took the stairs two at a time.
With each step I swore I could hear his breath, that I could hear the agonizing pulse of a heart that was struggling to beat. With each step the heat that waved its way over my skin began to dull.
I moved faster, throwing the door to the kitchens open with such force it sent the table someone had placed on the other side over, and all the potatoes that were atop it rolling everywhere.
A woman shrieked, a boy swore, a dog barked wildly as I flung myself through the opening, heading right for Lari who was staring across the long worktable in horror.
“I need something for whips,” I demanded, slamming my hands onto the counter. Whoever had screamed before screamed even louder.
It was only then that I remembered my hands were covered with blood.
I should clean them, wipe them, do something to hide the red stains, but I couldn’t move, all of that burning heat in my face boiling over as it threatened to explode in other ways.
“Please,” I whispered. “He’s going to die.”
Lari looked up from the blood, her eyes wide, those full lips pinched. “The Boy?”
I nodded, that burning, sparkling warmth growing at the thought of him on my bed alone, of all of that blood. The heat continued to flare, the sensation moving right to my hands. The bracelet burned, my skin beginning to glow as waves of heat continued to fan over my body.
Of course, now all that magic would flare to life, now when it would only cause more chaos when I had only minutes.
“Please, I have to hurry,” I rasped, tucking my hands behind my skirts. “I need something for whips.”
“Adain,” Lari’s eyes didn’t deviate an inch from mine as she called out, the word meaning nothing.
“I need something for whippings.” I was still trying to hide my hands, something I was sure was going to be impossible soon with how everything was boiling.
I couldn’t stay there, and not only because there was a high chance I would explode something soon. Why did it wait for now to ignite?
“Don’t fret, child. Adain will help.” Lari’s pinched face was still staring as she knocked herself to the side and the cloaked woman who was rushing through the kitchen toward me.
My mother’s catalyst.
What was she doing here?
She wasn’t in her red robes, she was instead draped in a tattered gray wool cape, the frayed edges and seams pulled and gaping. She looked more like the beggars I had seen in the alleys of Turin on the few times I had been allowed out of the Runturin. I only recognized her because of the deep auburn color of her hair, because of the way the hood was pulled low over one side of her face.
“You best be going, Princess,” Lari said, pulling me from staring at the woman who was now staring back with all the worry I felt. “You don’t want the snakes to find you gone.”
“The snakes?” I questioned, even though I knew what she was talking about, having seen the white creatures wriggle on the black clad soldiers' tunics. But how did she know about them? I had never seen them before, and she seemed almost scared to even say their name.
I didn’t get to ask, my mother’s Catalyst, Adain, was pulling me toward the still open doorway to the passageway, her aged and lined face near a panic. Lari gave me one look, the fear there lined with something I didn’t recognize before I was fleeing back up the stairs.
“Clean that up, lad, cover the door!” Lari yelled, the door to the kitchens below shutting us into the dark.
Except it was not dark.
My hands were still glowing, the bright white light emanating not only from my palms, but from me. Every inch of my skin was glowing, the golden light rippling over the ebony stone in streaks of blazing light that made everything sparkle.
Adain froze, her foot on the step above as she turned to me, her bright green eye wide. I could only stare.
Would she tell my mother? Did I want her to tell my mother? I had risked showing her that power when I fought in the Pankreatin, but after seeing her face, after Batian’s reaction… it didn’t seem right.
“The Boy,” the words were a sob. “We have to hurry.”
Those wide eyes fixed on me for only a moment before she turned and continued to run up the spiral stairs, our feet slamming against stone with the same force of my heart against my chest.
The smell of blood flooded my senses the second we emerged back in my rooms. Thankfully the snakes, as Lari had called them, weren’t there. It didn’t appear anyone else was either. The sound of labored breathing and pained moans were silenced, it was only the faint sound of water from the other room.
“No!” I practically screamed, pushing past Adain to my rooms, to the Boy who lay motionless in his own dark blood.
“No!” Tears exploded from me, the heat and panic pushing against my skin as I raced to him, hands shaking as I turned him over.
“No! No!” The words kept exploding, the world kept shifting. I couldn’t get enough air. I wasn’t even sure air existed, even if I could breathe it in it was exploding through the painful hole that was ripping open in my chest.
“No!” The sobbed sound ripped out of that hole, Adain’s hands wrapping around mine as she got my attention, she gestured to him and to me before knocking her head toward the bathing chamber where water was still running into the porcelain tub.
“He’s gone.” She shook her head wildly in answer.
‘No.’ I looked at her in disbelief before she knocked her head again, gesturing for me to pick up his feet.
“He’s alive?” I whispered even as a sharp pain in my chest attempted to rip its way through me.
She nodded to me and then to his feet, her need clear. I did as she asked, his body limp and lifeless as we lifted him.
I tried not to think about how he didn’t stir, about how he made no noise as we carried him, even though my soul was trying to rip me in two, the burning heat still threatening to explode. I tried to lock it all away, lock away the pain that was everywhere.
He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be.
Adain kept walking, the Boy’s body sagging between us as we raced toward the tub that was near to overflowing.
“Should we take off–?” She cut off my sobbed question with a nod, gesturing again toward the tub.
Water splashed over the edge as we lowered him in, the tepid water soaking the front of my dress and shoes. He lay in there as though there was no life in him, his body limp and frail, his cloaked and covered face lolling over the side. I could only stand and cry, my heart exploding out of my chest as the water turned a color close to indigo. Everything in the world felt as though it was bleeding,
“Boy. Please be okay. Please…” I begged as Adain gasped and rushed into the other room.The Boy didn’t stir. Not that I would expect him to. It was just water. Water would not cure what my brother had ordered done to his back.
My brother.
The golden smiling prince.
The one person I thought would protect me. That cared for me.
He did this.
“Boy,” I sobbed, dropping to the side of the tub, reaching into the water that was barely above warm to grab his hand. “I’m so sorry. I never should have done that. Please come back. I didn’t even get to know your name. I… What can we do? What do we do?”
I yelled behind me as Adain rushed back into the room, book in hand. She held it out to me, the tiny volume open to the back pages. It took me only a second to recognize what she was holding. The Boy’s primer.
On one side was his stuttered writing, the careful words printed perfectly on the lines.
‘Is it so bad to love what you cannot have?’
On the other side, in a completely different script were written other words. Words I had never seen before. The looping handwriting was not his, the swirling letters and marks in a language I had never seen.
“What is this?” I asked, looking from the book to the Boy and back again. “What are you doing? We need to help him!”
Adain said nothing, just continued to shove the book with the confusing words before my face, gesturing from me, to the book, to her mouth.
“We need medicines! We need–” She cut off my sobs with the same gesture, her shaking hands holding the book only inches from my face.
“I don’t know what this says, I don’t know what you are asking.” I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t stop that hole in me from ripping open, all of the heat that was vibrating through my bones from exploding.
She made the motion again.
“I don’t know what you need. Ask me. Tell me. I know you can talk. He can talk... He...” Whatever I was about to say was cut off as she opened her mouth, revealing the hollow cavity and the stub of what remained of her tongue within. My stomach lurched as though it was trying to drop to my toes. Her tongue had been cut out. She wasn’t mute as I had thought, just as the Boy wasn’t mute. The Boy could talk, just as I was sure she had been able to before someone had cut out her tongue.
My stomach flipped, and again she gestured.
“You need me to say it?” I whispered through tears, finally piecing it together as she nodded, shoving the book against my chest.
“I don’t know what this says.” Not that it mattered. “How is this going to help him?”
She gestured again and, leaving the book in my hands as she removed his tunic, careful to leave the shroud over his face.
The heavy leathers fell off him as though they were made of paper, the leather armor thrown to the floor in ribbons, leaving him in what was left of a shirt. The stained fabric shifted and moved in the water, the large gashes revealing a strong chest lined with muscles and scars.
So many scars.
The marks of so many beatings, so many whippings.
My throat knotted at the long lines of white, the lifted skin crisscrossed everywhere, accented by two long angry lines of red that ran straight down his neck, right from those scars from his ears.
Adain made a sound like a moan, pulling my focus as she nodded frantically to the book. To the words that meant nothing to me.
But clearly meant everything to her.
My throat was dry as I stared at the beautiful script, the words gibberish as I tried to move my mind around them.
“Ash… ashanthy.” I stumbled around the word, the letters feeling heavy and warm in my mouth. “Bedayn. Grynolin. Peran–Pertanth.”
They were nonsense, utter nonsense. But as I said them, that feeling of starlight on my skin turned into something different. Something powerful.
The heat was wings against falling stars, it was the sensation of wind on a winter morning, catching fire in the clouds. I was sure I was glowing as I looked up from the page to Adain, who knelt by the tub with the Boy's head in her hands, his body floating in water that was no longer red.
It was gold.
A gold brighter and more beautiful than even what Batian could create. A gold that glowed and shimmered over everything. Just as he was glowing.
Just as I was.
Adain stared at me, something close to knowing in her eyes.
As though she was seeing me for the first time, and knew who I was.