Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Ithought I would go out of my mind. Each day dragged by, slower than the last. Aside from the healer, no one else came to see me.
I slept. I woke. Nightmares edged my vision, keeping me tossing and turning.
The medicine only succeeded in making me feel dull, and there was nothing to do, the hours crawling by with endless boredom.
If I wanted a change, I had to take action.
On the third day, I gritted my teeth and forced myself out of bed. The rush of pain was sudden but ebbed into something manageable. My arm was still in a sling, and I moved gingerly, trying not to make it shake and throb. I made my way to the wall and pressed my hand against it.
The words rose unbidden. “Hollow King. Hollow King. Let me in.”
Nothing happened.
Cold stone frowned back at me, but the wall did not open. Either I had lost the way, or something had changed.
I knew what I had to do.
Regretting that I didn't have fresh clothes to change into or even shoes, I combed my fingers through my knotted hair, then gave up. My appearance was unacceptable, but I had to find the truth.
I walked down the Healing Hall, keeping my head down, and made my way outside. There was a garden to one side, a beautiful display of greenery, mostly herbs used for mixing potions and tinctures.
The scent of lotus floated to me, reminding me how long it had been since I’d taken time to walk through the lotus gardens. As of late, my world had grown smaller, with my single focus on finding answers to my questions.
Walking faster, I made my way up the hillside, back to the Sacred Palace, and most importantly, the catacombs.
It was only when I arrived, panting, in the shade of the great columns of the amphitheater that I remembered there were Wardens in the tunnels, hovering over the rift, keeping the demons out.
The full moon was four long weeks away. Were the weakened seals strong enough to hold back the demons?
I paused for a moment to look at the dance floor, and it seemed the stones were stained with blood, and the statues of the gods glared at me with reproach.
I had done this.
Turning my back on it, I slipped into the coolness of the tunnels and pressed one hand against the wall. Every few feet I halted and spoke the words like a mantra.
“Hollow King. Hollow King. Let me in.”
Each time there was nothing.
Nor did I see any guards. The Wardens were supposed to be down here, yet I passed no one at all.
It was cold, and the stones rose impenetrably around me, as though they frowned on my actions.
The longer I walked, the more my shoulder hurt.
My voice echoed, starting half a beat before I did.
Hollow King. Hollow King. As though someone walked just out of sight, mocking me.
I stopped. It stopped. I went on, and so did it.
A weariness came over me, and I sank down. Exhausted. Just for a moment, I promised myself, tilting my head back.
I closed my eyes.
Fingers wrapped around my ankle and yanked.
I went down hard on my back, my shoulder exploding with pain, the wound tearing open, a hot rush of blood soaking the bandage.
I screamed as my attacker crept up my body.
It climbed, hand over hand, hauling itself up the length of me while I kicked and thrashed, my heels skidding uselessly on wet stone.
The scent of rot filled the air, and my stomach roiled. Hot breath searched above me, and a tongue licked my face. Its saliva made my skin itch and burn. I screamed, struggling with everything I had to get the demon off me.
A weight settled on my chest, and claws raked down my sides, opening me up like the blade of a knife.
Agony rose, and I fought with everything I had, back in the nightmare, hearing the screams of my mother, my father, my brother, and my sister.
Holding onto the table leg, tears streaming down my cheeks, afraid to make a sound, afraid to give away my position. Afraid to fight back.
If I hadn’t been sure before, I was now. The Hollow Ones were gone. The demons had taken their place.
Leathery skin closed around my throat and squeezed with a terrible patience. My screams went hoarse, my lungs bucked. A great pressure built behind my eyes, and the tunnel narrowed to nothingness.
Then. Blackness.
When I came back to myself, I was lying on a bed. Light filled the room, and my pain was nothing more than a low throb. I wasn’t in the Healing Hall anymore, but in a smaller room, a window looking out over the mountains, mostly capturing the blue hues of the sky. I was back in the Sacred Palace.
Incense rose from a corner of the room, thin reeds smoking as they turned to ash.
I struggled to recall and could not. There was the tunnel, the thing on my chest, and then nothing.
I did not remember anyone finding me, fighting off the beast, or bringing me to safety.
Someone had, though; otherwise, I would not be here.
I shifted my gaze down. Bandages wrapped my ribs, my legs. My ankles, though, were tied to the bed. As were my wrists. My heart sank at the idea of what that might mean.
Then a figure shifted.
I took in the white garments of Sacred Mother, swathed in billowing clothes, wearing her veil. She remained in the shadows, and I hated that I couldn’t tell whether she watched me or not. My skin crawled as she stood, then lifted her veil.
“Gazelle.”
I hadn’t seen her since the dance, since the night I betrayed us all. I wondered if she was the one who’d given the order and encouraged the archer to shoot me down.
“Sacred Mother,” I managed, my voice nothing but a rasp.
My throat hurt, my chest was sore, and a dull pain spread behind my eyes.
“You’re more trouble than I anticipated.
” Sacred Mother spoke calmly, evenly, as though she were merely noting the weather.
“I was warned that you had delusions, but to sneak out of the healer’s care and haunt the tunnels, shouting for some long-dead king—what must be going on in your curious mind? ”
Hollow King. That’s what I’d been chanting. She must know, especially if she was the ancestor who’d made a deal with the demigods. Her question was rhetorical, and I had nothing to say, so I waited.
“If you want to live, from here on out, you’re going to do as I command. Are we clear?”
“What is it that you command?” I asked.
Her face changed, something hard passing over it, a coldness in her gaze that was ancient beyond recognition.
She moved closer and took a small bottle from the table beside the bed. Uncorking it, she held it to my lips. “Drink. Relieve your pain. In time, I will decide whether to speed your healing and allow you to dance once again for me.”
I turned my face away from the bottle, glaring at her instead.
“It was you, wasn’t it? Who allowed Rift Mother to be murdered, and the others.
One of the Vestals from the kitchens, the Warden that stood outside my door?
It was you who made a deal with the demigods, the Hollow Ones long ago, to trap them with a dance.
It was you who used our bloodline to secure immortality, wasn’t it?
To force us to dance and lose our souls, believing we were saving the city from the demons.
Did you kill my family as well? Save me for last so that I could be your puppet?
Don’t you get it, the bloodline is gone. I’m as good as dead. You’ve lost.”
The slap rang out, and it was a moment before pain flooded my cheek. She’d hit me hard enough to draw blood. My mouth hurt, but I couldn’t move as she leaned over me, those eyes all black, deadly and more frightening than any demon.
“And this is your delusion, isn’t it? See why you need help?
You’re going mad, lost in a world of your own making.
Someone like you could be dangerous, going out and spreading lies.
The murderer has been captured. He was executed.
Someone like you, a raving lunatic. As for demigods and Hollow Ones?
What interesting names you have for demons.
They are wicked, evil beings who deserve to be trapped beyond the rift in the hell they deserve.
Do not fall under their spell; do not persuade yourself that you are any better than us.
You are a dancer who lost her sanity. So lie back, drink, and stop letting your hallucinations get the better of you. ”
She forced the bottle between my lips. Against my will, I swallowed once, twice. That familiar numbness spread through me, and this time, it was welcome as it eased the pain. I lay back and closed my eyes.
Verena had told me the same thing, in much kinder words. The Keeper at the Hall of Records claimed that demigods and demons were the same. People said I’d been behaving strangely, disappearing at night.
I gave in to the sensation of drifting.
Had I dreamed it all? The halls of the Hollow King? The eerie piano music and rooms full of dead roses? The demigods who lay in slumber. They were legends, but their stories could be read in any book of fables—books I’d held in my own hands and read in the Hall of Records.
Had I tricked myself into a dream because I was afraid of losing my place as Lead Dancer? Had I brought all of this on myself and staged the sabotage?
Perhaps the Hollow King had never been real, and it was all in my head.