Chapter 12 #4
I give his chest a shove. I could have endured them, maybe, one at a time. Or maybe not, given that I was just about to let Amriel lay me out on this desk and take what he liked from me.
But if Amriel is the Shadow, and the Shadow is Amriel, if everything whirling beneath that indigo skin springs from this man’s heart, if those are his secret wishes, then…
I scramble back, sliding off the far side of the desk. I hit the floor too hard, sending a jolt up my shins. The moment our connection breaks, Amriel recoils with a hiss.
I wince, can almost feel his pain slamming back into me, too. But I have to get away. The Shadow’s obsession, Amriel’s desire, the two of them together, one soul split across two separate bodies—it’s too much. Too much for me to withstand.
A trill of hysterical laughter flies from my mouth.
“What,” Amriel says through gritted teeth, “is so funny?”
I…oh, goddess. I just surrendered to him. Betrayed everything I stand for. Again.
I turn a meaningless circle, then reach for my pendant.
What am I even doing? All this time, I’ve been holed up in this castle, thinking myself safe, watching the hourglass from my window.
When really, it’s the countdown in here I should fear.
Because something is chasing me in Velindra, nipping at my heels even now.
Something I can never come back from, something I clearly have no hope of resisting.
“I have to go.”
“What?” he says.
But I’m already moving, crossing the floor, pulling open the door before he can stop me.
“Sariah!”
I don’t slow. I flee from the sound of my own name, so gruff and desperate in his mouth. My feet descend the stairs with such haste that my toes barely touch the stone.
Heavy steps echo behind me, but I fly faster, away, away, away from the fae king and his mind-melting touch, away from the madness he brings, away from temptation and sin and all the things I just gave myself over to without a second thought.
I can’t let him touch me. Not ever again.
My gown billows out behind me as I careen through the stairwell. Down a flight of steps. Another. At the bottom, I break into a sprint, my injured leg shouting a protest, which I ignore.
I need out. Back to the Wildwood. Because for all that the forest threatens my life, this castle threatens my mortal soul.
I reach my room and hurtle across the threshold, slamming the door and twirling the lock. A moment later, Amriel’s fists pound against the wood. He jiggles the handle, but the latch holds.
“What’re you doing?” he demands. “Where’re you going?”
I don’t answer. I tear off my dressing gown, tossing it somewhere unimportant, then yank open the drawers of my dresser. A leather outfit fills my hands, the fabric supple. I pull the pants on, then the shirt, with its crisscross laces up the front.
The leather hugs me in all the wrong ways, but I no longer care how ridiculous I look. How immoral. I’m going to go back into that horrible maze. Break that stupid hourglass and escape through the Aethrolian door, because if I stay here… If I stay here…
I bite my lip, cutting off the thought. Amriel’s pounding continues, rattling the door in its frame, now. “What’re you doing? You’re not going into the Wildwood, are you?”
“Yes!” I shriek. “Which you should be happy about! That’s what you wanted!”
His pounding intensifies. Any second now, he’ll kick down the door, so I dive for the satchel by my bedside.
I don’t want to take it this time. The bag might throw off my balance, so I dump its contents onto the bed, jamming the half-empty vial into my pocket and hurriedly fastening the orb bracelet to my wrist. Its crystal flares to life, showing me a view of the hourglass, cold and silent and nearly full of sand.
“Sariah! Don’t you dare. Not now. Not when—”
“When what!” I shout back. “When what?”
Because I trust that he won’t say it, no matter how drunk he is.
And he doesn’t. He just throws his whole body against the door this time, trying to take it off its hinges.
I have only seconds. I dart to the closet and jam my feet into a pair of black boots, then whisk open another drawer to withdraw a pair of fingerless leather gloves. I tug them on and circle back to the satchel for the last remaining item. The gyre.
The tips of my fingers close around it. I think of the forest, the hourglass. Maybe I can skip straight to the end of the labyrinth. Break the curse, then get back to Aethrolia before the sun comes up.
The gyre hums in my palm. Light flares, and my hope flares along with it.
The lock splinters, the door flying open, cracking against the wall. Amriel barrels into the room, so big and beautiful and angry that I almost falter. He stomps toward me, his face twisted, hands outstretched—
But the gyre’s whine fills the room, reality bursting at the seams. Amriel’s straining fingers pass through me like I don’t exist, and maybe I don’t anymore, because I’m wheeling through nothing, swallowed by emptiness as I cartwheel through the backside of existence.
Thud.
My spine slams into solid ground, somewhere dark and damp and chilly. A root jabs into my hip, and I roll aside to relieve the pain. Dirt cradles my back as I stare up through a hole in the ground.
“Damn,” I mutter. I haven’t come out at the end of the maze at all, only returned to the same hollow I escaped from. I recognize the trees overhead, their glowing violet leaves.
Apparently, I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. The way Alanna intended.
Grumbling, I tuck the gyre into a pocket, then clamber up out of the hole. And proceed to stare skyward, my neck craned, my mouth falling open. If I thought the Wildwood was beautiful during the day, at night, it steals my breath completely.
Violet light pours down from the canopy, a waterfall of color that drenches the forest floor. The mossy ground glows, too, shimmery and green, while magenta sparkles drift past, as bright and enticing as garnets. I spin around, taking it all in, and—
Immediately stumble backward, my foot narrowly missing the hole. My hand flies to my sternum and presses against my racing heart.
The Shadow—or Amriel, or whoever he is—crouches a few feet away, clad in nothing but linen pants. He glows, a splash of purple and blue in this otherworldly palette. Even the mark I carved into his shoulder gleams with some internal light.
His sheathed dagger lies on the moss before him, and he nudges it in my direction with a flex of his claws.
“Hello, Princess,” he says with a smile. “I’ve been waiting for you.”