Chapter 39
thirty-nine
I turned around with my breath held, thinking it would be a guard, a soldier coming to check on me or something—but it wasn’t.
Instead, it was a man dressed in dark blue velvets underneath his cloak threaded with the same gold color as his hair, and I had never seen him before, but he was looking at me like he knew exactly who I was.
We both froze in place, and for a moment, neither breathed nor blinked. Our eyes locked, his wide and golden, surprised, yet at the same time he looked like a man who knew exactly what the hell he was doing.
The words were at the tip of my tongue— who are you?
I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t. Because the man moved, and when he did, the light of a torch that must have been mounted near the bars of this cell fell on his side and I saw him better—perfect face, flawless skin, and the edge of a golden mask just peeking out of the large pocket of his coat.
I saw the golden silk ties, and I was picked up and thrust back in time, somewhere in a tunnel underground, looking at two men who had come to stop me from going to save the prince.
Those men had worn that same mask, too. Those men who’d attacked us, and Rune had killed one, had let the other go.
Well, by the looks of it, he was here now, and his hand was glowing with golden light as he touched the lock of the barred door.
In his other hand was a knife. A small knife with a curved blade, one I’d seen before. One I’d hidden underneath the pillow of the bed I slept in.
My heart stopped beating for a moment, but my mind was calm.
I was not afraid, which surprised me at first, but…
My instincts knew better. They always did. They felt this man and his energy, and they remembered the woman in the Gallery of Time who’d come for me with her knife. Who’d put that knife in my hand and ran away.
The lock clicked. The light of the man’s hand faded. He stepped aside, never looking away from me, and he pulled the door open.
Smiled.
I can’t say that I was surprised, but I wasn’t sure why. My instincts were calm, and I had this feeling that he was going to say something, talk to me, explain . His mouth opened, and I waited, my whole attention hanging on the words that were going to leave his lips.
“You—”
That’s all the man said before he began to choke on thin air.
I had no idea what the hell was happening, but part of me thought he might be kidding —that’s how absurd the entire moment was.
My feet were glued to the floor, and a heartbeat later, the bright light came from somewhere beyond the wall of the cell, stretching like ribbons of gold, wrapping around the man’s shoulders, his neck.
A blink, and they were gone.
Another, and Lyall stepped into the light of the torches, hand raised, eyes on the back of the man’s head as he fell to his knees first, then hit the floor on his side.
He didn’t move again.
A miracle I hadn’t collapsed.
My palms were a bloody mess, the energy shooting fireworks under my skin making my knees tremble. My instincts reacted— now, they finally did.
Now, when Lyall with three guards at his back came closer to the open door of the jail cell, they had me ready to start running at any second.
“Nilah, are you okay?”
Lyall.
It was Lyall.
And the guards were already by the body of the man with the mask in his pocket—the mask that had fallen off him and on the stone floor, together with the knife. The man who was very much dead .
They carried him away as if he weighed nothing, and Lyall didn’t even turn to look—he was focused on me. His golden eyes were wide, his chest was moving up and down fast, and his hand, when he reached it out for me, was shaking.
I saw all of this, clearly, yet the urge to move back was twice as strong .
I shook my head, unable to speak yet.
“I’m so, so sorry, Nilah. They didn’t know who you were.
They thought you were trying to attack so they brought you here.
I thought you were in your room, I swear.
” He was inside now, coming closer, looking more and more panicked by the minute.
“I went to talk to you, see how you were, and that’s when I realized what had happened.
Please— please forgive me. It was so reckless of me to not come after you.
” With a hand to his heart, he bowed his head deeply.
Something inside me roared in protest, and I couldn’t even tell you where it was coming from.
“I’m okay,” I said, and my voice sounded so strange. So different.
As if these moments or hours or however long I’d spent in this cell had changed me. As if that pain that had sliced me open without spilling a drop of my blood had replaced me with someone else.
No matter, I told myself. Rune was alive.
I turned to look outside at the night sky beyond those bars once more, just to confirm that the bird had faded, and he had. But he’d also been there. Rune had sent him for me, to tell me he was alive.
That was the only thing that mattered right now.
“Are you sure? Did they hurt you? Tell me if they did—tell me. I’m going to make sure every man who laid a hand on you regrets it,” Lyall said, and his every word rang true. He sounded not just panicked now but pissed off.
The question of whether I believed him or not was irrelevant.
“I’m fine, Lyall. As you can see—I’m fine.” And he was, too. “That man—who was he?”
“Thank the stars,” he whispered, closing his eyes for a moment, and then he moved.
One second he was in front of me, and the next he had his arms around me, and he was pulling me to his chest in a hug.
Fuck, it felt so awkward I’d have jumped out of my skin if I could. Hugging him back was out of the question—it was all I could do not to push him off me. Good thing he moved back himself a second later, though he kept his hands on my shoulders as he analyzed me.
“The man, Lyall. The man you just killed,” I said, casually moving to the side to point at the door of the cell.
Lyall looked back, too, eyes blinking, like he was just waking up from sleep.
“The man,” he repeated, slowly moving back, just outside the cell. “Yes, the man.” And his eyes were on the mask.
They were on the knife that had fallen from his hand and to the floor. He slowly leaned down to pick it up, then turned toward me again as he inspected it. As he reached for the pocket of his red velvet pants and pulled something out—another identical knife.
My heart stopped. I stood still, looked at his face, waiting for his eyes to lock on mine…
“It was him, Nilah. One of the men who poisoned me. Who tried to kill me. He is the last one—and I thank the stars again that I got here in time.” He came closer, those eyes so soft, so angry at the same time.
“I know they threatened you before. I found this in your room.” He held up the knife he’d had in his pocket.
I swallowed hard but made no sound. “You should have told me, Nilah. You should have told me they came after you. I’d have kept you by my side every second. ”
White noise in my ears.
He thought the woman who gave me that knife had attacked me.
He thought the man who broke that lock had come to kill me, and…he hadn’t.
My eyes closed and his face was there in the very center. He hadn’t looked like he was here to attack me. He’d smiled. He’d been about to speak.
“I’m so glad I got here in time,” Lyall was whispering, shaking his head as he looked at the knives in his hands. So clearly in distress. Nervous. Pissed off.
Too clearly, perhaps?
For the life of me I couldn’t bring myself to either believe his reaction was completely genuine or that he was faking it.
It doesn’t matter, I reminded myself. “This day,” I said, shaking my head, rubbing my eyes. “This whole day, Lyall, was wrong. Rune was never supposed to be in the Hollow.”
Suddenly he was in front of me again, the knives gone, probably in his pocket.
“He wasn’t,” he said. “I…I keep thinking…I should have never sent him down there—never. Just that there was nobody else I could trust, Nilah. I’ll never forgive myself. He was my friend. I knew him a lifetime. I’ll never forgive myself for sending him down there.”
Tears in his eyes.
I realized Lyall didn’t know that Rune was alive.
Well, fuck.
“I’m so sorry,” he said another three times, more like he was speaking to himself than me. He definitely didn’t know that Rune was still alive.
I looked out at the sky again for a moment, at a loss for what to do next .
“And I’m sorry that you were dragged down here in this hole—I will make it up to you, Nilah.
It’s over now.” He squeezed his eyes shut, and when he looked at me again, they were dry.
He looked…composed. “Everything is over. He was the last one. I no longer have to pretend to be dead. Everything can finally go back to normal.”
Normal, he said.
I moved without really realizing it, and I found myself in front of the barred opening, eyes searching the dark sky for the bird that I knew wouldn’t be there.
Other than some lights in the distance, I couldn’t really see anything from here, not even on which side of the palace we were.
If we were even in the palace still. Whoever had hit me on the back of my head, they’d done a very thorough job.
I’d passed out right away and I hadn’t heard or seen anything at all before I woke up.
So many things rushed through my mind at once, and I wasn’t certain about most of it, but I was very sure about one: I was not going to tell Lyall about Rune.
I was not going to mention the bird, simply because if Rune was capable of sending me that message, he’d have sent one to Lyall, too.
That he hadn’t could only mean that he didn’t want to.
And maybe I was just making this whole thing up. Maybe my instincts were off and maybe I’d felt too much in such a short time— maybe. But if Rune wanted Lyall to know, he’d find his way to him. He knew this palace. He would know how to find him at any time.