33. So much for my sanctuary #3
None of it was his fault—not what had happened, or the cruel memories of a traumatized young woman coming up for a breath of air. Not why those events had happened either, even though I blamed him at the time. His absence wasn’t his fault, but my heart begged to differ.
“I have to go,” I said weakly.
Jasper dropped my hand and nodded. “Don’t let them get to you, Nor.”
The hallway was quiet as I hurried out into it, and every ounce of air came rushing out of my lungs when I was a few paces away from my door.
This place was going to kill me, one way or another.
I just hadn’t imagined it might happen that day.
Corridor after corridor flew by me as I rushed through the Keep, and I couldn’t shake the feeling it was unusually deserted. Eerily so.
A couple of sentries standing at their post tipped their heads at me when I hustled past them, and I earned a highly puzzled look from a maid tending to an overflowing vase in the atrium.
“Do you know where everyone is?” I stopped to ask her. “Did something happen?”
She winced and shook her head before she opened her mouth and pointed inside.
No tongue.
Not the first worker I’d encountered who’d been maimed in the same horrific way, and probably not the last.
I thanked her anyway and fought my way through one of the enormous doors leading out to the grounds. Thick, charcoal-gray clouds hung low in the sky, and a nasty bite flowed through the wind, but that didn’t stop me from breaking out into a jog.
Nearly halfway to the barracks, an ear-splitting rumble of thunder gave way to the first drops of a quickly building storm, and I sprinted the rest of the way.
When I’d reached the building that was starting to feel like a second home, I resembled a drowned rat more than a woman.
Actually, maybe a cat was a better analogy, because I’d also developed the urge to claw a few eyes out in an alleyway scrap to settle the score with whoever had thought they could violate my things with no consequence.
That fiery urge was doused unceremoniously when I threw open the barracks door and found the hall room nearly empty.
Its lone occupant was Gallan, pacing back and forth across the space.
His attention snapped over, and I almost backed myself right out into the rain again because of the displeasure that settled over his features, making his moon-silver eyes blaze.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he seethed, all sharp, bared teeth, as he stalked over. “Council called the next event.”
A shiver trembled through me. “What? What do you mean? It’s only been a day—”
“The fuck if I know, princess!” Gallan’s hands went flying out to either side, and I flinched back from him. “All I do know is because you were off doing Mina only knows what, I had to be here, waiting for you, and do you know what that means?”
“No,” came out of me like a croak.
He scrubbed his palms over his face and took a deep breath.
A little more calmly, he said, “It means I couldn’t be at the arena with everyone else to influence who you’ll be matched up with today. So I’m going to suggest you say a few carefully worded prayers to whichever of those tarnished gold gods you pray to.”
“Matched?” I still hadn’t found my voice. “Do you mean…?”
“You’ll be sparring in a tournament. Light weaponry.
I know little more than that. The others left an hour ago, and I think the first matches will start soon.
” He let out another slow breath as I tried to digest those—only slightly terrifying—facts.
“Do I need to ask you again where the hell you were that was so much more important?”
It was my turn to sigh as I pushed some damp hair back from my face. “Someone vandalized my room. Not how I planned on starting my day.”
“They vandalized—” He fixed me with a confused look. “While you were in it?”
Oh, here we went.
“No, I wasn’t in it.” I sighed and added, “I haven’t been back in it since we went to Embervale.”
Gallan’s eyebrows climbed, and he drew his lips into a tight line.
“Well then, princess.” He let out a huff before a thought seemed to strike him, and he patted his pockets in a hurry. “Fuck. Where are—oh, thank Mina.”
Four thimble-sized vials came out, clutched in his hand.
“You need to drink these, fast,” he said without looking at me as he sorted through the murky contents, arranging them in a clearly particular order. “This one first.”
I took the vial with hesitation. “What is it?”
His moon-silver stare sliced me down in place. “Your only sliver of a chance of making it through this day somewhat intact, princess. Now, drink.”
“Aren’t you convincing,” I scoffed.
Somehow, each mixture tasted worse than the last, from stagnant swamp water to smoldering tar pits, a rotting carcass, and something awfully reminiscent of a dirty stable.
I shot each of the vials back in the order Gallan handed them to me.
I was still fighting back a gag after the last one when he extended his hand to me and said, “Let’s get you off to what hopefully won’t be your demise, shall we? I hope your time with the mage was well worth it.”