14. Sabine
Chapter 14
Sabine
C loudfox? I call out my window. Are you there?
I wait, tapping my toes anxiously, but there’s no answer.
Cloudfox! We made a deal! I need to know if you upheld your end. I’ve been thinking about your name. I’m getting close.
Again, no answer.
I turn away, cursing. The little troublemaker has been suspiciously absent since I sent her to steal the bottle of Basten’s memories from Iyre’s room. Either Iyre somehow captured her, which is doubtful since I was with Iyre all night in the hemlock grove. More likely, our fae bargain was just another trick.
Note to self—never trust a cloudfox.
“Dammit,” I murmur aloud.
I look up at the daytime moon . Basten, I’m coming.
He might not remember me. He might even hate me. Believe that I’m a traitor. But Rian is scheming some kind of twisted, elaborate punishment for what happened at the Midtane gathering. For all the times Basten rushed to my aide, now it’s my turn to save him.
It takes a few days, but finally, I get my chance.
As midday light streams through the windows, loud voices in the hall snap my attention to the door. Footsteps rush down the hall, skipping more than sprinting, along with the excited cries of a handful of maids.
I throw open the door, curious. “What’s happening?”
The guard posted there speaks to a maid whose face is as bright as a buttercup.
The maid cries, “Highness, we have blessed news! The king’s searchers have located the resting place of Immortal Thracia! A godkissed mystic revealed during a trance that the Goddess of Night slumbers in the westernmost Cratian Island. Soon, your father shall awaken her, and we will have another goddess amongst us!”
I grip the edge of the door to hide how this news affects me.
Already, Immortal Iyre walks amongst us, and look at all the trouble that has caused. She stole Basten’s memories. Destroyed happiness for both of us. Her awakening has sparked unease across two kingdoms.
And now there will be two woken fae?
What’s worse, Immortal Thracia’s affinity is healing. That might sound like a blessing, yet, in the last Return, she used that affinity to make her acolytes nearly invincible. If my father wakes Thracia with his godkiss, and she aids his army, then Volkany’s soldiers will be undefeatable.
Astagnon will be decimated.
Another maid rushes up. Bouncing with excitement, she spares a perfunctory bow for me. Then, she grabs the first maid’s hand. “King Rachillon has ordered a party tonight to celebrate the discovery of Thracia’s resting place!”
“Ooh!” The first maid claps excitedly.
I glance out the window. From the point of the Stormwatch Tower where my bedroom is located, I can look down into both the kitchen garden, to the right, and the entry court, to the left. Messengers pour out of the castle to spread the news. The kitchen garden buzzes with servants gathering marigolds for garlands while a goatherd leads a beautiful white goat toward the castle.
My stomach sours, thinking of The Sacrifice of the Golden Child, and that poor goat’s fate.
“We’ll dress you so beautifully, Highness,” the first maid says. “We can weave marigolds into your braid and fix your golden ear-tips to your ears?—”
“Right,” I hedge, thinking fast. For the past few days, I’ve always been closely watched. Expected to be in either my bedroom or dining at the head table with my father, Iyre, and the Blades.
This is the first time there’s been a…distraction.
I clear my throat. “The thing is, I’m not feeling well. Volkish food is a lot heavier than I’m used to.” I give a weak laugh as I press a hand to my belly. “That gravy last night got the better of me. The last thing I want is to be sick all over Immortal Thracia’s altar. I’d better spend the evening alone in my room. Please extend my apologies to my father.”
The second maid leans in with a knowing look and intimates, “That gravy always makes me sick, too.”
I paste on a smile until the moment I can close the door. As my smile instantly falls, I drag the desk chair over to hook under the doorknob .
My father made a mistake by draping my chambers in riches. Maybe in another life, I’d be charmed by the crystal wall sconces that paint the walls with bursts of light, or the gilded jewelry box, or the priceless books lined up on the mantel.
But I’m a girl who grew up sleeping in straw. Jewels only matter now for how much I could sell them to bribe my way to Astagnon.
To Basten.
I stuff handfuls of the jewels and a few other belongings into a satin handkerchief, then drop to hands and knees in front of the wardrobe.
Little mouse , I whisper. I need to get out of the castle unnoticed. Tonight. Once the party is in full swing. Didn’t you say there is a crawlspace between the floors?
Her nose pokes out, whiskers twitching. We mice use it as a passageway. I think it is large enough for a small human to fit.
Show me. I glance back at the door, beyond which comes the sound of more excited maids skipping downstairs.
The mouse leads me to the cold fireplace, where a metal grate is set into the floor with an ash box beneath for collecting ashes.
Lift the grate , the mouse commands. The boards are rotted out beneath it. See?
Sweating, I hook my fingers in the heavy grate and hoist it onto the rug. The sunken ash box is about two feet wide, two feet long, and nine inches deep. I plunge my hand into the downy ashes, coughing as they clot in the air, and feel for the back of the box.
Sure enough, the wooden board there is almost rotted out. All it takes is a few hits with the metal ash scoop to break it the rest of the way.
And that’s it. My path to freedom.
I stare into that darkness with a brick sitting in my stomach. In a way that defies logic, I don’t want to leave. I want to give my father a chance. Rachillon has shown me nothing but generosity since I arrived at Drahallen Hall. Even bringing me here against my will could be considered a form of kindness: Returning me to the home—the life—and the family that should have been my birthright.
Is it madness to let Basten drive me away from the only true family I have? Basten doesn’t even remember me.
But I remember him.
He is worth every ounce of my courage. If I have to become his sword and shield, without him even knowing who I am, then so be it—I’ll fight to be the one who saves him.
I’m fourteen. Picking apples in the convent’s orchard, singing “The Poor Lady Who Lived in a Pot.” Sister Rose passes through, hunting for morels for supper, and stops to rest at an apple tree. Plucking one of the fruits, she bites it mockingly and says, “Poor Lady in a Pot? Why, that might as well have been written about yourself. Poor Lady Sabine has never had a home, have you? You’d probably be grateful for a tin pot to call your own.”
I fall silent as I grab apples off the branch.
“No home,” she continues. “No mother. A father who’ll sell her to the highest bidder the moment she’s of age. I do wonder what depressing ditty the school children will sing about you years from now. ”
Sister Rose chuckles as she throws the apple core against the back of my head.
My muscles tense.
I tell myself to hold my tongue. I still have welts on my back from the last beating.
But when the apple tree Sister Rose stands under suddenly drops a branch, crashing down right on her head and sending her to the infirmary for a week?
Then, I smile.
That night, I impatiently wait until the maids bring me supper in my room, then for the sounds of the party in the Hall of Vale below to reach a fever pitch, when I’m certain everyone is sloshed and thinking of anything but me.
I shrug out of my robe and fold it on the bedspread. My nightdress hangs loose around my knees, letting the chill kiss my bare ankles. My preference wouldn’t be escaping in only a shift, but from what I can tell of the crawlspace, any beads or lace on a gown would snag immediately. Not to mention, whatever I wear will get covered in ashes.
I drop my bundle on the hearth—a bedsheet containing a dress to change into, a pair of shoes, and all the jewels from the gilded jewelry box.
As I lay flat on my stomach, the floorboards vibrate from the dancing below. A violinist strikes a high chord, making my stomach tighten.
Ready? The forest mouse pokes her nose up from the tin ash box, soft gray ashes covering her head until she sneezes.
Ready. I shove the bundle ahead of me into the crawlspace, then cast one final glance over my shoulder at my bedroom’s gothic elegance, with its towering arched windows overlooking the high Vallen Mountains, the sumptuous dark furnishings, the intricately carved wooden bed frame, all bathed in the soft glow of candlelight.
In another life, I could imagine feeling safe here, wrapped in the cool embrace of this wondrously strange place. The cold, dark stones call to me with the same pull as the eventide chants to the gods. Something about this castle, with its ethereal, dark beauty, whispers in an unlikely way of home .
Coming? The mouse asks insistently. The feast below is well underway—you must go now when no one will notice you leave!
I brace myself to crawl into the ash box, only to glance again at the door.
I’m sorry, Father. I’m not leaving because of you.
Hurry, mouse-talker! the mouse chides.
I lay on my belly and wriggle down into the ash box. It’s deeper than I expected, and my hands sink into soft ashes that clot at my nose like goose down, making me fight the urge to sneeze. It takes some contorting to crawl down into the rotted-out section.
Once I’ve fully wriggled into the crawlspace, I lie flat and squint as I take my bearings. The space is barely a foot high. Once, it was probably stuffed with straw for insulation, but that’s all long since disintegrated, and the space is empty now except for cobwebs. It’s dark except for weak lines of light that filter in from gaps in the floorboards overhead.
In that faint light, I see the forest mouse dart ahead.
“This is…substantially…easier…for you,” I groan as I scoot forward over rough-hewn boards that tear at my nightdress. Pushing the bundle ahead of me, I fight to crawl without collecting splinters in every inch o f my palms.
The boards groan beneath me as, inch by inch, I arduously follow the mouse’s path through the maze-like crawlspace.
My knowledge of Drahallen Hall’s layout is fuzzy. Judging by the quiet overhead, mixed with the occasional scent of perfumed linens, I assume we’re passing beneath more sleeping chambers. Below me are the muffled sounds of voices and clomps of shoes. The Hall of Vale is one floor down from my bedroom, but I can’t be sure of its exact location. The party’s music vibrates the floorboards, seemingly coming from all directions at once.
How much farther? I ask the mouse.
Not far now! she responds. A loose stone ahead gives way to the roof above the Twilight Garden. You’ll be able to climb down the gables.
I pass over a shed snake skin in the crawlspace and suppress a shiver. My ears are pricked for the slightest sound of danger. For the music to stop. Boots stomping down the hallway over my head. The guards to shout that I’ve gone missing.
I have to wonder: Have I completely lost my mind? Once I reach the Twilight Garden, where will I go? All I can think is to run to the stables. Sneak an apple to one of the horses and beg it to help me.
The same plan that worked for my mother twenty-two years ago.
My heart clenches with a punishing wish to see Myst again. It’s hard to believe my brave girl was once a carriage horse in this very castle’s stable. She became so much more, first to my mother and then to me.
My best—my only—friend for years.
Until I met Basten .
My chest tightens with longing. Against all odds, we found each other at our lowest. Made our own fae tale come true. Only, the fae had nothing to do with it. It was our own doing—our messy, imperfect human love.
And I will not let Rian hurt him.
Somewhere across the seven kingdoms, there must be a godkissed healer who can mend fractured minds. Or a potion powerful enough to revive lost memories…
My nightdress snags on a nail, and I give it a sharp tug, but it holds fast.
Grimacing, I tug harder. The movement makes the boards creak beneath me. I can hear the party more clearly here, the sound of laughter filtering up from the floorboards.
What time is it? Midnight? The festivities will go on until dawn if I’m lucky. In my mind’s eyes, I imagine dancing couples circling an altar dripping with riches that will only rot and waste away in a sleeping goddess’s honor.
I pull harder on my nightdress, muttering a curse, but the fabric lodges deeper onto the nail.
“By the gods!” I kick my bare foot against the nearest joist, and as the fabric finally rips free, the joist creaks.
The boards beneath me buckle?—
—and I don’t have time to grab something to hold onto.
With one ear-splitting crack, the floorboards break.
The mouse was right that the crawlspace could fit a person’s size.
But not weight.
Mouse-talker! The forest mouse sprints back toward me, tiny paw outstretched as though somehow she could stop the inevitable from happening.
It’s too late .
I get one final glimpse at her black-bead eyes filled with fear before I feel the ground fall out from under me.