Chapter 27
By the end of the night, Horia led Anelize out of the infirmary to her small modest room that consisted of a single window, one small bed tucked in the corner and a table. Barely enough room to walk about between the furniture and the door.
With a yawn, the physician bid her farewell before closing the door behind her.
Try as she did, sleep didn’t come for her as she laid there, staring up at the wall. Lost to thoughts of her sister, the Loom, the mention of the queen and prince’s murders expertly fabricated to place blame upon the Vedrans. At the very least, she knew that to be true in Castian’s case.
But it was Esna’s words in the hothouse that had remained with her.
What were they planning?
She tossed and turned in bed until she grew frustrated. Shoving the blankets aside, she took to pacing the small length of the room before looking out the window. There wasn’t a sliver of light in sight, the blanket of darkness covering the courtyard and land beyond the castle walls.
With a sigh, she turned around to resume pacing until her eyes landed on a small letter opener buried beneath an old letter the last assistant must have left behind in her hurry to leave the castle.
Picking it up, Anelize walked over to the door and ensured the lock was in place before plopping back down onto the bed.
Rolling up the sleeve of her nightgown, she drew a small line on the upper part of her arm where no one would notice. A bead of red pooled out of the cut and power hummed through her, coaxed awake by her conjuring.
Closing her eyes, she cast out her power as far is it could go.
There were two heartbeats down the hall to the left of her door, slowly moving further away.
Guards. The lights emanating from them dull and quickly forgotten.
She stretched it out further, seeking through the darkness to find one that was familiar.
Searching for the one that she knew better than any other.
When she didn’t find it, Anelize nearly gave up when a quick heartbeat suddenly caught her attention as a hue of color rushed down the hall, approaching her door.
Erratic and uncertain, spiked with a healthy dose of adrenaline.
There was only one person she met these past two days who could have that sort of unsteady balance in his heartbeat.
Horia.
Opening her eyes, Anelize stood and quickly pulled on her clothes before footsteps rushed past her door and continued further down the hall.
As she continued conjuring, she managed to keep track of the erratic heartbeat as she slowly eased the door open and peered into the hall.
She managed to steal a single glance of Horia before he rounded the corner.
Carefully, she stepped into the hall and made to follow him by keeping her pace quick enough to not draw any attention to herself should she run into a guard at this hour. If the physician was out, there was no reason why she shouldn’t be as his devoted assistant. Right?
Following the sound of his heart, Anelize managed to spot Horia disappearing down a spiraling set of stairs that led to a single opened archway.
Into the ward at the back of the castle’s main entrance, she realized.
It was relatively empty with no sign of Watchmen walking along the fortified walls that surrounded the castle.
Nothing save for a small structure with a set of lancet windows to her left…
and a tower. The same tower where Horia was currently slipping into in his haste, consumed by the vast darkness beyond.
Mindful of any eyes that may be watching her, she hurried across the yard and stood before the looming archway where a set of stairs that led up and down to other levels. Anelize listened to his heart as it sounded mere moments away from stuttering to a stop from somewhere below.
As she descended the steps, she couldn’t help but share the same sentiment as she gradually left behind the light of the moon and followed him down.
Down she went, until she wondered if she would reach the very end of the earth before finding the physician again.
Mercifully, there was a single torch lit at the bottom of the stairs, and it was the only one she noted with dread sinking in her stomach.
It’s flickering flame doing little to truly illuminate the long corridor before her lined with heavy oak doors reinforced with iron on either side.
Anelize slowly made her way into the corridor, aware of every little sound she could hear in the darkness around her.
Eventually, she noticed there was a single door opened at the end of the corridor where Horia’s voice came on an echo to her.
“Come, come. We must make haste. I promise you no harm will befall you. Don’t you wish to see your family again? ”
“My family?” a voice croaked moments later. The person who spoke sounded too tired, weak.
The dread Anelize felt only amplified. It was entirely too dark for her to see exactly where Horia had led her, and the doors surrounding the corridor held no bars or windows to see inside.
To gauge what sort of horrors she’d unknowingly wandered into.
The sound of footsteps descending the stairs behind her made the hair on her arms stand on end as her head whipped back toward the entrance. As the sound of Horia’s voice grew louder, more insistent, so did the footsteps.
Finding very few options, Anelize tried one of the doors around her until by sheer luck one of them had been left ajar. She managed to slip inside and ease the door closed save for a small sliver just in time before the sound of footsteps came to a halt.
Then she heard the stern bellow of a Watchman say, “I know you’re here. Come out before I gut you.”
The breath stilled in her lungs. Her heart refused to beat, her body locking up and deeming itself utterly useless at her panic of being discovered.
“Did you hear me?” the Watchman barked louder this time.
She had to think. If she said she was following Horia, would he willingly accept her feeble lie? Deem that she was merely curious to follow in the great royal physician’s footsteps one day? Even she thought such an excuse was laughable.
She would be captured and killed within mere moments, and it would have all been for nothing—
“Ah, it’s you,” Horia said, sounding closer this time as if he had finally stepped out of the room he’d been in. “Perhaps you could help me get the prisoner out of this dank cell where he may get proper rest.”
A cell.
Prisoner.
These were cells.
Anelize forced herself to calm her breathing with the knowledge that this was the place where they kept prisoners.
“Physician. Fancy seeing you here amongst the rest of these traitors. I wage Councilman Santir sent you again.” The Watchman snickered, the sound grating on her ears as she peered through the sliver in the door where faint light granted her the opportunity to see into the corridor.
The sound of footsteps and the rattling of chains scuffling across the limestone floors greeted her before a too-thin man wearing tattered, soiled clothes stepped into her line of vision.
A long beard took up much of his hollow face, and his eyes were lacking any sort of light.
It was nothing short of a miracle that he was standing, let alone walking.
The man begged in his feeble voice. “Please. My family. You said you would take me to see my family.”
“Of course I will,” Horia eased out, much like a parent would to their child. “Come now.”
Anelize held her breath as Horia and the prisoner were led past the doorway by the Watchman.
Their ascent up the stairs agonizingly slow as the prisoner struggled to move any faster.
Anelize only allowed herself to move when she sensed that Horia was no longer nearby, his heart fading into the night.
Finally feeling safe enough to breathe, Anelize released an exhale.
“Is someone there?” came from somewhere behind her. Anelize tensed before slowly turning. Nothingness. With the door closed everything was doused in pitch black. The voice—a woman’s voice—called again, “Is someone there?”
That was when she heard the rattling of chains dancing and chiming from every direction all at once. As if awakened by her presence.
Anelize swallowed thickly. “Hello?”
“Is someone there?” the woman repeated, the same pitch as before. As if mindlessly repeating the words.
“I’m here. Where are you?” Anelize asked as she stepped farther into the room. Her heart lodged tightly in her throat.
This time, when the woman repeated the words, it came from somewhere to her right. Anelize turned to peer into the darkness, waiting to see who laid beyond.
A pale hand with long cracked fingernails and boney fingers shot toward her face, and she gasped, stumbling away until her back hit the stone wall behind her.
The sound of something clashing with metal rang out in a thunderous wave as she stared wide eyed at the woman standing behind the bars of a cell.
Her outstretched hand swiping the air where she’d been standing, her eyes wild and desperate as she stared straight ahead through the long strands of her hair covering her gaunt face.
“Is someone there, is someone there, is someone there?” The woman sobbed as she continued swiping at the air where Anelize had been standing. Her eyes frantically searching.
“She cannot see. Nor will she stop that incessant yammering,” another voice drawled, making her flinch as she looked to her right where a man with shorn hair was sitting along the bars, cross-legged and hunched forward.
His own eyes lifeless as they stared at her.
Not in desperation, but out of curiosity.
A predator assessing his prey. He looked no better than the woman, but at the very least, he sounded coherent enough to form other words.
“She does this every time we have a visitor.” The man smiled, granting her a view of his yellowed teeth beyond his cracked lips. “But you are new, aren’t you?”
The woman eventually settled only enough for her to drop her hand and disappear back into the shadows, her voice saying those words repeatedly in a soft melody.
“Are you…Vedrans?”
“Vedrans.” The man took in a sharp breath before he released a haunting cackling laugh, “Yes, that’s right. We are Vedrans. Mighty, powerful, fearsome Vedrans. No one is coming. No one will remember. But we will remember. We will never forget.”
Between the man’s laughter and the woman’s melody, they started a dissonance throughout the cells that jarred her enough to get back to her feet. She turned toward the door, needing to get out of this place. Get away from the horrors in this cell as bile rose up her throat.
That was when she heard it. The heartbeat she knew better than anyone else’s. The one she would hear even in her dreams.
Anelize stopped short and turned back toward the cells. Her hands trembled as she reached them out before her. Her breaths sawed through her lips as she followed the sound of that heartbeat. So close yet so far for her to reach.
“Enid?” Anelize whispered into the darkness.
When her hands brushed over the cold bite of the metal bars, she flinched.
Chains rattled again, and she waited. Certain that the faint warm glow of golden light, like the sun, belonged to her sister.
There was no one else like her. Her voice shook as she said again, “Enid.”
Was she hurt or asleep? Why wasn’t she answering?
“Anya?” When a soft, delicate sound rasped her name, Anelize very nearly released a sob of sheer, knee buckling relief. The tears that flooded her eyes were instant and all too consuming for her to try to stop them. “Is that truly you? Am I dreaming?”
“Yes,” she breathed out. “It’s me.”
Chains rattled again, dragging over stone slowly, so slowly it made every passing second sheer agony. It was so dark she could hardly see her own hands as she stretched them between the bars. Only serving as a reminder of the reality she would soon face if this damn curse wasn’t broken soon.
“Am I dreaming?” Enid asked once more, and for a moment Anelize panicked that she would be just as far gone as the Vedran woman behind her. When she spoke again, tears rolled down her cheeks. “Anya.”
The feel of something soft touching her fingertips made her tense until she gently closed her fingers around what she realized was hair.
Golden hair in thick curls. Anelize whimpered as she brushed her fingers through her sister’s hair before finding her face.
Feeling her cheek, running her thumb over it, as she brushed away cold wet tears.
She was so cold she could have been a corpse.
“Oh, Enid.” Anelize’s tears were unending streams from her horror and sadness.
“Anya…” Enid breathed as she stepped closer, granting her a faint glimpse of her round brown eyes through the bars of her cell. And despite the pain and suffering she had been forced to endure all these weeks, Enid’s smile was unrestrained. “I knew you’d come. I always knew.”