Prologue #2
With a constricted throat and hammering heart, I pull back the door and brace myself for what may lie before me.
Blissful emptiness.
Nothing but a red-rugged corridor filled with guttering braziers and stone walls.
I look left. Then right.
Do I dare attempt to explore the corridor? Do I risk the consequences of being caught before I even have a real chance at escape?
I weigh the risks against the reward. If I am caught, they will know I am awake and probably change both my routine and surveillance, leaving me most likely without another escape window.
I won’t bother wasting my time imagining whatever the hell else Casimir may force me to do.
The speculation isn’t worth the worry it’ll bring.
But if I can successfully search the surrounding corridors, I’ll be able to craft a much more informed plan.
Will be able to strategize better, knowing potential escape routes and how many, if any at all, guards are posted.
Still, I’ve only been awake a day. What if someone is scheduled to check on me in the middle of the night? What if guards begin their rounds soon? What if, what if, what if…
With a quiet sigh and a made decision, I latch the door back into place.
Tomorrow.
The next day the routine is exactly the same. Two sets of footsteps appear on the exact hour they did the previous day. A cold needle is poked into my arm. Buzzing magic coats my skin. And most importantly, I am left alone through the night.
This time when the moon peaks in the midnight sky and I creak the hinges back to reveal a yet again blissfully empty corridor, I venture beyond the threshold previously containing me.
I wander through the shadows, staying close to the stone walls as a means of precaution, and this time I do not shy away from the bold decisions, traversing to the end of the corridor to make a left then a right.
I am led into a sprawling room composed of nothing but floor-to-ceiling windows.
Shimmering rays of a pressing moon spill over onto the marble flooring.
The polished rock is ashen in color, vibrant blue veins extending like roots over the whole of it.
There is no furniture. No items cluttering the space.
There is only what lies beyond it.
The night sky is filled with more stars than imaginable.
As though the gods fisted handfuls of sand and tossed the grains upward, cementing them into the heavens themselves.
Paired with the bright silver moon, I am able to catch formed images of the garden lying beyond the glass walls.
It stuns me, the assortment of wildlife and vegetation.
With such little light it’s hard to be certain, but it almost seems like a garden oasis of sorts.
Which is a stroke of brilliant luck for me.
Within a blink, I am rerouting my escape plan.
I begin accounting for the time it will take me to find useful items in the garden beyond the windows.
I consider how long it might take me to concoct useful sleeping tonics.
If perhaps I can even make a lethal poison.
I decipher how I might do so without proper Gardner tools—wonder if there is a kitchen nearby where I can steal necessary supplies.
I debate how to best use such items—if they are truly necessary, or if I am better off simply making a run for it.
I am swimming in the possibilities when a tired yet smooth voice sounds behind me.
“You’re awake.”
My muscles go rigid.
Slowly and against every screaming desire of my body, I turn around. Casimir stands tall only a few paces behind, his hands clasped and shoulders rolled back. I do my best to mirror the confidence.
“I am,” I say.
“And how are you feeling?”
Like shit, obviously.
“As well as one could hope, I’d imagine,” I say instead.
He tilts his head, his amber eyes seeming to glow against the midnight color pallet. He studies me for an unnerving amount of time. “Why are you wandering the halls in the middle of the night?”
“Why are you?” I counter pointedly.
Casimir remains silent, his movements eerily still. Eventually, he extends his hand to me and says, “Come. I will take you back to your room and send for you in the morning. Now that you are both awake and lucid, you and I can discuss why I have brought you here over breakfast.”
The casual ease of that statement stings as if a direct slap to the face. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I hiss. “And I am certainly not having breakfast with the monster who murdered my best friend.”
Pain digs into me with the force of a living beast. But I don’t show a sliver of weakness to this vile creature standing before me. Instead, I lift my chin and hold my expression steady, allowing every ounce of defiance and loathing to show in my eyes.
Casimir again remains both silent and still. Though this time the look in his gaze appears to be one of consideration. Eventually, he sighs, those perfectly held shoulders slumping forward just slightly with the action. “He is not dead.”
“What?” I breathe. Hope swells in my chest, but I clutch onto it, willing to keep it contained. “I saw him…saw you put a blade through his neck.”
Casimir shakes his head. “What you saw was an illusion I wielded over you to make your power erupt.”
Anger, relief, spent grief—it all slams into me with debilitating strength. My mouth flounders as I search for words, thinking I have a sentence but then realizing I have nothing more than stuttering words.
“So what I saw wasn’t real?” I ask, daring to allow myself just a little hope. “It didn’t actually happen, and Gray is alive?”
“Yes.”
Tears swarm my eyes, hot and uncontrollable, but I pinch my teeth into my bottom lip to hold them at bay. “You swear it? By whatever god, whatever force you deign to actually believe in—you swear you’re telling me the truth?”
“I swear it,” he says.
The immediate relief the revelation brings me is enough to make me feel as though I can float away into the clouds. Until I am immediately shackled back into reality.
“Now, come,” Casimir instructs. “I am taking you back to your room for the night.”
I glare at him for a heartbeat, the wheels of my mind turning over.
So be it, then. Plan B it is.
I nod my head and signal Casimir to lead the way, following him back down the path from which I came. When we reach my bedchamber, he opens the door for me and motions for me to enter.
“I will see you in the morning,” he says.
Maintaining the disposition I normally would to prevent any red flags from raising, I hold his eyes with contempt in my own.
Then, I stride off into my chambers, making a show of getting into bed and throwing the cover haughtily over me.
I don’t turn back to watch Casimir shut the door, but I do hear the familiar click of the latch.
To pass the time, I attempt to name every flower species containing poison my brain can conjure.
Once I have, I pivot to every herb, plant, and flower that can cause paralysis.
And when I have finished that, my mind can remain distracted no more, wandering to the memories of my inconsolable rage.
Of my eruption of magic. Of Gray being alive—the joy and relief so overwhelming it feels tangible to my fingertips.
A part of me knows Casimir may be lying, but I’d much rather believe he isn’t.
I think of Draven.
The pain coating his face as he held onto me. The desperation I could feel pouring from him even in my state of delirium. The words that were distant yet near.
It’s that you live, Lyra. You must live. And if you don’t, then I’m coming with you, because I don’t want to be in a world where I can’t wake up and find you.
I don’t want to live in such a world, either.
So fuck Casimir and his cruelty—I will not let him win by stealing me away. By robbing me of everything I worked toward to gain entry into Bathara. To start a new life. To feel and grow and heal.
As a reminder of all that I’ve overcome, I glance down at my finger, where a tiny blood droplet once was inked onto my skin.
I noticed it was gone the second time I awoke from my long slumber.
I also know what its disappearance means—the terms of the blood wager were fulfilled.
And seeing as I am here—wherever the hell here is—and unable to provide King Alastair an heir, the only other option that would satisfy the terms of the wager are if I was Selected into an aggregate.
Deep in my heart, I know who is responsible for ensuring that happened.
With my resolve now steeled, I jump from the bed, deciding enough time has passed. If I am going to do this—if I am actually going to escape—it has to be tonight. It must be right now, in this moment.
There are no other options afforded to me.
I don’t have time to formulate a plan. Don’t have the luxury to scout and plot the best methods of escape.
So, in spite of knowing this is foolish recklessness, I throw the door open and sprint anyway.
The air is cool against my skin. Pleasant, even. It is a nice contrast to the pain plaguing every other part of my body.
My feet are stinging from all the surfaces they’ve trotted over. My lungs are screaming—hissing—at me to stop and take a proper breath. My muscles, not having been used for days upon days, are tight and angry, wounded with pain and on the precipice of giving out altogether.
Still, I don’t stop.
Truthfully, I’m not even sure how I managed to get out from those lavish walls.
I took turn after turn, and when they led to a dead end, I turned back and went the opposite way.
I did my best to open as few doors as possible.
Every time I did, I thought my pulse was going to hammer through my neck.
Which meant running through those corridors was nothing more than a blurry maze of fervid determination and rapid desperation. Trial and error.
Until I got out. Escaped the maze.
Now, with my bare feet kissing grass and a pulsing scrape from where I tripped biting my knee, I am through the bulk of the wildlife and trees.
I am marks away from those walls. I am staring out at a shadowy expanse veiled in moonlight, everything zipping past me in unintelligible imagery as I continue sprinting forward and doing my damn best not to trip on anything else.
A feat of which is made incredibly difficult, given my unfamiliarity with the landscape and the fact that it’s the middle of the night.
At the adrenaline pumping into me, a manic laugh pours from my lips. I don’t know where the hell I am, but I do know I am doing it. I am actually escaping. And each stride I continue to take is another one pushing me toward my own freedom.
The laugh comes too soon.
A glittering portal of silver, blue, and white sizzles into the air in front of me, and I skid to a halt.
Casimir steps through it, his features perfectly placid.
He does not look angry. He does not look surprised.
In fact, he looks as though he has no feelings about finding me out here in the slightest.
“This is not your room,” he says, the soft tiredness clinging to his voice.
Everything catches up with me. Somehow, stopping my sprint has made breathing harder, and my lungs catch fire while cement pours into my muscles and blinking stars twinkle in front of my eyes. My head becomes light as air, and I wobble.
Though I do not fall, planting my feet firmer into the ground.
Still, clearly it all gets to me, because my lip curls back at the sight of Casimir, and all that manages to spill from my lips is a hissed, “Fuck you.”
He doesn’t even react. “Let us go back.”
“I’m not going back.”
His head cocks, though his expression remains unchanged. “You speak as though I’m offering you a choice.”
Now I know I’m feeling the full effects of everything—my pain, my exhaustion, my wooziness—because I take a step forward and grit through bared teeth, “You can try to keep me as your captive, but I will not make it easy for you. Do what you like to me, but I will not stop trying to escape. Will not give up until I’m back home, surrounded by the people I love. ”
“Ah,” he muses, voice subtly sharpening with a tone screaming of danger.
“Surrounded by the people you love.” Now it is him who takes a step closer, swallowing any open space that was left between us.
“Let me spell this out for you clearly this one time and one time only: you are here whether you like it or not because you have a purpose to serve. You will do as I ask when I ask it because the lives of my family are riding on your cooperation—on your being here. And if I am forced to choose between their lives or the lives of others, I will choose my family each and every time. And if I have to steal the lives of those people you so wish to be surrounded by to motivate you to cooperate, to force your submission, then so be it. I already have a mountain of blood stained on my hands, so what is another crimson seed in comparison?”
I swallow against the unbearable dryness overtaking my throat. I try to be brave—to find words to stand against this monster in front of me. But nothing comes.
The same is not true for Casimir. He tilts his chin to pierce my eyes with the glow of his and continues with his warning.
“There is a reason I killed one friend while letting the other live. It is so you know I do not make hollow promises. So you know I have no quarrels with taking a life when necessary. So you have something you will be desperate to not lose again. So you now know the vivid taste of excruciating pain should that friend’s life be lost once more. ”
I hate that fear hammers into my knees, making them tremble.
Hate how my words are lodged deep into my throat, unwilling to risk flying free.
All I can manage is to hold Casimir’s cold gaze with a lifted chin, feeling on the verge of tears but knowing damn well I cannot show such weakness right now.
He glares into my eyes, and I swear I feel the look as sharply as a knife wound.
“You are mine until I say so, and this place—my home—is where you will remain until I say otherwise. And if you are foolish enough to test my resolve, then I am not responsible for the bloodshed. It will be your own foolishness you’ll have to thank when you are standing amongst the ruin of everything you feared losing. ”
“Monster,” I whisper.
He takes another prowling step, dropping his voice lower. “I am glad you think so, darling. That way you will never think I’m bluffing when I tell you I will slit the throats of everyone you love if you try to leave my home.”
I do not try to escape again.