15. Chapter 15
“Look who’s here. The gods’ favorite pet,” Maxine purrs as I enter the Atrium.
She’s sprawled out on a blood-red duvet blanket filing her nails, wearing a satin night slip that looks like it’s made of liquified brass.
“And here I thought you’d be staying the night in Dreamwalker’s chambers instead,” she goads, batting her feathered eyelashes in my direction.
“He was sure keen on you. He even knew your name. Tell us, how did that happen?”
“Leave her alone, Maxine,” Bella sighs, rubbing her temples like she’s suffering from a splintering headache.
Her disheveled hair hits her pillow as she tucks herself beneath her blankets, her symmetrical features taking the form of a shattered porcelain doll—one who has seen far too much during her short lifetime.
I suppose that’s the plight of the Memorykeeper, though. Her own mind must be eating her alive.
“It’s been a very tedious night, Bella,” Maxine divulges.
“I danced with Rhaziel for an entire hour straight, and not once did he ask for my name.” She sets down her nail file and inflicts a glare my way.
“Yet Shadow’s god knew exactly who she was the moment he laid eyes on her.
I simply want to know why. Is a girl not allowed to be curious in this place? ”
“No,” Bella says, delivering Maxine with a feral scowl before shoving an eye mask over her face. “Questions and curiosity in this castle will get you killed.”
“Hang on. Maxine has a point,” Lily interjects as she digs through her armoire to locate a pair of pajamas. “The two of you seemed infatuated with each other all evening. Did you know him before arriving to the castle or something?”
“I wouldn’t call it infatuation,” I say, meandering to my own corner of the Atrium where the pale moonlight seeps into my skin and enhances the glitter spritzed into my hair.
I imagine that I look like a grumpy angel as I begin untangling my braid and try to relax my posture.
“Augustine is the one who brought me here against my will,” I reveal, frowning at the memory.
“Really?” Maxine leans on her elbow as though I’ve just shared a crumb of a delicious secret and she’s hungry for more.
Ravenous, in fact, like her appetite for drama is insatiable.
“If he’s the one who brought you here, then why did you seem so shocked to see him at dinner?
” Her golden-speckled eyes glisten like treasured artifacts at the bottom of the sea.
“Because he lied about who he was.” I finish unwinding my braid and begin searching for something to replace this merciless gown and its suffocating corset with.
“He pretended to be a wayward traveler, and I happened to be a damsel in distress. Which is how he coaxed me onto his horse. Oh, and then he made me an accomplice to murder. But I’d rather not get into the logistics. ”
“Murder?” Lily whispers.
“By the gods, this just keeps getting juicier and juicier,” Maxine says, her cherry-red lips slipping open in awe. “Your god personally brought you here on his own accord?”
I find a nightgown that looks comfortable enough and undress in the shadows. “Yours didn’t?” I ask, tugging it over my head.
“No.” Maxine shakes her head. “I came here after a nasty breakup in search of an escape. Regent happened to find me in the courtyard, where he immediately began raving on and on about how the God of War would adore me.” She tucks herself under her covers and blows out a nearby candle, which causes the starlight seeping in through the glassy ceiling to take flight.
“Although, I can safely say he was wrong. I’m not entirely convinced that Rhaziel even has the ability to fall in love.
Sure, he appreciates shiny things from afar, but he doesn’t have the desire for anything more.
Did you see him tonight? His eyes were roving over the other women on the dance floor, as if I didn’t even exist. It was miserable.
” She fidgets with her charm necklace before adding, “Personally, I think the Mother of Chaos knew that no mortal would ever love her children, and the curse was her way of proving it. They’re simply too unlovable.
Although…” She pauses for dramatic effect, pointing at me from her bed.
"If it’d been the God of Dreams who’d chosen me, I would not be complaining.
You should be counting your blessings, Girlfriend. ”
“Blessings. Right,” I hash out. Because I’m veiled by darkness, Maxine doesn’t notice how I visibly gag at the thought of entertaining someone like him.
Across the Atrium, Lily pulls on a pair of fuzzy socks to match her floral pajamas, and then slips beneath her bedsheets, sighing dreamily.
“Maxine is right, Shay. As much as I would love to become a consortess of the divine, I’m finding it quite difficult to feel anything for the Goddess of Love.
She’s so cold and lifeless. Even her hands are made of ice.
The thought of being married to her is incomprehensible, but I also can’t return to my previous life.
” She crosses her arms over her chest, like she’s giving herself a hug.
“Thank fuck,” I blurt out.
Lily twists her lips. “Excuse me?”
“Thank fuck that you’re not falling head over heels in love with that monster,” I clarify with a cough. “I mean… loving the gods would be a terribly miserable existence. They only care about themselves…”
Lily titters. “You speak as though I have another choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” I swallow roughly.
“Oh, Shay.” Lily shakes her head, looking sad. “If you only knew where I came from, or the horrors that I’ve witnessed, you would understand how suffering at the hands of the gods pales in comparison to the torture that I’ve endured at the hands of men.”
Maxine opens her mouth as if to inquire for more details, but Lily holds up a hand to silence her.
“Not that any of this even matters,” she continues.
“You heard the queen. If we don’t all fall in love with our assigned deity by the end of the week, then we’re dead.
The only way out of this situation alive…
is to pretend. Don’t you all see? If we cannot love them authentically, then we must make-believe. ”
The room falls dreadfully silent.
“Maybe there’s another way…” Bella whispers.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, whipping my head toward her.
“If the four of us refuse to fall in love,” she hypothesizes, chewing her bottom lip, “then the gods will be sent to Purgatory.” She looks up at me and blinks. “No one has to die. We’ll all be free.”
“That sounds like a nice enough concept,” Maxine agrees. “Unless of course, one of us secretly falls in love and doesn’t tell the others. Then what?”
The four of us exchange nervous glances, as if wondering who the traitor would be.
All of our eyes fall on Lily.
“Ladies?” a low voice comes from the hallway, sounding an awful lot like Regent. The door cracks open, and he says, “You have a big day tomorrow! Get some beauty sleep!”
Sighing, I nestle beneath my blankets and try to fall asleep, which is how I wind up tossing and turning beneath the moonlight filtering in through the glass ceiling.
The light is so damned bright, all the little gemstones stitched to my bed’s canopy glitter like specks of stardust and shattered dreams. Gradually, the glinting becomes brighter, like the moon has doubled in size.
Like it’s gulped up all the stars and stolen their light.
Suddenly, I’m standing on a sweeping balcony overlooking a forest of evergreen trees, complete with a pair of rolling hills, a flurry of turreted houses, and a haze of smoke-filled chimneys.
Strange. This isn’t where I fell asleep.
“My queen,” a voice calls out from behind me. I feel myself spinning, my purple tulle gown twirling along with me.
Wait, where did I get this magnificent gown?
A guard is standing in the doorway. A real guard, too. Not some disfigured creature that the queen unearthed from the ground, but a man with rosy cheeks and a head of unruly tresses. In his hands, he’s holding out a velvet pillow. And on that pillow lies an object oozing with warmth.
So that’s where all the light is coming from.
The guard kneels before me and bows his head.
I stare at the conspicuous little object, my eyes widening.
“Wait, is that the Sentinel Key?” I gasp.
Only yesterday, Regent had mentioned that the Sentinel Key is lying shattered at the bottom of a never-ending lake somewhere, never to be seen again.
And yet here it is, glittering like a star inundated with the core of the universe. This can’t be real.
“It’s your destiny, Your Majesty,” the man says, ushering the pillow toward me again. I step away from it. There’s something about the key’s presence that feels off-putting. Almost like some invisible, malevolent force is exuding from it, eager to sink its teeth into my skin.
“I can’t.” I shake my head. “I can’t accept this.”
“He’s right, you know,” says another voice, deriving from a man standing at the bottom of the balcony’s staircase who looks up at me with an enigmatic grin.
“You again,” I hiss at him in recognition. “Why are you here?”
Of course he’s here. He’s always here. And right now, he’s staring at me.
Coming closer. Striding up the stairs with that pompous smirk on his face.
He takes my cold hands in his as his gaze travels up and down the length of my body, his eyes devouring every inch of my skin as he soaks me in.
“You must take it,” he says, his voice lowering to a shattered whisper. “No one else can.”
“I—” My mouth falls open as he leans in for a kiss.
His lips are soft like weightless clouds, yet firm like the foundation of my heart. The sensation of buoyancy floods through my muscles as his hands climb up the length of my spine and travel into my hair. I don’t even bother to swat him off. Instead, I do something completely uncharacteristic.