Chapter 13 #2
“Will you come back?”
“I’ll try.”
Tears slipped from my lashes. Now that I was alone, I didn’t hold them back.
I finally let them fall.
They raced down my cheeks as I pictured Rueren’s sweet little face. Then my father’s. Kaydra’s. Leaving them had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. Their last memory of me stung the most: me screaming while Gravyn dragged me away.
I set the tray aside and sank into the pillows, letting the chamber’s silence devour me as I cried. My eyelids grew heavy, the painted ceiling blurring until it dissolved into a scarlet sea, the dragon watching me as I slept.
I was home. Morning light stretched across the land. I carried a mug of tea across the porch to Blayren. He always sat on the top step to watch the sunrise, and I always joined him. Yet as I approached, my stomach twisted with dread. Something was wrong. Really wrong.
I opened my mouth to say his name. Nothing came out—not even my breath streamed into the crisp air. I stopped beside him and touched his shoulder, gasping when I felt how cold he was.
He wasn’t just cold. He was frozen.
My touch seemed to rouse him, however, as he turned his head.
My scream froze somewhere between my heart and my teeth.
Both his eyes had been gouged out, his throat a ragged gash. The blue I remembered—sea glass and summer sky—was gone, replaced by empty wells of weeping blood.
“I should have let you drown.”
I staggered back, dropping the cup. Tea spilled across the deck—no, not tea, blood spreading in bright arterial rings toward my bare feet. My hands were drenched in it. In one of them gleamed the Bloodstone King’s dagger.
My hands were covered in it, and clenched in one was the Bloodstone King’s dagger.
My father screamed as I buried it into his skull, again and again, until nothing of him remained.
I woke up gasping, my body drenched in sweat, my chest heaving as I stared up at the ceiling.
“It was just a dream,” I whispered. “Just a dream.”
But why that dream? Why something so horrific?
As I lay on the bed trying to calm my breathing, I heard something moving. I remembered then: something had woken me. I threw my legs over the bed and looked around the room. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could feel someone hiding.
I grabbed my comb from the bedside table and pushed to my feet, keeping the sharp edge outstretched.
“Who’s there?”
A shuffle, but no answer.
“Show yourself or I’ll call the guards.”
Still nothing. I looked under the bed and found only polished floorboards gleaming back at me. Why was someone hiding in my room?
“You have three seconds to reveal yourself or I’m screaming.”
More scratching, then shuffling, followed by a quiet plea.
“Please don’t! I do not mean you any harm.”
The voice was close, like they were sitting right there in the room with me. It didn’t belong to Thràena, and certainly not éllia. It was too quiet for either of them.
“Then tell me who you are and why you’re hiding here.”
She fell silent again, and my unease started giving way to frustration.
“Right, I’m going to screa—”
“I don’t know who I am!” she interjected, “and I am not hiding. This is my home.”
I followed the sound of her voice. There was a slight echo to it. My eyes landed on the painting that hung above the dresser. A dark seascape, black waves thrashing against jagged cliffs beneath a broken moon. Unlike the tapestries that moved in the hallways, this painting was still in its frame.
I ran my fingers along the bronze edges but could find no gaps or hinges.
“What do you mean this is your home?” I asked, curious. “Are you trapped inside this painting?”
“No,” she whispered, her voice getting closer. “I live in the walls.”
I frowned at the tapestry. Did she just say…walls?
“Please don’t call for the guards,” she pleaded. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I heard you crying out and my friend told me you needed help.”
“Your friend?” So there were more of them in the walls? I held onto my comb and pulled the armchair out from under the dressing table. “I’m sitting down,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “Can you see me?”
“No.”
Well, that was a relief. The thought of having someone spying on me was already uncomfortable, so it was good to know I had at least some privacy. I hoped. But why in the gods’ names were people hiding inside the palace walls?
“What did you mean by living in the walls?” I asked, settling down into the chair.
“They’re all I’ve ever known. I was born in them.”
I pulled up my legs and rested my chin on my knees.
“How many of you are there?”
“Just me.”
I lifted my head. “You said your friend told you I needed help.”
“Ah, that—well, that’s Mr. Flitz. He’s the palace cat. He heard you crying.”
Her words softened something in me. Aside from Thràena, this was the first kindness I’d met since leaving home.
I had so many questions I wanted to ask her, but I didn’t want to scare her away.
And, truthfully, I was glad of the company.
It helped distract me from the horrific nightmare I just had, and the one I feared I’d created with the king. I rested my chin on my knees again.
“What’s your name?”
She paused. Either she didn’t want to tell me her name, or…she didn’t have one. My insides clenched at the thought. Everyone deserved to have a name—a sense of identity. Even I had one.
Sensing her hesitation, I said, “You don’t need to tell me. Honestly, I’m just glad to have some company.”
Aside from Thràena, it was the first encounter I’d had since leaving home.
“Mouse,” she replied after a moment. “My name is Mouse.”
Mouse? I inwardly repeated her name. It was strange.
“Are you changeling?”
“I…do not know,” she answered. “Are you?”
How could one not know which species they were? She was getting more mysterious and interesting by the second.
Some days I wished I were a different species. I might have stood a better chance at fitting in then.
“No,” I said, “but I’m different from other fae.”
“Different?” she echoed. “In what way?”
I could hear her sliding down against the wall as if she were sitting too.
In almost every way, I wanted to reply. That was what hurt me the most: even though Blayren took me in as one of his own, I could never feel like I truly belonged.
“I don’t look like I’m from any of the kingdoms. I don’t have any markings, and my hair is—”
“Like starlight?”
My pulse skipped. “Y…Yeah. How did you know that if you can’t see me?”
“I—it was a guess.” A tiny quiver of guilt laced her voice. “I must go now.”
“Wait! I never told you my name. It’s—”
“Narya,” she whispered. “I know. I know everything that goes on in this palace.”
That could be useful. More than useful, a lifeline hidden inside the stone walls of what just might be my prison.
“Will you come back? I could use a friend here.”
“You already have a friend.” Mouse moved behind the wall, shuffling again. “Thràena is loyal and trustworthy. Even Mr. Flitz thinks so.”
I’d already assumed that of Thràena, but it was reassuring to hear it.
“What about éllia? Is she loyal and trustworthy?”
Mouse didn’t answer. In fact I heard no movement at all.
Then the door to the room suddenly opened and Daigen walked in.
His guards stayed outside in the hallway.
I caught Emerias winking at me, and Izyák glaring, before the door closed over.
My heart thrashed as I trailed my gaze up to the king’s scowling face.
His eyes were fixed on me, dark and narrowed.
The way he tracked them up my body, slowly, lingering at my throat, made my heart slam against my ribs.
I had seen that look in a man’s eye before—felt the weight of it pressing down on me like it had scarred the recesses of my mind.
It was a promise of ruin.
“You think you’re my prisoner? My slave?” His voice edged with cruelty as he withdrew something silver from behind his back. “Then I’ll treat you like one.”