Chapter 4 Sadaré
SADARé
WHEN I open my eyes, I don’t know where I am, only that I’m lying on a bed of black silk that whispers against my skin, surrounded by gauze curtains strung like shadows between four posts twisting in smooth iron spirals.
I still know who I am, thank the gods—Sadaré, and only Sadaré.
Not Daesra or even Arinae, my brutally selfish past self, whom I left behind when I went into the maze and became someone else.
I also know that I must be dead.
The realization sends a shudder of horror down my spine, rippling through me in waves, breaking over me again and again, no matter how I try to quell it. My only urge is to flee, despite how strangely peaceful my surroundings are. How likely inescapable. I force myself to still. To breathe.
That I can breathe is a mild comfort as I look around.
The off-white walls and floor remind me of temple marble with its fine veins and pockmarks of age, until I spot the vague shapes within, fitted so perfectly together as to appear as one smooth plane: the angle of a jaw, the rounded ball of a joint, the curves of ribs.
Bone. The walls are constructed of human bone, if elegantly so.
They would still be horrifyingly oppressive if not for the plush, opulent rug covering a huge swath of the floor underneath the bed, woven in whorls of black and silver, and the iron sconces casting warm light over the inward curvature of the walls that make the bone look less bleached.
Breathe.
When I’m certain I won’t bolt out of panic, I slide my feet to the edge of the massive bed, noticing the dainty silver cuffs around each ankle.
The slits of a black silk tunic part around my legs, lighter than air yet held together by thin silver chains that braid around my chest to belt at the waist with a strength that feels unbreakable.
They tug at my throat where the jewelry is attached, and I reach up—my wrist also braceleted in a wider silver cuff—to find a thick iron torque.
A collar, rather, since I feel no gap or way to take it off, even if it’s not tight, resting just over my collarbones.
There’s a half ring protruding from the center of it at the base of my throat, where one might perhaps attach a lead—a thought that makes me shiver in a way that’s not entirely bad, and I hate myself a little for it.
But there’s already something affixed there, along with the clasp of the chain jewelry.
A ring sized for a finger, smooth and cool to the touch.
Even before I crane my neck to get a glimpse, I know it’s silver.
My ring of immortality, hanging from the collar like a single link in a chain.
I recognize it by feel since I’ve so often held it, toying with the shape and the thought of immortality both.
I can also feel there’s no room to wedge my finger into it with the thickness of the iron fastener looping through it, blocking my way.
I died before I was able to put it on, and now I can’t reach it even though it’s dangling right in front of me, taunting me—the worst reminder of my folly.
I have it, but I don’t. The collar itself is an acute reminder of what I once did to Daesra in binding him.
At least my little act before I died was convincing enough that the ring ended up with me here, even if it’s trapped as much as I am. There’s still a glimmer of hope.
I simply have to be more convincing in order to increase whatever chance I might have. Of freeing the ring. Freeing myself. Escaping however I can.
Never mind that I’m in the underworld.
I grip the ring so tightly the metal bites into the heel of my palm.
My eyes sting as I struggle to get my bearings, blinking.
I can’t cry. The thought makes me squeeze the ring even harder.
The pain lends me clarity, though I doubt I can use it to do anything like I could as a living witch.
I have no hope that my magic will work here, just like it never would have worked against him. Maybe I should have fought in any case.
No. If I know anything, it’s when to surrender.
Still, the loss of my power feels like a gaping wound.
After one particularly scarring moment of helplessness in my childhood, I did everything I could to never have to feel that way again.
And now my witch’s abilities have been stripped from me in an instant.
Along with my life, of course, but this almost feels like a greater loss.
And yet if my aunt taught me anything, it was how to use my mind, first and foremost. She always said it was the strongest weapon in my possession. That my power was useless without it. That even if I were left with only my wits, I wouldn’t be helpless—not even against the gods.
So, think, Sadaré.
I force myself to focus. The ceiling stretches to a point high overhead, but not impossibly high.
There’s a smaller room attached to this one through an open archway, wherein smooth bone steps drop into a steaming pool of water.
A bath chamber then, with boundless hot water and no door to shut for privacy that I can see, not even a folding screen.
Wide double doors stand opposite the foot of the bed, imposing in black lacquer and silver filigree. These are closed.
It takes me a moment of looking around to realize that, while I hold the ring in one hand, I’m leaning back with the other, braced against the bed.
I even used it to shuffle to the edge, unthinking, the memory of what I once had stronger than what I know now—that I lost my hand.
But there’s something in its place. I jerk the limb up before my face, one that should be a phantom.
And it is. It’s not made of flesh and bone at least, like I appear to be even while dead.
My right forearm and hand are formed of shadow beginning beneath my elbow.
Despite the swirling darkness, the substance is nearly translucent.
It feels solid enough—certainly enough to sustain the matching silver cuff at my wrist. It’s responsive when I squeeze my fingers into a fist, even if the sensation is numb.
Ironic that I have this now, when I could have used it right before I died.
It’s only another reminder of my failure.
I was trying to get the ring on my finger, but he caught me, even if he didn’t know exactly what I was doing.
I would have chosen immortality, as unsure of it as I was, to keep him from getting me.
To keep him from hurting Daesra through me. But, one-handed, I was too late.
Too late, when I had so many opportunities while alive. Days, months, of opportunity.
Now gone. This is all my fault.
With that thought, my breath catches in my lungs, as sharp as glass. I can’t help it this time—I fold over my thighs as if I can contain the agony of my heart shattering. Daesra.
I can still feel the warmth of his skin against mine, the low hum of his voice in my flesh, every part of him fitting against me like we were made for each other. With him absent, the entirety of my being aches for him, as if I were missing a part of myself.
I’m the dead one, but it feels like he’s the one who I lost. I nearly scream, but I can’t give voice to such pain, so I choke on it silently with my face pressed into my knees.
I only wanted to love him as a mortal because I didn’t trust myself with immortality—not yet, at least. And in hesitating, I lost both my mortal and immortal life with him. The broken shards within me grind together, hollowing out my insides.
Did I simply seem to vanish, leaving him wondering and aimless? Or did he find my body? I don’t know what he might do in that case, and I don’t want to imagine it.
As bad as that is, I cringe even more from the thought of Daesra knowing what I’ve done.
What I’m going to have to do if I’m ever to see him again.
I’ve already given the ring to him—the terrifying and terrifyingly composed god.
Just like I gave myself to him. I knew I was dead anyway.
His anyway. Better for him to think I was all too willing.
At the thought of him, I force myself to straighten, smoothing both my face and my tunic.
He can’t find me in such a state, because he would know I was mourning.
He said I would have to forget Daesra eventually.
And yet what does eventually mean to a god?
It could mean years, or however time is marked here.
Or it could mean whenever he decides. I’m sure of one thing: If I don’t hide my true feelings, he’ll want Daesra to vanish from my memory all the sooner.
The god wants me willing. So I will give him my willingness—at least by appearances.
Combing my fingers through my hair, I look around for any other vantage I might find and discover a huge window that was behind me all along, yawning around the head of the bed.
My feet take me to it unthinking, standing me on tiptoes so I can press my forehead and hand—hands—against the smoky glass.
Peering out, I gasp at the desolate sight.
Maybe it’s the threatening, angry clouds, the black jagged mountains biting into them like teeth, and the crashing gray sea, clawing at what must be a cliff or the base of a tower beneath me like a hungry beast, that make the glass seem tinted.
It’s the world around me that is dark. And the water—it makes me want to back away.
I’ve barely settled on my heels when I hear a voice directly behind me. “So you’ve roused.”
My neck prickles, and the smell of ice, salt, and stone wafts over me like an enveloping breeze.
It’s not unpleasant, but I feel his presence looming at my back, almost pressing into me.
He leans his head down alongside mine to mimic me looking out the window, his pale cheek a cool caress against mine.
I don’t dare to turn for fear of accidentally brushing him with my lips.