Chapter 18 Sadaré
SADARé
WHEN I find myself admiring my back in the bath chamber mirror, pulling my hair over my shoulder and twisting to get a better look at the intricate black lines of Isha’s design, I suddenly meet my own horrified eyes in the silvery glass and realize I have to escape this place. Now.
Even amidst my dawning panic, it takes me too long to remember: Isha’s seed didn’t work. It seemed like a reasonable enough idea at the time. Probably because I was desperate.
Now I’m even more desperate, especially since I can recall the details of what happened after, as if the mirror were showing me my own memories.
I woke up in bed after swallowing it all—like a good girl—to discover that Daesra was more distant in my thoughts than ever, shy of me outright forgetting him like before.
I had to dig for him as if through shifting sand, and when I still couldn’t manage to fully picture his face, I curled in on myself under the covers and sobbed, repeating his name over and over again, until I felt like there was nothing left of me.
I knew the water I had gulped was the cause of the fog consuming Daesra.
I couldn’t help drinking, though it’s still my fault.
All of it. After that—however long ago that was, I can no longer remember—I ate one of the two remaining seeds I had hidden under my mattress.
I’d accidentally swallowed one while pinned to the dining table after all, but it’s what preserved my memory despite all the food Isha fed me, and let me enact my plan to taste him.
Which didn’t work, I’m realizing all over again. How many times have I remembered this only to forget again?
I should have known it wouldn’t work, even if I’d guessed it might not.
I try to tell myself the whole endeavor was still worth attempting, but I can’t stop berating myself—when I remember to do so.
Isha’s saliva hasn’t helped me remember Daesra, after all, and I’ve had plenty of that in the more frequent kisses he bestows on me.
So why would anything else but his blood?
I curse myself anew in the mirror, wondering if I would even recognize Daesra’s face as well as my own. Even that thought feels like a betrayal, when I promised I would never betray him again. That’s why I waited so long to put on the ring—to make sure I could keep my promise.
It’s not as though Daesra wouldn’t understand my predicament.
In the past, he even told me to take other lovers if I felt like it, men or women.
But that was under the assumption that I would be coming home to him.
I’m trying to return to him, desperately, but it’s looking less and less likely.
Taking another lover with his blessing is one thing; it is quite another to take a lover who’s his nemesis—who wants to destroy him.
And even that would be excusable if it were only for the sake of my own survival and return.
But it’s not only about my survival and return anymore, the more time I spend with Isha.
I knock my forehead against the glass and release a ragged sigh.
If I stay here a moment longer, I’ll lose myself entirely.
Never to return to Daesra or myself. Already I thrill at Isha’s attention, preen at how I look in his gowns and jewelry, and crave his company, even if it’s to defy him.
But such defiance is only as a game. I can’t imagine truly resisting him for much longer.
I don’t even mind the iron collar anymore.
I often find myself wondering why there’s a silver ring dangling from it.
Staring at myself now, after admiring his markings upon my skin, I can admit the truth: I care for Isha too much. I still try to tell myself it’s my fading memory’s fault—his fault. But I drag my hands down my face when I already begin to make silent excuses for him.
He’s the god of death—he can’t break his own rules. Every shade has to forget, and he let me keep most of my memories. It was part of the deal we agreed upon, after all.
The same as with the ring nestled in the hollow of my throat, I can barely remember the original purpose of our deal. Only that this is my fault. I didn’t put on the ring when I had the chance.
Flying into sudden motion, I grip the collar in both hands and wrench on it as hard as I can, letting loose a guttural shriek, until tears stream from my eyes.
All I manage to do is bruise my neck. Which Isha will no doubt punish me for, since he’ll know I was trying to take it off.
After I shiver in as much anticipation as dread, I decide it’s time to eat the final seed and attempt my escape once and for all.
I hurry over to my mattress and lift it to reveal what feels like my last precious bit of Daesra, a tiny speck of hope dropped from a dead plant in a dead garden. Licking my finger to place it carefully on my tongue, I eat it, and taste bitterness.
And horror, because it brings back even more memories. Gods, I have tried to escape before now.
I explored everywhere I could reach in the fortress.
Beneath the salon in the west keep and the dining hall in the east, there were only cavernous dark rooms where the smoky water from the courtyard fountain ran in channels through a grate on one side and out through another, where it likely dumped into the sea.
The crosshatched metal bars weren’t big enough to see much through in the dim light, let alone fit through, if I were to ever become so desperate I wanted to risk the sea.
As my eyes traced the fall of dark water, I was forced to admit to myself that I might never grow that desperate. I almost wished I could—same as I do now. But there’s a side of me that wants to survive even more than I want Daesra.
Even like this? I asked myself the question then. I still don’t know the answer.
I also tried returning to the east tower in the hope I might find more seeds or even plant and nurture some in secret, but I found the door locked. I tugged on the handle in despair, nearly banging on the engraved wood before I caught myself in time—before Isha could catch me.
If he finds me now, I’ll be in trouble no matter what, with the bruises on my neck that I can’t explain and an intended destination that I’ll be able to explain even less.
There’s only one place left for me to go. I’m just not sure how I can get there. But I have to try.
I take the lower halls this time, the bone of the walls stark save for where torches light the way less frequently than in the opulent fortress above.
I’ve never seen Isha down here, only servants trying to remain out of sight until they fade from existence entirely.
It’s in one of these halls that I nearly walk right into the boy.
“Oh, it’s you!” I cry, trying to still my rush of panic. I have to remind myself not to fear an innocent child. “How are you?”
The boy blinks and squints at me through black curls. “Are you my mother? I’ve been looking for her.”
As fast as my heart is racing, it has time to break for him. “No, I’m not,” I murmur, touching his shoulder gently. “I’m sorry.”
His dark eyes widen, glowing hugely in the torchlight. “Oh, but I do remember you. Did you see the sad room?”
I bite my lip to keep from grimacing. “I did—before it was locked.”
“Maybe that means he’s not as sad,” he says hopefully, “if he doesn’t want to go there anymore.”
Or Isha doesn’t want me to find anything in there that I can use to help myself.
“Maybe,” I say with false levity. “I liked it. Thank you for telling me about it.” I lower my voice, glancing around for other shades that might be listening, but we’re alone. “Do you know any other places here like that?”
I mean with plants, other than those thriving in the tainted courtyard, but the boy mistakes my meaning.
“There’s another sad room. The saddest. Even sadder than the green tower.
But for shades, not for him. C’mon!” He gestures with the enthusiasm only a child could have for something purportedly awful, because it’s his secret.
“I know the way there—the hidden one the servants use.”
Which means we’ll be far less likely to come across Isha than where I was headed before, and yet I don’t know what purpose going to this place will serve.
Still, I take the boy’s hand when he keeps it raised, because he might also know a way into the throne room, and I don’t want to disappoint him when he doesn’t have much else.
The press of his little fingers seems to tighten around the lump in my throat.
“Why is this room sad only for shades?” I ask, trying to give him my full attention as we walk down the dim, lonely hall.
“Because you can always see the gold islands, but never reach them,” he says wistfully, and then shivers in both excitement and disgust. “He saves that room for only the worst guests. But the servants still have to bring them things sometimes.”
The breath catches in my lungs, my feet stuttering before I keep them moving. “Do you mean the north tower?”
He nods as he trots along beside me, oblivious to the desperate hope rising within me.
Indeed, such a view might be worse than looking out onto the dull gray Plains of the Forgotten or even the Pit of Hell, since one is safe inside the fortress from those places.
But if you could only look at paradise but never touch it…
I clutch the ring on my collar with the shadowy hand that’s not holding his.
Such a thing dangling in front of you, forever out of reach, is torturous indeed—except the north tower is exactly where I’ve wanted to go, to attempt to reach the Blessed Isles.
But the only access I knew of was through Isha’s throne room, which I haven’t even glimpsed yet.
I wasn’t sure the doors would open for me—I doubted it—but I was still going to try.
Now I have another way, thanks to this sweet boy.