CHAPTER FORTY
The stone at my back offered a biting relief against the stiffness settling into my muscles. My wrists throbbed where the silver cuffs had chewed the skin raw, a pulse of heat that had blurred into the background after hours of futile struggling.
The sedative remained heavy in my blood, turning my limbs into lead and wrapping my thoughts in a sluggish haze that made every movement feel like wading through waterlogged sand.
I licked my dry, cracked lips and eyed the two High Court guards who stood beyond the iron bars.
They barely paid me any mind, their whispers a low drone that merged with the clinking of their armor.
I studied the silver bars, noting how they caught the flickering torchlight with the same glimmer as the weapons that had buried themselves in Neya and Talon.
I was back in the belly of Haelen, the very city that had raised me only to throw me into a pit.
Fear flickered in my gut, but it was quickly smothered by a burning resentment.
They had not brought me here for a trial. They wanted to make a lesson of me, to peel back my skin and show the world what happened to a mortal who chose the shadows over their brittle, golden lies.
I searched for the spirits, but the silver at my wrists acted like a void, swallowing every trace of shadow before it could even reach my fingertips.
“She is awake,” the guard closest to the bars barked.
The man beside him peeked over his shoulder, his lip curling in a sneer that did not quite hide the flicker of unease in his eyes. “Filthy traitor.”
I forced my head up, the effort making the room tilt. I dragged in a shuddering breath, my lungs burning with the wet air of the underground. I could not find the words to curse them—my tongue was too thick, my throat too dry—but I could show them the fire they were so desperate to douse.
I pinned my glare on the sneering guard and spat.
The glob landed square on his cheek and trailed slowly down his chin. A wicked satisfaction bloomed in my chest as the guard’s face turned a mottled red.
He growled, wiping the saliva away with a gloved hand before striding toward the bars with a stomp.
“You deserve a slow death,” he snarled, his face inches from mine, the smell of sour wine and sweat rolling off him. “And I will personally ensure you receive it. By the time the council is done with you, you will be begging for the edge of a blade.”
His words blurred together, a mix between not caring and not being able to resist the sedative.
My eyes fell closed, and I drifted to sleep with my head slumped against the too-cold concrete.
* * *
I sat up slowly, the movement no longer feeling as though I were about to collapse in exhaustion. The heavy fog of the sedative was finally receding, leaving behind a stinging clarity.
I shifted against the wall, my gaze drifting over the strange architecture of the cell.
To my right, the wall was a massive slab of seamless concrete. At first glance it appeared solid, unbroken from floor to ceiling. But as I leaned back, something caught my eye.
The slab did not quite meet the rear wall.
A narrow gap remained where the two surfaces failed to touch, no wider than a few inches. Just enough space for a faint breeze to whisper through.
And just enough space to see beyond it.
I pressed my face toward the opening. I did not see any stones or shadows at first, and shuffled closer to lean further into the gap.
My eyes widened when they caught sight of the heel of a foot resting in the dirt. It was wrapped in a threadbare sock blackened with grime, the fabric sagging around a skeletal ankle. Above it stretched a thin, wasted calf streaked with layers of dust.
For a moment, I panicked, unsure if this person was alive or just hanging onto life. But, I swallowed down the twitch of fear and tried to grab their attention.
“Hello?” I whispered.
I darted a look toward the bars. The High Court guards were deep in a low conversation, their silver helms tilted toward one another as they traded murmurs.
I looked back to the gap, but the foot had not moved. It remained still.
Searching the floor of my cell, my fingers closed around a loose pebble. I weighed it once in my palm, then flicked it through the opening.
The stone arced through the air and struck the shin with a soft crack.
A choked gasp echoed from the other side.
The leg jerked back, disappearing into the shadows. A moment later, a face appeared in the narrow slit.
I recoiled at first, my stomach turning at the sight of him.
His hair was a chaotic thicket of gray and white, sticking up in every direction, and his eyes were wide, bloodshot, and rimmed with a madness born of isolation. Dust coated his skin like a second layer of clothing.
He looked like a ghost dragged up from the earth.
I turned back to the man in the corner, my gaze snagging on the familiar geometry of his face beneath the layers of grime.
The distinctive, hooked slope of his nose. The heavy brow now shadowed by a shaggy thicket of graying hair.
“Who are you?”
He let out a rattling cough, his hand, little more than skin stretching over trembling bone, coming up to wipe his mouth.
“Meliory,” he croaked. “Apologies. It has been a lifetime since I have used my voice for anything other than screaming.”
I gaped at him, the world tilting. The posters in Leona’s infirmary flashed before my eyes—the charcoal sketches of a brilliant healer who had vanished into the shadows decades ago.
“You are alive,” I whispered, my voice trembling with shock. “They said you were gone.”
“I was stolen,” he said, his eyes momentarily clearing as he looked at me.
I thought of the High Court’s impossible accuracy—the way their soldiers navigated the shifting obsidian corridors of Umbral as if they were walking through their own gardens.
“You guided them,” I said quietly, the weight of the realization making my stomach turn.
A mix of agony and shame flooded his features. He gave a single, jerky nod, the movement causing his chains to clink rhythmically. “Not by my own will, but yes, I guided the vine.”
His hair was a matted, shaggy thicket that shadowed his face, but as he tilted his head, a memory fractured in my mind. The dream. The collapsing battlefield. The man who had stood amidst the fire and told me to wake up.
“You warned me,” I whispered. “You visited me while I slept. You told me they were coming for me before I even knew the High Court had breached the gate.”
His dry lips pursed. “I did.”
“Why?” I pressed, resting my bound hands against my knees. “You knew I was a fugitive. You knew I was committing crimes against the High Court just by being near Talon. You could have stayed silent and let them take me.”
Meliory let out a dry scoff that shook his skeletal frame. “I have rotted in this hole for a lifetime, child, but the ink on my skin does not fade with the light. Talon is still my Master. I will not let those silver-clad butchers use my soul as a map to hurt him. Or you.”
I looked at my own bound wrists, the skin chafed raw by the iron, and then back at his wasted form. He was a ghost of the man on the posters, but the fire in his eyes was real.
“I am going to help you. I am going to get us both out of here.”
Meliory let out a wheezing laugh. “I appreciate the effort, child. Truly. But there is no way out. No weapon in this realm can pierce walls built to starve the spirit.”
I looked around the barren cell, searching for a weapon, a tool—anything at all. “We do not need a weapon. We just need to outsmart them.”
The stone offered nothing. No cracks, no loose mortar, not even a stubborn weed daring to grow between the seams.
My gaze snapped back to the narrow gap in the wall.
“Do you have a leaf?” I asked suddenly.
Meliory blinked in confusion.
“Green,” I added. “Anything alive.”
Slowly, he reached down and tugged at the ragged sock on his foot. From within the fabric he withdrew a single browned leaf, curled and brittle with age.
“I have kept this,” he said quietly. “Though I doubt it still lives.”
“That will do.”
I crouched beside a shallow depression in the stone floor where murky water had collected.
“Any reflective surface will work, right?”
Meliory hummed. “Yes.”
I looked at the scabbed wound in my palm and bit down on it until the skin broke once more. Fresh blood welled up, pooling into my open hand. I clenched my fingers until a single drop dripped down my knuckles and fell into the water.
I pressed the brown leaf against the surface of the bloodied water. “What do I do?”
“Just feel,” he whispered, his face pressed tight against the gap. “Think of where you wish to be.”
My eyes quickly moved to the guards, who now had their backs facing our cells, and a breath of relief passed my lips.
I closed my eyes, imagining the outside of the cells.
The water began to shimmer, a ghostly glow rippling through the puddle and washing away the reflection of my own face. The surface stilled until the image of the corridor’s concrete walls filled the shape of the water, clear as if I were standing in the hall myself.
I guided the vision of the vine through the passageway, my mind recording the placement of every silver-clad guard and the rhythm of their heavy footsteps.
I peered into the dark recesses of the neighboring cells, searching for any other souls lost to this pit, but found only empty stone.
“There are only three guards,” I whispered, my eyes frantically chasing the vision.
The vine drifted toward an iron door situated a few cells down. It stood stark and imposing, yet as I studied it, I realized it was devoid of guards and heavy locks.
“The door is unlocked.”
Meliory let out a low breath.
I urged the vine to climb the height of the door, desperate to see if any traps or hidden mechanisms lay in wait above the frame.
I needed to be sure.
Just as the vine’s eye slipped toward the center of the iron door, the reflection shuddered.