Chapter 16
Sixteen
- LYRA -
I woke maybe an hour ago in the infirmary. The pain lacing my hands a distant echo as I glance down at them, wrapped in soft bandages. Lady’s maids helped me back to my room, where they bathed me and then dressed me in a gown for the evening.
Whatever concoction they used to heal me and dull my pain is a welcomed one. There’s a softness to my thoughts. Like looking through a blurred glass. Oddly enough, despite everything that happened today, my mind has a pleasurable buzz to it.
Opium poppies, I imagine. Maybe even dragonblood to accelerate the healing in my hands. I can move them, slowly, but refrain from doing so too often for fear of aggravating the wounds.
“That can’t have been good,” Aelia whispers next to me.
The two of us, along with seven other girls we found squealing and fawning over the window overlooking the gardens, are frozen as we wait for Marcella to exit the courtyard.
We watched Cyrus and Marcella, linked arm and arm, stroll into the gardens. Not even five minutes later and Cyrus walked out quickly. Alone. His head down, hair obscuring his expression.
“Do you think he’s disqualified her? Let her know she’s to be sent home?” Willow asks as we all press in tighter to see if we can spot Marcella in the lush, overgrown gardens. “I wouldn’t blame him. She’s quite stunning, but her attitude is atrocious.”
“Shhh,” I warn, tossing her a look. Even if Marcella isn’t my favorite…it feels wrong to talk about her behind her back. Especially after the fact she helped us during the trial. Though, not likely the others saw it since we were the last ones to finish.
“Her mannerisms should have had her disqualified on the second day,” one woman mutters.
Another chimes in, “The King would never entertain marrying someone as rough as her.”
“Do not talk about her that way!” Aelia snaps, and we all turn to her.
“We are women. We do not talk down to each other. Whomever marries Cyrus, it will be because he’s in love with her.
Not because she’s the best dressed or has the quickest wit.
Speaking lowly of someone will not lift your own position. ”
I smile at Aelia, then a movement catches all of our attention. Marcella stalks out of the gardens, her expression as poised and collected as ever. She tosses glances left and right, no doubt looking for Cyrus, but disappears from view as she gets closer to the castle.
We all rush away from the window as Lady Bethany calls from down the hallway, “Ladies! Need I remind you dinner shall be served in less than ten minutes? Please, if you have already refreshed yourselves, go to the dining room. You should always be early if you can.”
We all dip our heads and in scattered unison, say, “Yes, Lady Bethany.”
But as we all move down the hallway for the dining room, I glance over my shoulder to see a shadow creeping across the floor. Marcella turns the corner, and her brown eyes meet mine.
Hesitantly, I slip away from the back of the group and head to her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her in the opposite direction toward my room.
“What are you doing!” she hisses.
“Be quiet!” I snap back and pull her into my room, shutting the door before turning to her. “Is Cyrus sending you home?”
“No,” she clips. “Not that that’s any of your business.”
She moves for the door, and I slide left and right, blocking her advance. Snatching my arm, she shoves me. “Get out of my way.”
“Not until you tell me why you stole that butter knife.”
She pauses, hand still gripping my arm when she laughs. “You’re asking about that when it happened two weeks ago?”
I grab her wrist holding me as I stare back at her. “Why did you steal it?”
“You think because of that stunt you pulled in the trial I owe you answers?” she scoffs. “It was a stupid move.”
“I think what you mean is thank you.”
We both tense in the silence, waiting for the other person to shift.
As she searches my eyes, she whispers, “You question why I stole it, and yet you reported it to no one.”
I slide her grip off my shoulder and drop my hand to my side.
She leans forward until our noses nearly brush. “So before I tell you anything, I’m going to need to know why you haven’t.”
I shake my head. Because I’ve been asking myself the same question.
Ever since I noticed jars of blood in that room on the way to meet Devin, something stopped me from telling him.
Something changed for me in that moment.
So much so, I’ve been guarding it. I haven’t even felt comfortable yet to share it with Aelia.
“Because I know who you are,” I whisper back a half-truth.
“Marcella Briarstone. Brother is Connor Briarstone, who murdered a priest in cold blood. Left him for dead in the chapel with stab wounds. They found him the next morning for service. And it took far too long for them to catch your brother, but he eventually was turned in by an anonymous source. Funny thing is, they say murderous habits like that can sometimes be hereditary.”
She moves quickly, pinning me against the door by my throat. I struggle for a breath against her as she grits out, “Then I find it almost comical you’ve decided to test your theory in a locked room alone with said sister of Briarstone.”
I try to clear my throat for a breath. Barely able to squeak out, “And yet you saved all those women today.”
“What’s your point?” she growls, pushing harder.
“There’s…more to you…than just your family name…”
She removes her forearm from my throat, and I catch myself on my knees before I fall, sucking in breath after breath. When I lift my head, she’s taken a few steps back from me.
I continue in a raspy voice, “It doesn’t matter where you came from. What matters is the choices you make.”
“Stop talking,” she snaps.
The storm in her eyes quiets my response. The way her fingers curl into fists, I know I’ve struck a nerve.
Straightening, I say between panted breaths, “Why did you steal that butter knife, Marcella? I worry it wasn’t because you wished to harm someone, but because you’re afraid someone will harm you.”
She swallows, her eyes scanning the floor for some hidden answer.
“Please…” I beg in a whisper. “Something isn’t right. And something tells me we must work together. Why are our memories gone? Why the nightmares? Why travel by twos, and stay in our rooms until daybreak?”
She flicks her hard brown eyes to me. Her voice is soft as she admits, “I don’t know.”
We stand there, calming our breaths as a fragile understanding settles between us.
“And that?” I motion out the window. “The trial? That’s the first of three. Do you really want to be going through all of this on your own?” I don’t dare remind her that I essentially saved her life.
It doesn't need to be said. Not for a woman like her. Because based on her expression, she’s already considering it. Holding it on her shoulders until she might find a way to free herself of it.
And that’s not even considering the fact she slowed her own progress to aid and save multiple other women.
As her expression softens into consideration, I step forward. Thinking if I tell her the one thing I saw—the jars of blood—maybe I can convince her that not all is as it seems. “Can I trust you?”
She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know. Can I trust you?”
I shake my own head. “I don’t remember much before our first day here.
But I can assure you, my intentions are clear.
I want a fair chance at exploring a potential marriage to King Cyrus.
To see if we’d be a match. But that…” My voice shakes as I recall the flashes of women being riddled by arrows.
Of crawling through the blood-stained dirt. “That trial today…?”
I can’t even finish my sentence. Unable to put words to the terror still lingering in my bones. Her lack of hesitancy and fear during the trials compared to whatever fear drove her to stealing a knife sticks in my brain.
The thought that maybe there’s something even more terrifying than the trials.
I whisper, “If you know something I do not…if something is scaring you…”
She takes a few steps for the door. “My biggest fear now is Lady Bethany’s wrath for us being late.”
I snag her forearm, willing her to look at me. “Do you mean that truthfully?”
Her gaze meets mine before it falls to the ground, and she pulls her arm from my grasp then opens the door.
We walk to the dining room in silence. With solemn expressions, eyes set only on the path ahead. Our heels click against the marbled tiles between the rugs lining the hallways.
When we get to the dining room, guards are posted at the door.
They open them, ushering us in. A soft lull of music wafts over us, settling the tension in my bones.
Down the steps, into the room, the long table and chairs are gone from where they normally are.
Instead, smaller round tables border the room.
The chandeliers are lit above, with standing candelabras speckling the expansive space.
To the left side are long buffet tables with an assortment of food.
And to the right is where most of the women congregate.
Chattering with wine glasses in their hands, picking off the servers’ platters that float from group to group offering hors d'oeuvres. The opposite wall from where we’ve entered hosts a quartet, playing an elegant melody.
Lady Bethany patters up to us, her features pinched in disappointment. “Ladies, you are beyond tardy. Where have you two been?”
We both shift a look at each other as we make our way down the steps.
Marcella says, “She busted a seam—”
“She lost an earring!” I blurt at the same time she does.
Lady Bethany’s eyes narrow before she directs most of her frustration at Marcella. “You have kept the King waiting.”
She stiffens in her red gown, but holds her head high.
I sweep my gaze across the room, finding his towering frame speaking with Devin at the farthest corner.
Both are deep in discussion, then Cyrus pats Devin’s shoulder and looks up to where we stand.
But his eyes don’t shift to me. They sink into Marcella, while Devin’s latch on to me.
A hint of suspicion in his features. Something almost like disappointment.
Marcella and I descend the rest of the stairs, me a few steps behind her. Once we both have hit the bottom floor, Cyrus is already on his way over.
“Your punishment will come later. But for now…” Lady Bethany mutters, turning as King Cyrus closes the distance between us, her scowl transforming into a smile. “Enjoy the evening.”
King Cyrus bows before us before rising to eye Marcella. Extending a white gloved hand out to her, he asks, “May I have this dance?”
She scoffs, but when Lady Bethany tosses her a glance, she drops a curtsy and responds with a mocking tone, “Of course, my King.”
I can’t help the stab of jealousy as King Cyrus takes her hand and sweeps her off.