Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
- LYRA -
I sit up in bed and stretch, finding that, as I listen to the morning birds chirping outside, a peculiar ache buzzes in my head. I lower my arms and blink through my grogginess, I flex my hands.
No ache. Not even a hint of yesterday’s trial lingers in my muscles. Removing the bandages, I find my skin is perfect. Free from even a hint of scar tissue.
Odd.
Though, the pulsing in my head ticks up in pressure. I run a hand down the back of my head. Prodding my skull gently, testing to see where the pain radiates from.
A pounding sounds at my bedroom door.
Throwing the sheets off my naked legs, I stalk across the room. The tile is cold on my bare feet. Keeping my body behind the door, I open it and pop my head out.
Lady Bethany stands on the other side, a smile plastered on her face. “Good morning, Lyra.”
“Oh…” I laugh nervously, combing a quick hand from my temple back behind my head. “Good morning, Lady Bethany.”
“Can you please explain why you are two hours late?”
My eyes widen. “T-two hours late?”
Her smile remains, but something flashes in her eyes. Disappointment. Anger. “Indeed. Not only have you missed breakfast, but I have had to postpone our lesson today because you and Marcella decided to sleep in.”
“Marcella?” I repeat in a whisper. Marcella was supposed to come last night. And for whatever reason…she never showed.
“But the General informed me on my walk here that you were ill. If that’s true, I am very sorry to hear it. I believe the best cure for any sort of sickness…” she holds out a small glass vial, “is of course, to rest. Drink plenty of fluids, medicine. And to quarantine.”
“Quarantine?” I repeat, unable to form much thought around the pulsing in my head.
“Yes. I would hate for whatever ails you to be passed around to the other girls. You understand, don’t you?” She presses the vial into my hand.
“Yes.” Obediently, I take it. As I tip it one way, a red liquid sloshes back and forth within it. A heat radiates from the glass. “What is this?”
“Medicine, of course. To help you feel better, quicker.”
Floating my gaze back up to her, I murmur, “Thank…you.”
Her smile widens, and she dips her head before grabbing the door handle and closing it herself. A series of locks sounds outside and, after a still moment, I test the door only to find it won’t budge.
Did she just…lock me in here?
I test it more, twisting and shaking until I pound against it. “Wait!” I say into the crack between the two doors. “Lady Bethany! Please. I do not wish to be locked in here!”
But only silence responds.
I slowly sink to my knees.
How long am I going to be locked in here? And how is it Marcella and I both slept in? Granted, I imagine all of us were exhausted beyond comprehension after such a long, traumatic day yesterday. But…Marcella wanted to meet in the middle of the night. She had something she needed to discuss.
I drag my attention over my shoulder to the window. The sky is blue, and a light fog hangs in the distant green cliffsides of the Serahaven mountains. Then I look to my bed. I have no recollection of falling asleep last night. As I glance down at my nightgown, I trail a thumb along the hem.
I don’t even remember changing out of my dress?
I rise off the floor, then walk to the bathroom. Once I place the vial Lady Bethany gave me on the counter, I splash my face with cold water in the sink, then straighten and look at myself in the mirror.
As I blink, my reflection does so a half-second out of sync. Squinting, I lean closer to the glass. I blink again. Then tilt my head slowly to one side, then back the other way.
Opium poppies can cause hallucinations. Perhaps it’s a lingering effect from whatever tonic they gave me yesterday to heal the burns.
The poppies would also explain why I slept in so much—heavy sedation typically comes hand-in-hand with pain relief.
Though, I don’t remember taking any tonics after the infirmary.
A quiet shuffling sounds off in my room. Enough of a distraction that I lift my heavy head and make out something lying on the floor.
A letter.
I snag it a few tiles away from my door. Opening the wax seal on the back stamped with an A, I find a familiar handwriting.
Lyra,
It’s only for twenty-four hours. I am so sorry. I promise you it is outside of my control. Do not drink whatever Lady Bethany gives you.
Folding the letter closed, I tuck it underneath my mattress. Then turn my attention back to the bathroom. From this angle, I can see the vial on the counter and a sliver of mirror.
I take a seat on the window bench and lean against the windowpane, the sunlight heating my cheek.
Twenty-four hours.
I suppose under any other circumstance I should be delighted with sitting by myself in the quiet.
Staring out at the endless landscape beyond the castle grounds.
But as I stare, I follow the tops of the Serahaven mountains down to the waterfalls, then the lake collected below Vitalis.
The pristine shine to the bridges, the courtyard pavers.
Odd, considering…
The pain in my skull flashes again into a steady beat.
Pound.
Pound.
I pull my head back from the window, staring at one paver in particular set into a pathway. Different from all the others that it sticks out like a sore thumb.
It’s colorless. Rugged and misshapen.
Flashes of yesterday’s trials course through me. Of crawling through red-stained dirt. Of women’s bodies collapsing on the ground, arrows protruding from their bodies.
I try to think of something else. Of flowers.
Bursts of blue roses and rolling black hills. Beauty and serenity. A song drifts up from my subconscious again, and I hum it aloud to try and pin it down. Once I’ve caught the melody, my heartbeat picks up pace. Because as I stare at that imperfect paver, humming the distant song, I remember.
Vitalis was destroyed a long time ago.
King Aaric had utterly ruined the castle grounds once he took the throne. And yet…every which way I look, it’s a breathtaking view. Pristine. Perfection. Just like the old paintings I had seen back in Kilamber.
As the pounding in my head lightens, I tap against the window, waiting for the landscape beyond to change. Closing my eyes, I continue humming, and when I open them, I expect a new panorama. But instead, all is as I saw it before.
Except…the one paver is gone. Replaced by a perfectly uniform one, that I can no longer tell where I had seen it in the pattern prior.
Gods above.
What if I am truly sick?
A tapping snaps my eyes open. I lift off the cold windowpane. My room is drowning in shadow, and a chill settles over my skin.
It’s night. And yet…I don’t remember falling asleep. But the pain in my head is gone.
Another tap, and I jump as I find a silhouette at the window. On the other side.
My eyes meet dark ones, and my mouth drops open.
Marcella?
Her eyes narrow, and she motions to the bottom of the window frame impatiently.
Scrambling up from the window seat, I slide my fingers along the bottom of the frame.
Knowing well that when I first woke here weeks ago, I searched for a latch but found nothing.
She points down at a specific spot. Following her direction, I run my hands up and to the left side of the window to where there’s a hidden latch. I open it.
The frame squeaks with disuse as it opens. I lean forward to poke my head out. “What in the Gods’ names are you doing out here!”
Her bare heels hang off the several-inches-wide ledge trimming this story of the castle. She’s clinging to a long piece of fabric, seemingly looped up on some part of the castle’s architecture above the window.
My mouth drops open. “Is that…a bed sheet?”
“Shut up and help me in, will you!” she snaps as she shakily crouches, clinging to the sheet for dear life.
I grab her waist, and together we inch her closer to the open windowpane until we’ve pulled her inside. When she straightens, her breath comes rapidly.
She runs her hands down her head to flatten her thick, dark hair. “Did you take the vial Lady Bethany gave you?”
Blinking at her clipped tone, I answer, “No? It’s in the bathroom.”
“Show it to me.”
I lead her to the bathroom, pluck the vial from the counter, and present it to her. “See? I was told not to consume it.”
“By who?”
“Cyrus.”
She tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “You saw him?”
“No, I received a letter from him.”
She blows out an annoyed breath with a roll of her eyes before she takes the vial from my hands and rips the cork off.
“What are you doing?” I mutter, catching a glimpse of my profile in the mirror before redirecting my attention to her.
“What you should have done,” she scolds, then pours it down the sink drain. The red liquid ‘glub glub glubs’ as it drains, and she turns on the faucet to wash it away.
“What was it?” I ask behind her.
She looks up at me in the mirror. Forcing my eyes to follow.
She rinses out the vial as she mutters, “I don’t know. But there was an odd scent to it that made me suspicious in a way I can’t explain. Keep the vial, though, and if she asks—you took it.”
Finally, she corks it and turns to me, handing me the vial.
I place it on the bathroom counter. “You were supposed to meet me last night, but you didn’t come. How much wine did you drink at the ball?”
She crosses her arms over her chest, growling, “You’re on this again?”
“I think they laced the wine. Weeks ago I saw opium poppies in the back of the gardens. They’re known for their healing properties, but also hallucinations and heavy sedation.”
Her stare is hard, but she lightly cocks her head to the side.
“Which would explain how we both slept in,” I continue more quietly, flexing my hand in front of her. “And how else would this not hurt me when I was burned so severely?”
“It was a third-degree-burn; you might have charred your nerves. Or, they used dragonblood.”
“Perhaps, but…” I swallow back my hesitation. “Does dragonblood cause intense dreams? Hallucinations?”