Chapter 51
Fifty-One
- MARCELLA -
I’m at Aelia’s window. The farthest away from Lyra’s. If I can persuade her to leave with us, I’ll have an ally who can help me convince the rest of the women, too.
My best chance at getting inside the rooms won’t be from the hallways. Not when I would have to knock if they’re all locked. My stomach drops at the thought of scaling the castle walls to try and get to every woman.
What if they refuse to listen? What if rather than agreeing to leave, they decide to stay? Decide to alert the rest of the castle?
I push the thoughts out of my mind. Because I don’t have time for it.
Aelia’s lying in her bed, her back to me. Sucking in a breath, I tap the glass gently with my foot. And wait.
Nothing.
Grumbling, I tap a bit harder.
Her head shoots up from the pillow, staring at the wall in front of her. Tapping the window again, she swivels. Eyes rounding even more when she realizes someone is hanging outside of her window. She scrambles out from her sheets, never taking her eyes off me as she races toward her door.
“No!” I hiss. “It’s me! Marcella!” I drop to kneel on the ledge, my thighs screaming at the amount of strength it takes to keep me from slipping, my fingers aching with the pressure of holding onto the ledge above. Bringing my face closer to the windowpane, I hit the glass with my forehead.
As she’s reaching out for her door, she drops her hand. Lips parting when she recognizes who’s at her window. Tossing a quick glance over to her bathroom, then the door, she then strides for the window. Unlatching it, she swings it open.
“What are you doing?” she hisses.
I grunt as I try to quietly crawl in, and she grabs my forearm to steady me. As I drop onto the floor, I stand to face her. “We need to leave. Tonight. Now.”
“Are you out of your mind?” She glances around my shoulder to the window. “How much did you drink tonight?”
I grab her wrist. “I’m not drunk. And there’s not much time. Lyra told me—”
“You spoke to Lyra?” She squints in confusion. “When?”
“I just left her room. Our quarrel was just a ruse. She and I are friends.” I tug her toward the window. “We need to leave.”
“Where is she?” She leans around to glance behind me out the window.
“She…is going to meet us in her room and we’ll all leave together.”
She narrows her eyes at me, pressing her heels down so I can’t pull her further.
I tighten my grip on her wrist. “We don’t have a lot of time.
We need to alert all the other women. Willow didn’t run off, she was murdered here in the halls while we slept.
You know that after Lyra told you about the earring.
And—” I swallow, pushing through my hesitation.
“Aelia, King Cyrus is not a man. He’s a…
a creature. None of us are safe here, so we must leave at once—”
She pulls her wrist out of my grasp. “No, I’m not leaving.”
“Are you insane?” I hiss. “Did you not hear everything I just said?”
“You haven’t spoken to Lyra or me in almost two days, then you almost fight her, and now you break into my room in the middle of the night expecting me to follow you? No.” She steps back. “As far as I know…you’re a Briarstone here to shave off the competition.”
“The reason I couldn’t speak with you two is because Lady Bethany threatened me.”
She flinches. Asking slowly, “Lady Bethany? Threatened you with what?”
“She threatened that if I spoke to either of you one more time, she’d have me killed. And after I saw her collecting the blood of the other women who were ‘dismissed’ and so-called ‘sick’, I wouldn’t put it past her.”
She doesn’t flinch. Only stares back at me.
Narrowing my eyes, I step closer to her. “You don’t seem…surprised.”
Her eyes widen as I prowl forward, then backpedals to keep space between us.
“What is it you’re hiding, Aelia?” I sneer.
A shake begins to take over her form. “I-I—”
“Answer me!” I withdraw my dagger.
She lifts her hands up and blurts, “She can’t kill you if you’re blood bound to Lyra. It’s all a bluff.”
My face drops, shoulders sagging. “What? How did you—did Lyra tell you?”
“No. You both began to wear those gloves all the time. And during the trials it was odd. But what gave it away was the fact that Lyra no longer favored using her right hand. Early on I caught her wincing when something would touch her palm. So I suspected it and reported it to Lady Bethany.”
“You did what?” I growl, snatching the collar of her nightgown.
“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t know what else to do!
It felt dangerous playing with magic like that.
Do you not understand how serious a blood bond is?
Then I became worried that neither of you told me.
That you didn’t trust me. After that, you two began to have your own private, separate conversations.
To the point that I felt like an outsider watching you two.
And then when Willow disappeared…I was scared. I thought maybe you had killed her.”
My fist wrapped in her gown, I jerk her closer to me. “You could have asked us about it!”
“You wouldn’t have told me even if I had!” she spits back.
I lean away, surprised by her shaken demeanor.
Letting go of her collar, I push away from her and head for the window.
Sheathing my dagger. “Doesn’t matter now.
You either come and help me save the other women, or stay here and risk your end.
But for me and Lyra, we’ve decided to capture our own fate. ”
I climb out of the window, and as I turn to latch back onto the ledge, Aelia appears at the sill.
“Wait. I-…I have a better idea.”
I narrow my eyes. “What? We’ve been wasting a lot of precious time, and we need to move.”
“Well, if you had keys to each room, it would be much quicker than if you scaled the castle walls tapping on every window.”
I pop my head back into her room. “And how is it we would get keys to every room?”
“Lady Bethany has them locked in her nightstand.”
“Alright, well, I have no idea where she stays.”
“It’s a good thing I do, then,” she counters.
“And how would you know about her keys? Or where she’s staying?”
She dips her head sheepishly. “Well, you see…I’m…quite familiar with her.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m her daughter.”
I jerk back as if she’s slapped me. Then shake my head before hopping back into her room.
“You couldn’t have led with that? For someone who scolds us for not sharing the truth about our blood oath, you’ve been hiding the fact you’re related to that woman?
Why would she even entertain involving her daughter in such a precarious situation? ”
“Because we had a plan…” she admits quietly.
“Wait,” I laugh cynically. “Wait, wait, wait. Lady Bethany, as you mentioned in one of our lessons, studied dragon breeding. Which means—” My face drops. “You knew about Cyrus? You knew we would be hunted by the dragon shifter?”
Her eyes fall to the floor in shame. “My mother had me drinking his blood, hoping it would be enough to lure him to me. She thought it would be effective enough that we wouldn't have to progress in the trials. That the creature would select me as his mate, and Cyrus would have his Queen.”
“She led you like a lamb to the slaughter,” I whisper, shaking my head.
She looks back up to me, eyes soft and sorrowful. “It could’ve finally been enough to make her proud of me. Her daughter as Queen.”
“And were all the women who died in the meantime worth it?” I spit.
Her lip trembles. “No. No, not at all. It got out of hand.”
She wipes a tear from her eye and walks toward her door, slipping a pair of flat shoes on her feet. “That’s why I want to help. I won’t be compliant anymore.”
I follow her out of the room. We creep through the hallways in tightened silence. As I follow her lead, my suspicion grows more and more.
If she’s truly Lady Bethany’s daughter…then wouldn’t she know I was told I couldn’t speak to her and Lyra? Is she lying? Perhaps she’s leading me to Lady Bethany to turn me in, and this’ll all be over before we’ve even started.
With Aelia’s focus on the path ahead, I slip out my dagger from my thigh sheathe. Regardless of whether this is a trap or not, I’m a trained soldier. The best of the best. Even the two of them couldn’t take me on.
We get to the end of a hallway and she stops in front of me abruptly. I slam into the back of her and we both stumble before either of us can fall. Grabbing her shoulder, I edge her to the side so I can peer at what she’s looking at.
A trail of something dark is streaked across the floor, over the hallway runner, and to the other side of the hall. Beyond that is a single door. Slightly ajar.
“Oh, Gods,” Aelia breathes, taking a step back into me. “That’s blood…and that’s her room.”
I completely brush her aside and tiptoe closer, crouching near the blood trail. It glistens in the dim light, not quite absorbed by the rug.
It’s fresh.
Turning my head left, it stretches down another hallway, no end in sight. I turn right. More there, too. Standing, I step over it and peek into the parted door. Nobody is in the bed. I use my dagger as a mirror, teasing it into the room and tilting it to capture the angles hidden by the door.
Glancing over my shoulder at Aelia, who is stricken white. I urge, “Come on. We won’t have much time. She’s not here.”
“S-she’s not?” she whimpers.
No time for emotions. Without waiting for her, I push into the room. It's decorated similarly to the rest of ours. Two nightstands frame the bed, and I move for the one on the left. As I creep further into the room, my heart the only sound in my ears, I sweep my attention to the bathroom.
Not there either.
Reaching the nightstand, I test the drawer. Naturally, it’s locked. Using my dagger, I shove it into the crack between the drawer and the nightstand, using my strength to pry it open.
Light footsteps sound behind me, and I take a split second to glance and find Aelia is in the room with me. She shakes her head and points to the other side of the bed. “Not that one, this one.”
Removing my dagger, I go for the nightstand on the right. We work together to force it open. My dagger in the crack as I hold the nightstand still, and she pulls at the handle.
It creaks in protest, then snaps. Aelia falls back as I catch the nightstand before it can fall on her. We both scramble for the ring of keys in the drawer. Next to it is a vial.
I pluck the vial up as she grabs the keys. Turning it in my fingers, I hold it up to look at it in the starlight spilling in through the window across the room.
It’s dark. Darker than blood. Black, even. Unless the dim light is playing tricks on me. As I shift it, pinpricks of light shimmer within it.
“It’s his blood” Aelia murmurs, standing with the keys.
Pocketing it, I take the drawer and slide it back in. Then kick the splinters of wood under the bed. “Come on. Wherever your mother is, she might be back soon.”
As we get to the door, Aelia grabs me to face her. “I-I can’t. I have to go find her. Whatever this is…” her voice shakes as she motions to the blood in the hall, “I can’t leave her if she’s in danger. I have to find her.”
I grab the keys from her. “Aelia, if something has happened to her, it might be too late anyway. And if you follow her, it might mean your death, too.”
“She’s my mother,” she whispers.
A jolt of understanding, of a memory, shoots through me.
He’s my brother.
Nodding, I whisper to her, “Good luck.” I step over the blood and head down the hall.