Chapter 15 #2
It joins the ache in my shoulder, the burn in my thighs.
The sting of knowing I’ve used up a quarter of my time but can’t possibly have gotten a quarter of the way through this labyrinth.
Now I’m stranded atop an impossible staircase while gravity corkscrews all over this room, just waiting to crush me into a paste, and maybe I’ll never see my sisters again, never earn my Grace, never see another Aethrolian sunrise, because all probability points to me dying in this labyrinth, one way or the other.
The knowledge presses into me, a hot, heavy ache that makes my head throb and my sinuses burn.
I curl tighter. Goddess, I don’t want to die. Especially not like this, with no one to even realize. To care.
Shaky gasps fill my lungs, my arms trembling around my knees.
I allow myself one full minute to fall apart. Sixty heartbeats, then I force my body straight, rolling onto my back to check my bracelet again. Sand falls, grain by grain, counting down to either my freedom or my failure. But I almost don’t want to look anymore. It only cranks my anxiety tighter.
Then again, I could always flip the orb, change what it shows me.
Part of me shies away from the thought, even as a hollow ache opens beneath my ribs. Maybe this would be easier if I had someone to talk to. If I had another voice filling this cavernous room. If I could do anything besides feel utterly alone in this place, lost and forgotten.
My fingers hover over the orb’s face. Just a quick spin, and the crystal will connect me to Amriel. I hesitate, then…
Good goddess. If I’m going to die here, I might as well have some company.
I flip the orb and the hourglass vanishes. For a moment, the crystal shows only darkness.
Then light blooms, Amriel’s face filling the sphere. His eyes widen. “Princess?” His voice sounds tinny, probably a side effect of communicating across a distance. As for the choked quality, though…
I think that’s all him.
“Hi,” I say.
The background shifts suddenly, as if he’s changing positions. He leans closer, his expression pinched.
I don’t recognize his surroundings. Wherever he is, it’s dark, the angles of his face lit by a reddish glow, his hair loose and messy around his face.
“Are you all right?” he says, all in a rush.
Ishanna help me. Maybe this was a bad idea, because his question eases something in me, a wound I didn’t even realize I was carrying. Warmth unfurls in my bones, the aches and pains draining from my joints.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m in a room where gravity doesn’t make sense, but yes, I’m all right.”
His expression changes. It actually crumples—or starts to, I think—but then the frame shifts, reducing everything to a blur. A second later, I find myself staring at a patch of moss. Amriel’s hand dangles into view, as if he’s pointed whatever he’s using to talk to me toward the floor.
“Amriel?”
When he doesn’t answer, I press my bracelet to my ear and make out a few wracking breaths. I look again to find his hand clenched into a tight, pale fist.
“Amriel.”
A throat clears. The frame shifts again, his face swimming into focus. This time, his expression looks smooth, contained. Well…almost. A glimmer survives in his eyes, a little too bright, a little too luminous for him to bury.
That spark pulls at me, a warm, sharp tug in my belly. “Were you worried about me?” I say slowly. “You weren’t waiting for me to turn this thing on, were you?”
His mouth twitches. “No, of course not. I just happened to pick up my orb. I was going to move it, and then you…” He trails off, backtracks. “I was only…”
My breath catches. His floundering shouldn’t inject sunlight into my veins, yet I can’t stop the flood of warmth that overtakes me.
It’s one thing to know his innermost secrets, to have his Shadow confess them to me outright.
It’s another to hear the hitch in his voice, to see concern carved across his brow.
To understand that I mean something to him, however much he tries to deny it.
“So you’re saying I just got lucky?” I venture.
He exhales. “Yes. You just got lucky.”
I press my lips together. I should probably leave it alone, just let him have this, but… “Because you weren’t holing up in…wherever you are, staring at your orb, waiting for me?”
“No,” he says, clipped. “Definitely not.”
“Oh. Right. Of course not.”
He makes a sound halfway between a grumble and a warning. And then I’m the one hiding, burying my bracelet against my chest so he won’t see my expression. Until I realize I’ve probably treated him to an up-close view of my cleavage and yank my wrist back up.
“Wait,” he says, with a note of complaint. “Do that again.”
Warmth rockets into my cheeks. Goddess. Maybe this was a good idea, actually. Maybe he can steady me. Maybe he can scandalize me into getting through this room. Already, my hands feel surer, my stomach more settled.
“That view isn’t meant for you,” I say curtly.
“Actually, that view is meant for only me and no one else, but…that’s fine. Go ahead and keep it to yourself. At least in this lifetime.”
I look at him askance, but he softens the jab with a faint smile—the first I’ve ever seen on him that didn’t tip into sardonic. And…Ishanna’s blood. Am I seeing this right?
I bring my wrist closer. Squint.
Then jerk the bracelet away, because Amriel of the fae, king of Velindra, war veteran, enemy of humans, and outright grump…has dimples.
Dimples.
The warmth in my cheeks proliferates, a flush spreading to my whole body. How have I never seen those before? Where has he been hiding them?
He must catch something in my face, because his eyes narrow. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say, too quickly.
Long seconds tick by. Goddess help me, but how are both of us so hopeless?
“Look.” I stare at the ceiling—searching for strength, maybe.
Which turns out to be a mistake, because what used to be the right-hand wall now hovers overhead.
My stomach knots in confusion, and I pull my attention back to the orb, waiting for the feeling to pass.
“I only turned this thing on because I was hoping…maybe you could distract me for a minute? Talk to me while I do this?”
His brows pull together. “What’s ‘this,’ exactly?”
I explain to him what I’m doing—the gravity, the stairs, the pebbles. This three-dimensional puzzle where avoiding a lethal fall is the best prize I can hope for.
His expression tightens as I talk. When I finish, he says, “Do you need me?” The question comes out low and fast and rough.
I frown. “Need you? Need you how?”
“Do you need me to come get you?” he clarifies. “By gyre?”
Wait, what? He can’t be serious, can he? “No.” My answer comes out too shrill, too quick. “Of course not. If you do that, you’ll die.”
“Maybe.” He lifts a shoulder, lets it fall. As if his life is worth nothing more than a simple half-shrug. “Or maybe not. It’s a coin toss.”
I nearly choke on the horror that crashes up my throat. “No. That’s not why I contacted you. At all. Don’t you dare use your gyre here. Don’t even think about it.”
A line appears between his brows. “Why not?”
“Because… Because…”
His eyes thin to slits. “What? You’re not worried about me, are you?”
“No,” I snap.
“Oh. Right. Of course not.”
I open my mouth, but have no rebuttal. Something else balloons in my chest—laughter, maybe, or a scream, because I see what he just did.
And I hate him for it, except that I don’t, and…
this is good, arguing with him. Being challenged by him.
His voice bolsters me enough that I muster the will to roll over, propping myself on hands and knees.
Maybe if he keeps talking, keeps aggravating me, I can do this.
“You could use your gyre safely, though,” he continues. “Come back to the castle. Get yourself out of that room.”
I inspect my surroundings. The hallway I entered through now appears to lead into the floor, and I pull my gaze away. Better to look at what’s directly in front of me, and nothing else. “No.”
“Why not?”
I don’t allow myself to linger on that question for more than a moment. My gyre would only take me back to him, and if I ever managed to leave again, I’d simply return here. I’d still have to get through this.
“Because,” I say. “I don’t want to. I only contacted you so I’d have someone to talk to. Not so you could come get me. Or convince me to go back there.”
He lets go of a long exhale. “Is this really my only option? Talking?”
“No. I always could flip my orb again and do this alone, in total silence.”
He grumbles and looks away, massaging his temples with fingers that somehow remind me of poetry and war and extravagance, all at the same time.
When he finishes ruminating, he says, “Fine. All right. What do you want me to talk about, then?”
The thrill of my victory warms me. “I don’t know. Maybe the stars you wished on when you were a boy. Talk about that.”
“I already told you what I wished for,” he says, the words sharp with warning.
I roll my eyes. “That’s not what I mean. I remember that part. Very well. But maybe tell me why. Why wish on stars if you don’t believe in a higher power? If you don’t have faith in Ishanna at all?”
A pause. “You want me to talk about…religion?”
“Why not?” Better to discuss something we fundamentally disagree on. Because while I need to hear his voice, I can’t risk connecting with him, not after what happened last night. “Because I’ve never understood how you can just believe in…nothing.”
“Who says I believe in nothing?”
“You’re fae.” I fish a pebble from my pocket and tip it down the stairs. It bounces down to the landing below, which connects to two more flights—one ascending, one descending. From the looks of it, I can make my way down safely, then decide from there. “Everyone knows the fae are godless.”
He grumbles. “Just because I’m godless doesn’t mean I believe in nothing.” With my wrist now tilted away, his voice floats to me as if from nowhere. And yet it’s everywhere, guiding me, pulling me through this.