Chapter 15 #3
I shuffle down the stairs on hands and knees, part of me praying I’ll stay adhered to the steps while the other part focuses on formulating a response. “All right. Then what do you believe in?”
A pause. “Are you sure you want to know?”
I reach the landing and toss a pebble up the ascending flight. It takes a hard right halfway to the top, sailing across most of the room before cracking against another staircase. The echo ricochets, as clean and sharp as the snap of a bone.
I shudder. Definitely not going that way.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m sure.”
Rustling emanates from my bracelet, but I can’t risk the distraction of looking, and can only guess at what Amriel’s doing. Repositioning himself, maybe. Lying down in whatever darkened room he’s in. Curling around his orb, orienting himself around his lifeline to me.
At least, that’s how it goes in my imagination.
“I don’t know how to describe it to a human,” he says carefully. “It would be easier to show you.”
A soft snort escapes me. “Well, that’s not an option.”
“Why not? Because I’ll never see you again?”
“Exactly. So find the words.” I push a pebble down the descending flight. It turns sharply upward at the bottom and clicks against a landing overhead. Not a bad drop, but the gravity reversal will be tricky to navigate. Maybe if I get on my back, crabwalk down these stairs…
I flip over, feeling my way down with my hands, my belly pointed at…
the ceiling? Is that still the ceiling? I don’t know anymore.
At the bottom, gravity loosens its hold, then abruptly tugs on me from the opposite direction.
I go plunging upward, managing to swing my arms and legs around in time to land on all fours.
My head swims. My stomach swirls. I take a moment to reorient myself, then issue myself a silent congratulations.
“I believe in what I can feel,” Amriel says slowly, his voice distant, like he’s thinking hard. “In connection, and in moments. In what my body tells me. In pain and sensation and…” He swallows. “Pleasure.”
I freeze, the next pebble cool against my fingertips. “Pleasure. Like…dessert? That’s what you believe in? That’s what you worship?”
That earns me a burnt-out chuckle. “If by dessert, you mean sex, then no, that’s not what I worship. Not exactly. I haven’t had that in a century, anyway.”
My grip tightens around the stone. I know we’re discussing philosophy, or should be, but… “You haven’t slept with a woman in a hundred years?”
Another laugh, this one as bitter as winter. “No.”
My breath comes too fast, too short. For some reason, I assumed Amriel regularly partook in dessert. Then again, I also assumed Calen and Ravenna barely knew each other. “Why not?”
“What would be the point? I can’t concentrate long enough to enjoy it. To even finish. I’ve tried, but it was never enough to drown out the curse. At least, not with anyone that isn’t…”
He goes quiet. I wait for the rest, not moving. I barely even breathe. “Not with anyone that isn’t what?” I whisper.
He lets a few heartbeats pass by. “Nothing. The point is, wine works better. So that’s what I use.”
A pang coils in my throat. I force myself past it, concentrate on testing two potential paths.
I’ll need to make a ninety-degree turn to the right, and the drop will be bigger than the last, but as long as I orient myself properly beforehand, it should be doable.
“So you worship wine, then? Being drunk?”
Amriel sighs. “No. I told you I wouldn’t be able to explain.”
“You’re explaining just fine.” I stretch on my side and inchworm down the steps. “You’re saying you believe in vice. In whatever sensation can hold your attention for more than a few moments.”
“No, that’s not…” Another grumble rolls out of him. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand. I understand that you worship sin.”
A long, drawn-out sigh. “No. Sin’s your belief, not mine. The fae don’t assign value that way. We believe in experiences. In what we enjoy, and what we don’t. Like I said, if you ever come back, I’ll show you.”
For some reason, that makes my belly ravel tight, and I pause long enough to breathe through the ache. “I’m not coming back.”
Long seconds die away as I shuffle through the next gravity shift, landing clumsily but without hurting myself.
“Are you all right?” he says quietly. “That one looked risky.”
I fish more pebbles from my pocket. “I’m still here, for now. So just keep talking. Please. Tell me what you mean.”
He makes a gruff sound. I can almost feel him thinking. Hesitating. But then, “The mate bond. That’s as close as I can get. Because you’ve felt it. That it’s a force, like water or wind. One that exists beyond us, but also as part of us, connecting us.”
“I’ve felt something,” I admit. “But I’m not sure that really means anything. Until last night, I’d never kissed anyone before. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to feel. Maybe all kisses are like that.”
“All kisses are not like that,” he growls.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”
“You didn’t,” he snaps.
I proceed through one turn, then another, and glimpse an exit hallway ahead, opposite the entrance, if upside-down in relation.
But its plane of gravity doesn’t matter. I’ll gladly walk across that ceiling if it will get me out of here.
“I’m not just talking about last night, anyway,” he says. “You’ve felt the bond’s power well before you kissed me.”
My nose crinkles. “I’m very certain that you kissed me.”
Another growl. This one doesn’t even have words. “That’s beside the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“That you know the bond exists. You felt it in your room, when I touched your leg and your pain went away. And in the solarium, when I grabbed your wrist and you were able to see my—” A choking sound.
I peer down at my bracelet. “What was that?” I say with a frown. “I think the connection broke for a second. I didn’t hear that last part.”
“Nothing.” He glares at me through the crystal. “Except that I’m saying the bond proves we’re more than just blood and bone. We’re also connection, and pleasure. Or we’re supposed to be, anyway. Things are…different for me.”
The grief in his tone steals the air from my lungs, even as I crawl through another turn. This man idolizes pleasure, but never gets to have it, his whole life steeped in pain, instead.
Goddess. I shouldn’t sympathize, not with a heathen. And yet I can’t help but wonder who I would have become if I’d had my beliefs taken from me. If I’d had Ishanna wrested away not by choice, but by force.
Maybe I would have turned to drink, too. To anger and sin and unhappiness.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. I scoot down a few stairs, already anticipating the sideways swoop at the bottom.
“For what?" he says hoarsely.
“Your curse. Your suffering. Your—”
“Life is suffering,” he says, something in his voice closing up. “At least for me. Don’t worry about it.”
I hesitate. That was clearly the wrong thing to say. Better to argue with him, I guess. “All right. But you’re ignoring something very important.”
“Which is?”
I roll two more pebbles and make my choice. “That if the bond proves there’s something more, that only argues in favor of a higher power. Maybe this…connection you value so much comes from Ishanna.”
“Is that what you think?” he says tightly. “That what you and I are to each other comes from your goddess?”
I pause. I didn’t say that. And yet it’s a fair question, because for all that I’ve spent this conversation needling him, I can’t deny that the bond exists. Something within him calls to me, and whatever lives inside me answers, whether I want it to or not.
Which means… Well, I don’t know. I haven’t figured that part out, yet.
“Hush,” I say, unable—or unwilling—to explore that question further. At least not right now. “You’re distracting me.”
“Oh, now I’m distracting you? I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“I did. Now I don’t. So just be quiet for a second, okay?” The exit looms ahead, maybe two or three flights away, now.
“You do realize I’m a king, right? You can’t command me.”
“Shhh.” I reach into my pocket and…
Oh, no.
My next heartbeat collides with my ribs, nearly knocking me off-balance.
I’m so close to the end. So close. But I’ve run out of pebbles, and now have nothing left to toss.
Except my orb bracelet, or my knife, or my gyre.
But if I strand myself without a weapon or a failsafe, without a way out of this maze should the worst happen…
No. I have to find something else.
“Princess?” Amriel says, as if sensing my hesitation.
My mind races. Maybe I could cut something apart with my knife, toss the pieces, but…what?
My hair? I cringe. Absolutely not. I’d rather die splatted across the ceiling.
“Princess.” Amriel’s tone sharpens.
I wince, grateful that he can’t see my face from this angle. I don’t want to admit my situation, in case he decides to do something stupid. Because if he explodes right in front of me, if he makes me watch him die…
I push down a dry heave, unable to even complete the thought.
I try my best to sound normal. “What?”
“Why’d you stop? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just…” I glance down at myself. I have to have something I can throw. Then I realize. The laces of this ridiculous leather shirt dangle down my front. I can cut them up, use those. “…changing tactics.”
More rustling comes from the sphere, as if Amriel is sitting up again. “Changing tactics? No. Why? What you were doing was working just fine.”
I pull out my dagger and saw off half a dozen bits of leather lacing. They won’t roll the way the pebbles did, which means I’ll have to creep along, tossing a new one in the air every foot or so.
But I’m close. I can do this.
“It’s fine.” My throat tightens, and I force a swallow. Next time, I’ll bring more rocks. “Don’t worry. Just let me concentrate.”
“Just let you…” His voice is strained. “No. I need you to wait. Okay? Don’t move again until I say so.”