Chapter 15 #4
A frown steals across my mouth. I glance down at my orb, but he must have pressed his to his chest, or covered it with something, because it shows only darkness. “What am I waiting for?”
“Just wait,” he snaps. Then, a moment later, “Please.”
It’s the please that shocks me into complying, plaintive to the point of vulnerability. I wait, peering into an orb that shows me nothing, listening as a door creaks and footsteps sound, heavy and quick, as if he’s scaling a flight of stairs.
Long moments tick by as he climbs and climbs and climbs. Where is he going? To the solarium, maybe, but why?
“Amriel?”
“I’m almost there.” Tension thrums in his voice. Another door creaks. More footsteps, then silence. The shush of something opening and closing. Wood against wood, maybe? I can’t tell for sure.
Then the orb flares, granting me a new view of him sitting at his desk in the solarium.
I can’t see much more than his face, his shoulders.
But now true sunlight bathes his features, illuminating the bruised shadows beneath his eyes, the lines carved beside his mouth.
The way his eyes have gone bloodshot and his golden skin has paled to ash.
“Goddess,” I say, before I can stop myself. “When did you last sleep? Have you slept?”
His gaze skitters away. “I never can,” he says roughly. “I told you that already.”
I draw a breath and hold it, because this seems like something more. I’ve never seen him look this ragged, this strained.
And for a moment, just one, I wonder if I should have stayed.
Then I sweep the thought from my mind, because what? Of course not.
My fingers curl into fists, pressing into the floor as I smooth my emotions to a calm, blank surface. I need to get through this, to get out of this horrible room. I can’t afford to think of anything else. “Can I go now?”
He doesn’t blink. “Yes. You can go.”
I nod and inch onto an ascending stairwell, one of two ways I can proceed. A few shuffles in, I toss a scrap of leather, which arcs gently downward. Normal gravity. I creep up the stairs, tossing bits of lacing, again and again.
At the top, a scrap goes flying upward, and I crane my neck. A wide landing hovers directly above me—the corresponding, upside-down mirror of the one that led me in.
My exit. If I can reach it, I’ll be free to walk out.
But the drop is further than any I’ve endured so far—eight or nine feet, probably. Enough to jar me, maybe sprain a knee. Maybe break something if I land badly.
I glance back. Around. I could always backtrack, see if another stairway will get me closer, but…
Ugh. I’ve already used more time than I can afford, and there’s no guarantee I’ll find another route.
I swallow hard, girding myself. Best to just risk it.
I flip onto my back and shimmy up the next stair. Amriel’s breath scrapes across the silence, his inhales shallow, almost painful, and the oddest thought floats to me from nowhere. Do our hearts beat in time, even now?
Somehow, I suspect the answer is yes. That he can feel the frantic thump in my veins as the top stair creeps closer. That his heart shrivels alongside mine as I squeeze my eyes shut and brace for gravity to—
Up I go, limbs flailing. I swear the fall lasts forever.
Thump. I collide with the floor, the impact folding my legs, then my arms. I list sideways and end up flat on my belly, my knees throbbing, my cheek smushed against the cool marble tile.
Oh, goddess. Oh, Ishanna. I made it, but I hurt, and I never want to do that ever again.
“Princess?” Panic threads through Amriel’s tone. “Sariah?”
I pull my wrist to my face with a groan. Amriel stares out, his brow creased, his gaze desperate, and…good goddess. He looks so wrecked, so beautiful, that my vision goes blurry for a moment.
“I’m here,” I say. “I’m fine.”
He eases back. But his expression doesn’t change, and the musculature of one shoulder flexes and rolls, as if…
I frown. Wait a minute. “Amriel? What’re you holding?”
He doesn’t answer. Just glances to the side, toward whatever he has in his hand.
“Amriel. What’re you holding?”
A muscle feathers in his jaw. “Nothing.”
A sick feeling erupts at the very bottom of my belly. Because I know it’s not nothing. He wouldn’t have made me pause for nothing. And he keeps his gyre up in the solarium, in his desk drawer. “Then why’d you make me wait? What were you going to do if I fell?”
He exhales hard through his nose. “Nothing. I don’t know. What does it matter?”
I blink, my eyes too hot, a sting rushing up the back of my throat. I would wager anything that he’s holding his gyre at this very moment. “I told you not to come in here. I told you. Promise me you won’t. No matter what.”
He just looks at me. And says nothing.
Ugh. I clamber up. It’s either that or surrender to the tears inexplicably bathing the backs of my eyes, and I don’t need that. No, I need to get out of here. To find my way back to the awkward distance we had a few minutes ago. To just…not talk to him for a minute. Not look at him, either.
So I drop my wrist and start down the hallway. A door waits at the end, and I sniff away the burn in my eyes as I focus on reaching it. When I do, I turn the handle and step through without looking back.
Good riddance to these awful stairways.
Outside, another meadow opens around me, replete with birdsong and the cajoling caress of the wind. I wade out into the grass, load two pockets with pebbles this time, and continue on.
The very first tree I reach has a door set into it.
I pause. Stare at the sky long enough to gather my composure. Then glance down at my bracelet. “Thank you,” I say, willing my voice not to wobble. “For talking me through that. For…being there.”
Amriel nods, battling whatever expression is currently trying to take over his face. But to my shock, he loses. A thousand shades of misery paint his features, each one so raw that my breath stalls in my throat.
“I know you think…” he starts, then falters. A muscle ticks in his jaw, and while I know I should close the connection, I can’t bring myself to do it. Not when he looks like this.
He glances down. Drags a hand through his hair, leaving it even more rumpled. “I know you think my Shadow’s the better half of me.”
The words land heavily, like a knife he’s plucked from his chest and let clatter onto the floor.
I stem a harsh breath. Ishanna’s blood, but I should never have said that. Not when I knew Amriel could hear me. I was just…angry, and overwhelmed, and desperate.
“And you’re right,” he continues, still not meeting my eyes. “I know you’re right, that he’s the better man. But that’s only because…”
My teeth clamp down on my bottom lip. I wait and wait and wait.
“Because I don’t know how to be a…” His throat moves on a swallow. “I’ve just never…”
He sinks his face into a hand, prodding at his eyebrows before peeking up at me again. “I don’t know how to do this, all right? I wish I did, but I don’t. Not like he does.”
My lips part, a tender ache swelling in my throat.
“But you should know, Sariah…if you call for me, I’ll come. I will.”
My chest caves in. Oh, goddess. I can’t imagine how much it must have cost him to say that. “Thank you. But you can’t. If you come in here, if you use your gyre, you’ll die. And then I’ll… I won’t… I can’t…”
He waits, but now it’s my turn to flounder. I don’t know what to say, or what to feel, or how to make sense of the many forces suddenly clashing inside me. Just…good goddess, why does this hurt? How?
“Don’t,” I finish weakly. “Please don’t risk yourself. All right?”
He sinks back, looking almost disappointed. “Do you want to keep the connection open? For wherever you go next?”
“No,” I say immediately. “It’s better not to.”
The spark in his eyes abruptly sputters out. “Oh. Okay. All right.” There’s a distance in his face now, in his voice. In the cool looks we trade with one another through our spheres.
“Thank you, Amriel,” I say. “And goodbye.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but I can’t bear to hear it, so I just flip the orb and end up staring at the hourglass instead, not really seeing it. Sunlight bathes the back of my neck while tall grass sways against my legs, but the sensations reach me as if from far away.
Goddess, what is wrong with me? So many things, clearly. More than I’ve ever even realized.
I raise my gaze. In the distance, the fae castle juts into the sky, and my eyes find the solarium as if drawn. I think of him, up there right now. Of him pinning me to the door last night with his body, his mouth.
I used to wish for you.
Ishanna help me, but for one terrible, crystalline moment, I actually imagine staying.
Using my gyre to return to the castle. Quitting this maze and just letting Velindra change me.
Becoming someone who could live in this wild, beautiful, impossible place.
Someone who could love the fae king and his Shadow like they deserve. Like he deserves.
Only…I can’t actually see her, that version of me. I reach for her and find only smoke.
Closing my eyes, I will my heart rate to steady, then focus on the tree-door before me. This one is tall and oval, with a metallic green finish and a silver knob directly in the center. I grab hold and push the door inward.
Some kind of bog awaits on the other side, full of dark grass and bubbling marshes. I consider. Wherever I go next, the Shadow will hunt me, and I don’t want to wade through mud when he finds me.
But…
I step through the door, careful not to let it close, my hand still firmly on the knob. I stomp around at the entrance. Shake my braids. Do everything I can to leave my scent in this place, to give the Shadow a false trail to follow.
Then I back out, shut the door, and open it again, this time onto a cherry orchard.
I do that a dozen more times. I scatter my scent in a rocky meadow, in the nightmare forest, in some place choked with brambles and ominous dead trees.
In a clearing ringed by ten temple-like buildings, their stone faces staring down as if daring me to find out what’s inside.
Then I hurry away from that place as quickly as possible, because absolutely not.
Once I’ve polluted as much of the labyrinth with my scent as I can, I back away one last time.
Let the Shadow make sense of that. Let him try to find me now.
When I swing the door open again, a burbling stream awaits. Tufts of lush grass sigh beside the water while dappled oaks shift overhead.
The scene looks completely normal. But is no doubt completely nightmarish in some new and exciting way.
Yet no place won’t be, so I step inside and let the door creak shut, not bothering to watch it disappear.
Which turns out to be a mistake, because the grass behind me swishes, pushed aside by something sizeable.
“There it is,” a voice says at my back. “I knew we’d find our pretty again.”
Panic erupts as something strikes me from behind. Stars explode inside my skull, just before everything…
Goes…
Black.