Chapter 19 #2
My breath shortens, words piling in my throat.
Words I shouldn’t say, but what does it matter, here at the edge of nowhere, with no one to hear me, no one to care?
“But they have. They’ve saved me. He has, I mean.
And he wants me, in a way no one else ever has.
In a way I didn’t even know existed. And now…
now I don’t know what to do. How to keep believing in you when you haven’t actually given me anything to believe in. ”
I wait, but the pendant just sits between my fingers, a lifeless chunk of metal. I flick it away and bury my face between my knees. Guilt surges, trying to suck me down into its embrace.
A single, scalding tear traces a path down my cheek. I wipe it away and contemplate the gyre in my hand. Using it would mean surrendering in more ways than one.
But what choice do I have, if Ishanna won’t hear me?
“Goddess,” I whisper. “Please, just get me off this island. I’ll forgive you for everything else—the Claiming, the labyrinth, the wheel, those horrible trolls. I can forget all that, if you’ll just get me off this rock.”
Silence. A faint breeze rises, rustling the strands of dead grass, which swish against the equally dead tree beside me.
I swipe at my eyes again. Consider the grass, then the tree, with its silvery, smooth-worn wood.
An idea flickers, my gaze swinging to the shore. It’s not that far off, at least not along this side of the island. Maybe I could topple this tree, bridge the gap. If so, I could shimmy along the trunk, cross safely over the burbling goo before dropping onto solid ground.
Something loosens in my chest. Yes, that could work. And I have my knife to help me—the Shadow tucked it back into its sheath while I was sleeping.
I slide the blade free and go to work sawing at the tree trunk, my muscles flooding with new purpose.
The castle isn’t my only option. Giving up isn’t my only option.
My hands cramp and my shoulder blades burn, but I hack at the tree, carving a wedge from the wood.
When the trunk starts to teeter, I give it a shove. It shakes and shudders and something cracks inside, but it doesn’t topple, so I shove again, this time with even more force.
My shoulder crashes against the trunk, again and again. The tree finally surrenders with a groan, wood splintering as the trunk crashes down across the marsh. The far end bites into the muddy shore, forming a slanted bridge that will lead me away from this place.
I waste no time. I shove my dagger into its sheath and shimmy onto the tree on my bottom, feet-first, intending to use the trunk as a sort of slide. I can lower myself with my boots, use the snapped-off remnants of old branches to brace myself every few feet.
Still, I keep my gyre gripped tight. If I fall…
Well, I won’t fall. I won’t even look down.
Yellow fumes billow up around me, pulling a wracking cough from my lungs. I squint through my burning vision, lowering myself a foot, then two, then five.
My body wobbles, and I brace myself with a hand propped against the trunk behind me. I keep the other clutched around my gyre, which hampers my efforts, but I need a backup plan. Something to save me if this goes wrong.
I descend another three feet. Another.
But the trunk tilts beneath me, its incline growing steeper. As if it’s…sinking?
My heart launches into my mouth. The top of the tree smolders and sizzles, submerging slowly as yellow goo eats away at the wood.
Goddess. That is acid, and it’s swallowing my escape route. The tree sinks another inch, a gap opening between its end and the shore.
I scramble down as quickly as I can without losing my balance, my pulse chanting a panicked refrain. No, no, no, no, no.
I reach the midpoint, half-sliding, half-scrambling now, the tree sinking steadily into the burbling marsh. I’ll have to jump, near the bottom. Clear a two-foot gap.
Well, three, now.
Four.
Oh, goddess.
I slide the last few feet and push off the tree with all my strength, launching toward safety. Air whistles past, acid bubbling beneath me as I sail toward the bank, but…
Nope. Not going to make it. Yellow ooze rushes up, promising to eat me alive.
My eyes squeeze shut. My fingers clamp around the gyre, my mind flooding with thoughts of Velindra. Of pink and green light. Branches forking across stone walls. Dancing fireflies, Ravenna braiding my hair, red and blue blood spilled on the floor of a majestic hall.
And…Amriel.
My mate.
My tormentor.
My salvation.
My—
Thunk. Squishy ground slams into me, catching me in the legs, the belly, the face. For a moment, I lay frozen, my eyes rammed shut, my nose scrunched as I wait for acid to flood my nostrils and liquify my skin.
But nothing happens. And when I draw my next breath, clean air courses into me. Moss itches against my cheek.
I crack open an eye and catch glimmers of pink and green. The other eye opens. I find myself face down in my room in the castle, my gyre humming in my hand.
An icy laugh rattles my ribs, emerging from somewhere so deep I can’t find its bottom.
I didn’t die. I should have, but I didn’t. Instead, I’m here.
I bring my gyre to my face. Three rings have melted and turned black, now. The other three spin, their glow slowly fading.
I laugh. And laugh. And register no surprise when my laughter morphs into sobs, so relentless it hurts to breathe.
I asked my goddess for one thing. One thing. But Ishanna abandoned me. Again. Now I’m only alive because of Amriel, because of the gyre he gave me. Not only that, but because he took a blade for me. Because his Shadow saved me. Carried me. Murdered everything that tried to hurt me.
Now I can’t seem to escape that truth. No matter how far or fast I run.
I cry until I’m spent, then heave myself off the floor, tucking my gyre away. Filth and dried blood cake my skin, but I don’t care.
I stomp over to the door and rip it open, pleased that someone repaired it in my absence after Amriel broke it down. I burst into the corridor, nearly slamming into a passing fae woman in my haste.
She leaps back, the silken bits of her dress flying. “Sorry,” she squeaks, in a way that tells me I must look even more frightful than I realized. But I only step past her, headed toward the main part of the castle.
I’ll have to face Amriel, at some point. Talk to him. Fight with him, probably.
But first, I’m going to get myself some damn dinner.