Chapter 9 Taera
Taera
The sleepless, tooth-chattering cold of the long night seems to stretch forever before the horizon finally glows with light.
My head droops forward for the dozenth time, but I jerk it upright.
I will stay awake. One hand flies to Mom’s pendant, and the other to the coin pouch on my belt. Why didn’t I give the money to Ez?
“We’re arriving.” Nikolai’s voice is coarse but soft, like worked leather. He stretches his arms out dramatically, taking up more than half the small carriage and making me pull away.
Outside the window is just sand. When the carriage slows, my stomach plunges.
“Arriving where?” I expected to at least reach the edge of the desert before having to make my escape.
Nikolai’s attention is fixed on the horizon, his brows lifting. “I’ve never made the trip so quickly. The desert must be eager for you to get there.”
I wrap my arms around myself. I don’t want to think about the desert taking a special interest in me. But when I squint where he’s pointing, my eyes widen.
The edge of the sky glows like hot embers and erupts in streaks of light that pour over the horizon.
I watch, mesmerized. Every morning I’ve waited until dawn to leave the hut. I’ve never actually seen a full sunrise. Shadows flee from the liquid light chasing them across the dunes.
The faintest shimmer pricks the sky. Something glints. Strands of spider silk thread their way up from the sand, high into the air, and I gasp.
Nearly transparent, the edges of the colossal castle—no, a palace—are visible only because of the fractaled dunes behind them. Elegant, geometric lines outline towers vaster than any building I’ve ever seen, and columns that seem to go on forever. All made of sheer, translucent glass.
I feel the blood drain from my face, and I shake as I watch.
The castle takes form like a mirage. The harder I stare, the less certain I am of where the ghostly windows end and the sky begins.
Then it’s gone.
Sunlight scatters across the dunes and only empty sand remains.
“Welcome to the Halls of Glass, Taera,” Nikolai murmurs. “They can only be glimpsed at dawn. You’re lucky to have seen them at all.”
“Lucky.” I sound strangled. My breaths are coming too fast. In the light of day, this is all too real. I want all of it—the glass, the magic, him—to stop existing.
The carriage lurches faster, and we all but fly across the dunes, closing the distance to where I glimpsed that monstrous palace of glass. I have less than a minute to get out of here.
I glance at the door, but Nikolai’s eyes are hard, fixed on me like twinkling gemstones.
Like he’s daring me to try. Can I outrun him—make it back across the desert with no water, no food, no supplies?
Will the tracks of the carriage be clear enough to follow back? Can I resist the whispers, the lure?
I turn away from the door. I need time to prepare. If I play along, if I’m careful, maybe I can earn his trust. Maybe I can find a way to make this carriage take me back. All I have to do—I shiver—is survive in a palace of glass, full of cursed magicians.
A boom jolts the carriage, and the window disappears.
I struggle to gulp down air.
Nikolai’s expression darkens in the shadows. “Do you want a new face?”
I stare at him, uncomprehending. Horror slowly clogs my throat. Flashbacks to the worst night of my life.
“To cover yours,” he snaps.
Anger flares bright, and I can breathe again. How dare he suggest I hide my face! I don’t care if I look as plain as mud to him with my tough, sun-freckled skin and perpetually sandy hair—every part of me shaped by the desert. I will never, never let him take that away.
“Absolutely not.” The words rip out of me. “Do not touch my face.”
“Fine.” He looks away, scowling, as though my appearance upsets him.
Good. I will not become like him.
The carriage stops.
“Let me do the talking,” he mutters, his face tight and void of all emotion.
The door to the carriage swings open.
Revealing a nightmare.
There isn’t a speck of sand to be seen. Not a grain. Only glass. Everywhere. The warm, familiar sweet scent of sand is gone, replaced by nothing at all. When I inhale, my lungs feel… empty.
Nikolai steps out first, boots landing on a spotless floor of polished white. He offers his hand.
Play along. For Gramps and Ez. They need me alive.
I refuse to touch the magician. Instead, I hop out of the carriage on my own.
I’m surrounded by glass.
A kaleidoscope of colors scatter at sharp angles around a vast hall, disorienting me with otherworldly geometric chaos.
Walls and pillars—huge slabs of glass—stretch higher and higher with no end in sight.
There is no ceiling. Every hut from my village could fit across the floor of this one tremendous room and leave room for dozens more.
Ornate runes embellish every surface, etched and dangerous.
My throat dries, and I go completely still. Just looking at the cryptic symbols engraved in the cursed material has my heart pounding in my ears.
The room shifts, darkens, stretching like the gut of a huge beast. A horrifying mosaic of ribs emerges above me, ruby arches bathing the scene in crimson light the shade of blood.
My stomach drops away. I reach back toward the carriage, but my palm hits solid wood. The door has already closed. It won’t open. There’s nowhere to go. My neck crawls as I try to breathe.
Shrieks ring out, shredding my ears like blades. Voices that sound uncannily like my own screams and wails of distress, fragmenting into disjointed, broken echoes.
I whirl around, desperate to see who’s screaming, but the only person in sight is Nikolai.
“You dare enter the Halls of Glass.” The booming voice scrapes over my skin, emanating from everywhere.
I jump. Nikolai curses.
A hurricane of broken glass hurdles at me, slicing my skin.
My own scream is drowned beneath the shrieking chorus, then cuts off as I choke on a mouthful of glittering blades.
My knees crack against stone as I collapse, but the pain is nothing compared to the agony of being slashed apart, inside and out.
“Stop this!” Nikolai roars, stepping in front of me. “She’s with me.”
Everything halts.
The shards vanish. The screams cut out.
I’m kneeling in a courtyard, lungs dragging in air, not razors. My skin is untouched. Only my knees throb from hitting the marble.
I clamber to my feet, my heart thundering so hard it feels loose inside my ribs.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” An older woman steps out of nowhere in front of Nikolai. A translucent sheen clings to her graying skin. Her glossy silver hair drifts behind her, a moment delayed. She hardly looks human.
“Head Glassmaster Sen’ko.” Nikolai bows to her. “I’ve brought a source whom I wish to grant amnesty.”
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” she sing-songs, drifting past him without a glance. Spectacles appear out of nowhere for her to adjust.
I just stare.
She snaps her fingers in front of my face, making me flinch.
“Taera,” I manage. Nikolai frowns, a reminder of his warning not to speak. Why? Am I in danger, or is he manipulating me?
“Interesting.” Sen’ko’s eyes shimmer into mirrors, offering an uncanny, contorted view of my own shock. “And wearing her own skin. Very interesting. You must have more of a name than that, girl.”
This time I look at Nikolai, who nods. My stomach tightens. I could lie, but he already knows where my family lives.
“Taera Delodin,” I say.
“Please, she must be admitted,” Nikolai says.
My eyes narrow. Must be? He sounds desperate. Perhaps I have more power here than I realized.
“Master Koroy?” Sen’ko flicks two fingers, and a thin man appears on Sen’ko’s left, his scowl already in place.
“She could be armed,” he says. “Has anyone checked her?”
“That’s true.” Sen’ko’s gaze drags over me. “Strip.”
My brows shoot up.
She rolls her eyes, which are freakishly silver all the way around. “Take off everything.”
My body is stiffer than a petrified lizard. Of all the horrors I expected, this was not one of them.
“My clothes?” I croak.
“Don’t worry, sweetie.” The old woman waves a hand, bored. “We’ve seen worse.”
“Here?” I squeak, not even caring how pathetic I sound.
Sen’ko’s smile disappears. “Don’t waste my time.”
I stare between the masters. They appear to be serious.
This can’t be happening.
I look to Nikolai for help. He blinks, then rolls his eyes. With a wave of his hand, a thick red curtain curls like a tent around me.
I don’t move. “I have nothing else to wear.”
A pile of thin blue fabric drops on my head.
I yelp, clasping it, and the soft fabric tumbles loose in my fingers.
I’ve never felt anything so smooth, and for a moment, my panic stalls, caught on the wonder of the texture.
Cool as water, impossibly fine. Nothing like the coarse burlap I’ve worn all my life.
“Take off everything,” Nikolai says in a low voice. “They won’t ask nicely the second time.”
Nicely? My hands shake as I ensure the curtain is fully closed. Numbly, I unfasten my belt and pull off my tunic. I slip the blue garment over my head as quickly as I can. The robes fall easily around me, like nothing at all.
I don’t dare keep even my boots. The ground presses unnaturally cool and hard beneath the bare soles of my feet.
I shiver, praying it’s polished stone and not glass.
They gave me nothing—nothing—for undergarments.
Grimacing, I shed my trousers. My legs tingle at the bareness, the airiness, beneath the scandalously thin clingy fabric. It’s absolutely mortifying.
“Tick-tock,” Sen’ko calls out.
Forcing my gaze away, I grip my coin pouch with white knuckles.
It isn’t much, but I might be able to bribe someone to help me escape.
I grit my teeth, frozen in place, but after several shallow, indecisive breaths, I thrust the pouch back into the heaped pile of clothes.
I won’t risk it; they have to think I’m resigned.