Chapter 10 Taera
Taera
Itake two steps before the breeze licks up my bare legs. I stare, horrified, at the subtle bounce of my chest, too visible under the thin blue fabric.
“What about my clothes?” More importantly, what about the coin pouch stashed inside? I turn back for them.
Except, there’s nothing behind me. No curtain, no clothes—only glass.
Nikolai shrugs. “You’re better off without them. You’ll stick out like a rattlesnake-swollen arm.”
I plant my feet. “I want my clothes back.”
“They’ve been incinerated.”
I stumble. Mom’s pendant. Hatred and despair burns through my fear. “You—those were mine.”
“Follow me or I’ll blind you again.” His beautiful lips peel back into a snarl. “You have no idea the trouble you’ve become.”
I’m still simmering with venom, and it takes several seconds for his threat to sink in. He was why I couldn’t see when I woke up in the carriage. After he kidnapped me. My blood chills. I don’t have much choice but to follow him.
Crossing my arms over my breasts so they don’t dare sway, I shuffle after him, still seething. The fabric swishes against my legs and I keep them pressed together against the airiness of these blasted robes, muttering a curse to the desert.
“I wouldn’t say things like that,” he says.
I shoot him a scowl sharp enough to cut.
Nikolai leads me through a glass arch and down a pale, shimmering hallway. The sunlight fades further away, fractured by thousands of mirrors.
Whatever remaining hope I had of avoiding my own reflection dies. My dirty, frightened face glints back at me from every angle.
The passage turns seemingly at random, with wriggling shadows squirming in the corners.
I hold myself rigid, trying to stay in the light.
Through the heart-pounding terror of all the glass, I try to remember each twist and turn: three to the right, two to the left, another to the right…
but each corner of the crystalline corridor is at a different angle.
Something brushes my ankle.
I leap, catching up to the magician.
“What was that?” I ask.
He smirks but doesn’t answer.
“You think this is funny?” My robes swish out around me, reminding me just how naked I am in them, and my cheeks flare hot. I flatten the blue fabric down.
“Quite,” he muses, eyes flickering down my stiff form.
“You dragged me from my home; you destroyed my clothes—” And the last of my money, I don’t say. My only means to get home if I ever escape this place. “You can’t do this!”
Nikolai smirks. “I just did.”
I splutter, unable to find words for how much I hate him. He’s insane. I’ve been captured by a dangerous, mad magician.
He halts mid-stride and suddenly pivots to the right, turning directly in front of me. I bump into his side, before wrenching myself back.
“Watch yourself,” he growls. I scowl back, refusing to shrink.
The new hallway glows a faint, vibrant red. The light washes over my hands, making them look disturbingly tinted, as if they’re being bathed in blood.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Blood glass,” Nikolai mutters, then unleashes a string of colorful curses. Halting, he turns to me. The look he gives me steals the warmth from the air.
“What’s—”
“Calm down, Taera.”
I scoff in his face, appalled by his demand. Only the tingling sensation has me asking, “What is blood glass?”
“It’s behind us,” he says, still not answering my question. I glance back, but Nikolai grabs my elbow and drags me onward. I spit out an angry noise, half-jogging to keep up with his ridiculously long strides. I can’t stop the stupid robes from fluttering around me, but my heart gallops.
“Why are we running?”
“Blood glass touches you, you die,” he says.
I shut my mouth. Death, I understand. I match his speed, taking two steps for every one of his. We rush down the dimming hallway, turning left, then right, then right again. We take three more right turns, and I’m positive he must be making an absolute fool of me by leading me in circles.
“Where are we even going?” I demand.
“Finding you a fucking place to sleep,” he says.
“Wha—”
Nikolai halts in front of a huge stone door, its surface freckled with tiny mirrors. Dozens of tiny Taeras stare back at me—flushed with exertion and annoyance.
“Touch the handle,” he says, pointing to the glass knob in the center of the stone.
I recoil from the glass, gawking at him. “No.”
“You’re a source. You’ve wasted enough of my magic.”
“What’s a source?”
“Touch the handle and I’ll tell you.”
“And if I don’t?”
Emerald eyes flash. “Want to find out?”
I drag my glare from Nikolai to the doorknob.
A lifetime of aversion screams don’t. Grimacing, I stretch out my hand.
I manage not to wince when I place a single finger to the smooth cool surface.
Vibrating current, like a wave of giddiness, rushes through me again and the glass melts beneath my touch.
I jerk away and the pulsing fades, leaving my heart racing.
Nikolai waves a hand to where the door has swung open. Beyond it, a hallway of dark gray stone, not glass, awaits. I’m almost grateful, except only nondescript outlines of stone doors indent a long, plain wall. It looks like a row of prison cells.
Tentatively, I step forward after him. The red glow slinks off my skin when I pass the threshold.
“Now tell me what a source is,” I say.
“No.” He continues ahead.
I halt. “You said you would.”
“I lied.”
I open my mouth, but I have nothing. The absolute bastard. I didn’t know I could hate him even more.
“What is this place?” I mutter, lagging behind. What did he mean by a place to sleep? Every door we pass is the same: smooth stone, no handles, no windows—cells dressed up as rooms.
“Dormitories.”
I eye them. The idea of being locked behind a slab of stone makes my insides quiver with a new wave of fear. If these are dormitories, I don’t want to know what the dungeons look like.
Nikolai strolls up to the fourth door and raps his knuckles on the stone. The sound is less a knock than a chime. Underneath the thin veneer of magic, every part of this horrible place seems like it’s made of glass.
“Annie,” he calls.
“Niko?” The feminine voice calls out like birdsong.
The door cracks open. A young woman peers out, all delicate features and impossible prettiness, the kind of face I’d expect to see painted in a storybook. Nikolai gestures for me to stay put and begins speaking to her in a quiet voice.
I’ve managed to distract myself from Nikolai’s unnatural beauty, but Annie’s is fresh and fierce. She stands unusually tall and is wearing the same blue robes we are. Big blue eyes assess me, bright and intelligent, framed in cascading red curls that tumble down to her waist.
I can’t tear my eyes away from her, even to eavesdrop. Annie shakes her head, the crease of her brow sympathetic. At my captor’s withering scowl, I manage to drag my eyes back down to the stone ground.
Horror flickers in my gut. I can’t afford to be dazzled by any of them—not him, not her. They’re all the same brand of nightmare, no matter how pretty their masks.
In my periphery, Annie murmurs something, touches his arm, then slips away. Nikolai pinches the bridge of his nose and curses. Finally, he lifts his glare back to me. I try to avoid it, but I can’t help but study how his gorgeous features can contort into something so hostile. I swallow.
“Follow me,” he says, the polished sheen gone from his voice.
I hesitate, praying it’s not a prison cell, and he scowls.
“Another dormitory. You’re not welcome here.”
I don’t know whether to be relieved.
Reluctantly, I follow him back out into the maze of glass corridors, where we take a long series of twists and turns. The light grows redder.
“Here.” He stops, indicating a plain glass wall.
“What?”
“Place your hand on the glass.”
“There’s nothing there.” I need the few extra seconds to calm myself before touching more glass.
“Don’t challenge me.” His eyes darken.
“I thought you didn’t want to waste magic on me,” I mutter. “Even to hurt me.”
“Magic isn’t the only way to hurt you.”
Fear clings to me. I hate him for it. Taking a deep breath, I plunge my palm forward to slap the cold surface. It’s like lightning surging down my arm, and my heart jolts again.
The glass disappears, revealing a perfect hollow circle in the wall as tall as I am.
“Step through,” Nikolai says.
Steeling myself, I try. My foot hits the threshold—and then snaps back as if yanked.
“I can’t.”
“Try harder,” he growls. I grit my teeth and kick the air again. This time, a sharp spark stings up my leg. I clench my fists and turn back to the cruel magician, bracing myself.
“Fucking labyrinth,” Nikolai mutters, but he isn’t looking at me. My gaze follows his.
Jagged crimson crystals creep across the floor toward us, rippling and snapping like they have a mind of their own. My heart leaps into my throat.
Nikolai yanks off a glove—the sight of his bare fingers unexpectedly scandalous—before slamming his fist into the doorway. Gold sparks burst forth like a barrier in the air… and nothing happens.
His brow creases. It’s the first glimmer of concern he’s displayed, and it sets my nerves off. I glance between him and the blood glass. “What are you—”
“Shut up for a moment.”
The angry crimson shards crackle and crawl toward us, snapping over each other like teeth. They’re only a few paces away. I shuffle closer to Nikolai.
A gloved hand clasps mine and pulls me into a run down the corridor. The advancing blood glass misses us by a breath. Skirting the edge of the freakish, living crystals, we flee down a glass hallway I’m half-certain didn’t exist a minute ago.
We take a single sharp turn before Nikolai stops in front of a shimmering stone door, black as obsidian. He shoves it open, and we leap inside. As the door seals behind us, I glimpse the blood glass through the narrowing gap. It presses up against the threshold, eager to devour us.
I’m still breathing raggedly as my eyes dart around, but this room isn’t like the others. Ornate, clouded-glass walls rise up on four sides, black silk sheets drape a large bed that takes up most of the room, and a desk of pure blue glass glints against the far wall…
My stomach knots. “Where are we?”
“My bedroom.” He stands rigid as a statue, magnificent and terrible. His green eyes drip with fury.
I take a shaky step back. “Why are we here?”
“No one else will take you.” His perfect teeth flash. “So you’re staying with me.”