Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Ashara
The Letter
I awoke to sunlight. A singular beam of it sliced through the chamber until it cut my face like an axe, the small sliver of gold blinding my sleep-addled eyes.
My rest had been dreamless, so unlike the vivid nightmare from the morrow before, with the voice and fog and the nothingness.
I shivered, the air chill, wrapping the linens tighter until I was swaddled like a babe, scrunching my eyes shut against the light.
The silent sister had deposited me in my own chamber, Esioul led some place else.
No sooner than she’d turned the key in the lock, I’d collapsed into the cot, managing at least to remove my dress and shoes before sleep claimed me.
Every boon now borrowed, I forced myself awake, groaning into the pillow.
It was plumper than those in the circular chamber, softer than I would have expected from the Dendralis.
But idleness was a luxury reserved for those with cycles left to live.
I peeled my eyes open, knowing each turn from now on could very well be my last.
Pressing my back to the cot frame, I squinted, tracking the beam to the small window above the dresser set against the far wall.
The sky outside was butter-yellow, wispy clouds absorbing the sun’s rays like cotton.
Something shuffled beyond the pane, the silhouette of a bird preening its feathers.
I sat a little straighter, but it flapped, taking wing, its hazy outline soon lost to the clouds.
I could see little else, the cutout of glass so high I would need to mount the chair to look upon what lay below and discover where I was in the templum.
I yawned, my head thumping, vision cloudy. I would do just that in a moment.
Below sat a handsome dresser of dark wood. A pewter plate piled high with grapes, cheese, and now-stale bread lay abandoned on its surface. Too tired to eat last night, my stomach now churned with the thought of what was to happen today. When the Butcher would come; when he would test my blood.
To its side, thrust against another wall, stood an old, if not handsome, armoire, its panelled front carved with sunflowers.
Far finer than anything I’d owned in my villa, where my mother and I had been content to share a coffer.
Resting on a stool to its left was a porcelain basin, with a square cut of flannel draped over its rim.
I would rise and wash my face, another yawn, soon. Very soon.
Aware of the boons I was wasting, I instead admired the tapestry, the one I vaguely recalled noticing in the darkness last night, though it had been mostly lost to shadow.
It ran the length of the wall, depicting a meadow of faded flowers: pale yellows, parched greens, and watery blues, sun-bleached, their colours muted by time.
Somehow, it was prettier for it. A rarity in Thromarra, to wither gracefully with age.
Something I, nor Demetri, had yet been gifted despite the blessing of the Blood Tree.
Blessing? Perhaps, though it was just as likely to be a penance.
I hadn’t the time to ponder it. Padding over to the dresser, I abandoned the cot, leaving the linens crumpled in one twisted knot.
I snatched the carafe of water beside the food and examined its contents, knowing I would drink it anyway, poison or not.
What other choice was there? It was clear, most likely fresh from the Promethean Alps, not like the dank, muddied water of Dendra’s communal wells.
I glugged down the whole thing, gasping a breath between every fifth swallow or so, the water splashing onto my slip and dampening the ends of my hair.
Setting it down, uncaring of the tide marks, I fondled the drawers, their handles of ringed iron clanking as I traced their loops. I gave the first one a tug, hoping to find something as mundane as a hairbrush or, as fortune would have it, a key.
Expectedly, the first drawer was empty, a thick band of dust and a few faded, curled hairs huddled in each corner.
I creaked it shut, wondering if whoever they’d once belonged to was now but stone, powder, and dust. The motion shuddered my arm, its hinges stiff and unused.
I tried the other, and it gave way easily, almost clattering to the floor as I put more strength into my tug than was necessary.
A breath left me, my mouth hanging agape. No brush or comb. Or key. But perhaps something better…
I snatched the small square of parchment, holding it up to the light.
Clear, a crisp light beige, slightly curled at the edges.
Without a breath to consider how or when I would send it, I scrambled for something to quill it with, pilfering the drawers, throwing open the armoire, bare knees hitting the threadbare rug as I searched for a wedge of coal, a slither of chalk, anything.
A squawk, or a hoot, had my head snapping to the window, the shadow of a bird dark against the sun at its back.
It pecked the pane, and I jumped, holding the parchment close to my chest. It pecked again, ruffling its feathers, the outline of them inflating with the broadening of its chest. I rose, puzzling at its outline.
Too large for a magpie, too small for a raven.
It took flight once more, flooding the chamber with sunlight that fell on the now-empty carafe, its smooth surface shining.
Behind it, the abandoned pile of grapes caught the light, their skins burning red through the glass.
The colour of them shone like a plague, or bloodstone, or Osric’s throat, his bloodied fingers before the Butcher had…
I strode to the dresser and grabbed the carafe, sending it crashing to the flagstone where it shattered into what seemed an infinite number of shards.
I scrambled for one, the sharpest, a sliver of glass as long as my hand and wickedly pointed, its edges jagged and keen.
The idea not yet fully formed, I pursued it regardless, sliding my thumb across its sharpened peak.
I cast a glance at the walls, half-expecting them to shudder as they had in the Room of Rites.
They did not, the chamber remaining deathly still.
As expected. As the Butcher would soon discover.
As the Dendralis would come to understand. And then they would offer me once more.
I cut a little deeper, letting the blood flow more freely, and pressed my thumb to the paper.
In a hurried, desperate hand, I smeared the first letters I thought of, my thumb guided by some desperate plea bubbling from the depths of me.
The shapes were lumpy and irregular, like my hand as a child before my mother had made me practice, again and again, until each letter was perfect.
They almost filled the whole square, audaciously large, enough to make me wince.
Find me, they spelled. We fly together.
Fly…even I was not certain what it meant.
To flee, perhaps, or to fight, or to jump from the templum’s highest spire if they dared drag us back below.
Whatever our fate, we would face it together.
As the Blood God demanded all those cycles ago, when we had first entered the world… together. So it must end as it began.
I swirled this way and that, hunting for a crevice or some hidden place to stash it before I found a way to get it to Demetri, wherever he was, however thick the expanse of Ovidian stone lay between us.
Each spot seemed more obvious than the last: beneath the armoire, inside the sole of my shoe, perhaps stuffed into a pillow?
A knock shocked me still.
More knocking. Loud, short raps that pounded through my skull like anvils. I froze, eyes locked on the door. Knocking again.
“Laurel, up,” a muted voice commanded through the iron-banded wood. I knotted my fists to my abdomen, bracing myself against the wave of nausea, crinkling the parchment as I did. The Butcher. That voice—deep, booming, arrogant—had somehow become oddly familiar over the last few turns.
“Laurel!” Oh, he was quite vexed. “Up!” The door rattled with the violence of his knock, or was it a boot?
It protested the force, groaning, as if it might splinter or break.
I shoved the parchment into the dresser, face down, inching it shut so as not to draw attention to the noise.
It would have to make do. Sucking the blood from my thumb, I lurched for the templum gown I’d flung to the floor, conscious I was in nought but a slip.
“I’m awake! One moment.” Gods, my voice was dry, words warbling like a boy on the cusp of manhood. I threw on the garment, each stocking rolled up my leg with preternatural speed. Decent, I reached for shoes, slung carelessly by the foot of my cot.
“You have but a handful of breaths before I unlock the door. You knew I was to call for you at dawn.”
Plonking myself on the cot, I rocked my head, lips moving in a mockery of his bossiness, trumpeting orders at me like I was a paxiam late for duty.
The door slammed open, rattling the brackets lining the wall, the lone candle I’d forgotten to snuff out last night flickering wildly in the sudden gust. Startled, I flung both slippers, one flying left, the other right, landing on opposite sides of the chamber.
The Butcher stood in the doorway, arms folded, legs apart, helm angled towards me.
Shoeless, my bare feet hovered over the floor, conscious of the serrated glass scattered across it. The Other only knows what I looked like, dress askew, hair unbrushed and wild, face puffed and sheened with the markers of sleep.
“What in the pits is going on in here?” he asked, stepping through the threshold.
I kept my eyes on him; anywhere but the dresser.
He bowed his head, careful that his points did not scrape the arched frame.
Kicking the door shut, he returned a long, dark key to the ring of others jostling at his waist.