Chapter Five
Serin
I still intended to find my way out of this situation at the first possible opportunity. That didn’t mean that I couldn’t look for allies while I was stuck there. Especially if these men were right and Grimwood might have people on the inside watching (and drugging) me.
Did that mean I necessarily trusted the prince and his personal guard? No. But they certainly seemed like the lesser of the evils. They brought me food and endless pitchers of water.
Without that, I might be curled in a ball on the floor before dinner was even through.
It wasn’t the same as the water from my lake, but it was lake water, so it helped slightly. At least, it kept the withdrawal symptoms somewhat at bay.
The problem was, to continue to do so, I would need to drink nearly nonstop all day and night. It wasn’t sustainable. And any kind of exertion was only going to intensify things.
By the time we made it up to the fourth floor of the castle, the effects of the water withdrawal were starting to set in.
A headache was pounding behind my eyes, my skin felt paper-dry, and an ache started in my legs.
Once I was alone, I could take a small sip of my water in the flask on my thigh to ease it. But some part of me was worried to use any of it in case I would need it for my escape.
I might just have to suffer.
I honestly didn’t know what the next stage of withdrawal might be. The head and body aches were usually enough to send me rushing back to my lake to revive myself.
“You might want to explain to her where she is,” Vishen said as we all finally made it to what seemed to be the final floor, though from the outside, I knew there was one more.
“Right. This is my wing. My father’s wing is on the complete opposite side of the castle for safety reasons.”
Right.
So in case of invasion, if they went for the king, the prince could still escape and preserve the line of succession.
“From this set of stairs to the one way down there are all my quarters. There is a library,” he said, waving to one side of the floor, “as well as an office and sitting room.” We made our way to the center of the floor where there were two closed doors, one on each side.
“That is Vishen’s room,” he said, waving to the side where the other rooms were located.
“And this is mine,” he said, approaching the only room that was on the left side of the hall.
He pushed open the door and waved me in.
My stomach twisted at the idea of being behind a closed door, but I stepped past the threshold.
The room was as enormous as it seemed from the outside.
The space was dominated by a bed large enough for five adults, covered in midnight-colored bedding and flanked by large nightstands with candelabras dripping in black wax.
Directly across from the bed was a hearth that was nearly as large as the bed itself.
There were doors to either side of the room, which I assumed were for storage and a water closet.
The windows stretched the whole back wall on the sides of the bed, nearly floor to ceiling, letting in as much light as the dense forest canopy allowed.
“This is where you will be staying,” he explained.
“I believe the staff brought up luggage and set it in the storage closet,” Vishen explained. “But I would assume they are all empty.”
I shrugged. I certainly had nothing to bring with me.
“For the time being, you can borrow something of mine to wear, if you want to be out of that dress.”
There was a tapping sound running down the hallway before, suddenly, an animal rushed through the bedroom door, seemingly drawn by Jet’s voice.
A gasp escaped me as I jumped back a step.
Because that all black wolf-like creature was almost as large as a barguest.
“He won’t attack,” Jet said, rubbing the beast’s head. “Unless told to or to protect me.”
“It’s a wolf-dog,” Vishen explained when Jet didn’t go on. “I found it whining in the woods as a pup. Brought it back to the castle and trained it to protect Jet.”
The wolf-dog and I eyed each other, both unsure.
I pressed a hand to my chest, then gestured to the dog.
“Yeah, you can pet him,” Jet said, waiting for me to carefully approach then reach out my hand. I got a sniff, then a bow, which I took for permission. His fur was silky-soft as it slid through my fingers. “His name is Knight.”
I pulled back, waving at the sky with a quizzical brow, then waving an invisible sword, then holding out my arms in question.
“Like a soldier,” Vishen said, giving me a little smile.
Then Vishen reached toward me, pressing a hand to my shoulder as he said the wolf-dog’s name, then a string of words in a tongue I didn’t understand.
At my confused look, he said to me, “I’m telling him to protect you too.
I don’t know how much he understood. But I figured it was worth a try. ”
I pressed a hand to my chest in gratitude again even as my head started to throb harder.
“Well, I will leave you to get settled. Should I bring more water?”
I nodded frantically at that.
“Okay. Lots of water,” Vishen said. “Anything else?”
I shook my head, then watched him leave.
“My wardrobe is through here,” Jet said when we were alone, walking over and opening the door, then coming back out with a new set of clothes for himself.
Still all black, but in a lighter material and a looser fit.
“I’ll use the water closet first to change,” he said, taking his clothes into the other adjoining room.
Alone, I sucked in a deep breath before walking into the wardrobe. Unsurprisingly, everything was black. From his undergarments to his night clothes.
I pulled out the largest tunic. Given our height difference, I imagined it would fall around my knees, if not lower. Modest enough, since there was no way his pants would fit me.
Clutching the tunic to my chest, I walked past Jet as he came out of the water closet, then locked myself in.
Even this space was unnecessarily large for its purposes, but the walls still seemed to pinch in. I’d never spent much time indoors. My life was my lake and the forest around it. The world was wide open and thrumming with life. The castle was suffocating and still.
I moved over to the tub—deep enough to fully submerge—and couldn’t help but wonder how many servants would have to carry how many buckets up to this floor to fill it.
There was another area I wasn’t familiar with, a squared-off section with a large bucket and some sort of tube that fed up to a spout with dozens of little holes.
Unsure what it was, I moved over to the mirror instead, pulling off the tiara, the veil, and then the gown.
I unstrapped my flask from my thigh and stashed it way in the back of the cabinet under the mirror and wash basin.
I would attach it to myself again. But it didn’t seem likely that I could escape until I got more of a lay of the land than I currently had. So there was no reason to try to sleep with it on my leg.
Finished with that, I slipped into Jet’s tunic that smelled like cedar wood that must have been something the laundress used to clean it.
Making my way back out, I held the tiara toward Jet. He took it from me and tossed it onto a dresser as if it wasn’t likely priceless.
“Did you find everything you needed?” he asked.
I held up a finger, then moved into the doorway, waving him over. He humored me, making his way over. I gestured toward the niche, bucket, and spout, then shot him a questioning look.
“That is one of the things humans got incredibly right. That is the best that could be managed without the plumbing humans have. It’s called a ‘shower.’ The water comes up from the bucket, into the tube, then pours out the shower head.
You can bathe without sitting in the water. It washes over you.”
I held up my arms then waved my fingers as I moved my hands downward.
“Yes. Like rain. But a heavy rain. You can try it if you want tonight.” I shook my head. “Or tomorrow. It’s an option. Have you tried to speak again yet?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“It’ll wear off eventually,” he assured me. “Then we can talk it out. Vishen brought you water,” he told me as he moved back into the bedroom.
I followed, finding no fewer than six pitchers and a single water glass. I filled one and gulped it down, feeling a slight ease of the pounding in my head.
“I need to speak to Vishen for a bit,” he told me. “We will be across the hall in the office. If you need anything, you can come get us. I will leave Knight here with you.”
I nodded at that then watched him pet the wolf-dog’s head before leaving.
Alone, I made my way over to the bed.
I’d never slept on one before, always rested on a soft bank of grass and moss beside my lake, often with my arm in the water so I woke up feeling mostly refreshed.
The bed was softer than the moss, soft enough that I felt myself sinking into it.
Huh.
I guess inside living wasn’t all bad.
Reaching down, I pulled the covers up over my bare legs as a chill seemed to move across my skin and start to settle deep.
That was a strange development.
I’d lived outdoors my entire life, through every ice storm, every snowfall, each deep freeze. I don’t recall feeling cold except when I wandered too far from my lake.
But goosebumps had risen up on every inch of skin. Even as I pulled the covers up to my neck, the chill just seemed to burrow deeper.
Knight moved to the side of the bed, resting his head on it, almost as if seeking permission.
I patted the bed and smiled as he jumped up and sprawled next to me, his head resting on my legs, gaze on the door.
I didn’t expect to fall asleep in a strange, dangerous place. But the day had been long, stressful, and terrifying. On top of that, the headache hammering behind my eyes, making me squeeze them closed to try to ease the ache.
In the quiet of my mind, I tried to reach out to my lake, to feel it, hear it, see what it was seeing.
But all there was left was a distant echo.
Before the misery could completely overwhelm me, the blackness of sleep claimed me.