Chapter 7 #2
“Death,” I whispered, stepping away from the door.
The chamber was small, wider than it was long.
Four beds, two on either side of the sole entrance.
Little more than cots, like beds soldiers might use.
Two rounded windows, but they were barred with iron and too high to easily reach.
The walls were murals—old, by the cracked state of the paint.
City life in Rodsfell, I guessed. Random merchants and townsfolk, livestock and shops, broken up by wood paneling that reached up and across the ceiling.
In the center where the panels joined hung a small black chandelier, unlit.
No carpeting, no other furniture. I didn’t even smell anything off, but death draped over me like a cloak.
Why here, and not elsewhere in the palace—
Footsteps. My thoughts screamed. I made a full turn before dodging to the farthest bed on the left. Bruised my knees dropping to the floor. I rolled beneath it. Curled into myself, willing myself to be small, smaller—
The door didn’t open. I held my breath, listening, then had to gasp for want of air. I stayed there a long moment, cold against the hard floor. Inhaled deeply, trying to still myself—
A mark on the wall, just under this cot.
I strained, tilting my head back to see it.
I knew that mark. Like an unfinished cursive Z, lowercase, with two dots on either side of its tail.
Or, in this case, two fingerprints. It took a beat for me to recall it—the same had been burned inside the cover of my stolen scriptures.
What did it mean?
I reached up to touch it only to recoil at the last second. I knew that ruddy-brown color. This mark had been made with blood. I thought again of my breakfast with Nicosia. How he had no heirs and no queens—
I needed to get out of here.
Climbing out from beneath the bed, I quickly smoothed my hair and dress and crossed back to the door.
I had to find a way out before anyone noticed I was missing.
Before word of Nicosia, whatever had happened to him, reached the capital.
If I couldn’t realistically find Eden, I’d have to leave her behind.
I could do more for her free than I could trapped.
I hated the thought, but I had to work with what I’d been given.
I cautiously turned the handle of the door. Creaked it open.
Fear like a steel beam shot up through my center when I saw a man on the other side of it, wearing Sestan blue. Followed by cool recognition. Whitestone. Why was Whitestone outside this door?
Desperation muted everything else. I grabbed him by the collar and yanked with all my might, pulling him into the room.
He stumbled. I kicked the door shut behind me.
Acted before he could speak—clutched his bald pate and dowsed, entering a lumis of mismatched drawers in a great eccentric dresser.
I had never dowsed on Whitestone before, but I was an experienced enough healer to read it.
Ignoring the death lines, I went straight for a heavy, salmon-colored drawer and shattered it.
In the present, Whitestone howled as his left shin broke. He dropped to the floor, and I dropped with him, clamping both hands over his mouth.
“Make another noise and I’ll stop your heart,” I hissed.
He squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking from their corners.
His breath came rapidly, uneven. He clenched his teeth.
Only a whimper escaped. In another time and place, I would have been completely revolted by my actions.
I’m sure Ursa was. But I would not let them chain me up again.
I had to escape this hellhole by any means necessary.
I grabbed his collar. “Where are they keeping Eden? Where is she?”
He trembled. Took a few labored breaths. “Sh-She’s in the west wing, the . . . suites.”
“On the fifth floor?”
He swallowed. Hesitated, but I thought it more due to the pain than anything else. Nodded. Lifted a shaky finger and pointed. “That way. I don’t know the room, b-but it’s always guarded. There will be . . . be a guard outside the door.”
“That way to the stairs?” He was pointing southwest, unless I’d gotten turned around. “Where are the stairs to the fifth floor?”
“Yes, to the stairs.” He wheezed. “By the . . . arch . . .”
I sucked this information into my mind, painting a picture there. “If I heal you, can you take me there?”
But he shook his head. “I h-have no . . . jurisdiction . . . with the guards.”
“You’re a doctor. Tell them she needs medical attention.”
He half smiled, like it was a joke. “They w-won’t believe me. Oh gods.” He winced. “Make it stop, make it stop—”
I wished I were unaffected by his suffering, but I was not. Dowsing, I repaired half of the drawer. Not enough to heal him, but it would abate some of the pain.
He looked ready to pass out when I returned to the present a second later. “What is this room?”
“I . . .” He glanced around, barely moving his head. “It was, once, a nursery.”
“Nicosia has no children.” None that were raised here, anyway.
Whitestone managed a nod. Saliva streaked between his lips when he spoke. “No . . . no, he killed them here.”
For a moment, my rapid heart froze. “Killed who?”
“A-Anyone,” he whispered.
Not just heirs. No baby made that symbol beneath the bed.
He grabbed my wrists. I scowled. “Let me go or you will never walk again.”
He released me.
“Can you get me out of here?”
The oaf shook his head. “You assume I have liberties, Miss Tallowax. Have you forgotten already what I told you? I am watched, always. I was a traitor to these people, however gently. Most likely, I was watched coming into this very room.”
Chills coursed down my back. I shoved Whitestone away and hurried to the door. Pulled it open—
Someone pushed it from behind. The wood collided with my forehead.
A blue-clad guard, tall and wide, stepped in.
As my heart surged into my mouth, I knew there was no use trying to fool him.
If he’d come for Whitestone, he’d divert for me, for he knew who I was.
This man had stood guard while Nicosia interrogated me in the hold of that ship.
This man had been one of my guards at the wedding.
He seized me by the hair and dragged me out of the room. Another guard was coming down the hallway.
“Don’t let her touch your skin.” My captor pulled strands from my scalp. “His Majesty must have switched the bond.”
The second soldier seized me by the forearms. He wore gloves.
“Please, please,” I urged as they wrenched me from that dark hall. “Please let me go. I’m begging you—”
The second guard called, “Get us a binder!” I didn’t see to whom. My hair was jerked in such a way I couldn’t turn my head.
But I watched. I watched the floor pass under my feet. I watched the windows and décor, adding them to the map in my mind, even as my very being unraveled within me at my failure. Not back to the tree, not back to the tree.
“It’s not the end, Nym!” Ursa tried to reassure me. “You still have me. We still have a plan.”
A plan I didn’t want.
By the time the guards dragged me to my conservatory, I was sobbing, Renn a distant orb of worry and guilt in my chest.
I’d been gifted a chance, and lost it just as quickly.