Chapter 8 #2
The king beat open a heavy door, garnering the attention of a thick, bald man with an eyepatch. The scents of urine, shite, and blood clotted in the back of my throat; moans and screams flowed from the cells below. A whip cracked through them.
Death brushed up against my legs like a hungry cat.
Fear filled my head to bursting.
“Find space for her,” Nicosia barked.
“Nym, you have always been the strongest of us,” Ursa whispered.
Tears leaked from my eyes as I tripped down uneven steps, led by my hair. A woman started screaming, a man panted—
“You have led us so far. Brien, Lissel, Dan, Colt, Pren, Heath, Terrence . . . They all survived because you are strong. Not because you had me.”
“Ursa,” I cried. Inwardly, I began tearing a hole in my basalt wall.
“Here’ll do.” The bald man’s keys jingled as he took them off his belt.
“Focus, Nym. It’s now or naught.”
Tears dripped from my chin. “I love you, Ursa.”
“I love you, too, always. No matter what worlds separate us.”
Metal hinges creaked as the door swung open. Nicosia dragged me forward.
“We’ll see each other again soon, my dear, beloved sister.”
A promise. The last thing Ursa would ever give me.
Nicosia took one step; I took two. Twisted in his grip, ripping hair, and grabbed his face, sinking my nails into the skin.
I dowsed.
If he dowsed back, he’d see what I’d done. How I’d recrafted my lumis into three glassy, geometric figures, overly tall, connecting at their highest points like ribbed vaults. Matching his exactly.
Like for like. As though we were sisters.
As I’d once done for Renn.
In my own lumis, I shoved the three new, magic-formed pieces of myself into the sculptures, replacing the green ones Ursa had gifted me nine years ago.
Drawing in all the magic I could hold, I drove Ursa through our connection and into him.
I blinked into the present as I fell to the dungeon floor, palms striking wet stone.
Nicosia screamed.
He screamed and backpedaled, clawing at his face, thrashing as though possessed. The warden rushed for him, confused, dropping his keys.
I seized them and bolted from the cell, slamming and locking the door behind me.
Then I ran.
Nicosia’s screams merged with the cries of the other prisoners, giving me a head start I hadn’t planned on, but one I couldn’t waste.
I ran through the narrow, filthy corridor, toward the torchlit stairs to freedom.
Another prisoner called out to me, but I couldn’t afford mercy for him.
I didn’t even know if I could afford mercy for Eden, but I had to try.
I had promised.
Floor above the conservatory. West wing. Fourth door.
I shut the dungeon door behind me and ran until the stone shifted back to marble, then quickly wiped my eyes, combed through my hair, adjusted my dress. Lifted my head to try my earlier guise once more, to fit in as a normal palace denizen—
My torso was covered in blood, dress torn from Nicosia’s sword.
With trembling hands I split my hair into two sections, trying to hide my back with half the mangled curls, my front with the other.
Curled my arm around my middle to mask the rest. It was the best I could do; I had to get out.
I hadn’t fully healed; my movements smarted, but at least the skin was sealed.
Painting of the black stallion. Around the corner—stairs.
I rushed up them, slowing only minutely as I caught sight of a maid. She glanced at me, confused, but did not follow me; I was an unknown woman with a purpose, wearing Eden’s old dress. Old, bloody, and in Canseren style, but noble all the same.
I got lost then, trying to remember what I’d seen on my earlier tour. Went right, then down one corridor—no stairs. Retraced my steps, spied a familiar urn, and continued on.
“Hey!” a footman called after me. “What are you doing?”
I passed a corridor with an arch at the end of it—hadn’t Whitestone said something about an arch? I diverted down the path. Stairs started right under the arch. Up the stairs, two at a time. Two floors. I counted doors—
The fourth had a guard stationed outside of it.
I ran to him.
He stiffened, tightening his grip on his spear. He wore fingerless gloves. “There are no visit—”
I pressed my hand over his and leapt into his lumis: a spindly forest full of trees.
I followed the first death line to a sapling and railed upon it. Leaves and bark went flying, but I did not want to kill him.
In the present, the guard paled and crumpled.
The door was locked. I fumbled with the woozy man’s armor until I found his keys and nearly sliced open my fingers wrenching them free. He had five keys on the ring; the second unlocked the door.
My mind barely recognized the room within, its grandeur and drapings, the large window and larger bed, the painted ceiling. Eden, more gaunt than ever, had risen at the commotion. She went wide eyed at my face, then at my bloody torso.
I shut the door behind me. No one was looking for me, yet. Zia help me. Turn their eyes away!
After throwing both sets of keys into a chamber pot, I rushed to her bed and pulled a folded blanket off its foot. “I need you to trust me.”
Eden dropped to her knees and reached under her bed, retrieving a satchel stuffed to the brim. She already wore shoes. I smiled. I’d told her to be ready, and she was.
This, unfortunately, was the easy part.
I rushed to the window, unlatched it. Cool April air and early-evening light greeted me. There was a small balcony, large enough for someone to take one step out of the room and go no farther.
I wrapped the blanket around my head to protect it.
“Nym, what are you—?” the princess began.
I grabbed her wrist, pulled her against me, and jumped.