Chapter 34
This time, when the healer comes, I don’t wait for her assessment.
“I was dizzy when I got out of bed yesterday,” I say, keeping my eyes low. “What do you recommend?”
“More rest,” she replies instantly. “Blood loss cannot be healed as quickly as skin.”
I nod. I can sense Alaris’s gaze, but I don’t meet it. I wonder if he’s guessed I’m afraid to leave the wards. Let him think that. It’s true, after all, even though it’s not the reason I want the healer’s clearance to stay in the room today.
As soon as they both leave, I scramble out of bed. Guilt prickles at me as I creep into the closet, still unsteady on my wrapped foot.
It’s not stealing. It was clear based on the way the oraculi were piled in the chest that Alaris has already used them for his purposes, extracting every useful answer about the wither. My questions are simple and shouldn’t take much power in comparison: who is the masked man? Why is he after me?
It feels selfish to seek answers that only serve me when everyone on the continent is in danger. But I won’t be anything but a burden if I can’t make it twenty steps down the hallway.
I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be able to do with the answers, but maybe they will help me figure out a way to protect myself. And regardless, I feel a burning need to know.
My pulse thuds in my palm as I press it to the mirror. Ripples spread from my fingers, then the glass shimmers and gives. I hold my breath and step through.
I strain my ears as I descend, listening for anyone else who might be down here. But no sounds echo from below, and when I reach the bottom, it’s clear I’m alone with the armor and maps.
I head straight for the chest nestled in the corner and unlatch it, revealing the glowing oraculi, stacked in velvet. Most are cracked, shattered, useless, but others still hum with a faint energy. One ring catches my eye, gleaming with a stronger sheen.
It might not be enough to reveal the emperor’s ancient secrets, but hopefully, it’s enough to reveal one man’s identity.
I pick it up, and its power thrums through my fingers like a heartbeat. I can’t ask for a name or a face alone, in case I recognize neither and learn nothing. I flip it over once, then again. Please, I beg Sophiri’s blood silently. Show me the truth behind the masked man.
I hold the ring to my eye, the way I saw my father do it. For a moment, nothing happens. The faint illumination makes it difficult to see the surrounding room.
Then it surges.
A bright flash erupts from the ring, flooding my vision. I see with my mind now, not my eyes. A figure takes form, stalking toward me. His edges sharpen as he moves from darkness to light. It’s him.
Shapes and colors swirl around him. They overtake my focus on the figure, coming too strong, too fast. His details fade into a sea of images, scenes of people and places I can’t catch. My head spins violently, the world whirling faster and faster, until I can no longer keep my balance.
My eyes roll back, and I fall. I bounce against the stone, but there is no pain. I’m too distant from my body for that. I’m lost in a torrent of sights and sounds.
Until finally, it all goes still.
I open my eyes.
The scent of roses hits me.
I’m in my bedroom in the Sunrise Palace.
I glance at the clock, squinting in the dark: it’s midnight. My birthday is over.
What woke me? My heart is pounding. Something is wrong.
I sit up. The scent of roses fills the air. My birthday bouquets crowd every surface, their sweetness damp and overripe. I catch my dim reflection in the mirror—I’m wide-eyed, my long hair mussed from sleep. It falls over my shoulders like a veil.
I glance around the room, searching for movement in the shadows. Nothing is unusual except the roses. But I’m not getting calmer as sleep fades. If anything, I’m getting more panicked.
Something is definitely wrong.
I untangle my legs from the sheets and leap from the bed. I check the lock on the door and the latch to the balcony. I look behind the drapes. I kneel and peek under the bed. Every corner is empty.
But my hands will not stop shaking. I have to leave. I cannot explain it, and I cannot wait.
I could shout for guards, but I run toward Rinalda’s rooms instead. I never bother her, creeping through these halls as if I’m an intruder. But when I was a child, her room was always the safest place in the Central Palace.
I skid in front of her door and raise my fist to knock. It opens before I can. Rinalda stands there in a robe, long red hair glinting in the torchlight.
She takes me in, and her eyes widen. “What are you doing here?”
“Rinalda.” My voice cracks on her name. “Help me, please.”
She scans my bare feet and nightgown. “Help you? What are you talking about?”
“I need to leave. I’m in danger.”
She glances down the empty hallway. “Danger from what?”
“I don’t…I don’t know.” I realize how strange I sound, but I can’t come up with an answer.
“You aren’t making sense. Now be clear: what happened?”
“Nothing happened…I just know I can’t stay here.”
Her face sets, her typical icy exterior re-forming. “You’re talking nonsense, Lysandra.”
This was a mistake. I ran here in a panic with no plan. I’m going to have to leave and seek reasons later. I back away.
“Where are you going?” she snaps.
“I’m not sure. Just forget I came here. I’m sorry.”
“You need to go back to your room.” She looks me up and down again. “Come with me. Now.”
I trail Rinalda to the stairs. She’s going to help me leave.
She leans over the rail. “Guards! Up here, quickly!”
“No!” I screech.
She grabs my wrist before I can run, tight enough to hurt. I try to twist out of her grip.
Her palm heats, scorching my skin. “Lysandra, just let the guards sort it out before you make a scene.”
The crash of the bar on the outside of my door reverberates through me.
I knew the doors of the Sunrise Palace had decorative slots for barricades; I just never thought one would be used on me.
I pace between the windows and the door.
My nails leave red tracks on my forearms. Every minute since midnight feels like a borrowed breath while I’m still here.
Seran comes. I try to tell him about the threat I can’t see, but he doesn’t listen either. Instead, he sends in healers.
The healers say it’s a nervous episode, but I know it’s not. Every time I insist there’s real danger, the watch over me tightens. First, it’s a lock on the balcony, then a guard outside my door, then a stronger draught at night.
Even in the forced haze keeping me calm, I’m sure if I stay, something is going to kill me.
Honesty is what’s keeping me locked up. If I want them to loosen the watch, I have to lie.
I start masking my fear, folding my hands and nodding when the healers talk. I take my tincture passively, even though my heart flutters with panic as it lulls me to sleep. When Seran visits, I apologize for my hysterics, only screaming on the inside.
The restrictions ease, as do the eyes. I wait to be allowed to walk the gardens alone so I can flee through the passage under the dried fountain. I wait and wait, but they never let me go. Even when I hint that fresh air would do me good, I’m escorted.
I know I’ll die if I stay here much longer. I need another plan.
I’ve paid little attention to the changing faces of staff in the Sunrise Palace these last ten years, but now I hover at every window, tracking the comings and goings of each person to the minute.
Every morning, a maid leaves the Sunrise Palace to fetch bread.
The Sunrise Gates are guarded, but she doesn’t go through them.
She goes through a side gate in the hedges, bolted from the inside.
The guards can see it but barely even glance her way.
I note her clothes, what she carries, how she moves. I wait until I’m sure I can time it right, my jaw clenched so hard its ache is a constant pulse.
On the morning I go, I wrap my hair in a scarf, take an empty basket, and slip out the service door a few minutes before she would. I walk through the gate in the hedges. No one stops me. I keep my face down and cross the grounds toward the earthward wall.
“Alaris!” a distant voice calls. “Get down here, now!”
The voice isn’t here. It’s somewhere else.
“Ly? What’s wrong? Wake up. Open your eyes.”
It’s a second person. This voice tugs something in me. The courtyard warps and wavers…
“What’s wrong with her?” The first voice again.
“Get Karns,” the second one commands. “Ly, please, stay with me…”
The ground steadies. I hurry across the courtyard.
A gate through the earthward wall is ahead of me, carts lined up to exit.
I fall in behind one, keeping close to its back wheel.
A guard holds out his hand, and the driver at the front produces a brass token.
The guard checks it, nods, and waves the cart through.
He does the same with the next, and the next.
I am three carts from the gate when the bell sounds.
I drop the basket and rush to the driver of the cart in front of me. “Please,” I whisper. “Let me leave with you.”
He scowls down at me. “Stay in line.”
I whirl and catch the arm of a woman behind me. “I need to get out of here,” I hiss. “Can I go with you?”
She pulls her arm free, stepping behind her horse.
I dart ahead and climb in the back of a cart. Hands drag me down by my dress, throwing me to the stones.
“Guards!” someone calls.
“Just let me leave!” I screech, the space around me widening. “Please, if I don’t, I’ll die here!”
Guards thread through the crowd and haul me up by my wrists.
When they walk me back through the Sunrise Gates, Rinalda is on the balcony. Tears stream down my face, blurring her expression. I want to cry out for her, but begging won’t help.
They lock me away in a stone tower with plain furnishings that are bolted down. The door doesn’t open from the inside, and the window is too small to fit through.
The fear doesn’t fade—it only grows. I’m sure that because I’m trapped here, I’m going to die here.
It’s hard to keep track of time. The servants wear gray robes and bring my meals. I suspect they have no tongues, because they never speak. They are prisoners here as much as I am, keeping the secret of the Princess of the Dawn and whoever else is locked in this tower.
Until one day a servant walks in without the hunched shoulders and shuffling gait I’m used to. He slides my meal in front of me, and as I lift my fork, something wraps around my throat and yanks me back. I gasp but nothing comes in. My eyes bulge.
This servant is no servant at all. This is what was coming. This is what I have been afraid of since my birthday.
His hands are iron. My fork clatters to the floor.
I claw at the strap but can’t get a nail under it, gouging my own skin instead.
I kick against the bolted table. My chest burns, my mind full of desperate screaming I can’t let out.
The edges of the room go dark first, then the table, then the tray in front of me.
The last thing I see is my own hands, falling limp off my throat.
Then darkness.