Chapter 32
I woke with a start and struggled, but something, or someone, held me down. A hand was clamped over my mouth and fierce grey eyes looked down at me above a mask made of wolf pelt.
‘I’m going to remove my hand,’ the voice said, muffled by the mask. ‘But if you scream, I will kill her.’
My eyes darted to where Greta stood in the corner of my room. A dark-skinned attacker held a hand across Greta’s mouth and a knife to her throat.
I looked back at my own assailant and nodded my acquiescence. I wasn’t a hero. I would not try to fight off these intruders. There was no way I would risk Greta’s life.
The one who stood over me slowly removed her hand, a knife gripped in her other one and held just inches above me. I rolled my lips together to show them that I would not scream.
‘Just what the hell is going on, Princess?’ The attacker growled, and I realised she was a woman. ‘Why are Parisar and your mother in the dungeons? Why are you up here preparing to get married while your kingdom is being invaded?’
I frowned at her. I didn’t know who she was, but she was speaking to me as if we were acquaintances. My confusion must have shown on my face because she frowned and then looked to her companion. When she turned back to me, she pulled down her mask and a tendril of bright red hair came free. I searched her face. A memory niggled at me, but it was too ephemeral for me to grab hold of.
The woman sniffed, and her eyes widened. She hurriedly replaced her mask.
‘You’ve been drugged.’
‘What?’ I whispered involuntarily and then clamped my mouth shut in case she thought I was going to scream.
‘That smell,’ the woman said. Her eyes darted around the room and stopped on the crystals hung near the window. ‘The crystals.’ She cocked her head to listen, and I strained to hear. The music. I hadn’t even known it was there but now that I was listening for it, I recognised it. ‘The music,’ the woman said affirming what I had already discovered. ‘That’s three. There must be something in your food too,’ she said. ‘And touch…touch is the last one.’
The woman flung the covers off me and then rolled me over roughly, stripping the sheets from beneath me to reveal…nothing.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘Who are you?’
‘I was hoping you could give me those answers,’ the woman snarled. ‘But it appears you don’t know any more than we do.’
‘I think you know a lot more than I do,’ I said.
She looked at me for a long moment and then nodded once in agreement. ‘You’re most likely correct considering I haven’t lost any of my memories.’
‘How do you know me?’ I asked.
‘I spent three months living with you, the last of which we spent training together.’
‘Training?’
None of that made sense. Why would I train, and for that matter, what training would I even do?
‘You’re lying.’
The woman cocked an eyebrow at me in a way that felt very familiar, even though I couldn’t place it. ‘Am I? Care to make a little wager?’
The very thought appalled me, but I nodded. ‘Prove to me that you’re not lying.’
‘That’s going to be a little hard when you are being drugged to keep you from remembering.’
‘That sounds like an excuse to me,’ I said.
The woman glared at me before huffing. ‘Fine. Don’t eat or drink anything from the palace kitchens for a day. I can’t do anything about the music or the smell, although maybe opening all the windows and doors would help dissipate it. As for the music, well, you could stuff your ears with cotton wool and the touch…’ she tapped her fingers against the knife she still held in her hand. ‘Don’t sit on anything you normally sit on. Sit on the floor if you have to.’
‘You are being ridiculous,’ I replied, getting angry now. ‘How am I supposed to not eat or drink anything for a whole day?’
‘It won’t kill you,’ the woman retorted. ‘And it would probably be a good idea for your maid to do the same. And don’t let anyone know you’re not eating. You don’t want to raise suspicions.’
‘And if I agree to all this you will let us go?’
‘Sure,’ the woman said, spinning the knife around her fingers before sliding it back into a holster at her thigh. ‘But you both have to do it.’
I looked at Greta, who stared back at me with wide frightened eyes. If it meant getting these intruders to leave, then I was prepared to agree to anything.
‘Deal,’ I said.
‘Then we’ll see you tomorrow night,’ the woman said, and before I could whisper a protest, they were both gone, disappearing into darkness as if they’d never even been there.
‘Oh Mistress,’ Greta sagged onto the seat where she normally kept her vigil. ‘We should alert the guards. The prince needs to—’
‘No,’ I said, silencing her. There was something about the woman, something about what she said that struck a chord in me. If they were telling the truth and I was being drugged so as not to remember what happened, then…well, I wanted it to stop. And if they were lying to me, then it wouldn’t hurt to go one day without food or drink. ‘You can’t tell the prince,’ I said. ‘We’ll do what they said. I need to know if they are telling the truth.’
Greta looked horrified by the idea but nodded.
I got out of bed and crossed the room to her. I took her hands in mine as I crouched down in front of her. ‘Promise me, Greta,’ I said. ‘Promise me you will keep this a secret. Promise me you will do what she said. We’ll soon know if she’s lying or not, and then we can let the guards know.’
Greta searched my eyes for a long moment before finally nodding in agreement.
I stood and looked around the room. The food. The crystals. The music. The scent. The…touch? All five senses. All five senses had been under the influence, or so the woman intimated. Could it really be true? I doubted it, but I wanted to know for sure. If I did everything she said and proved her wrong, then there would be no doubt that her claims were false, and I could call the guards in without an ounce of guilt.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s get to work.’
We wrapped rags around the crystals hanging throughout the room, stopping them from refracting the sunlight. I hadn’t realised just how many there were. The breakfast sent from the kitchens was disposed of, the tea poured into the various potted plants, the food carefully wrapped and hidden, and the trays sent back empty. I was hungry, but I was more determined to prove those intruders wrong.
As instructed, Greta and I opened the windows and doors to dissipate some of the scent that clung to the room. Why hadn’t I noticed just how cloying and overwhelming it was? The music was more difficult to muffle. Cotton in our ears did block the sound, but it made it impossible for us to communicate. In the end we decided to wear headscarves over our ears, dampening the sound but not so much that we couldn’t hear each other.
Finally, we stripped the bed. It was something I’d never done before, except it felt weirdly familiar. We searched the sheets and the mattresses for anything that might be used to exploit my sense of touch, but we couldn’t find anything. Short of opening up the mattress—which I refused to do—there wasn’t much else I could do. But, as instructed, I didn’t sit in my usual chair, although it called to me. It was definitely more comfortable than the hard wooden chair that I chose to sit in. At least with it being wood, I knew it couldn’t contain anything untoward.
Greta and I looked at each other when everything was done, and I shrugged. I suppose we would just sit and wait.
‘I don’t think this is a good idea, Mistress,’ Greta said.
‘I can’t see any harm in it,’ I replied. ‘If the intruders were lying, we will have a reason to have them arrested. If they are telling the truth—which I very much doubt—then I will regain my memories, and I’ll know what’s really going on.’
Greta bit her lip and nodded. She wrung her hands in her lap, and her eyes shifted around the room, avoiding looking at me. I tilted my head as I watched her. She seemed…off. Did she know something? I hated to suspect Greta of anything. The woman had been my companion for as long as I could remember. We had grown up together in the castle. I remember the day my mother brought her into the nursery and introduced us. Up until this very moment, I would have trusted Greta with my life but…but now I wondered what she was keeping from me.
I stood and crossed to the open door that led out onto the balcony. I didn’t step across the threshold even though I desperately wanted to. I breathed in the air from outside, expecting it to be fresh and clean but it wasn’t. There was a stench. Rotting garbage would have been my best guess, although how I knew what that smelled like, I had no idea. I’d certainly never smelled it at home. I closed my eyes and breathed again, more deliberately, trying to detect the actual smell and identify it, or at least identify where I knew it from.
Disjointed images played across the inside of my eyelids. A village. A market. The feel of a sword in my hand and the rough scratch of peasant fabric against my skin. My eyes flew open, and I spun, looking at Greta, but she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking toward the door.
Were they memories? Were they fragments of a dream?
‘Greta—’ I began but stopped when the door to my room swung open and Elil strode in.
He beamed a smile at me but…he looked different. Whenever I had looked at Elil, he had always glowed. His skin was smooth and unblemished, his hair shiny and flawlessly styled, his clothes immaculate. Today he looked…I couldn’t describe it. He had lost his shine, but I could not put my finger on exactly what was different.
He must have noticed my confusion because he frowned and then looked to Greta for a moment before turning his wide smile back onto me. He stepped into the room and into a beam of sunlight, and his circlet sparkled, drawing my eyes.
Did he wear the same crystals in his circlet that were hung around the room?
‘Snow,’ he said, his voice not the mellifluous tones I had come to expect. Or maybe that was just because I had a scarf covering my ears. ‘It is good to see you up and about.’
Why did I not believe him? Why did I think he was anything but pleased to see me up and about?
I smiled, playing along. If I wanted to know the truth, then I needed to commit to this until the end of the day, at least.
‘I have been lazing around for far too long,’ I replied, walking toward him, although keeping far enough away so he couldn’t touch me. ‘Our wedding is coming up, and I feel like I’ve done nothing to prepare for it.’
His shoulders relaxed slightly when I mentioned the wedding. Was he perhaps worried I would call it off? Or was it something else?
‘You don’t need to do anything,’ he said, walking toward me and reaching for me.
I moved out of his grasp, wandering over to the mantle and taking an interest in the painting on the wall above it.
There was a long pause before he spoke again. ‘Greta tells me you are refusing to eat.’
I turned slowly, looking at Greta first and then at Elil. I kept a pleasant smile on my face as I answered. ‘I have been lying around so much and sleeping all day, I am afraid I will not fit into my wedding dress at this rate. A day of fasting will be good for me.’
Elil’s eyes hardened, but he kept his face nonchalant. ‘You are still recovering. At least take your medicine.’
He turned, and the door opened once again. A servant came forward with a tray and a cup of tea. Elil took the cup from the tray and handed it to me. I took it, looking down at the amber liquid, my mind racing. Was he just concerned for my health, or was there something more to it? What was in the tea that was so important I had to drink it? One day without it couldn’t possibly have an adverse affect on my health, could it? Unless there was another reason he wanted me to drink it.
I lifted the cup to my lips and pretended to sip before lowering it and turning away, walking over to the doors once more.
‘I know I am still recovering,’ I said, pretending to sip from my cup again. ‘But do you think it would be alright for me to sit in the sun for a while? Staying inside has me feeling cooped up.’
Elil came to stand beside me, and I pretended to drink again. I needed to distract him so I could get rid of the tea. Distract him and Greta both because she had just proved to me I could not trust her.
I ignored the stab that gave me in my heart.
‘There is nothing for you to sit on,’ Elil said. ‘And the wind is cold—’
I turned and smiled up at him. ‘If we move that lovely comfortable chair out here and I cover myself with a rug, that would be alright, wouldn’t it?’ I blinked innocently up at him and then looked down into my cup. ‘I do so miss the outside.’
Elil huffed out a sigh. ‘Fine,’ he said, although his voice sounded tight. He spun from me and. called to the guards outside my door before issuing orders to them and to Greta.
While he was occupied, I tipped the tea into the plant I was standing next to and then pretended to drink it, tipping the cup up so it looked like I had swallowed it all.
I wasn’t yet ready to believe the intruders, but I was far more suspicious than I had been. If nothing else, I would get through today, avoiding as many of the traps as I could, and see what the night brought.