Chapter 25
Throwing Dalila out of the room had been cathartic in the moment, but on the matter of brewing infections, the damnable Mistress of Poisons proved correct: being stitched up by Raksh after wrestling in the muck and blood of dying beasts with half my skin flayed resulted in the worst fever I’d ever suffered.
By that evening, my wounds were oozing, the surrounding flesh turning an ugly purple despite the ministrations of the palace physicians.
By midnight, I was insensible, my memories of the following days a blurry haze of dizziness and murmured voices, scorching pain and drenching sweat.
My dreams were scarred by the acrid smell of blood, the slime of spilled griffin eggs, and the screech of the creatures as they dived.
The times I clawed and swam back to the surface of consciousness were no better; the searing pain of septic flesh being debrided, insects that might have been leeches sinking fangs into my skin, foul pulsing potions shoved between my lips.
I remember, as clear as a spot on my eye, of wishing for death.
Of begging for God’s mercy, weeping for my mother.
Shivering so badly that my teeth ached when cold compresses were placed upon my burning body.
Despite my having kicked her out, Dalila was there.
Not always, but rather like an eel eluding my grasp.
Her cool, commanding voice and sparse, professional touch checking pulse points and prodding my liver.
At one point, she sat at my bedside next to a woman with silver spikes in her hair and magic pouring from her fingers.
I tried to scream but could make no sound other than a moan.
And then slowly, surely, my injuries abated. My fever broke, leaving me a yellow-hued wreck. I’d lost an alarming amount of weight, and my limbs felt leaden. I was dazed and fatigued, but as the days passed, my mind grew clearer, and my appetite improved.
But it might have been a mercy if I’d remained insensible because I’d never felt so hopeless.
My career has been one of perilous situations; wave after wave of them, and I a daft and dumb hatchling turtle marching toward the sea of calamity, narrowly avoiding hungry predators. But at least I’d had options—I could run, escape to fight, and steal another day.
Now? Dalila seemed to imply I was death-bound, fighting a losing battle with a poison that had no cure other than that which she was desperately trying to invent.
There was nowhere to run: the fucking forest and its rippling flags simply rejected my attempts to leave.
My crew was beyond my reach, at the mercy of a witch who turned those she deemed “useless” into livestock.
And my only company was my treacherous husband—who, if he didn’t seem to be actively scheming against me, was still behaving more oddly than usual.
And Dalila, of course. Memories of our fight resurfaced like the circling fins of a shark, each a fresh knife of betrayal.
I suppose things could be worse: I could already be dead and apparently would have been if not for Dalila pushing gray muck down my throat and pretending it was for a head injury.
By God, how could she have kept this from me?
I could understand making a rash decision in the wake of our mad escape from Sarilaglag.
But to wake each day and choose to continue the lie?
My dawning fury must have also been apparent, for no sooner did my fever break than Dalila’s visits grew elusive.
Her examinations were confined to the midnight hour and if I attempted to rouse myself to hurl accusations at her, she vanished more swiftly, the only evidence of her ministrations my clean bandages, fresh salves, and acrid-smelling potions.
Yet by a certain point I was tired of lying around feeling sorry for myself.
If I stayed in this bed any longer, I was going to sprout roots, and so with great care I rose from my twisted sheets.
My feet prickled but held my weight, a great wave of dizziness rising then abating within me.
I took a few rounds of the room, the movement serving me well.
The movement also made embarrassingly clear how atrocious I smelled.
Taking a sniff of my arm, I gagged, thankful I was alone.
No sponge bath had been enough to get the griffin gore out of my hair.
Deciding a full scrub was needed, I staggered out of my room and toward the bath chamber.
It probably would’ve been wiser to wait for Raksh to return and help—I still felt lightheaded—but asking the eternally lusting demon for such assistance would only lead to trouble.
The bath chamber was silent save for the gentle dripping of water. Steam rose from the larger pool; the water within was constantly hot, perhaps heated by an underground thermal spring. I shed my sweat-stained clothing, gathered as much soap as I could, and then submerged.
It was heavenly. Cautious of my still-healing wounds, I lathered and scoured, grimly noting that the blisters on my left hand appeared newly raw. I didn’t want to contemplate the implication.
Then don’t. Your fate is in God’s hands.
I would continue to take Dalila’s tonic, but I couldn’t allow my fear of the poisoning to consume me.
For now, Queen Lab was the nearer threat.
I emerged from the bath and with reluctance dressed in a fresh set of local garb, my skin crawling as the bone-hued cloth clung to my flesh.
Was this wool spun from the hair of some poor transformed castaway?
Wearing it made me feel ill, but there was little alternative.
I crossed the room, searching for a comb.
I froze. Just ahead was a door where there had very much not been one before.
The door wasn’t large—a sliding panel meant to blend seamlessly with the decorative frescoes—and it had been left open only a crack.
As I edged closer, I realized why: a cleaning rag had fallen to the floor, preventing the door from closing.
I pushed it open the rest of the way, revealing stone steps that spiraled into darkness.
Ceramic pipes ran down one moldering wall, along with shelves holding more cleaning supplies.
In the distance was the faint patter of falling water.
Apprehension warred within me. A few weeks ago, I would have dismissed this as an access tunnel: meant for servants to maintain whatever complicated apparatus kept Khatti Ugal’s remarkable plumbing running smoothly, as well as to discreetly clean the bath chamber when we weren’t present.
The door might have been left open by mistake, an understandable accident.
Now? Never mind the rag, this seemed intentional.
Perhaps it was a trap set by the queen, a test to see if I’d try to escape.
But then I remembered the guard who’d tried to stop me from entering the throne room, the wordless scream in the gaze of the servant as he watched the bandits turned into sheep.
Was this another quiet clue, the only hint Lab’s subjects could share about the queen who ruled their lives with an iron fist?
You will never know if you don’t go down there.
For all I knew, the steps led to an aquifer and a dead end.
But I’d been itching for a way to discreetly search the palace long before my fight with the griffins and couldn’t resist the urge to explore.
Vowing to turn back if my healing body began to flag, I retrieved a small oil lamp from the bath’s edge, blocked the bathroom’s main entrance with a heavy chair, and then descended the dripping stairs.
The steps led to a short-ceilinged chamber of more pipes and pumps, likely part of the ingenious workings designed to keep the baths running and the floors warm.
But just beyond, a corridor stretched away.
Hoisting my lamp, I headed that direction.
The tunnel narrowed swiftly, the brick walls giving way to packed earth.
Roots brushed my head, insects and a pair of mice skittering away from the light.
My hushed breath was as loud as a drum in the confined space, but I wasn’t walking long when I came to a split in the tunnel.
It was followed shortly by another, hinting at a labyrinth I had neither the time nor the strength to travel right now.
Nor did I have any desire to get lost in some underground maze.
But I kept going, taking the leftmost branch at each divide so I could retrace my steps.
I listened carefully for signs of life, for signs of Khatti Ugalans with unknown intentions.
But in the end, it wasn’t life that the flickering light of my lamp fell upon when I turned the next corner.
It was death, an entire catacomb’s worth.
Arm and leg bones stacked like bricks, rows of vertebrae set in columns, all stretching far above my head to frame a chamber larger than the queen’s throne room.
Splayed finger bones were arranged in decorative whirls, femurs shaping elegant arches.
Far worse were the skulls—hundreds, thousands, seemingly enough heads to mirror the local population—displayed on shelves set at eye level.
The skulls had been painted, plastered in some cases as though to give flesh and shape to the severed heads.
Gems were placed in their eyes, reflecting ruby and topaz dead gazes, rotting straw wigs crowning their craniums.
I stumbled back, nearly dropping the lamp as I whispered a prayer for protection. Who were these people? Had they been previous guests of the queen, murdered in their sleep and hidden away?
Or . . . perhaps it was simply a funerary practice I wasn’t accustomed to. Did different cultures not have varying ways of paying honor and goodbye to their loved ones? Dalila would remind me so, chiding me about unconsciously judging other religions.
Then again, I was in the underground lair of a witch who turned people she didn’t like into sheep so perhaps a little paranoia was warranted.
Distant banging from the direction of the baths startled me so badly that I jumped, dislodging a rain of loose vertebrae. I couldn’t get caught here. So as swiftly as possible, I retraced my path, brushing bone dust from my clothes and reemerging in the bath chamber.
Knocking continued on the door. “Amina?” Raksh called, his voice muffled. “What are you doing in there?”
I shook the cobwebs from my damp hair, shuddering as I extricated a finger bone. “Bathing!” I replied, hurling the bone away. “Obviously. Are you alone?”
“No, I am here with forty thieves all ready to break down the door,” he said sarcastically. “Come out when you are done. I have a gift.”
A gift? My mind churning with the implications of my discovery in the tunnels, I finished dressing and stepped out.
My spouse had made himself comfortable, lounging on a couch and eating a gull I suspected he’d snatched off the terrace. “Over there,” he said, jerking his head at the table and tearing into a wing with his teeth. Blood ran down his lips.
I gave him a disgusted look. “Do you have to do that? They keep this table laden with delicacies at all hours.”
“I prefer my food fresher.”
But Raksh’s dietary preferences didn’t hold my attention. Not when I saw what he’d brought me: my weapons belt, the one I’d been forced to hand over before my battle with the griffins. I rushed to the table, checking over the meteor blade and my grandfather’s khanjar.
“The queen asked me to return them,” Raksh explained. “She said they seemed important to you, and I told her she had no idea—they are your most beloved children.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t understand why you’re so suspicious of Lab. She seems perfectly pleasant.”
I doubt this was intended as a pleasantry. If Lab was returning my weapons, it was because she was sending me a message; namely that they and I were harmless. Powerless—compared to her magic.
I ran my fingers over the meteor blade. Had she closely examined that? Found even it worthless? “Did she say anything else?”
Raksh snapped a bone between his teeth. “Only that she hoped you were feeling better and she is eager to see your face again. Something about a lot of work?” He shrugged.
“I’m not certain. Those court sessions you insist on me attending are torture.
By God, human governance is dull. Today they discussed ways to convince the locals to have more children, and they made even sexual intercourse sound a chore. ”
I had stopped listening to his complaint.
Lab’s message was received, but if she’d hope to intimidate me, she’d failed.
Blades were not the only weapons with which one could fight.
Information was. And somewhere in this palace was a spindle capable of rewriting fate, my knowledge of it one of the few things I’d managed to keep concealed.
I’d be returning to that tunnel. It was a risk, yes, but one I needed to take.
I’d dive back into the palace’s underground maze; I’d use it to search every speck of Khatti Ugal if I had to.
And if I found the spindle—when I found the spindle—I was going to figure out a way to weave me and my crew out of this nightmare.
But in the meantime, I’d play loyal captain. “You know, Raksh . . . I’m feeling much better. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll attend the queen together.”