Chapter 24 #2
My stomach lurched at the thought of Siobhan in Cillian’s bed right as the ground started rumbling. I looked down to see the abyss between us growing wider, Siobhan getting farther away.
I gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t think the maze wants us to talk about this.”
I certainly didn’t want to talk about this.
I had no need to hear about Cillian’s conquests in the bedroom and how that could possibly connect to Cillian needing help.
Needing help with what? His . . . performance?
Surely not. I’d heard the rumors about Cillian’s prowess in the bedroom, and it had never been anything but awe at the high prince’s skills.
Besides, he could sleep with whomever he wanted, but there was no reason for me to know any of the details. It was this competition, I reminded myself. It was getting to me and blurring the lines of our friendship.
Siobhan groaned, staring at the dark abyss as the ground stopped trembling and everything went still and silent once again. “Then what are we supposed to talk about?”
I threw out my arms. “I don’t know. I have no clue how to fix this and mend the gap.”
Maybe we couldn’t, and it was the end of this trial for us. I thought of my father all alone, and my shoulders straightened. I had to make it to the next round. For him.
“Don’t tell me you’re both about to jump.”
I looked up to see Meera on top of a hedge, walking with her tail curling behind her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve been catching mice.” She flashed her white teeth. “I’ve had a very good lunch today.”
“That’s . . . lovely.” I grimaced. “We’re trying to figure out how to close this gap between us. I think we need to in order to move forward.”
Meera tilted her head, blinking. “I would offer to help, but I’m not much of a team player. In fact, I have no interest in being here at all.”
The ground rumbled, and I lost my footing, falling to my knees. Dust rose up around me, blocking my view and scratching my throat.
I slowly came to a stand as the shaking stopped once again, and when the dust cleared, my mouth dropped open. The gap had narrowed. Not all the way, but back to how it had been when we first arrived.
I looked up at Meera in awe. “You just did something. You said something that made the gap get smaller.”
Meera lifted a paw, studying her claws. “All I said was the truth.”
The truth. I thought about what had happened right before the ground split us farther apart. Siobhan had said I had feelings for Cillian, and I’d said I didn’t. We’d both known it was a lie.
“I think . . . I think we have to feed it truths,” I said.
Siobhan crossed her arms. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I have no interest in being queen,” Meera said, and the gap shifted again, Siobhan and I closer together now.
“Neither do I,” I said honestly, the ground once again rumbling and the gap getting slimmer.
“But I do care about Cillian,” I said, leaving out the part about how I had feelings for him, not wanting Siobhan to feel like she needed to tell me the details of whatever happened between her and Cillian last night.
We were closer now, close enough that I just might be able to jump to Siobhan or her to me, but I didn’t think that was the point. We needed to completely close this gap between us.
Meera and I stared at Siobhan, waiting for her to take a turn while she looked at us, wide-eyed. “What? I do want to be queen.”
The earth groaned as the abyss widened.
My mouth dropped open. So I’d been right. Siobhan didn’t want the crown. It was her mother who wanted it for her.
“Liar, liar,” Meera said.
Horror washed over Siobhan’s face. “I do want it!”
The gap widened again.
“Siobhan!” I yelled. “Stop! You’re making it worse.”
Her jaw locked. “I’m going a different way. I don’t need to do this. It’s probably a waste of time anyway.” She turned, but I reached out.
“It’s okay to admit you want things for yourself.”
She paused, back still to me as I thought about my father, all the things I wanted that I couldn’t have as his caretaker.
“You deserve to live the life you want, Siobhan. Not the life anyone else wants for you.”
Meera’s green eyes had gone wide. “This just got interesting. You two are normally the most boring of everyone.”
Siobhan slowly turned, and I was shocked to see tears streaming down her cheeks. “This is everything to my mam. She was a slave for so much of her life, and she just wants something better for me.”
“It’s not better if it isn’t what you’d choose for yourself.”
“How can I tell her that? How can I tell her I don’t want to be queen?”
The gap started closing between us, and I had to hold out my arms to keep from tumbling.
“How can I tell her that I don’t want to marry Prince Cillian? That I didn’t have a good time on our date last night? That it was actually the worst date I’ve ever had in my entire life?”
The gap kept closing, bringing me to her, so close I could almost reach out and touch her.
“How do I tell her that I dream of leaving this place and seeing the world? Of others being able to see me and not expect anything of me?”
The gap between us closed completely, the hedges shaking and splitting open to reveal Cillian floating on a throne above us.
But he was surrounded by hedges, a door tucked into the greenery between us closed.
We had to get through that door to get to him.
But how? I had a feeling we wouldn’t just be able to open it.
Siobhan didn’t even seem to notice the appearance of the high prince. “I don’t want any of this,” she said, voice full of awe like she was just now realizing it to be true. “I don’t want the bloody crown or him.” She pointed a finger at Cillian, who frowned.
“You do know I can hear you, right?”
Siobhan threw out her arms, pacing. “I don’t want to win this stupid trial. And if it means disappearing, then so be it.”
“You’ve unleashed a flood,” Meera said with wide eyes. “I think this is the most honest she’s been in her entire life.”
And she wouldn’t stop. She just kept going and going and going. “I want to fall in love with me. Not some stupid prince.”
“Ouch,” Cillian called out.
“Siobhan,” I said, but she wouldn’t stop.
She was laying everything out, telling us all the things she wanted and didn’t want for herself, not even taking a breath to stop.
“Psst,” Meera said, nodding toward that door, a key now sticking out of the golden lock. I walked toward it, Meera following me while Siobhan was still chattering on.
“I want my mam to appreciate me for who I am and not just what I can do for her.”
I reached the door and turned the key. The door swung open, revealing stairs that went directly to Cillian’s floating throne.
“Oh, we’re too late,” Marsten said behind me as he and Lila ran up to us.
“Go on.” Meera nodded.
I looked up at Cillian, who stared down at me with an unreadable look in his eyes. I walked up the stairs toward him with the key in hand until I stood right in front of his throne.
“Ceri,” he started, voice low.
“Congratulations!” Morton said, appearing out of thin air.
“Ceri, you’ve won your first trial!” Morton looked at Siobhan right as I remembered that she’d been trying to tell me something about Cillian and I wouldn’t listen.
If everything she’d said about their date last night was true.
. . what exactly had happened in his bed chamber?
I wouldn’t get the chance to ask, because at that moment Siobhan disappeared.