Chapter Fourteen
My lungs burn like they’re full of water. Sparks crackle into my vision like embers from a spitting fire. I don’t even know where I’m going, only that I need somewhere to sit, maybe cry and feel sorry for myself. Rest, breathe, and gather the strength to resume my quest.
I find myself in Anton’s study once more.
It’s untouched, thankfully, which means Anton has not returned to find the evidence of my tampering. I’m willing to bet it’s safe to stay here for the rest of the night now that he’s well occupied. The thought has my fists tightening, my stomach curdling with disappointment. With frustration.
He’d barely even looked at me. Hardly paid me a lick of attention. I could throttle him for his presumptuousness in demanding I wear a certain color. For his remarks.
I could have spent that time in the Abyssal, searching for one of our codices now that I know about the connection.
I’m so angry I could chuck a codex or two.
I even grab one, its surface a gleaming steel, my hand trembling.
Then weariness settles over me—a reminder that the energy I exert here costs triple what it does in the mortal world.
I sink into his wingback. Yank a blanket over me—only to find it smells like him. I kick it off out of spite, ignoring the way I shiver thereafter.
I know this is a mere facade. An act to cover his wounded pride. To distract himself and pretend nothing else exists.
I know this isn’t who he is.
But right now, anger feels better than grief.
The next morning, I return to the Abyssal.
Hours drag by as I dig through shelf after shelf, making little progress. I break only to pilfer a tray of scones from the kitchen before escaping back into the depths of the Abyssal once more.
So far, at least, the Abyssal has remained empty and quiet save for the rhythm of the river—stripes of water flowing through in delicate strands.
That is, until a codex flies from its place and whips past my head. Startled, I glance about, but it’s well and truly…gone.
A moment later, however, the missing codex floats back into place.
I scratch my head.
I’d just looked through that one. It was of a living person. I take it into my hands, its surface velvet-soft, and open it, only to find—
A newly inked date of death.
And when I search the back, I find the judgment, marked like those of the dead. Whoever this was, they just died, and Moranya scrawled her judgment into their codex.
I continue along, the expanse of the Abyssal overwhelming. I notice more rips in the air—dark voids that seem to tear it in half, each a few feet wide, some smaller. It’s as if this place is unstitching from the seams, though they don’t seem to get worse.
Occasionally, a codex zips past me, only to return a few moments later.
The only thing I learn is that some shelves are much shorter, while others continue and zag into new ones, like the branches of a tree.
Some have missing codices, too—empty slots where it seems a codex should be.
Perhaps the ones Anton took to his study.
I keep on until an Aegis alerts me at nightfall, when I realize I’ve lost track of time altogether.
By the time I make it back into the pavilion, I find it crowded, boisterous, half the occupants slouched over divans and already asleep.
Anton, for his part, idles by the open balcony near the far end, several gathered around him with chalices in hand.
I find Ishu with him this time, sneaking yellow grapes off his plate when he isn’t looking.
Like last night, I march toward him. Look directly into his eyes and announce my presence.
“You are late,” he muses.
“You never specified a time.”
“How irreverent,” a nearby soul mutters, leaning her head against his shoulder. She’s long-limbed and draped in a glittering green gown, her complexion a glowing amber. “She can’t even be bothered to bow.”
“My apologies,” I say, swallowing the bout of aggravation cording my throat as I dip into the requested bow. I remind myself that this is for him. To restore him.
And for him, I will always bow.
With that, I pivot and take position before the fountain I performed in last night. This time, my outfit is in two pieces: a bustier and a matching scalloped skirt the color of the sea at dusk. But it’s my prop that gives me a familiar confidence. An edge.
It didn’t take long to scour the kitchens for a sack of flour. It’s not like millen, not nearly as light, the grain coarse and thick like sand. But with the atmosphere of this place, it dances in the air in much the same way when tossed.
Perhaps it’s silly to hope that it might have a similar effect on him as it did at the Gathering.
That it might spur a memory. I had even taken the time—not that I had a lot after spending the day in the Abyssal—to scrape the glitter off another dress and into the makeshift sack I made, which holds the flour just as it once held my millen.
Hope is a fickle thing, ever slipping from my grasp. But now, as I pose in the center of a sea of guests, I put myself back on the Isle of Anell.
And I dance just like I did then.
My powder sparkles around me like mist, like a drizzle of rainfall.
The harpist’s tune is not unlike the Illiuna I performed for Copelan, but gentler, more melodic.
I keep my choreography simple, relying on the swirls of dust I release—each spin, each dip, cleverly timed.
When the song draws to a close like curtains pulled shut, I curl onto the floor, careful not to show just how hard I’m breathing, how heavy I feel.
Even so, I bask in the soft, polite claps that crackle about—a small victory compared with last night.
When I look up, though, it’s merely Sorrell and the few souls I met previously. And Anton—
He—
I gather myself and push to my feet, my gaze circling the room. But he isn’t here. He didn’t even bother to watch. Even Ishu is gone.
That girl. Did he escort her to his room?
Just how many does he rotate through?
My head churns into a disoriented rush, and strength wanes from my knees. But the nausea is the worst, threatening to spill up my throat.
It’s not even that I blame him for seeking comfort or pleasure. But the space I carved in his heart has now been filled. I am inconsequential, our past erased. And though I knew it—kept reminding myself, even—seeing him move on is like picking at a scab.
If I keep tormenting myself like this, the wound might never heal.
Sorrell, Rasmus, and Unna surround me. Sorrell places a drink in my hand, linking his arm through mine yet again. He drags me to a table, and my mind is so absent, so dazed, that I let him.
The game they play passes before me in a blur. And despite myself, I can’t help but scan the room for him in the hopes of being proved wrong. But I see neither Anton nor the girl.
My heart feels like a bruise.
The next handful of days feel much the same.
I wander through the Abyssal, searching farther in each time, but nothing makes sense beyond the basic compilation of lineage. It makes me want to scream. Worse are the headaches, the feverish chill that flares each evening and seems to get worse by the day.
In the evenings, I’m so tired that it is all I can do to refill my sack with flour and shave another dress of its tiny, crusted beads. And still I have to dance.
Anton barely skims a gaze over me the first few nights.
The nights thereafter, he looks utterly bored—even when I catch him watching.
Yet I can’t help but notice that once each week he forgoes his daily judgments and vanishes for the day.
Those nights, when I dance, his expression verges more on furious than bored.
I wonder why, and if it has anything to do with Moranya.
I make a mental note to follow him if I can catch him before he disappears.
For now, though, I have only my performance to grab his attention. I’ve even resorted to choreographing them as closely as I can to the ones at the Gathering—the very ones I performed at the smaller banquets where he would watch me with intent. I had been excited, hopeful, only for him not to care.
I feel like a fool, even knowing it was a shot in the seemingly endless dark. All my energy should be directed to my search, and yet I can’t help the dejection that comes knowing I can’t reach him, or his memories, no matter how hard I try.
That I might never catch his eye again.
It makes me wonder if it was merely the circumstances that drew him to me at the Gathering. How small I am here, how inconsequential, next to so many beautiful souls vying for his attention like moons in his orbit.
But I challenge the thought each time it surfaces. Summon the confidence Queen Sadira drilled into me before I left.
I have survived the dark of a cell. Years of pain. My father. The Gathering.
I chose to end Illian once and for all.
My confidence should not hinge on the attentions of one man.
That, at least, serves to anchor me. I am proud of what I’ve endured, proud of what my body is managing to do—especially here. I am proud for persisting when hope feels lost. And Anton…
He can do as he pleases. That’s fine.
For now.
I take satisfaction, at least, in stealing Ishu one night.
Anton, occupied as he is, doesn’t notice when I lure her from his side with a piece of cheese, and she follows me to the study, sleeping next to me in a heap.
She keeps me warm, her fur softer than any blanket, and her rumbles throughout the night offer comfort and a sense of protection, both.
Tonight, though, she circles the pavilion, picking at trays of food again, though she growls at anyone who reaches to pet her head.
On the tenth night, I am just about to retire when I notice Maia retreating down the hall alone. Remembering her criticism of Moranya, I hasten my pace until I reach her.