Chapter 25
Lucan is right. My room is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
Pressing my back against the door, I gape at the enormous scope of it.
I have no frame of reference for whether this is ancient or futuristic. What I do know is that it’s gaudy and I shouldn’t be so enamored with it—but I am. And I wish everyone back in the city had the same chance to experience laying eyes upon it… without having to sacrifice their blood, of course.
Three pristine sofas form a semi-circle around a polished coffee table crowned with a vase of fresh roses.
Standing lamps cast warm glows throughout the room, highlighting an elegant desk with drawers against the wall behind them.
On an ornate bedside table, a handheld mirror exactly like the one Diggory had sits beside a familiar packet of blue birth control pills that I’ve been taking my whole life.
For a moment, I wonder why I would still need to take them now that I’m no longer with Malcolm, but then my eyes stray to the actual bed.
It has to be the most lavish thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Four wooden posts thick as my waist jut up to the high, high ceiling that’s carved with intricate floral designs, winding outward in a circular pattern.
Deep crimson curtains hang around the bed, probably to block out the morning sun from the enormous lancet windows that line the back wall.
At the sight of those windows, I bypass all the other furniture and beeline toward the nearest one to search for a latch or opening.
I feel along the windowsill and edges, but the colored glass is just as solid as it is thick with no crack or indication that it even opens at all.
Escaping through them isn’t an option, then.
And it wouldn’t be even if they could open, Lucan growls. Considering you’re several stories high.
I could’ve made myself a rope, I mutter.
With what clothes? You haven’t even checked your closet.
I have the distinct impression he’s trying to lure me away from the window, and it works. Curiosity tugs me toward the armoire on the far back wall.
Throwing open the doors, I’m met with dresses upon dresses upon dresses. Dresses. I’ve only worn one outfit my entire life, but these… these are nothing short of decadent.
Rich silks, delicate lace, velvets, something soft and shiny I don’t have a name for. My hands sweep across them of their own accord. Sinking into the fabric’s smooth texture.
Although he stays silent, Lucan’s pity seeps into me—pity that this is the first time I’m experiencing something outside of the carefully curated Wall and my rigorous schedule and my mundane belongings, that this is the situation in which I finally get to experience the things of the world I’ve been deprived of my entire life.
They gave us the Cardinal Rules, I murmur, so that we wouldn’t realize we were missing out on all this.
And yet there is so much more they’re missing out on by stifling you, Lucan muses, his thoughts drifting up and down my body, tightening my throat.
Before I can respond, a rustle behind me makes me whip around—
—and find myself face to face with a pair of squinting, watchful eyes.
Fucking hell. Lucan’s heart pounds in tandem with mine, but I realize it’s just the servant from earlier, the one Arad dismissed.
Practically face to face, nose touching nose, she curtsies stiffly.
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” I tell her in a hurried voice. I glance at the locked door. “How’d you get in here?”
She straightens, blinks. Those narrow brown eyes feel like they’re slicing into me, like whatever they’ve witnessed have sharpened them into permanent slits.
Still, she doesn’t say anything, but she gestures to a space between the armoire and the bed, where I blink at a door I didn’t notice in my earlier attempt to escape, its pallid color blending into the wallpaper around it.
I furrow my brow. “Is that where you came from?”
She shakes her head, and with a strong hand, tugs at my arm, leading me to that sliver of white I can see through the crack.
I gasp as soon as she pushes the door back to reveal a bathroom. But the word bathroom doesn’t justify whatever this is.
White marble, floor length mirrors, and gold upon gold accents. My eye-line latches onto some sort of basin with clawed feet in the center of the room, where my servant turns two knobs and water flows from the faucet in a rumbling start.
Lucan senses my confusion. It’s a bathtub, little nightmare. Like a shower, but better.
The gears in my head click, but instead of responding directly to Lucan, I use my voice. “I get to sit in the tub? For as long as I want?”
Steam unfurls from the water, calling to my muscles that have been on edge for the last few hours.
My servant looks up and nods curtly before motioning to my clothes.
“Oh.” I startle when she reaches for the edge of my cloak. “I can do it myself. Thank you though.”
With a disapproving pinch of her lips, she busies herself with the hot water: plugging the hole in the bottom, testing the temperature, adding a floral-scented liquid that hits my nose as it swirls around like oil.
“I haven’t gotten your name,” I say as I remove my cloak and lay it over a chair in the corner.
She glances at me from behind her bangs, and I catch a flare of longing on her face before she turns away.
Saskia, Lucan starts slowly, hitting every syllable. I don’t think she can speak.
A haunting feeling settles in my gut. You mean…
I can’t even bring my inner voice to say it. I let my eyes linger on her mouth, too long, apparently, because a muscle in her jaw tics from how hard she’s keeping it shut.
Yes. I think her tongue has been removed, Lucan says carefully.
My breath catches as the truth barrels into me, horrible and vicious. All with the idea to silence these people, forbid them from communicating. And a tongue being removed… it would require instant cauterization or else the patient—servant—would die.
To think that the Guardians do this on purpose, that they must have a palace healer on standby to attend to the wound they inflict on their own supposed people…
Taking a deep, shaky breath, I ask, “Can you write your name for me?”
She snaps her head up as she lays a towel on the cushioned bench on the other side of the tub, scowling at me like I’ve asked for something impossible. Yet as I sidle up next to her and she smooths the towel flat, I see that she’s tracing something over the plush cotton.
“E,” I say, watching her strokes closely, “l—e—n—i.” I look up. “Eleni?”
She shakes her head at the way I said it—El-uh-nigh—and points to her knee.
“Eleni,” I correct myself with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Saskia.”
I’m met with a deeper scowl. But her eyes betray her—a trace of happiness glimmers through before she shutters her emotions again and crouches at my feet to untie my shoes.
“Please,” I insist. “There’s no need for that.”
Eleni huffs under her breath as she rises and fusses with my shirt.
But I step back—because I don’t think she should be waiting on me and I have a necklace between my legs that might seem rather strange.
“Really, Eleni,” I laugh awkwardly. “I can do it myself. You don’t have to… serve me.”
She throws her hands up, worry creasing into her face, before she gestures with her hands in an indecipherable motion.
I’m sure she’s just as worried as I am about you, Lucan offers. You just had some of your blood replaced with venom. She’s seen this hundreds of times.
“I’m fine,” I tell them both. “I promise.”
While my muscles do feel like they’re on fire, it’s a good kind of burn—like a light snaking through my veins, a power activating some deep recesses of my mind.
My limbs still zing with every movement, but the world around me has slowed. I feel more alive than ever. Which definitely means I need to sleep this off, because I shouldn’t be feeling so exhilarated after the murder I just witnessed and the pain I just felt.
“Eleni.” I smile. “I’m going to take a bath and go to sleep, and you need to rest yourself. It’s almost two in the morning.”
She hesitates, but I see the exhaustion seeping out of her movements. It doesn’t take another word from me—just a gentle, reassuring touch to her arm and a once-over from her, and then she’s retreating from the bathroom.
Before I close the door, I watch her cross over the plush rug to the other side of my bedroom, slip something out of her pocket, and press it against the wall.
A panel pops inward, silently swinging on hidden hinges.
Just before Eleni steps through into the dark, she looks over her shoulder at me and flashes me a quick smile.
I suppress my laugh and say to Lucan, I think I just made a friend.
Warmth envelops me.
From my neck down to my toes sticking out the top of the water.
The steam clears my senses and my pores.
The scent of lavender calms me, pulling me far away from images of that dead Chosen One on the floor and sliced tongues and the two pinpricks of blood that have dried on my wrist. Hopefully tomorrow, when the venom has faded a bit, I’ll remember to hate anything and everything that comes from the Guardians, but for now…
Lucan, baths are my new favorite thing.
I’m met with cold silence.
Lucan?
Panic flares—a worse feeling than vampire venom flooding your heart—until I realize I left the necklace on the stool next to the tub after I undressed and forgot.
The Monster has become such an ingrained part of me, it’s almost natural to just assume he’s in my mind.
I sit up and pick up the blood-red vial, the chain uncurling from its little pile, before I slip it over my head. The pendant slides down my slick skin and hits the water, where it floats for a second before sinking down between my breasts.
The curve of them looks so sensual against the surface of the water, and when it ripples, my peaked nipples alternate between the warm liquid and the cool air.
I run a wet fingertip over my right one.
Saskia, Lucan says firmly through my thoughts.