It took more attempts than I cared to count. When I finally gripped the bottom rung, it took four more attempts—and another fall on my bruised butt—before I managed to pull myself up far enough to reach the ladder properly. My weight was not enough to pull it down alone.
I was sweaty and breathing hard by the time I reached the top of the ladder and the next hatch. My thumb had stopped bleeding so I had to bite it again, this time I felt the sting as I drew forth blood and smeared it everywhere I could across the hatch, until I found the blood seal and the glowing red of my blood opened the hatch.
I gasped the cold fresh air as I collapsed on the wet grass and dirt of the hill that overlooked the Ardens Estate.
The sky was grey—no surprise the sky had been perpetually grey since we arrived. I could hear the shouts and screams of people below and the gunfire, the occasionalpop pop popcausing the breath to stutter in my chest.
I hated guns.
I had never had reason to really think of them before. There were only a few shotguns in my village, communally used for hunting, never for shooting at people.
It felt like the Houses didn’t really care about life the way we did.
Then it seared through me, the pain.
The shock of it was blinding, physically blinding, a white light behind my eyelids.
I gasped for breath, my hand clutching at my side.
I sat up from where I had been lying on the wet ground, panting to catch my breath, and inspected my right side.
Nothing. There was nothing there.
The pain had vanished.
I lifted my jumper and my top and touched around where the pain had been, but there was not so much as a bruise.
Then suddenly the pain was blinding again.
I was doubled over myself.
And then just as suddenly it was gone.
As my lungs filled with air again, a cold realisation swept over me, like being engulfed by a wave.
The pain was not my own.
Selene had been injured.
My love was in pain. In danger.
And where was I?
On a hilltop.
Having ran away.
I was a coward. I had left without her. I had barely even tried to find her. And now she was hurt, and I didn’t know how badly. But the fact that the pain had broken past her enchantments and reached me….
I feared the worst.
I got to my feet, running my hands over my backside and thighs to remove the dampness from the earth. Looking down I could see the mansion past the small orchard, where I saw Ardens Estate staff gathered under the bare trees. Rebels had rounded them up. Some of the rebels were in a red-wine coloured uniform of sorts, just a jumper really, but they stood out from the others at this distance.
I needed to get back to the mansion.
Selene was somewhere inside. Injured.
I needed to find her.
