“Do not fear. His heart beats only for you and it always will,” she said. “Come. We don’t have much time.”
The urgency in her voice made blood surge through my veins like lightning cleaving across the sky.
She pointed to the wall above the bedside table. A wooden frame made up of nine blocks in rows of three hung there, the front covered with a hinged glass panel. How had I missed it when I explored the room?
“Touch,” she said so softly I barely heard the tinkle of her voice. “Each leads down a different path, but I warn you. Never take one unless it has been offered to you by another.”
I couldn’t imagine taking any of them.
“Select two now as our gifts to you, though take one at a time,” she added. “The third will be chosen for you. Know that it will be different for each, but for you, my pretty, they will be special.”
“And the third?”
“Wait for that one until the right time, as it could burn you.”
“Touching it could burn me?”
“One might say this.” Her laughter rang out, high-pitched and torturous, a needle gouging my skin before dragging down my arm.
Could I change my mind and refuse their gifts?
“I don’t want to touch anything in the room,” I said. “He’ll know.”
Her sigh rang out, and her tiny lips thinned to almost nothing. “Not these. They don’t belong to him. They never have and never will. He stole them, so you must now steal them from him.”
So much for “gifts”.
I leaned closer, gazing into the small case. The sticks were starkly white compared to the black wood encasing them. He’d see right away if three of them went missing.
“Magic will hide their loss,” she hissed. “Hurry. You don’t have much time, and you need them. Trust me in this.”
As if I trusted anyone with magic? But I’d helped them. They were returning the favor. And, as always, my curiosity had grabbed onto me and was urging me to at least lift one of the sticks from the case.
Sticks? I leaned closer, nearly touching my nose to the glass.
“Fuck, these are bones.”
“Yes. Take two, one at a time.”
I gulped back the bile rushing up my throat. My eyes widened, and my pulse throbbed in my throat. Repulsion clutched my windpipe as I took in the skeletal things enshrined eerily, each standing up starkly as if gouging toward the ceiling.
With the tip of my blade, I opened the case.
My leather tunic had a small pocket on the underside, and I flipped up the hem, exposing it. I’d find a way to place my two “gifts” inside without touching them.
“Youmusttouch them,” Trissa said. “It’s vital.”
“Why?”
“The gift is what they bestow, not the bones themselves, though they will have value one day, so I suggest you not lose them.”
“I’ll hide them somewhere.”
“Keep them close.”
“Alright. I’ll make a pouch and keep them in my pocket at all times.”
“Wisdom can unveil secrets that sway destinies.”
