My breath is stalled in my lungs as I gather the last of my death to me. I collapse back into the chair as my body begins to shake violently, the same way it would if the lacerations were physical, and I was going into shock. Every day it’s more of the same: enduring wounds that would kill me under any other circumstances. The feeling of bleeding out, of being tortured, all invisible to the outside. The pain never leaves me.
Sam pauses at the door, and I refuse to look at him. Refuse to show him just how weak I am.
“The woman’s name…I heard her say it at the beach. It’s Willa.”
I don’t reply, as Sam bows and takes his leave.
Long moments pass before I’m able to peel myself out of the chair and stand. I make my way through my living quarters on unsteady legs, past where the shattered window has already begun to repair itself, to my bedchamber. By the time I fall atop my bed, a sticky sheen of sweat has begun to bead on my skin despite the cold, and a metallic pounding resonates through my skull.
I don’t have the energy to remove my boots or jacket. I only cross my arms over my chest and stare up at the ceiling, giving myself fully to the pain. Allowing the waves of agony to crash over me like an ocean surf.
But for some reason, they don’t drown me this time, as one word keeps my mind above water:Willa.
Chapter five
I’m awoken by the strike of a match, followed by the pleasant crackle of flame. Moaning, I bury my face in a luxuriously soft pillow and squeeze my eyes tighter, refusing to leave the cocooned comfort of the bed. My head pounds like someone’s taken a hammer to the inside of my skull, and my throat feels like it’s been scraped raw with sandpaper. My entire body aches, right down to the pricking tenderness of my skin. The last thing I want to do is open my eyes.
But as curtains are whipped open, and the vague memory of where I am reemerges, I begrudgingly sit up, only to be sure it isn’t that heinous monster of a king lurking in my room. As vile as he is, I doubt stalking is out of his purview.
I blink into the darkness wondering what time it is, when a fire blazes to life in an ornate hearth along the far wall. The flames flicker merrily, bathing the large room in soft light and dancing shadows. A woman stands with her back to me, one hand thrown on her hip, the other gently stoking the flames with a poker.
Seizing the opportunity of her inattention, I slip silently from the bed and dart toward the door, hoping she may have left it open. But when I reach the space where it should be, it’s only to find the same disappointment as last night when Sam had left me in here. There’s no knob, no hinges—nothing but ornately etched designs curling up toward the ceiling in the same manner as the throne room stories below.
Huffing a furious sigh, I pivot to find the woman continuing about her chores, having paid no mind to my fruitless escape attempt. She appears young, maybe in her late teens at the oldest. Her heart-shaped face is supple and full, her beautiful white-blonde hair pulled into a tight bun at the base of her neck. A simple black dress swishes around her ankles as she moves from window to window, opening the shades to reveal swathes of the odd night sky beyond.
“What time is it?” I venture, wondering if this is some kind of sleep-deprivation torture ordered by the infernal king. My voice is still weak from the effects of my near drowning, but it’s loud enough that when the woman doesn’t respond, I know it’s because she’s blatantly ignoring me.
She finishes with the curtains and begins fretting over the bed, straightening the mess I made of the blankets. I watch her for a few long moments as the warmth of the fire begins to seep into the icy room. I nudge closer to the flames, attempting to swallow down my growing sense of panic. I’m still clad in the same dirty night gown, and though exhaustion had eventually won out over my desire to stay alert, now that I’m awake, the reality of my predicament begins to press anew against my chest.
The doors, the darkness, theking. Jamie’s horrific murder, the slack-jawed gape of his rotted face.
And before all of it, my awakening from a dream only to spiral into an abyss.
All of it floats through my mind in increasingly sharp fragments, none of which fit together to form any semblance of rationality. The world rushes around me like I’m trapped in a never-ending nightmare; like I’ve come untethered from the universe and tipped into madness. Maybe I’m trapped in one of the Amelioration camps again and too far gone, too drugged up, to even realize it.
Suddenly angry, I charge toward the woman. “Why did you wake me up in the middle of the night?”
She finishes tidying the sheets, before turning to me with an exasperated look. She’s beautiful by anyone’s standard—creamy skin, large blue eyes, and a delicate mouth which is turned down in a confused frown, like she can’t quite understand me and somehow pities me for it. My eyes latch onto where the collar of her dress has shifted, revealing a sliver of gnarled scar tissue at the base of her throat.
I take a leveling breath and try another angle. “Are you trapped here, too?”
Rather than answering, the woman simply adjusts her collar, before pointing sternly toward the adjoining bath. Steam hisses from the partially ajar door, and it takes me an entire minute to realize she’s drawn me a bath. She grunts with a firm nod of her head, gesturing to the tangled mess of my hair with a pointed look. I run a tentative hand over the back of my head and cringe inwardly.
Whoever she is, she’s right about the state of me. My hair is crusted with dried seawater and clumped in thick, tangled strands. My nightgown, once a sparkling shade of peach, is now closer to the color of a mud puddle, and my skin is streaked with black sand and blood.
Without bothering to wait for my agreement, the girl shoves a pile of fresh clothes into my arms and crowds me into the bathroom.
I dig my heels stubbornly into the ground. “Wait, wait. I don’t care what that horrible monster has ordered you to do, you don’t have to wait on me. We can help each other.”
I mean it as a kindness, but the woman’s mouth thins, and her eyes narrow dangerously like I’ve offended her. I’ve spent so long with spikes outside my skin, using my unpleasantness as armor to keep everyone at arm’s length, it’s difficult to remember how to reach outside it. How to draw someone in, rather than push them away.
Attempting a gentler tone that sounds entirely unnatural in my mouth, I ask, “What’s your name?”
The woman presses her lips together like she’s debating how to answer. Then, with a delicate swallow, she taps her mouth and shakes her head slowly.
“You can’t speak?”
She nods, her pretty face unreadable. Before I can ask anything else, she pushes me inside the bathroom and snaps the door closed behind me.
