“No. I haven’t, and I don’t plan to.”
“Why then? Why me?”
She motions to my hand. “Because you were the only one who would have saved me, even after I’ve been awful to you. The others aren’t led so easily by guilt. As the trials go on, and the competition becomes tighter, the others might move with desperation. And desperation can lead to rather deadly choices.”
“So you keep me safe, during the trials and outside of them, and if I win his hand, I pardon your brother?” I relay.
She nods.
“You cannot run from me.”
That sickly, serpentine voice replays in my mind. She can help protect me from the other women and the trials, sure. But what of the things plaguing my mind? Can she protect me from myself?
The sound of a high-pitched, tiny bell rings somewhere, and our eyes grow wide.
“What was that?” I squeak, and we both race out of the bathroom.
She tosses a glance at the bedroom door, then hurries to the window. Snagging the bedsheet she left on the windowsill, she tosses it over her shoulder. “Close this latch and get back into your bed. Quickly!”
“It sounds just like the dinner bell Lady Bethany?—”
“I know!” she snaps, climbing out of the window. “Now go!”
“But the rules…what if it’s an emergency? And they need us to line upnow?”
“In the middle of the night?” she bites. “If you’re going to trust me, start now.Getin your bed. Pretend to sleep.” She starts edging along the exterior of the castle.
Hands shaking, I close the window then shut the latch. The bell rings outside of the room again.
Closer now.
I race to the bed, slide under the sheets, and squeeze my eyes closed. Pulling in steady breaths through my nose to slow my heart.
Ring, ring, ring.
Tiny and sharp. Pleading for me to open my eyes. And as it grows louder, I squeeze my eyes shut harder, forcing away the temptation to open them.
The slow, intentional clicking of metal sliding sounds. Like a bar being slid out from a lock. A soft creak replaces it, like my door is being opened. The silence after is like needles piercing my skin. After a long, stretching moment, the door creaks closed again, shutting softly.
Then the bell rings once more, slowly fading away.
Twenty-Four
- LYRA -
Fog hangs thick in the forest, rendering even the trees beyond into blurred shadows. I nearly collide with a trunk as I race through the forest, still clipping my shoulder against its edge and stumbling.
That lurching sense of dread creeps up from behind me. Drawing closer and closer. I cut left, leaping over a ravine. The tension that spiked the hairs on my neck ceases slowly.
I’ve gotten away.
As I turn to face the direction the fear came from, nothing is there. Nothing but fog and trees.
Snap.
I whip toward the sound of a broken branch to my left. There, in the soft dirt, a trail of footprints draws eerily closer to me. Footprints that look less human the nearer they get. Yet no silhouette, no body hovers above the prints. I step back slowly, eager to keep the distance between me and the prints.
“You cannot run from me,”the voice growls in my head, sending ravens off the trees above us with startled cries.
