“It’s a hundred years and a few minutes more without her.”
A heavy silence hung in the air. One of the women placed a hand on his cheek. Color slowly filled his pale skin, as if fighting for its place.
“You protected her when she needed you. Tonight, she’ll need you more than ever,” she said. “We’ll bring her back. I promise.”
“You know how I feel about promises, Dahlia. I don’t break them.”
Corin strained to make sense of their conversation, but none of them mentioned seeing a child. Either they hadn’t crossed paths with Elly yet, or they already caught her. That fear paralyzed Corin, preventing her from escaping even as the strangers left for another room. Elly was always good at hiding, but Corin didn’t know what these people were capable of.
She waited a few minutes after the room cleared before following their path. The door where they exited opened onto a winding staircase. She pressed her back against the wall, allowing her to glance in both directions in case more people came, as she climbed sideways along the stairs. The next floor revealed a shorter hallway filled with bedchambers.
She rummaged through each one in a frenzied rush, tossing aside sheets, opening every wardrobe, checking beneath bed frames. Every turn, she found nothing but dust and disappointment.
“Damn it, El,” she hissed, “where are you?”
Footsteps came closer from the hallway. Corin cursed under her breath and swiped a sharp toothcomb from the vanity as protection before climbing inside a wardrobe. Her hand gripped the tool so tightly she could almost see the whites of her knuckles in the darkness cloaking her.
The door creaked open, and she held her breath. There only came silence. Yet, if Corin strained hard enough, she could sense a presence on the other side.
His voice spoke, a low sound made of lilting ink that seeped into her core. So smooth and calming that if she could taste it, she wouldn’t even realize it was poison leaking down her throat.
“Let me guess what you are,” he said. “A peasant hoping to wake up the princess so she can fix your miserable life. A thief scavenging for whatever treasure you can find in old ruins.”
The wardrobe felt too small, restricting Corin’s breath and closing in on her. His footsteps clacked louder, closer, and suddenly there was too much dust inside her space, too many cobwebs hanging from corners that itched her skin and taunted her to make a sound and betray her hidden fear.
“But I’ve lived in this castle longer than you’ve been alive. I’ve searched every crevice, every place, and still the treasure cannot be found. Which leads me to one conclusion: Amelia has hidden it in her dreams. And I made a promise that I would protect her treasure with my life.”
The sound of a sword being unsheathed sliced into Corin’s ears.
“She won’t be sleeping for long,” Ezran said. “But you will.”
His sword plunged through the wardrobe as Corin jumped to the side and barely missed the blade. She kicked the door open to Ezran’s chest and lunged forward, slashing his face with the metal handle of the comb. She felt like she’d cut hard marble, some precious art that had been preserved for centuries, one so valuable that her life would be taken as penance for tainting it.
Blood spurted from his cheek as he reared back, buying her a fraction of time to escape the chamber. She ripped off the door handle behind her and jammed the comb into the hole to trap him inside.
At the staircase, she glanced back and forth between both directions, her mind screaming to make a choice. Go downstairs and run away. Go upstairs and find a sliver of a chance that Elly would be there.
She chose when Ezran’s sword smashed through the door.
Spiral steps spun in her dizzying vision as she ran up the stairs. Her body was failing her, too weak, too starved. Ezran’s boots slapped against concrete, charging close. His sword slashed her heels when they reached the top. She let out a cry as she rammed open a wooden door, the entrance bursting under the weight of her collapse. The three women inside the room gasped at the stranger bleeding before them, as if uncovering a malformed creature lunging from the dark. Corin had bruises and open sores everywhere, blooming like ripe plums over a wretched face. She looked worse than an intruder. She looked like a madwoman.
Maybe she had gone mad after all. Because as she looked up, she swore the girl sleeping inside the tower was the princess herself.
Satin sheets tucked the girl’s pale body in a billowing mattress. Blond hair spilled over pillows and lace, while a vine of flowers wrapped around her head like a crown. The flowers were the colorof bruises, wrinkled and small and yet to bloom, too ordinary an accessory compared to the extravagance that surrounded her. In contrast, a garden of roses covered the wooden frame of the bed like a blanket. The largest one bloomed on the left side of the girl’s chest, bright red like bloodstain.
Everything was alive, while the girl looked like she was already dead. Her skin was ashen, her lips more gray than pink. One of the women had lifted the girl’s arm, so that at the tip of her finger, a drop of blood gleamed under the light. Instead of dripping down her hand, the bead floated in the air, a small, swirling orb of red.
Corin’s attention snapped to Ezran as he grabbed her by the collar. The slash she made across his face had already disappeared. She didn’t understand how marble could restore its cracks, while her broken body retained every wound in permanent memory.
His face, in its pristine condition, came closer to her broken one. His breath was cold as he snarled, “You don’t belong here, thief.”
Ezran swung his arm back, his sword ready to plunge into flesh, as she braced for the pain. It came not as darkness, but a blinding white flash. Instead of a blade puncturing, her skin tingled under light. The sound of a distant bell shook the tower, followed by the crackle of air being torn apart.
A hole opened like a glowing mouth. Not on the floor, or the wall behind the bed, but in the empty space above the girl’s head. The flowers in her hair lifted in bloom. Their purple bruises washed away into pure white. Petals swirled in the air, the smell of floral mixing with blood.
Then, from the other side, Corin heard her sister.
Elly’s voice came from inside the hole, breathy and far away. It reached for Corin’s skin, gripping onto her bones, tugging her veins like invisible string. Corin could recognize that voice anywhere,even as a distant echo. Her sister was there. Somehow, she was inside, calling for Corin.
