TWENTY-SEVEN
SERINA
“EMBER, YOU CAN’T do this,” Serina said. She couldn’t grab the taller woman’s shoulders, with her hands still shackled, but she wanted to. She wanted to shake her. “It has to be me.”
Ember shook her head, her expression resolute. Not defiant, not anymore. “Grace, I have watched too many women die,” she said, with a strange, sad acceptance. “I will not watch another one.”
The grief was too heavy, too much. Serina couldn’t bear its weight.
It was the only reasoning she couldn’t argue against. How could she deny Ember this? Ember, who had watched Oracle die right in front of her, who had seen so many of her friends killed in the ring?
Serina’s throat burned with tears and misery. “You know it should be me.”
“It will be soon enough,” Ember replied, her voice flat.
We’re all going to die.
The door creaked again. The guards shoved several buckets into the room, sloshing water across the floor.
Women rushed to use their cupped hands to drink up water from the buckets. In their thirst and desperation, they splashed and grunted.
Like animals, Serina thought. That’s what they’ve made us.
“All right, come on,” she said, her voice hoarse. “We’ve got to take turns. Everyone gets some.”
The guards never brought them food or turned off the light, but the water helped a bit. With the light to see, they were able to arrange themselves so that most of them could sit down. Val kept his arm pressed against Serina’s, and she leaned into him, her heart heavy.
Many of the women cried, heavy sobs of hopelessness, but Helena’s keening wail vibrated deep into Serina’s bones. To be reunited with the person you love, to have hope for the first time, only to have it all torn away…
“All I wanted was to be with my sister,” Mirror said, burying her head in her hands. “We’d never been apart, and then, in a moment, that was it. I’ll never see her again now.”
“I have a daughter,” Blaze said, her voice gravelly with emotion. “I was put in Mount Ruin just after she was born. She’ll never know anything about me. She won’t remember me. But I remember how small her hands were, her little fingers.… I burned down my own house, killed my husband, because he looked at her as something he could sell, as money he could make. I couldn’t stand it. I thought I’d escape with her. I thought we’d run away together, that she’d have a better life. But they caught me and took her away. Now I’ll never find her. My Lucia. My light.”
And then they were all telling their stories.
“I wanted to get to Azura so badly. I have nothing here, I never did. I’ve always wanted to leave Viridia,” a girl from Jungle Camp said.
“My best friend died on Mount Ruin a year ago,” another said. “And I’ve had nightmares ever since. I miss her so much. I think maybe she took part of me with her, and I’ll never be whole without it. Without her.”
Serina leaned against Val, his heat the only thing keeping her from falling completely apart. During a lull, his deep rumbling voice filled the room. “I went to Mount Ruin to save my mother,” he said. “I had a plan.… I was going to get a job as a guard and get her out of there. But she’d already died by the time I arrived. She was already gone. And now I’ve watched so many more women die.”
So much sadness. So many lost chances and so much longing. Serina wished more than anything in the world that she could change these stories, that she could give all these women the happiness they deserved.
It was good that Nomi and Malachi had left. Maybe they’d find Dante, maybe they’d get here in time to save a few girls. Malachi would take all of this, all of Asa’s power from him. There was a certain faint comfort in knowing Malachi was alive, while Asa assumed he was not.
“I killed my father’s best friend.” Anika’s voice had lost its hard edge. “He wanted to marry me, even though I was seventeen and he was forty-five. He wanted me to bring my younger sisters with me as my maids. But I always knew what he really wanted them for. The night before the wedding, he came into my room. He didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want him at all.” She drew in a shuddery breath. “My father didn’t protect me. He didn’t say the death was an accident, or hide the body. He told the magistrate about me. I wish I’d killed him too. I wish I’d taken my sisters and my mother and fled. I might have made it. I don’t know where they are now or what happened to them.”
So many lost sisters. So many broken families.
“I never had a family,” Ember said gruffly. “Only Oracle.”
Serina remembered what Ember had asked her before they left Mount Ruin, about whether she’d be able to find Oracle when she died. The memory cut straight through Serina’s heart, the burning metal of an arrow. She hated the thought of Ember dying tomorrow, still holding on to that fear.
“You and Oracle will always have each other,” Serina said, her voice thick with tears. “When all the battles are over, you’ll be together. You’ll be free. Wherever you want, with no one forcing you to fight, no one driving you apart. Do you… do you know where you’d want to go?”
Ember tightened her bound wrists around her knees and stared at the ground. “I love the ocean. Sometimes Oracle and I would sit on the beach for hours, talking. Not about our sad pasts, or the horrors of the next fight. We’d stare at the water and talk about where we’d go, what we’d do, if we could go anywhere. If we could do anything.”
Serina was really crying now. “You’re going to get the chance, Ember. I know it. You’re going to see everything, be everything. All those dreams, you’ll dream them forever. You and Oracle. You’ll be together. I know it.”
Val’s breath hitched. She turned her head into his chest and closed her eyes. It was her hope for them too, that in death she and Val might find each other again.
The women of Mount Ruin held vigil through the long night, with their stories, their prayers, their regrets and hopes filling the space between them, until it didn’t really feel like space at all.
TWENTY-EIGHT
NOMI
WHEN MALACHI HAD plotted with Serina to bring her army through these very passageways, Nomi’s heart had thrilled at the thought. But now, as she wormed her way down a narrow tube in complete darkness, knowing the weight of the canal hung above her head, feeling the drips of fetid water stream down her face, Nomi had no illusions left. Secret passages weren’t exciting or romantic; they were slimy and terrifyingly dark.
When the tunnel finally tipped upward, its weeping walls giving way to drier stone, Nomi began to focus her mind on her task and not on how loud her panicked panting breaths sounded in the silence. It was the middle of the night. Asa would be asleep. Malachi had said there were entries into all the family’s rooms, and the Graces’ chambers as well. She just had to find the right one.
A faint prick of light caught her attention. She shuffled forward, as quietly as she could, as more pinpricks pushed through the black. She crouched to look through one of the small holes and stifled a gasp. A lone serving girl sat at a table in what looked like the kitchen, stirring something as her head tipped forward drowsily. A loud bang startled the girl—and Nomi. A large man strode into view, shouting, “Get that bread to kneading, missy. I need it rising for a good two hours before I can bake it, and you know what happens if the Superior’s breakfast is late. If it’s not ready to pop in the oven when I return, you’ll be lashed. You hear me?”
The girl nodded frantically and turned the dough out onto the table. Nomi snuck forward, moving from point of light to point of light. Most of the other rooms she passed were empty, storerooms and staging areas for the palazzo’s meals. Her eyes strained to see through the dimness, and she almost ran into the ladder in the deeper shadows at the end of the passageway.
Slowly, carefully, she climbed. The second-floor passageway was long, with tiny holes into guest rooms and sitting areas. She wondered if the Superior had used this method to spy on his g
uests and servants—perhaps he’d come to value the secret passages for more than as escape routes. Eventually, Nomi found the ladder to the third floor and was once again bathed in total darkness.
There were no peepholes into the Graces’ or royal family’s chambers. Nomi squeezed her body carefully through the tight space between walls, her hands pressing, searching. Were there secret latches? Panels that would swing open? What if she pushed on the wrong place and the wall gave, tumbling her right out at Asa’s feet?
Nomi’s heart pounded. There was no air in this dark, and her thick woolen cloak, so useful as a disguise, dragged at her shoulders, warming her past the point of comfort. The cloak itself was a torture device, pulling at her throat and drenching her in sweat. Finally, when she could stand it no more, she unhooked it and let it drop to the floor. The stuffy air suddenly felt cool against her skin.
She moved silently, precisely. She took tiny, measured sips of air. She tried to orient herself based on what she knew of the palazzo, but couldn’t sort out where in its heart she might be. So she slid through the darkness and pressed her ears to the walls and listened. Her fingers drifted, seeking out latches or other anomalies. Her mind filled with images of Asa, asleep in bed, her jagged knife poised above his heart.
A few yards to the left of the ladder, with her ear pressed against the wall, Nomi caught the faint cadence of a woman talking and the lap of water. Perhaps she was near the Graces’ bathing chamber? As she retraced her steps, she bumped into an odd little lip of wall. No, it wasn’t part of the wall. It was a hinge. She dropped to her knees and felt every inch of wood, praying. Her fingers snagged against a small, round nub. She tugged at it, and slowly a panel opened toward her. She peeked through the gap and found herself looking at a potted fern. She was about to open the panel a bit more when the sound of voices grew louder, and two sets of slippered feet glided past. She was sure now. This was the Graces’ chambers.
She slipped the panel closed, memorized the feel of the tiny doorknob, and noted the distance back to the ladder. She shuffled down the passageway until she came upon another small door, this one opening to Malachi’s silent bedroom.
Her pulse fluttered wildly in her throat. She slipped a hand to her boot, reassuring herself of the knife hidden there. The next small panel led to the Superior’s chambers.
Nomi pulled the door open a sliver. She took a deep breath and held it.
Listened.
In her mind, she saw her parents’ broken bodies, the bruises on Serina’s face. She saw Renzo’s haunted eyes. She was doing this for them. And for herself.
But it wasn’t quiet in Asa’s room. His voice, low and dangerous, murmured, “That’s not good enough.”
Terror razored through her. The memory of his dagger slicing into skin, the way his eyes turned ugly, came back to her.
He was awake. Someone was with him. She couldn’t kill him now.
Nomi closed the panel in silence, the blood pounding in her ears.
He wasn’t alone. She lowered herself to the ground and sat against the wall for a long time. How long should she wait? What if it took him hours to sleep? What if he’d heard her in the walls? What if he sat on the edge of his bed, even now, waiting for her?
In the spiraling darkness, the door to the Graces’ chambers called to her.
Was Angeline there? Was she okay? What about Rosario and Cassia and all the rest of the older Graces? Nomi shook her head. Once Asa was dead, those women would be free. Malachi was probably already on his way, hopefully with Dante’s regiment.
But he never promised to release the Graces.
She was sure he would. But, suddenly, she couldn’t spend one more moment hidden in the walls of the palazzo like a forgotten secret, buried alive.
She needed to breathe.
Nomi snatched up her cloak and found the panel that led to the Graces.
Slowly, holding her breath, she pulled it open. The dim light that snuck through the crack touched her face like the hand of a friend.
This time, no one walked past.
As quietly, as carefully as she could, Nomi slipped inside the hallway, silent and marble-floored, that led to the bathing room.
It was the middle of the night. The girls would be asleep. The Superior’s men would walk the halls. If she wasn’t careful, they would find her.
Nomi shut the panel, pulling it into place as quietly as she could. She made sure she could open it again, that she could remember which panel, of all the identical panels along the hall, led to the tunnels. Led to freedom.
Led back to Asa.
She was sneaking through the quiet rooms toward the hall of bedrooms, when a commotion sent her running for cover in the shadows behind a decorative urn.
“Thank you for your time, flower,” a voice, instantly recognizable, said.
Nomi heard a shuffle of feet, a quiet cry.
“I look forward to seeing more of you.” Asa wasn’t being polite. He was issuing a threat.
A whisper of fabric, and a door slammed. Then, a quiet sobbing.
Nomi peeked around the corner. On the floor next to the opulent couch in the round central room, a figure curled into a ball, her face hidden by a curtain of long silvery-blond hair.
Nomi’s gut twisted. “Cassia?”
Malachi’s third Grace lifted her head, saw Nomi, and opened her mouth to scream.
Nomi darted to Cassia and covered her mouth, hissing, “Hush, hush, it’s me.”
The girl grabbed at Nomi’s shoulders, her eyes wide and terrified. She said something against Nomi’s hand, the words muffled. Carefully, Nomi let her go, poised in case she tried to scream again.
“You’re not a ghost?” Cassia whispered. Her skin was pale and dry, without its luminous glow. She wore no cosmetics that Nomi could discern; her shimmering pale gold hair hung loose and limp down her back, and gray-purple shadows clung beneath her eyes. Nomi had never seen her so undone.
“No,” Nomi said. “I am not a ghost.”
Cassia gripped her suddenly in a tight, desperate hug. “I thought you were dead. Maris said you were dead! I asked and she said—”
“Wait, Maris told you I was dead?” Unease coiled in Nomi’s stomach like a venomous snake, ready to strike. “When did you see Maris? How?”
“The Superior brought her here earlier today.”
Nomi couldn’t comprehend what Cassia was telling her. There was no possible way Maris was here, among the Graces. She was on her way to Azura, with Helena and Serina. She had to be. Cassia was mistaken.
But they couldn’t talk about it here. The silent men who patrolled the Graces’ chambers would come on their rounds. They would be here any moment.
“Is there somewhere I can go? Somewhere safe?” Nomi whispered. “Is Angeline still here?”
Cassia bit her lip and nodded. She took Nomi’s arm and led her to the door with the sad-faced deer carved into it. Nomi’s old bedroom. Cassia opened the door and slipped inside, pushing Nomi first, just as heavy footsteps sounded around the corner.
Inside the room was dark, lit only by moonlight.
“Angeline?” Nomi whispered. Cassia still had a hold on her arm. “Cassia, whose room is this now?”
Sheets rustled on the bed. Nomi shuffled over to the cot by the washroom. “Angeline?” she said again, a little louder. What if the girls asleep in this room woke up and screamed?
The figure on the little cot sat up so abruptly Nomi almost screamed herself.
“What is it?” The voice was thick with sleep, but Nomi recognized it.
She sat down on the cot next to Angeline.
“Angeline, it’s me, Nomi,” she said quietly.
In the moonlight, the girl’s eyes widened. “Nomi?”
Like Cassia, Angeline threw her arms around her, but this time Nomi found it much less disquieting. Angeline had shown affection toward her in the past, unlike Cassia, who’d always seen her as competition.
Cassia lowered herself to the cot as well,
wincing.
“Are you well?” Nomi whispered, remembering Cassia’s tears after Asa had left her. Remembering Asa’s That’s not good enough to someone in his room. Had he been speaking to Cassia?
Cassia rubbed at her face. A faint bruise marred the side of her chin, the shadow caught in the pale glow of moonlight. She didn’t answer.
Cassia was so changed, Nomi could hardly account for it. Her confidence, her statuesque beauty had been stripped away. She looked like a frightened girl, someone vulnerable and broken. It made Nomi hate Asa even more.
“How can you be here, Nomi?” Angeline asked. “Maris said you were dead.”
Nomi’s hope that Cassia had somehow been mistaken crumbled. A new urgency swept through her. If Maris was here, where was Serina? She stood up. “Do you know what room she’s in? I need to see her.”
“Stay here. I’ll go get her.” Angeline stood up, drew a worn robe around her nightdress, and snuck from the room.
When the door clicked shut, the sheets on the bed rustled again. “Angeline?” came a quiet voice. “Is it time to get up?”
With a sigh, Cassia switched on the light. “Ria, flower, Angeline stepped out for a moment. But all is well.”
The small figure who sat up slowly in the bed wasn’t a young woman. She was a child, even younger than Talia. Ria’s pale blue eyes were swollen and rimmed in red, as if she’d fallen asleep crying. “Who are you?” she asked Nomi, her expression caught between fear and surprise.
“I’m Nomi. You’re a Grace?”
The little girl nodded.
Nomi’s horror turned to bile at the back of her throat. Suddenly, her mind conjured Asa’s hands around her own waist, his lips pressed to hers, and the memory was a cage she couldn’t escape.
She’d welcomed his embrace, and she’d been stupid enough to think her willingness mattered to him. But he was just as his father had been, eager to impose his will on others.
Queen of Ruin (Grace and Fury) Page 20