Mother blinked and turned to him, breaking the silent battle between us. “That won’t be necessary.”
“I will make you some more tea,” Sami offered, stepping forward from where she’d been waiting by the door. “And perhaps a poultice to try for your headache?”
“Thank you, Mahsami. I would appreciate that.” She inclined her head toward the older woman and I had to look away, ashamed to see the imperiousness on my mother’s face. She did treat Sami like a servant … but their relationship was more complicated than I’d realized. Again that twinge of pity resurfaced when I thought of my mother living here all alone, save for my father, trying to reach out and make a friend, only to be rebuffed. But I still wanted to shout at her to stop it, to stop all of it—the ridiculous charade of gentility, the adherence to societal rules that made no difference in our tiny little world, the refusal to let us search the citadel for any and all clues about my heritage—and about the Paladin who had built it.
I waited for the sound of her footfalls in the hall to fade and then disappear entirely, before standing and hurrying to Sami’s side. “You have to do it again.”
Sami’s eyebrows lifted.
“Stronger this time,” I added, and understanding dawned on her face. “Make sure she’ll be out for the whole night.”
Sami’s gaze flickered past me to Inara and Halvor then back again. A muscle ticked in her cheek; I could almost feel the refusal building within her, rising up her throat to crush my impulsive plan.
“Please, Sami,” I pleaded before she could tell me no. “I can’t take this anymore. I have to find a way to help Inara.”
“But after last time…”
I hated myself for it, but I was desperate. “We have to do something, Sami. Please … help me help Nara. Please.”
Her eyes flickered to Inara again, and I knew I’d won. “All right. I’ll make it stronger this time. But you must promise to hurry and be back in your rooms well before sunrise.”
Impulsively I embraced her, holding on tightly, almost as tight as the constriction in my chest. “Thank you.” My voice was muffled but I knew she heard me when she hesitantly hugged me back. I only hoped she knew I meant for far more than just the tea.
FIFTEEN
I waited long past the time when Sami took Mother her tea before daring to emerge from my room. I’d helped Inara get to bed at least an hour earlier, and there were no sounds from her room when I slipped past her door. I carried no lantern, and I’d dressed in all black—a black blouse and skirt that I usually saved for cleaning days, and black slippers that were soft enough to silence my footfalls.
The citadel was always a hulking monster at night; as a child I’d imagined I could hear it breathing, taking great rattling inhales and gusty, creaking exhales all around me, watching through the paintings and statues that decorated its halls, and the jeweled eyes of the Paladin on the ceilings above us. But tonight it felt alive in a way I hadn’t experienced in years. That sensation of awareness crawled beneath my skin, a thousand tiny insects of paranoia scuttling through my body and making me want to simultaneously scratch my arms and continually glance over my shoulder.
Perhaps it knew I was determined in a way I’d never been before; my breath came like fire through my lungs, my blood burned through my veins. The darkness seethed thicker and thicker as I hurried through the hallways to Halvor’s room, pressing in on me, heavy with expectation. The hedge was full of Paladin magic—what about the citadel itself? Did it know I moved within its belly, did it suspect what I intended to do? The walls were too close, the shadows played tricks on my mind. Twice I thought I heard a whisper of a voice from somewhere far away, a hint of words that I couldn’t quite understand. I strained toward it even as a shiver scraped down my spine.
“Stop it,” I scolded myself as I increased my pace, hoping the sound of my own voice would chase the specters out of my mind. Because surely that’s all it was—fear, adrenaline, anxiety creating something out of nothing, making monsters and cognizance where there was nothing but stone and wood and fabric. Empty, lifeless objects that weren’t watching me, tracing my progress through their domain.
When I reached Halvor’s door I softly tapped on it twice, just enough to make the barest hint of noise. It immediately opened; he’d been waiting. The moment I saw him, the tension between my shoulders relaxed by half and my frenzied mind calmed. We were only two people, a boy and a girl, standing in an unremarkable hallway, the unfeeling stones beneath our feet cold and the air surrounding us sticky from the chilled humidity but nothing more.
“What is your plan?” Halvor glanced down the hall, his voice hushed, even though my mother was far from where we stood and completely incoherent to the world by this point.
The darkness swirled around us, a silken cloak of concealment that held us in its cocoon. “I want to find out how to help Inara escape the roar and then I’m going to find the way out of this place.”
Halvor’s eyes widened, so that the whites around the umber irises were visible. “But you said the hedge never let you leave.”
I started to walk, knowing he would follow. Sami had assured me she increased the dose of the sleeping herbs in Mother’s tea, but there was no time to waste. “It won’t. So that’s why I’m not going to try and go through the hedge. There must be another way.”
“Another way? Such as…”
“I don’t know. How strong did you say Paladin glass was?”
“I’m not sure I want to answer that question until I know the reason why you’re asking.”
I didn’t respond, just continued moving through the citadel with Halvor on my heels. Through the grand entrance hall, with the Paladin carvings high above us, their jeweled eyes gleaming, even at night. Past door after door after door—including the door that opened into the library. I finally halted below the carved sign that Halvor had claimed said “Hall of Miracles” in Paladin, my heart thundering in my chest.
“You think the way to escape is in there?” Halvor’s words were part strained hesitation and part breathless excitement.
“You said it’s the Hall of Miracles. There are only two miracles I’m interested in—healing Nara permanently and escaping this place. So yes, I think if there is a way to help her or to get out of here, it must be in there.”
He looked steadily at me, his expression unreadable. In the shadows his sandy hair darkened to soot and his cheekbones sharpened into distinct edges cutting across his face. Though the hallway was wide enough for a gryphon and its rider to walk through it, we stood close enough for me to feel the warmth of his body, even though we didn’t touch. I’d never allowed myself to think of being touched by a boy, of hands searching and finding, of lips meeting and breath mingling like the couples in the fairy-tale book—those were things far beyond my reach, even in dreams. But as I stared up at him I suddenly found that my determination to escape, even to heal Inara, slipped and suddenly all I could think about was the curve of Halvor’s lips, the hint of stubble that smudged his jaw and how it might feel against my own softer skin.
My neck heated at my own daring, even though I hadn’t so much as stirred, let alone acted on my scandalous thoughts. Could he tell what I was thinking, what I was wishing? I had no experience with this … this wanting. Did it show on someone’s face? Could he see it in my eyes? I’d noticed the way he watched Inara, the softness in his gaze and the protective bend to his body when she was near—something he didn’t even seem aware of, acting out of some deeper instinct. He’d had an entire night and part of a morning to speak with her, to learn to want her, despite how untouchable she was—body and mind—before and after that accident.
I remembered all too clearly his desperation to escape the citadel when my mother had threatened to force him to marry me for spending a night with me unchaperoned.
And yet … he hadn’t looked away, hadn’t stepped back to widen the gap between our bodies. The chill from the stone floor seeped through my thin slippers but war
mth swelled within me, tumbling in a heady rush through my torso out to my limbs. Air felt scarce again, much as it had when I was so frightened only a few minutes before. But where the fear had spiked my anxiety, urging me to flee or freeze, this made me want to move—but only enough to close what little space remained between us and melt into him.
When Halvor’s eyes flickered down to my mouth and then back up again it ignited the heat within me, making me burn for his touch—aching to learn the feel of his lips on mine. It took every ounce of courage I still possessed to take that last step so that our faces were mere inches apart. We were so close my breasts skimmed his chest when we breathed.
I stared into his hooded eyes, willing him to truly see me—to want me. His breath was warm on my lips. For a moment it seemed as though he swayed toward me—I thought I felt his hands brush my hips—but then he hastily stepped back. Once, twice, until he bumped into the wall behind him.
The cold rushed back in all at once, chilling my blood into ice and my bones into stone, all except for the humiliation I could feel blossoming on my neck and cheeks.
“Zuhra.” Halvor didn’t look at me when he spoke, his voice rough as if he’d rubbed his throat with sandpaper. “I must apologize most profoundly if I led you to believe that I, ah, harbored certain … feelings for you … beyond those of a friendly nature.”
My misery grew acutely worse with each bumbling word. And yet I couldn’t keep myself from asking, “Is it Nara?”
Halvor didn’t respond, but his silence was more than enough confirmation.
“I know you’re obsessed with the Paladin—but she’s my sister, she’s a real person. Not a … a subject for you to study.” I turned to the door, gripped the cold iron handles until my knuckles turned to white. “Help me open these doors.”
“Zuhra, please—”
“Help me open the doors,” I repeated more forcefully and he fell silent. Without waiting to see what he did or didn’t do, I yanked back as hard as I could. The doors groaned but didn’t budge. I suddenly remembered why my mother had been able to get all the way across the citadel to stop me the last time I’d attempted to open them—they were massive, heavy … and they were stuck fast.
“Let me try,” he offered quietly and I stepped away, gesturing for him to take my place. My blood thundered through my veins, somehow hot with shame and anger yet cold with dismay and grief all at once.
Halvor pulled, the lean, sinewy muscles of his arms straining as he tried to force the door open. It shuddered loudly and gave way a few inches with a terrible grinding noise as it scraped against the stone.
“You were right about the noise,” he commented when he paused for a moment, his hairline growing damp with sweat from the effort. “It’s a good thing Sami gave your mother that tonic.”
Why do you think I asked her to? I thought, but remained stubbornly silent, my arms crossed over my chest.
Halvor turned to face me. “Please don’t do this. Don’t make things terrible between us. You are my friend, Zuhra. One of the only friends I’ve had in years.”
Despite my better judgment, something inside me softened at the pleading tone in his voice, the sincerity in his face that had grown more and more dear to me every day. “You already know that you are my only friend. Besides Inara and Sami.”
“Then can we remain friends? Can you forgive me for, uh … for not…”
“Not wanting me?” I supplied without thinking and immediately clapped my hand over my mouth.
Halvor cringed. “Zuhra…”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I said that and that I tried to … that I thought…” I was the one bumbling through my words now. But I had to say it. In the cover of darkness, in the dead of this strange night, I had summoned the courage to try to find an escape, to have Sami drug my mother. I could be brave enough to speak my heart once. And then never, ever again. “I don’t know how to be something that you will miss once I’m gone. I wish that I did.”
There was a short beat of silence and then he hesitantly reached out and touched my arm. I flinched away.
“If I leave, if I never saw you again, of course I would miss you.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Not like that, not in the way I mean.”
We both fell silent, the unresolvable truth a sudden, horrible blockade between us. One I’d erected with my attempt to get him to kiss me and cemented into place with my foolish admission. We could never go back to the easy friendship we’d had these last few days now, not after this night. I knew it the way I knew that I had to leave this place and take Inara with me. Sami, too. And Halvor … well, he could escape with us, but then he would return to his Master Barloc and continue on with his life.
And we would find our new one somewhere else, away from this place and the shadow of the Paladin and their citadel that seemed to stretch far further than just the mountainside it perched upon.
“Maybe if we do it together,” I suggested, turning back to the door, miserably aware of the uncomfortable strain between us now.
“Yes, of course.”
We awkwardly attempted to both get a grip on the handles without touching each other.
“I can see why you weren’t able to get in here before now.” He glanced over at me once we were in position.
“Not for lack of trying.”
“I believe that.” Halvor attempted a smile and I attempted to smile back.
It was almost worse than going three days without food.
“On three?” I asked.
He nodded.
“One … two … three!”
We both strained, pulling as hard as we could. With a thunderous groan followed by a horrific screech that shuddered through the citadel, the door finally, slowly scraped open. Halvor whooped softly in triumph. But when we saw the massive room beyond, he fell silent, his mouth slightly ajar. I could only stare, my heart in my throat.
We stood on the threshold of the one room in this entire massive place that I hoped and prayed held the answers I sought.
I took a deep breath and stepped into the Hall of Miracles for the first time in my life.
SIXTEEN
The ceiling soared so far above us, painted with the sun and clouds, the stars and moon, the details so beautifully wrought one could almost believe it was the sky, the unimaginable scope of it, day and night, magically condensed into this one room. The hall was much longer than it was wide, and the walls were covered in an assortment of weapons, huge, heavy, brutal things that sent a shiver over my skin. But nothing could compare to the wall made almost entirely of windows directly across from us. They were two stories high, like the ones in the library, but rather than a view of the gardens and the hedge, these windows looked down on nothing—and everything. I knew from the view in the library, and the painting I’d found, that the hall abutted the sheerest cliff imaginable, with a waterfall flowing directly beneath it from the underground river that our well tapped into, tumbling several hundred—maybe even a thousand—feet to the valley floor below, the bottom of it lost in a bed of mist.
And in the middle of the windows was a short staircase that led up to a single, massive door.
Something went through me, a thrill that danced up my spine. A call that spoke to me beyond the narrow confines of sound, beckoning to me.
“Please tell me you’re not planning on trying to open that door.”
I swallowed an unexpected laugh. “I wasn’t expecting to find a door. It can’t be that easy, can it?”
“But where would it go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a staircase below it to a secret cavern or something?” Though the painting hadn’t shown anything like that, so I doubted it. “The door to nowhere,” I whispered.
“What?” Halvor glanced at me.
“‘The door to nowhere’ because even if it could be opened, what would you do that for? To jump?”
There was a pause, and then: “Or what if … what if that’s the gateway?” Halvor’s vo
ice, though hushed, still echoed through the empty room, reverberating back to us from the motionless weapons hanging on the walls on either side of us. We moved steadily toward the staircase, passing through the massive room, my eyes roaming over the ornate workmanship that had carved the thick wood and iron into whorls and swirls; the designs reminiscent of the beautiful ironwork of the gate outside, when the hedge peeled back enough to reveal it.
“The gateway,” I repeated, so soft it was barely audible, and yet a shudder went through me. Was it my imagination or had the trembling originated from the stones beneath me, as though the citadel itself shivered in—what? Anticipation? Fear?
I shook my head. The night was getting to me. It was just a building—stone and mortar and nothing more.
But, then again, the hedge was just leaves and thorns and vines.
“It can’t be the gateway. Why would it be on the edge of a cliff—and surrounded by glass windows? The rakasa would never have made it to Vamala, they would have been trapped here,” I pointed out, forcing away the strange trepidation.
“Well, it wasn’t like this when the gateway first opened again,” Halvor explained. We reached the base of the staircase and stopped, both of us staring up at the strange, useless door. “The original citadel was in ruins when the rakasa came back. The Paladin who came through to defend Vamala rebuilt it like this—intentionally, I would guess, because that is no ordinary glass.” He paused, then turned to me. “Zuhra, why did you ask me how strong Paladin glass was?”
I made myself turn away from the door—though it was a struggle to do so for some reason—and looked to the glass on either side of it. “I can’t stay here forever,” I began slowly. “I have to escape. We have to escape. I thought … maybe we could break the glass.”
“And then what—jump?” he echoed my earlier question.
“No, of course not. I don’t want to die.” I turned to him. “I’ve thought about it a lot. There’s a waterfall somewhere below this room, right? So that means there has to be a tunnel or something where the river is flowing. If we break the window, we could attach a rope in here and climb down to wherever that waterfall is coming from. If we have to,” I continued when he looked about ready to object, “we can climb all the way down the whole damn mountain. But I can’t live here for the rest of my life, locked up with my mother and all of…” I waved my hand around to encompass the room, the citadel, the hedge—my entire tiny world.
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