Cool air pricked my skin.
Good. Let the king see my ripped shirt and know that his punishments couldn’t break me, no matter how painful.
I leaned forward, resting my knuckles against the ground. This made sure the guards wouldn’t harm my neck like they had done in the past. While waiting for the first blow, my thoughts returned to the king’s speech and a sudden flash of inspiration filled my head. I would tell one of the new challengers. I’d tell them the truth and when they knew that not all of them could bring their loved ones back, they would have to back out. Then I’d be chosen. The king would have to choose me.
The king strongly believed in the nine challenger principle. One challenger each for the nine heavens leading to the Land of Resting Souls. The only two known survivors of the quest had each mentioned the nine heavens, though one of the two accidentally writing hell in place of heaven twice. Back then the queen hadn’t yet passed, so these individuals, one a man and the other a woman, had each brought back a soul of their own choosing.
A sudden cold chill shuddered its way down my spine. The guards laughed.
“Ready?”
I clenched my already made fists and tightened my shoulders, my eyes squeezed shut.
Think of Amber’s legs, think of Amber’s legs, think of Amber’s legs...wait a minute...what?
“Stop!”
The blow never came. I opened my eyes and turned my head to see who had spoken and there they were.
Amber’s. Magnificent. Legs.
Except now I had a much better view than I’d had of them in the ballroom.
“What are you doing to him?” she asked.
“King’s orders,” the guard said.
Before I could prepare myself, the first strike of the barbed, salt encrusted stick pierced my right side. It burned. Oh, how it burned. There must have been a thousand or more tiny barbs on the stick.
I gritted my teeth and groaned. The air in my lungs felt like it’d been punched out of me.
Next came the sting of the salt, like a thousand tiny blades hacking at my bleeding flesh.
“No! Stop!” she cried.
Two more blows followed, each with more force than its predecessor. The girl’s presence was making the guards angrier.
“Go away!” I shouted to her, ashamed that she’d seen me like this, cringing and waiting for the next blow. But the next blow didn’t come.
I twisted my neck and saw Amber holding tight to the man’s wrist. He was straining to wrench himself out of it. The girl was taller than the guard and despite the pain I was experiencing, I smiled, enjoying the look on the guard’s face until the other drew his sword and pointed the tip at Amber’s neck.
I chose that moment to leap to my feet. Amber cast her gaze my way, and ever so briefly allowed it to travel down my bare chest before returning to the guard she was holding hostage, not the one with the sword at her throat. This girl was fearless. And I was perhaps falling in love at first sight.
“Stop beating him or I will go and tell the king that I will refuse to bring his wife back.”
The guards shared a look, one that set me at immediate ease. I very carefully tilted the sword tip away from the girl’s neck and smiled.
“Looks like you two had better run along before the king hears about this.” I caught her eye and winked to show I wasn’t making fun of her. “Look at how strong she is, it doesn’t take a genius to know that this girl has the strength of five men put together. She is the only one in that group out there who has the best chance at bringing the queen home. The king said so himself.”
Gerald yanked his hand back out of Amber’s now loosened grip.
“The king will hear of this,” he said, narrowing his gaze at me. My heart strangely softened. There was sweat on the old man’s face. Gerald and the other man shouldn’t have to be guards at this age. They should both be relaxing with their elderly wives, enjoying their golden years.
Amber motioned with her head to the doorway, and after scooping my shirt off the ground and slipping it very carefully over my shoulders, I followed her up the stairs, past several levels until we reached her room.
“Come inside,” she said. “I’ll have a look at your injuries.”
I raised a brow and peeked into her room. I’d never been allowed into female quarters. The room felt too pretty for the likes of me.
Amber seemed to take my hesitation as an offense, for her cheeks reddened slightly.
“I’m only going to clean your back. The old woman can do it for you if you prefer. I’m seriously tired and need some time for everything I just heard at the dinner table to sink in.” She took a step back and ran her fingers through her cropped hair. “The king just dismissed us now. Said we need to get some rest for the Choosing Ceremony tomorrow.”
I took a quick step in, realising that Amber was not the type to offer twice. She was caring, definitely, but closed off too. I’d noticed in the ballroom that she failed to interact with the others as they had with each other. Except for perhaps Jacob. I shook their secret smile from my head, because it was causing a strange discomfort in my stomach, and nodded at Amber.
“I can tell you about the Choosing Ceremony while I’m here if you’d like.”
“Deal.” She poked her head out into the hallway and shut the door behind us, then folded her arms just under her breasts and stared at me for a while, her blue eyes expecting something, until I realised she wanted me to take my shirt off. Wincing, I carefully inched it off my back—parts of it had already stuck to the crusting wounds—then tossed it to the floor.
“Where do you want me?”
“Just sit there, over by the window.”
I did as I was told and sat on the day bed by the window. It was pitch black outside. I recalled hearing my mother tell my grandfather’s tales about the stars in the Unveiled World.
“They must look spectacular,” I said aloud, not meaning to, and Amber gave me a blank stare before following my eyes and gasping after half a minute or so of staring out at the blackness.
“No stars.”
I nodded. “I’ve never seen one.” I half smiled at her. “Are they as beautiful as my grandfather deemed them to be? He told my mother, when she was a little girl, that when the stars shone above you, even at the darkest of times there was hope.”
Amber’s eyes widened, then turned dark and shiny, as though she was about to cry. She pressed her palms against the glass pane for a brief moment and then turned to busy herself with a nearby basin of water.
“Yes.” She cleared the frog from her throat. “They are beautiful.”
I continued to look out the window, imagining shining lights in the sky, imagining the return of my little brother, imagining the look on my mother’s face when she laid eyes on his sweet face again. While I did this, the reflection in the glass showed Amber filling the basin with water from a ceramic jug beside her bed. She dipped a cloth into the water, a handkerchief by the looks of it, before wringing it out in her strong hands and coming at me from behind. I winced in preparation, not bothering to tell her that I healed better when the blood was left to crust over my wounds. I was here now, there was no sense in denying her urge to assist me. For selfish reasons I needed her on my side, and for pure curiosity, and loneliness—a fire breathing dragon does not a good friend make—I also wanted to know her.
She dabbed at my deepest cut first, the very last wound I’d earned, and I winced, sucked in a deep breath, and mentally spewed a thousand filthy curse words at once. The water was dissolving the salt, allowing it to seep into my open skin more easily.
“Sorry,” she said, wincing, then went about dabbing and wiping at my cuts.
“Some of these wounds are crusted over already. And there are more than three.”
I winced as she dabbed at one of the older crusts. “That’s because...” I stifled a groan, “...I was salted a day before you came.”
She said nothing more and continued until the basin was filled with
a pinkish, red tinted water. I could smell my own, tinny blood and wondered why this girl wasn’t fainting on the spot the way Ollie seemed to do whenever he saw blood, especially his own. But then again, she was the girl who had only just rescued me from several more beatings with the salting stick. I’d never had a female hero before.
“Can you explain the Choosing Ceremony? Do we need to partner up?”
Her hand rested against my bare, unwounded shoulder and the touch was so feather-light and gentle, it took my breath away. I sucked in a deep breath and, to my embarrassment, released a soft moan. So this was how it felt to be touched on bare skin by a woman.
As I expected, she quickly removed her hand.
My skin tingled where it had been. And not from the salt. I wanted that hand back.
“So...the Choosing Ceremony?” she asked while drying my back every so carefully with gentle dabs of a dry, soft cloth.
I shook my head free of my dreamy thoughts. What was happening to me? Here I was aching for this stranger’s touch against my skin, and thinking about her long, long legs that went for miles, and of those blue eyes that flickered away whenever I caught them in my gaze. I shook my head. This was so unlike me. Normally I was focused. Focused only on reaching the Land of Resting Souls. That was my life. Not beautiful long legs and golden hair and...here I go again.
“The Choosing Ceremony is about partnering up.” I snuck a sideways glance at the girl and noticed a blush spring to her cheeks. My stomach fluttered. Perhaps she was thinking of me.
No. Concentrate.
I stared down across the endless darkness through the window and narrowed my thoughts down to the ceremony.
“Not with another human, but with an animal. A dodaem—your animal spirit.”
My beautiful emerald dragon danced before me against the black velvet night sky, setting the darkness alight with her fire. She would be mine tomorrow. I just knew it. Even though I had not yet been selected as a challenger.
“What kind of animals?”
The girl’s hands froze and hovered over my back. She was listening very carefully and was obviously very interested. Embarrassingly I found my body shifting back to meet with her hands, despite the pain it invited.
“Oh, the usual, a dragon, giant serpent, Minotaur, unicorn...”
“Seriously?” She sighed. “Okay, I’m done.” She dropped the cloth into the bowl of water and stood.
I didn’t blame her for not believing me. For these animals were all myths where she came from. Perhaps I should have used more tact when introducing them, instead of showing off.
I walked to the door and turned around on my way out. “Thank you, Amber.”
She folded her arms beneath her chest and nodded. “It’s okay. Don’t get into any more trouble.” After a few seconds her scowl softened into a half smile. “I guess that’s hard to do around here.”
“It is for me,” I said, then regretted the pathetic words. I had a strange urge to want to look heroic and strong and brave in this girl’s eyes. But managed in that one sentence reduce myself to Ollie’s league.
“Well, okay...” She gripped the door as though meaning to shut it whether I stood in the way of it or not, so I tried to think of something amusing to say, to keep the door opened for longer, but she slammed it in my face before I could do so.
I made my way downstairs to my bedroom. I slept in the servants’ quarters, the stone rooms, not the glass paned ones that allowed the warmth of the golden sun to heat them. But as I wrapped my hand around the doorknob, one of the girls, the dark-haired one with a pretty face, Bella, I thought, stumbled into me. I swore as her sharp nails raked down my back, across my wounds, as she tried to steady herself.
Too much red wine would be the cause. Oh, how my back hurt. No doubt fresh blood would ruin Amber’s careful efforts.
I caught her by the waist and pushed her away before she could rake her other hand down my back.
“Are you all right?”
The girl stared at me dumbly, as though trying to work out who I was.
“I doubt your bedroom is this way. Come with me, I’ll take you upstairs.”
She giggled and wrapped her arms around me. “You’re a bit of a hottie, did you know that?”
I ignored her and dragged her up the stairs, sighing with annoyance. I needed sleep. I needed to work on my plan to convince one of the group to decline the challenge.
“I think Amber likes you,” she whispered in my ear, her breath stinking of wine and cheese. She snorted a laugh and dissolved into a fit of giggles, rendering her practically legless. If the weight of her body against me and the arm draped across my back wasn’t so agonisingly painful, I may have been amused and flattered by her words.
“Did she say this?” I asked. The girl was so drunk she most likely wouldn’t remember our conversation in the morning, so what the hell.
“Oh, she didn’t say, but I know. Nobody likes her at home so...she probably...” More giggles broke her words. This was getting annoying. “She probably thinks she’s got a new friend in you.” Peels of giggles followed. “She’s ugly, isn’t she? She’s got not much here...” The girl paused to reach down and squeeze her sizable left breast with her own fingers.
I fixed my eyes on the forthcoming stairs and moved my legs much faster. Must. Not. Look. At. Breasts.
“Can you remember which room you are in?” I asked when we reached the top floor, Amber’s floor. She balanced herself on two feet and wobbled a bit before staring down both wings and pointing to the right. “Over there. Where the flappy thing on the door is.”
We stopped in front of the room and sure enough a dragon in flight adorned the wooden door, in black ink.
“Here we are. Room of the flappy thing.”
The girl burst out laughing and I shushed her, not wanting to wake Amber and have her see me in another girl’s arms. I didn’t know why I was even concerned about that happening. She leant against my shoulder and was surprisingly heavy while I opened the door and dragged her in.
I sat her on the bed and she flopped back against the mattress, spreading her arms and legs wide. Her dress had ridden up her thighs and I quickly turned away. Strangely enough, the sight of her bare legs, although very pleasing to look at, didn’t cause my blood to stir as much as the sight of Amber’s legs had done. Oh, enough about the legs!
“Good night,” I called from the door.
“Wait!”
I sighed and turned around, keeping my eyes on the ground.
“What about this thing. This Choosing Ceremony?”
When I glanced up she was sitting up and seemed suddenly and completely sober.
It occurred to me then that I had my opportunity here, to tell this girl what I wanted them all to know. I only needed one vacancy.
“Can we really all bring back someone we love? Is it true?”
I shook my head. Guilt turned my stomach to stone. But why was I feeling guilty when I wasn’t lying?
“No. Only one can do that. Usually only one, or none, survives. So you have a very slim chance of returning at all. But even if all nine of you made it to the Land of Resting Souls, only one would be allowed to bring someone back. Two souls, in fact. One of them being the king’s dead wife. Everyone else would miss out.”
And with that, I closed the door behind me, wincing in pain, my back throbbing all over again. My wounds seemed to sting even more when the girl’s gentle sobs reached my ears.
They grew louder, even as I retreated from her room, chasing me down the stairs and all the way to my cold, bare room.
11
Amber
The metal clang of a bell ringing woke me up from a deep sleep.
After taking forever to fall asleep last night, and spending most of my time tossing and turning in and out of dreams where I was inside the plane, with Sam, and it was crashing and I couldn’t do anything to save us, I finally drifted off just as the gentle blush of morning light illuminated the distant horizon.
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There were no curtains here, and if I hadn’t been so tired, I most likely would have woken up with the sun. It was what my dad and mum liked to do. They kept their curtains open thought the night so that the morning sun rising in the east would wake them early to tend to the farm animals.
I stretched my legs against the luxury of silk sheets. My eyes felt dry and gritty. Every muscle on my body ached. But as soon as I remembered why I was here, my brain sprang to heightened alertness. I was here, in this glass tower.
This was all really happening.
I was going to bring Sam him back to life and fly home with him. My parents were going to be so happy. Our lives would change forever. No. Our lives would return to normal. Gone would be the depressing days where the only sounds were of the coffee machine drip, the television, and chair legs scraping against the floor. God, I felt depressed just recalling it. At least with Sam home again there’d be laughter and happiness filling the silence.
I leapt out of bed, knowing it seemed crazy to believe I’d see my brother again soon, but believing it anyway. I just knew I was going to get through all nine heavens, dangerous or not. Just knew it. I had to or die trying. My life was over without my brother anyway. Without him, everyone hated me. So I wasn’t going to return home empty handed. I’d rather stay here and rot than do that now that I knew there was a possibility that I could bring him back.
As I dressed in the provided black tights that were too short and came just below my knees and a black silk shirt, I pictured Sam smiling down at me. Even though there were no stars above us here, I could feel him watching me. This was the gateway to the afterlife, to the Land of Resting Souls. I was closer to him now than I ever would be.
Stepping out of my room, I caught sight of Claire banging on Bella’s door.
“Wake up, Bella. You’re going to be late for the Choosing Ceremony.”
I was tempted to ask if everything was okay, but decided against it. Still, my steps were slow and hesitant as I headed towards the stairs. What was wrong with Bella? Was she backing out?
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