She holds her fist out for me to bump with my own and that is the final straw in pushing me to the conclusion that our age gap is far too large. I shake my head at it and she morphs it into a middle finger. Ellatar clears his throat, dragging me back to the situation at hand. I sigh, sitting up and running a hand over my bare chest.
"Wait here, Renna. I'll say a final goodbye to you when I get back."
She nods, flopping back in my bed with arms outstretched. How am I supposed to walk away from that view?
"Can Ellatar stay? So we can talk about palace gossip? Please?"
"No."
She scowls at me as if I’ve just done something horrendous as I step outside where the River King and Queen are being escorted down the hallway, flanked by two of my guards and four of their own. "Kelen. Lana." I look down at them with a curt nod.
"Have you seen that little woodland nymph?” Asks Kelen, his voice gruff.
"The filthy Shadow Huntress," adds his wife.
"Renna? I'm not sure why you're asking me.”Other than the fact she’s naked in your bed, Rexxan. “Is there a non-bullshit reason you're here?"
"We're leaving tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you that my guard saw her running away from the Kingdom Vault last night."
Alarm creeps up my spine and it’s nauseating. I had my suspicions, but never did I genuinely believe that they could be true. Frian appears behind them, the subtle look in his eyes telling me that it's urgent. I dismiss them quickly. "Frian.”
"Under the floorboard in her room." He hands me a scroll of parchment.
I crack the black wax seal, unravelling the stiff paper. My stomach plummets through the floor. It’s instructions written in her messy handwriting. Ten boxes fill the page, and in the second one are thirty-two arrows in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal directions. I know this code by heart. It is the solution to the second of ten doors into the Five Kingdom Vault. Even to have written this down is punishable by execution.
"Her?" I whisper, staring at it and wishing it would just disappear. She's had us all fooled.
Chapter14
The Monster (Renna)
The second I get myself out of this situation, I'm going to buy the four most expensive knives at the blacksmith just so I can lodge them deep in the eyeballs of the River King and Queen.
Rexxan slams the iron door to a dungeon cell shut, leaving me alone. I draw my knees up to my chest and rest my chin on them in the cold darkness. I don’t know why he hasn’t killed me yet, but I’ve been ready for death for a long time now. There is nothing he can do that will scare me.
After a silent and anxious hour, Lynna arrives with Espan, who looks distressed as usual. His long blonde hair is tied up in a bun, a line forming between his brows. He speaks first. "Renna, what did you do? I've seen the grid you made, I know what it is."
"It's not what it looks like. Well, I know it looks like the password to the Bolted Door in the Hall of the Gods, because it is, but I swear I’m not trying to murder everyone in Yterras.”
He unlocks my cell and sinks to his knees to be at eye-level with me. With a warm glance, he takes both my hands in his soft ones.
"Renna, answer me honestly. Was it you that broke into the vault last month?"
"No, I swear."
He nods. “And was it you who tried to break into it last night?”
“Yes,” I whisper, telling the truth.
“You know what those stones do. For you to break in and even cause a ripple in that pool would end in many deaths.”
“I know!” I’d never have done that.
Now it is Lynna's turn to sit opposite me. Her expression is grave but it doesn’t detract from her beauty. She’s calming, and I’m glad she’s here.
Until she speaks, that is.
Because when she speaks, what she says sends the pillars of my entire existence crashing down.
