Page 37 of Taken By Shadows

I laughed and coughed, and Audrie followed suit. It was contagious.

“Hey? Need me to come in?” The door rattled with uncertainty.

“No!” Audrie wheezed with a strangled laugh as she wiped her hand across her now red eyes.

We fell into ribbons and laughed again.

Once the laughter died down, I turned my back to her.

“Can you?” The strings of my leather corset hung loose. I’d manage myself, but it was so much easier when someone helped.

I swayed as Audrie tugged each lace tight.

“I’m not very good at these. My mother never wore them, and I’m not sure how to—Are you crying?”

I was.

I didn’t even feel the tears. They just happened.

Maybe I was more overwhelmed at everything that had changed than I’d realised. I’d slept in silken sheets and woken in a new city surrounded by new people.

And opportunities.

It wasn’t all bad. It was just all new. And my senses didn’t really know what to do with themselves.

But this was what I had wanted. Newness. Adventure.

I turned to Audrie, who wiped a stray tear away with her thumb. “I … My whole life just … changed yesterday, and now I’m a prisoner—I think—in someone’s gilded cage of silk and stone.” Saying it out loud actually made the reality less daunting. Prisoner, yes. But not wholly. I was locked in here, for now. But something about this situation felt nothing like it should.

My breaths were fractured as my body and mind reconciled.

“Shhhh.” Audrie’s eyes were gentle.

I would get out of here. Once I got what I needed from this place.

A few more hitched breaths and I found a rhythm.

“He’s not that bad, you know,” Audrie said.

I looked at her with drying eyes.

“Kaedian. Lord Kaedian.” She muttered a curse to herself and threw her eyes to the skies as she corrected herself. “He’s not that bad. Well. No. He is that bad. But …”

“You’re not helping much here.” I sob-laughed.

“At least you’re not in a cell.”

I nodded to her.

“It’s really his father who is worse.” Audrie continued as she turned me to finish lacing my bodice. “I’ve never met him personally. But there are stories.” She paused and glanced at the door. Checking.

“Stories?”

I felt her nod as she tugged another string.

“He … People say … people say he punished Kaedian after it happened.”

My eyes pinched as I tried to understand.