Page 20 of The Crown’s Temptation

I stare up at the yellow ceiling. It is only now that I realize that I hate the color yellow.

The woman strapped to the bed beside mine looks at me. "It gets easier," she says. Her voice is perfectly level. "After a while you stop trying."

I look at her. Then I look at the straps.

I close my eyes and find my lightcraft.

It is there. Dimmer than it should be, pressing against something, but there. I let it come up slowly, just enough to work along the inside of the leather where the stitching runs. The straps split. I pull my hands free.

I stand.

A deathmage maid turns and looks at me with those gray-tipped fingers and that empty face.

I hold my lightcraft ready and meet its eyes.

It steps aside.

The others do not react. They continue their rounds. I walk through the room and not one of them moves to stop me and I do not know if that is because they cannot or because something else is at work here.

I do not have time to find out which.

The corridor is long and cold. Yorali banners on the walls. Silver and blue, a sigil of two swords crossed.

I stop.

I am in Yorali.

How? Was I kidnapped?

The last thing I remember is the Great Hall. Avaneer leaning against the table with my wine in his hand. The clock reading six thirty-one. Edrin walking in. Something bitter on my tongue. My knees going.

I do not remember coming to Yorali.

Someone has taken me. I am in a tower full of women who have been here so long they have stopped trying to leave and I do not know if my husband is alive and I do not know if my children are safe.

I start moving.

They had mostly ignored me inside the room. Here, they did not.

The deathmages are at the first exit. My intunar rises just enough and I press my lightcraft at them before they can stop me. I move to the second exit, but this time is different. My lightcraft presses and presses but whatever is dampening it is stronger here. They simply stand there looking at me with those empty eyes and I cannot get past them.

I look up.

There is a gap where the ceiling does not fully meet the wall. Dark. It runs the length of the corridor. Not large, but large enough.

I drag a bench from the wall. A deathmage maid turns to watch me. I pause. Why is no one stopping me?

A chill runs down my spine.

I climb onto the bench and reach up and pull myself into the opening before it or anyone else can decide what to do about it.

Inside is narrow and dark and smells damp. My abdomen pulls with every movement and I breathe through it and keep moving. I follow a thin line of light until it becomes a crack and then an opening and I pull myself through and drop.

I land badly. Both hands and one knee hitting the floor. I stay there for a moment taking inventory of what hurts only a little and what hurts more.

When I open my eyes I am in a bedroom.

Small. Candlelit. Another Yorali banner on the far wall.