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I pushed to my feet, wobbling on my baby legs, wondering now if I had indeed been reborn. Changed. Remade in the shadows and by the magic, and birthed on the other side as something that could not yet fend for itself.
Dizzy, I blinked again and looked down. The shadow ropes, it seemed, had not made the journey with me.
I would repay Scion for that, and for so many other things—assuming I could find him in this burning mess.
I was both surprised and not that I stood in the tiny room I’d once shared with my sister. It looked impossibly smaller now than it ever had when we’d lived here. Indeed, the ceiling was so low that my head almost brushed the rafters, and I was hardly tall to begin with. There were only two small cots and a tiny table where there had once sat a pitcher and washing basin. The small window was now completely covered—or perhaps the sky outside was so dark it only appeared to be.
If I’d had time to feel grief, I might have wallowed in memories of the room, but I was distracted entirely by the oppressive feel of the air and, more so, the sounds of pounding feet coming from above,
I’d thought that the fire was stemming from the tower, but now my instinct was that it originated much lower. With luck, it would not yet have consumed the bottom floor or, worse, have started here.
Dashing for the door, I threw it open and skidded out into the hall. Instantly, I reeled back. The heels of my boots skid against the stone, but it was too late—I slammed directly into a woman walking past in the direction of the kitchen. “Ah!”
Startled, she jumped back with a gasp, and her arms flew up in the air in reflex, windmilling before she only just managed to stay on her feet.
“Ooph—I’m sorry!” I exclaimed.
My inadvertent victim’s milk-tea hair had fallen in front of her face, and she brushed it aside, taking a moment before looking up at me with a disgruntled scowl that turned into an expression of awe. “My lady!”
“Iola!” I said at almost exactly the same time, mirroring her shocked expression.
“What are you doing here?” Iola cried. “Not that I’m not glad to see you. I am, but not now. Any other time would have been better, really. You understand?”
I smiled despite myself. “Yes, I’m glad to see you too, bad timing notwithstanding.”
Iola had been my maid for barely a few weeks, but she’d still been kinder to me in that short time than anyone else had. It was especially appreciated, as barely anyone else had so much as spoken to me during many of those long days, and when they did, it was in the form of threats. The last time I’d seen Iola, she’d been poisoned during a ball and healed by Prince Gwydion.
Her eyes widened, and she looked from me to the room behind me and back again, shaking her head. “How did you get down here? And in that room, no less?”
“Never mind that,” I said quickly. “What are you still doing in the castle? You need to leave.”
Now that I thought about it, was it possible the servants did not know about the fire? It seemed impossible, but perhaps…
No. I breathed a sigh of relief, answering my own question before I had to ask.
The long, thin corridor, which ended with the kitchens on one end and the largest of the servants’ dormitories on the other, was almost entirely deserted. On a normal day, it would have been packed with servants and their families, almost like a small village within the castle, but now Iola and I were two of only a few stragglers left, all moving toward the exit.
Footsteps pounded overhead, as if there were still quite a few people on the floor above, but that was another question entirely.
“I was leaving just now,” Iola said vehemently. “I was sleeping when it began.”
“When did this begin?” I asked, even as I steered Iola back in the direction of the exit. “And where? What happened?”
She grimaced but began to walk alongside me. Immediately, the problem—and the reason she was still here—became apparent without her having to say anything: her breathing was labored, her movements slow and sluggish, despite her clear efforts otherwise. My eyes widened in alarm.
“It was so fast,” she said between breaths. “Of course, I did not see the attack last year when…”
“I killed Penvalle,” I finished for her, wanting to save her lungs the effort.
“Yes, that, but I believe it was much the same.”
“Did any afflicted attack the castle?”
Her eyes widened even further. “No! At least, I do not believe so.”
If she didn’t believe so, then there hadn’t been any. The afflicted were certainly not difficult to miss. That was both comforting and horrifying simultaneously, in that it now seemed doubtless that anyone but me could be at fault for the last attack. Surely, if this was the rebels come to seize the castle as Scion had feared, they would bring their ultimate weapon—if indeed they had it. Surely, if Ambrose Dullahan could call the wretched creatures that had chased Bael and me nearly to ground, he would do so again.
Of course, I’d known this. Suspected, but to hear it all but confirmed put a stone in my chest.
