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CHAPTER 3
Isat back down onthe edge of the bed, my head reeling.
On the plus side, I was no longer traveling through an eerie ancient forest having to camp out each night in a tiny tent.
On the downside, I was trapped in a palace with a horned man who had told everyone I was basically his bed toy.
Oh, and I wasn't allowed to leave my room.
I glanced across the bedchamber at a door in the wall to my left, near the paneled-windows that led onto the balcony. There was another door on the opposite wall.
Rooms. I wasn't allowed to leave my rooms. I supposed I should explore them and see just what my prison consisted of.
I started to push myself up, then paused.
No, that wasn't the worst part. It wasn't even close to the worst part.
The worst part was Lancelet.
My friend. My friend was gone.
Draven obviously believed she was dead. I couldn't see how he would have any reason to lie. Surely, even he wouldn't be that cruel. He had claimed he'd searched for her. And not just him but his people, whatever that was supposed to mean. They had found no trace.
Lancelet had died, in horrible pain, frightened and alone. While I was whisked away by Vesper.
She had probably died thinking I had abandoned her willingly. That I had been too much of a coward to return and fight for her.
Hot tears stung my eyes. I lifted my chin. No, I wasn't going to indulge in a good cry. Even though it was very tempting to throw myself back down on the bed and bury my head in the pillows as I sobbed.
I would not give myself the luxury of tears. Not when I had the greatest luxury of all: Being alive.
I was in a palace, while Lancelet no longer breathed.
If the worst thing I had to face was escaping from the Siabra and not feral cannibal children who had turned into monsters a hundred years before I'd even been born, then I had no right to complain.
I stood up carefully and started to look around me more closely.
Well, the bed was certainly a masterpiece. The immense four-poster structure was adorned with cascading heaps of soft, shimmering fabrics. Gold-carved columns stretched up towards the ceiling at each of the bed corners, covered by a canopy of billowing silks. The mattress was huge. Easily large enough to fit four adults.
