Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
“Bar it,” the knight calls out to his men. Then to me, “We will be here in one year with more food and supplies for you, Princess Candromeda. Thank you for your sacrifice.”
I sit in the darkness, too numb to even cry. I’ve been telling myself for days that it’ll be all right to cry once the doors are closed and I’m trapped, but now that I’m here, I feel empty inside. Blank. I stare at the tiny line of sunlight under the doors, listening as the bricks are laid in place with scrape after scrape, and that last bit of sunlight disappears from sight.
It’s pitch black inside the tower.
Pitch black, and I’m utterly alone. I don’t even know where my candles are, or where my medicine is.
Or where my enemy is…just that they’re somewhere in this tower with me.
Chapter
Six
Trapped.
It still hasn’t entirely sunk in. I listen to the men bricking the door up behind me, to ensure that I won’t abandon my post as the sacrifice to the goddess. If I panic and flee the tower, I doom the war fleet, and I doom the crops for the next seven years. It’s vital that I stay where I am. That I do my duty to my people.
Seven years of this.
I can come out when I’m thirty-one.
Yay.
The noise of the bricks being smacked into the mortar echoes inside me. I lean against the sled full of trunks, and it’s so heavy that it doesn’t budge. I pull myself atop one of the trunks, settling my skirts in the darkness and listening. It’s only when silence greets me that I realize that the noise of the bricklaying has stopped. They’re done.
I’m truly bricked up inside this tower. No one will know if I am here for another year, when they deliver more food. I’m to spend seven years in this darkness, with nothing and no one.
My chest becomes tight.
I jerk to my feet, panting, and I claw at my bodice. I can’t breathe. I can’t draw a deep breath and I desperately need one. Gasping, I tear at the laces that go up the front of my bodice in such an ugly (but practical) manner, until my breasts bounce free and the entire corset loosens with a rush, my knife clattering to the floor. I lean against the trunk, sucking in deep breath after deep breath in the darkness.
I can’t do this. I can’t.
I surge forward, feeling in the absolute darkness for the wooden doors. My trembling hands hit stone first, and I move along the cold wall until I find the wood of the doors. It takes me a moment to locate the handle, and then I tug on it.
The doors don’t budge. They don’t even groan. It’s as if they’re completely and utterly locked in place. The anxious knot returns to my throat and for a moment, I feel as if I’m going to vomit. Or cry. Or both. I give the door another tug, harder this time, and it’s useless. With a moan, I press my brow to the wood, collapsing against it.
You can break down later, I tell myself. I know you want to cry, but you can do that after you pull yourself together. Find your medicine. Light a candle. Get to your room, where it’s safe. There’s too much to do and no one is going to help you.
Right. Okay.
Taking a deep breath, I turn around—and scream.
Two gleaming, shining, evil green eyes gaze out from the darkness across the room. The Fellian. The one that I need to kill before they kill me.
And they can see in the dark.
Dragon shite.
“Stay away!” I cry out in a trembling voice. “Leave me alone!” I drop to the floor, feeling for Erynne’s knife. How could I be so careless as to abandon my only weapon moments after I enter the tower? I’m an idiot.
To my relief, I find the knife quickly and jerk it from its sheath, holding it aloft in the pitch black around me. I look up, searching for the eerie green eyes, but they’re gone. Heart pounding, I get to my feet and peer into the darkness, listening for sounds, but I think I’m alone again. There’s no sound but that of my pulse.
With a relieved little sigh, I clutch the knife close. “Am I alone now?” I whisper.
The blade shivers.
“Is she going to kill me?”
There’s no response, but at the same time, the air feels pregnant, as if there’s a question unanswered.
“Are you sure?” I ask the knife.
No answer. Hmm. That’s not a good sign. Either I’m asking the wrong thing or the knife isn’t as omniscient as I thought.
One problem at a time. I need to find my quarters and get situated. I need to make my medicine, too. Already I’m feeling weak and a little sweaty, a sign that I need my dose and to eat something to settle my stomach afterwards. Riza will have a bag prepared for me for today, I know. I just need to find it. I run my hand over the mountain of trunks, but finding where anything is stashed feels monumental. Luckily, I have help. I touch one trunk. “Is there a candle in here?”