by Dylan Farrow
Suddenly, I understand.
This entire room is filled with Gondalese idols. Someone was trying to burn these forbidden items.
Ma tried to burn Kieran’s ox once too. It didn’t work then either.
My mind is racing. Ma’s murderer took this from my home, which means they knew we had something to hide. But they have also been in this room. My breath grows ragged. I’m getting ever closer to the truth, and suddenly I fear what it will bring.
The light flickers, pulling my attention away from the swirling questions in my mind. I clench the ox in my fist and turn quickly to the door.
A cloaked figure moves, like a shadow rising in the darkness. A hood obscures their face. In one hand, they are holding an unlit torch, and in the other, a canister of oil.
Could it be Ma’s murderer? I shrink back, clenching my fingers tightly over Kieran’s ox until the inside of my palm screams in pain.
“Who are you?” My voice cracks as I stumble backward, knocking over items and papers. They clatter to the ground.
The figure ignores me and mutters under their breath. Their torch bursts to life. Before I understand what’s happening, they have poured oil onto the floor, and a sickly toxic smell invades the room.
I try to run, but a blast of wind throws me into a shelf, toppling its contents across the floor.
Whoever this Bard is, they are powerful. Too powerful.
I groan and crumple to the floor. Clutching my stomach in pain, I see the Bard standing over me. With one swift movement, they snatch the ox from my hand and level a kick to my gut.
A shock wave of pain courses through me, and I double over. The Bard drops the torch. It feeds into the oil and blazes with fury. The bright orange flames lick the edges of the metal shelves and desks. It won’t be long before the small space is engulfed.
I choke on the fumes, reliving the burning inn and the smirking bandits who set it aflame. The smoke is thick in my lungs, dense and dark, coiling like a snake around my throat.
The Bard turns. My hands grab for the nearest item in my reach—the wooden box the animal figurines had been kept in. It’s burning.
I throw it as hard as I can at the retreating figure. It hits them hard on their left hand, slashing through their glove. The Bard yelps in pain, vanishing into the stairway.
My head is swimming as the fire creeps closer to where I lie on the floor. I’m trapped. The flames lick the sole of my boot as the smoke constricts my throat further, choking me into unconsciousness.
* * *
“Shae! Wake up. Can you hear me? Shae!”
A deep voice breaks through the darkness of my mind. My eyes flutter open. A blaze of cold air burns them and they squeeze shut again. A wave of fire follows it through my throat. I cough violently and scramble away from the voice.
“Get away from me!” I shriek. “Don’t touch me!”
All I can see and feel is the room burning. The Bard coming back to finish me off. The heat. Kieran’s ox … Gone.
“Easy, easy.” A gentle hand on my shoulder lowers me back down. “You’re safe. You inhaled some smoke.”
Ravod’s blurry face is hovering over me, his brows tightly knit. We’re outside on one of the rooftops of High House.
“You saved my life?” My voice grinds out uncomfortably, like sand has lodged in my chest. “How did I get here?”
Ravod hands me a metal canteen. “Slow down. Drink this first.”
“What is it?”
“It’s water,” he says. “And I don’t want to hear from you again until it’s gone.”
I obey without further encouragement, and we lapse into a comfortable silence. I alternate between sipping the water and coughing under Ravod’s watchful gaze.
My eyes adjust slowly as our location finally comes into focus. We are at the back of High House, overlooking the mountains and an elegant peristyle garden below. Overhead, the stars are beginning to give way to the grayish light of dawn.
It reflects off Ravod’s skin, making him look like he’s made of moonlight. Except for the dark smudge of soot on his cheek. The edges of his clothes are singed.
I finish the water and hand the canteen back to him.
“How did you find me?” I ask. He nods, pulling a second canteen off his belt and handing it to me. “Thank you,” I say.
“Drink.”
I take a thoughtful sip of water, but lower the canteen as my questions finally rush to the surface.
Ravod shifts uncomfortably. “I was on my way to the dormitory, but when I opened the door, somehow it opened to a stairway in the ruined tower.” He pauses, worried. “I was about to turn back when I heard your voice. There’s an old rumor, a legend really, that the castle will lead certain people where they need to go.” A frown tugs at his mouth. “Looks like I was just in time. Any longer and you might have been permanently injured. Or worse.” His voice cracks on his last word.
I’m silent for a long time.
“Let me see your hand,” I finally say. “The left one.”
“Why?”
“Please, I have to see it.” I need to know it wasn’t him who set the fire.
Slowly, Ravod displays a gloved hand in front of me. There are so many questions in his eyes, but I can’t bear to look at him.
Ravod does not question me, displaying his hand on both sides. His glove is undamaged. “Take off your glove.” He does. His hand is unblemished. I look between it and his mouth quickly. He is not using a Telling.
He’s not the Bard who attacked me in the tower.
At that realization, whatever was holding me together gives out, and I feel like I’m tumbling into an abyss.
“I was so close,” I whisper.
“What happened in there?” Ravod asks.
I sniff, which turns into another cough, and I take a few more sips of water before answering.
“There was another Bard, but I didn’t see a face. They set fire to the room. I couldn’t fight back. I only managed to chuck a piece of burning wood at them. Obviously it didn’t help much.”
His body tenses. “Whoever they are, I’ll find them. This is a violation of everything we stand for.”
“This is much bigger than a rogue Bard.” I gaze at him levelly.
“There were some disturbing things in the tower,” Ravod says. “I would hate to think you’re mixed up in that.”
“If you think that’s true, why save me?” I ask. “I was there looking for answers, nothing more or less.”
Ravod’s lips narrow into a line, and he turns away, looking thoughtfully at the mountains.
“I believe you,” he says slowly. His voice is quiet, as if he has been holding back from saying those words for a while. “I didn’t want to for a long time. But once you pointed out the cracks, I couldn’t ignore how deep they really were,” he says. “And I knew they were there all along, I just didn’t want to see them.”
“Ravod, none of this is your fault.” I rest a hand gently on his forearm. He flinches, and I think he’s going to pull away, but he relaxes fractionally.
“A contraband-riddled tower collapses, a Bard tries to kill you, Cathal put you in the sanitarium…” he whispers, and saying the words aloud seems to finally allow him to understand what they mean. His face contorts with disgust. “Shae, Montane is dying. There has to be a reason why.”
Ravod is right. The world is a mess. But maybe it isn’t too late to change that.
“We need to find the Book of Days,” I say. “It can fix everything.”
Ravod gives me a sad look. “The Book of Days is a myth, Shae. A bedtime story. If one of the other Bards told you it’s real, they were messing with you.”
“Cathal told me about it,” I reply. “He wants it and thinks I can find it for him.”
“Is that why he taught you to read?” Ravod asks. He immediately notices my eyes darting away defensively and continues, “I came to check on you in the sanitarium. I wasn’t allowed in, obviously, but I saw Cathal in there
with you. It’s how I knew you’d understand my warning.”
I recall Ravod, and his warning, in the darkened cell window of the sanitarium. That was real. One less potential bout of madness to worry about. I nod in answer to his question, and Ravod goes quiet. The silence is uncomfortably heavy between us.
“Why does Cathal want the Book of Days?” he finally asks.
“I…” My heart thuds with a dark, sickening jolt. “Cathal never explained why. He just said it would help me discover the truth about my mother’s murder.” I am unafraid of the word as I say it.
Ravod fidgets, but says nothing. His dark eyes search for something on the horizon.
“Can I ask you a question?” His voice is low.
“Anything.”
He doesn’t ask immediately, and I begin to wonder if he is reconsidering asking at all. When he does, he keeps his gaze locked on whatever he is looking at in the distance. I have to strain to hear him.
“Let’s say you find out the truth about your mother. What then?”
I’ve been so preoccupied with finding out the truth, I haven’t thought of what happens after.
“I guess I’ll know when I find out.”
“And what if you don’t like the answers you discover?”
“Could it be worse than not knowing at all?” I counter.
He considers this. A breeze passes by, shifting a lock of black hair across his forehead. With effort, I resist the need to smooth it from his brow.
“I never found out what happened to my parents,” he confesses. “My father was not a kind man. At his worst, my mother would take his temper upon herself so I wouldn’t get hurt. It was like that for years. One night, when I was about six years old, it reached the worst I’d ever seen. I was in the corner, trying not to listen, but I drew their shapes in the dust on the floor and crossed them out. When I looked up, they were gone. I never saw them again.” His face is emotionless, but there’s a deep sadness in his eyes when he finally looks at me. “My first Telling.”
His parents. He lost them too.
My heart breaks for him as I absorb what he said. I see traces of the terrified little boy in the face of the young man before me. Everything clicks into place. Why he’s so guarded, so controlled. Why he doesn’t use his Telling.
“That’s—” I stop, not knowing what to say. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
Ravod tears his gaze away from me.
“I’m not saying this for pity. I want you to understand that I respect you,” he says. “I know that’s not what you want to hear from me. But it’s true.”
I draw my hands away from his. Coldness settles over me as disappointment curls around me like a shield. The same disappointment that pierces me every time Ravod shuts down on me, closing off any hint of emotion. I manage a smile, remembering with a mixed pang of awkwardness and heartache how I confessed my feelings to him … and his rejection. But even if my affection is one-sided, I am still grateful that he chose to confide in me.
“Shae,” he says my name slowly. “It takes a lot of courage to speak up for what you want. I’m…” He trails off, taking a deep breath. “I’m not that person yet.”
“Maybe I’ll wind up being a good influence on you.” I smile brightly.
“A bad one, more likely.”
I shove his arm, the laughter in my chest stirring up my cough. He sobers somewhat, gesturing toward my half-drunk canteen of water, which I resume drinking from thankfully.
“Ravod?” I ask after I finish.
“Yes?”
“You said High House leads people where they need to go.” I try to gather my thoughts as they come. “Maybe it led us both to the tower for a reason.”
“It’s possible, I suppose.” Ravod’s expression is a wild mix of emotion I can’t read. “This place, I’ve come to realize, is not what it seems.” He pauses. “It’s far more dangerous.”
25
Back in my quarters, my thoughts are like shards of broken glass scattered on the floor.
I shiver involuntarily as I sit in bed. Even with my blankets wrapped over me, and my legs drawn up to my chin, I can’t seem to get warm. Ravod told me to rest and lay low until he can figure out which Bard was with me in the tower.
But I can’t rest. I did enough of that in the sanitarium.
My hand wanders to my bedside table, to the silver comb Fiona gave me. Picking it up, I imagine she’s holding my hand. I picture her and Mads in my mind’s eye, smiling reassuringly at me, giving me strength as only my dearest friends can.
I carefully fix the comb in my hair. It feels good to have a piece of home with me in a place like this.
My bravery falters when my thoughts drift to the Bard who attacked me. They killed Ma; they tried to kill me. If I sit here idle, it will only be a matter of time before they realize I survived and they try again. Next time, I might not be so lucky. Ravod might not be there, just beyond the door, to save me.
The Book of Days is somewhere in this castle, and more than ever, if I want to stand a chance against any of this, I need to find it.
But how? The thought keeps circling back to me.
Chewing my lip, I think back to Ravod’s words.
There’s an old rumor, a legend really, that the castle will lead certain people where they need to go …
Maybe there’s a way for it to lead me to where I want to go.
I toss my blankets aside. A simple Telling is not enough to overcome the intricacy of the ancient powers at work here. If I want to exert my will over the castle’s, I need to lend my Telling permanency.
My eyes fall on my needles and thread, discarded in the corner.
* * *
I embroidered Tellings in Aster, without even meaning to. I can embroider them here with intention. I bring my supplies to my bed, threading the needle and pulling my sheet free. If I can’t find the door, maybe I can bring the door to me.
I take a deep breath, centering myself before plunging the needle into the sheet, focusing all my thoughts and energy on the Telling.
My fingers grow warm, then hot, as I weave a door into the fabric. The air crackles with energy. The silhouette of a door begins to form in the wall across from me; it is trapped in the hazy place between thought and reality.
There’s a tug, a resistance to my sewing as the castle counters me. I felt something similar the first times I tried using my gift, when Kennan used her Counter-Tellings. I didn’t know what was happening then. This time I know to block it out, however difficult, and persevere.
My needle grows red hot under the strain of my Telling and the struggle of being countered. My fingers burn, and it takes everything in me not to give up. I grit my teeth against the pain. I will not stop.
A high-pitched ringing reaches a sudden, piercing apex in my ears. With a final searing sensation in my fingers, the needle snaps into tiny pieces. Blood drips from my fingers. When I look up, the door I tried to summon is gone.
“No!” I cry out.
I cradle my hands as the room sways. I breathe in and out, trying to catch my breath. I hadn’t realized how much energy I exerted with failed Tellings. With no needle and no door, I’m another step behind.
I have to try something else. There must be something lying around that I can use to bring the door back, and there’s no time to waste.
Pulling on my boots, I venture into the hall.
I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts that I almost don’t see the light issuing from my neighbor’s door. I halt in my tracks.
Maybe I can ask one of the other female Bards to loan me a needle? If someone is awake at this hour, it’s worth a try.
I compose myself as best I can and knock.
There’s a pause, long and quiet, before I hear footsteps. The doorknob turns and a familiar face appears. There’s a hint of surprise that she masks immediately with a scowl.
“What do you want?”
Of course this is Kennan’s room. My usual good luck would
n’t have it otherwise.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you this late, but I—” Alarms shoot through me. Her left hand. A burn mark is visible beneath the poultice she applied to treat it.
My blood runs cold. She rushes to shut the door, but I wedge my foot in between the door and the frame in time to see beyond her, to the familiar stone ox lying on her bed.
“You.” I can barely breathe. I force the door open with strength I didn’t even know I possessed, fueled by raw shock and overwhelming fury. Kennan’s eyes widen. She steps back.
“So.” Kennan sneers, her face cracking into a malicious smile. “You finally figured it out?”
I say nothing, advancing on her and curling my fist. When I draw close enough, I punch her in the face as hard as I can. My fist comes away bloodied, and I wince.
Kennan falls into the wall, clutching her nose.
“Why did you kill my mother?” My voice is low and deadly. It sounds like someone else talking. It’s taking all my willpower not to keep hitting her until she never gets up.
Blood trails down Kennan’s nose and drips into her mouth, coating her teeth as she bares a snarl at me.
“She said it was real,” she growls.
Kennan is fast to her feet, leveling a kick to the middle of my chest. There’s a sickening crunch. I see spots as I fall. Not even my anger can keep me from crumpling to the floor.
Kennan bolts.
Between the smoke inhalation and being winded by her kick, it takes all my power simply to keep breathing.
I watch helplessly from the floor as my mother’s murderer disappears down the hall and out of my reach.
26
It was Kennan.
For several minutes I lie dazed on the floor. The spot next to me is spattered with Kennan’s blood, and the sight churns the anger already writhing within me. It’s not enough. She deserves to bleed as much as Ma did, and even that might be too good for her.
Clutching my ribs, I struggle to my feet and steady myself on the edge of the bed. I clench my jaw, breathing through the pain, and search her room. Recent revelations notwithstanding, I have to find a needle before I’m discovered. Kennan may have already summoned guards to double back on my location. Who knows what lies she is willing to give to save herself.
