Faint footsteps from the adjacent corridor herald the arrival of a newcomer.
“There you are!” Imogen sighs impatiently. The silhouette of a muscular figure wearing a guard’s uniform comes into view. “Hurry up, before they realize we’re missing at the party.”
The guard replies, but his voice is too quiet to make out. They don’t seem to be exchanging anything but words.
When the guard turns, I catch a fleeting glimpse of blue eyes beneath a square brow. Features that remind me of Mads.
How silly of me. Mads is far away in Aster, working the mill with his father. He probably put me from his mind ages ago. Or at the very least, does not remember me all too fondly. Serves me right. I am the girl who broke his heart.
Fitting, after today, that I’m the one who winds up rejected. My guilt over Mads was punishing me in the wasteland earlier and corrupted my Telling. Fate must be punishing me now, projecting his features onto some random guard.
There is so much left unresolved. I probably thought of Mads because I’m desperate for something familiar in this huge, unfriendly place.
The music fades and changes. A slow, sad ballad begins, accompanied by singing in a language I’ve never heard. The guard rushes away. Imogen waits a careful moment before following.
My body sways, much heavier suddenly. Fatigue overcomes all my senses, purging my thoughts until all that’s left is the desire to collapse in bed and wake up with some distance between myself and this day.
I take a deep breath and resume my lonely walk to my room.
* * *
My dreams that night take me to dark places. Haunted memories. Old hurts.
I wake several times, tangled in my sheets, and I could swear I hear footsteps outside my door followed by a soft knock. I want to answer. I yearn for it to be Ravod with a different response. But I also don’t. If he came to talk about what happened earlier, I’m not sure I could control myself. Every time I close my eyes, I see the cold indifference in his eyes right before he walked away, and my limbs tremble.
Maybe coming here was a mistake. I think of the devastation of the barren fields. Of Cathal’s words about the Book of Days. Of Niall’s contraband items, vanished as if they’d never been. Imagining Mads’s blue eyes, wanting so badly to find something familiar in this place.
I think, over and over, of Ravod. The pain he tries to hide and the intensity in his voice that betrays him.
This is a disaster. Female Bards are supposed to be the most volatile, vulnerable to our emotions and desires. I’m standing at the edge of a knife.
Madness. The word haunts me as I toss against the sheets, wishing they were Ravod’s arms, wishing I could run away, rewind time, and make the hurt stop.
Finally, I clutch at my needles on the bedside table. It’s a strange comfort, holding them close.
I drift back into sleep.
It feels like only moments later that I hear a knocking at my door. Finally, I get up to open it, but no one is there. Yet there are whispers swirling all around me in the still air of the hallway. I turn and run through the halls of High House while they shift and alter, turning in circles. Doorway after doorway. Archway after archway. Stairwells and hidden doors and more hallways.
I shudder, knowing I am lost. I shove open a door, and it is not a room at all but Fiona’s store. No. I turn and continue racing through the maze of a fortress. In another room, Mads awaits me. He’s sitting there in a leather chair, one leg crossed over the knee, whittling a piece of wood. He looks up at me and shakes his head, disapproving. His eyes are indigo, weeping ink down his cheeks. I scream, and he bursts into ash.
Suddenly I’m back in my own home, where Kieran lies dying in his bed, dark blue veins winding over his face. Ma tends to him, and I want to cry out, want to hug them both, want to freeze time and stay here forever, before I lose Kieran. But already the ground is rumbling beneath me, thunderous and terrifying, and through the window, I see an avalanche of rocks and mud. Walls collapse around us, and I watch as they are both swallowed in a landslide. I can’t save them. I am thrown back and we are separated.
I scream again, flying rearward but finding no ground.
A hot burst of panic. I try to awaken myself to no avail. The usual trick of squeezing my eyes shut and opening them fast doesn’t work. When I try, I’m back on the training grounds.
Ravod stands in front of me, the same way he did this afternoon. Except horror is etched into his beautiful features as he watches me. I open my mouth to speak, and one by one, every Bard in High House appears behind him, staring at me accusingly.
The ground beneath my feet starts to tremble. It’s happening again. As if the avalanche, the curse, the madness, has followed me.
“Shae,” Ravod whispers, somehow louder than the sound of the mountain quaking beneath us. “What have you done?” he says.
The tremors throw me back over the side of the cliff. I cling to the edge for dear life, but it’s too much, and I fall, the rush of the waterfall everywhere, swallowing me whole.
My eyes snap open in the dark. I try to breathe.
I am sitting in my bed, shaking, covered in sweat. I look around my room, so fine and lovely. Now I can’t help feeling the walls tightening around me.
“It was only a dream,” I whisper, trying desperately to calm my nerves and slow my racing heartbeat.
It is little use. I can still hear screaming and thunder ringing in my ears. I rub my eyes, trying to shake the numbness of sleep off, and that’s when I hear it. Piercing screams coming from the outside.
I throw my covers off and rush to pull my uniform and boots on and open the door.
Some of the other Bards have emerged curiously from their bedrooms, listening in the hall. I’ve seen two of them before: the one with the red tattoo and the older woman with beads in her white hair. I catch sight of Kennan, whose pale eyes are narrowed at the entrance to the hall.
“What’s happening?” she says. She looks scared. There are dark rings beneath her eyes.
The mountain quivers with a final aftershock and is still. Kennan has already broken into a run down the hall. Before I can think better of it, I find myself chasing her.
My breath is heaving in my chest as I try to keep pace, but Kennan is almost unnaturally fast. She must be performing a Telling to allow herself to move so quickly. I try to do the same, but my thoughts are too scattered and I’m too out of breath. It’s all I can do to keep her slender figure in my sights as I barrel down the halls and skid around corners. She flings the door to the training grounds wide open and disappears outside. It nearly smacks me in the face as it slams shut, but I push through before it can.
I stumble into the light of the full moon and lean on my knees to catch my breath. When I look up, the air I finally managed to recoup is shot from my lungs like a blast.
I’ve never seen the training grounds so packed. Every Bard in High House must be out here. They are all facing the castle proper with varying looks of alarm and shock.
“The Civilian’s Tower…” I hear a voice in the crowd gasp.
Another intones, “A tragedy…”
“The families of our servants…”
I spin around and stare, an overwhelming terror descending over me. An entire wing of the castle has collapsed. Like a massive, invisible giant stepped on it.
“Everyone, fan out and look for survivors!”