Page 107 of Null & Void

“Lyss…It’s me. Mika,” I whisper with urgency.

She looks up at me and gasps. “Your eyes! They are violet!”

Shit. I forgot about that. Immediately, an uncomfortable pressure blooms in my eyes, and I squeeze them shut. With a slight tingle, I’m drawn to imagine myself with the same-colored eyes I saw on the unconscious imposter.

I open my eyes with a gulp of air, and Lyss’ mouth drops open and snaps shut again. “Is it really you, Mika?”

“Fuck the Divine,” I curse. “Lyss, I think I stole his Gift.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Lyss and I are standing at the entrance to the torture cave. Her hand is pinching her nose and covering her mouth as she stares, horrified at the sight before her. I’m not sure which is worse for her, the clear evidence of torture littered about, the two blood-covered dead bodies that soiled themselves before—or after—their death, or the unconscious pale Erduborn man in the center of the room.

“You hogtied him,” she says into her hand, not a question.

“Of course. Now help me.”

Lyss helps me drag the imposter king’s limp form, still hogtied, to my old alcove, attaching the manacles to him.

The Divine plays a weird game when she blesses you. No Gift is the same as the next. Maybe not even when you steal it. I have the same strength—I assume—as I would as this six-foot man.

The other prisoners are stirring. I’m keeping my shifted form in case another guard comes down. I can hear their whispers, but some are not afraid to yell their queries at me or Lyss, like, “Why is she no longer manacled?” and “Who is that man?”. All of which we entirely ignore for now.

Lyss grabs me and pulls me out of view of everyone else. “You need to fix your eye color,” she whispers.

“What’s wrong with it? I’m going to need specifics because I only ever saw his violet eyes,” I say, frustrated.

“Uhh…They are just wrong. Can you just–” Lyss gestures vaguely in my face, “–make them…” She grimaces.

I close my eyes and think of the imposter king, and the tingle presses against my eyes, but when I open them again, Lyss scrunches her nose and tells me they’re violet again. Even after she explains what they should look like, it doesn’t work. That is until I remember the painting in Eryn’s room, the one so scarily detailed I thought they were real. The pressure bordering on pain catches me off guard, and I scrunch them shut.

“Yes!” she hisses when I open my eyes again.

My brain gutters to a halt. I had planned to kill him, and that’s it. There wasn’t really an after. I thought I was likely to die trying. I certainly didn’t expect to steal his Gift.

“Where’s the exit?”

Lyss tips her head, and I follow her until we’re at the cave opening she says will take me out.

“I have not been any further than this since I arrived. I was not sure I would ever get to see daylight again,” her voice hitches, and she lets out a tiny sob.

“Do you want to come with me now? The king is secure, everyone can wait.”

“No. I will not leave until we leave with all of them. They need reassurance that they are not alone or abandoned.”

“I’ll find Riley and the others, and we’ll come and get you all out. We can figure out the next steps later. An hour. Two, tops,” I say as I hand her the keys to the manacles.

Her unexpected hug makes my skin crawl. Apparently, I’m touch-averse down to whatever is left of my blackened soul. I hug her back, my awkwardly large limbs around her softness, and then she leaves me to walk the long, dark passage alone.

The stone stairs leading up look like they’re a natural occurrence. Each step is a different height and shape. When I reach the top, out of breath, I’m surprised to find no door. There is a large step down, and I am in the center of a tiny canyon. Looking left and right, sporadic patches of spidergrass sprout up from the hard-packed earth. It looks like it leads nowhere, just a hidden crack in the mountain. I follow the footprints in the sand and discover another dark cave opening on the opposite wall of the canyon, hidden behind bushes and disguised by the natural rock formation.

Fully clothed, I feel more naked like this than when I’m wearing my sneaksuit. According to the sun, it must be nearing midday, so there is no sneaking in the shadows. Keeping my shift as the imposter king, I take a tentative step into the other cave entrance.

This passage is also a long one, and I’m walking for at least five minutes before I see the end. A locked door. I fumble around with the keys. Of course, it’s the second to last one I try that works. The lock clicks, and I listen and wait. But I hear nothing and no one.

Swinging the door inward, I see the back of a tapestry, and I push it out of the way to find myself in a bedroom. A grand one at that, similar to Eryn’s yet much larger and significantly more gaudy. I sneak about, trying not to make a sound.

There is a washroom fit for a king, a short passage that ends in a door, and then another door I assume leads to the sitting room. I use a key to unlock the door at the end of the passage, confirming it’s the rooms Bitty had found belonging to the late queen. They were right, it looks like it hasn’t been touched in a decade.

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