Page 10 of Bound to the Shadow Prince

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?”

Silence from my knife.

“Here?” I touch the next trunk and wait.

It takes four more trunks before I get a positive response, and I haul out the one in question, which is underneath a large, heavy garment bag full of my petticoats. I drag the trunk to the floor and fumble with the latches, pulling it open. Feeling around inside, I’m relieved when I find a bag of thick candle tapers and a wrapped pair of strikers, along with a tinderbox. I scrape the strikers against each other, clumsy. I’ve never donethis before without Riza’s supervision, and I all but laugh with relief when I get a spark.

When I finally get a candle lit, it feels like a major accomplishment.

Relieved, I settle the candle into a chamberstick holder and bring it aloft, looking around. The main floor of the tower here is huge, the ceiling high above in the darkness. All of the sounds I make echo, which tells me it’s larger than expected. At least I’ll have room to move about. I set the candle atop one of the trunks and get to my feet, brushing off my skirts…

…and I realize my bodice is gaping open, my breasts hanging out. Whoops. I quickly stuff them back into place, doing the laces up loosely. After all, no one’s here to see me.

Except the Fellian, I remind myself. That makes me lace a little tighter, because they saw me with my tits out, and the realization is a vulnerable one. I grip my knife tightly and pick up my candle again.

Time to explore my new home. Somewhere out there is the Fellian, but maybe they’re just as rattled as I am. Maybe they want to be left alone, too. If this room is any indication, there’s plenty of space in this tower for both of us.

I move around the bottom of the tower. There is a large staircase off to one side that goes up, and another across from it, going down. Along the wall of the staircase going up are a few old tapestries depicting religious scenes, and along the opposite wall, across from the stairs, is an altar to the three gods, each one depicted in an old-fashioned-looking triptych. There’s a scatter of ancient, faded rose petals on the altar along with gutted candles.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel much like praying at the moment,” I tell the altar. If anything, I have the urge to make a crude gesture at the goddess, but that won’t win me any favors, either, so I tamp it down and continue on. I expect to see alot of dust and cobwebs everywhere, but there’s nothing. Unless someone came in and cleaned this place up for us (which I highly doubt) perhaps it’s been magically cleaned? Is there even such a thing? I have no idea.

I head downstairs first, and it looks like a kitchen below. I see a large fireplace and hearth set into a wall. There’s no wood, of course, and I have a momentary bout of panic as I realize I’ve got no wood with which to cook my food. How is it that we packed everything but wood? Then, I think about the trunks and the huge sled, and realize I’ve got that covered, at least. I’ll just have to be judicious with how much I use.

That’s something to worry over tomorrow.

The hearth is scraped clean of ash and has clearly not been used in forever. I step inside it and hold my candle up, trying to see if there’s daylight at the other end of the chimney. Maybe I can crawl up it and climb my way out of the tower if I get desperate enough.

There’s a small hole of sunlight at the top. A very, very small hole. Either this chimney goes up a very long way—all the way up to the battlements—or it’s a tight squeeze. Either way, it’s no good to me. Disappointed, I explore the rest of the kitchen. There are pots and pans, all of them battered and ancient looking, and I wonder if prior residents have left them here over the ages. There’s a spice rack and some dried leaves hanging up, but when I touch one, they crumble to dust. I find an old root cellar with a few shriveled roots that are probably older than my ancestors, but no food other than that. For water, there’s a well-pump over a large sink, and when I prime the pump like Riza showed me, the thing groans and a trickle of water comes out.

I won’t die of thirst at least. I eye the largest copper tub in one corner of the kitchen, and I suspect that’s where all the bathing is done. Ugh. At the palace, servants brought hot water up to a tub in my rooms and poured it out for me when I was done. I’mrealizing the enormity of everything I’ll have to do here. Even the simplest of tasks is going to be a daunting one.

Cry about it tomorrow, I remind myself. Keep going. One foot in front of the other.

I head back upstairs with my candle, and this time I go up the other staircase. It curves around, the steps narrow and tall, hugging along the interior wall of the tower. There’s a few more narrow tapestries here, but they’re so faded and gray that I can’t tell what I’m supposed to be looking at. I count forty steps before I come to a landing, and, panting, I pause at the top and look around. On the first landing, there’s a large wooden door similar to the exterior door, and two smaller ones farther down the curving hall. After a momentary exploration, I pause in front of the largest door. Is this where the Fellian is? Or is this my room? Or something else?

I’ll never know unless I open the door, I reason with myself, and, with a burst of bravery, I push it open.

It’s dark inside, my candle flickering with the breeze the door creates. I hold my light outward, and then the green eyes blink into existence. Before I can suck in a breath, someone hisses at me.

“This chamber ismine.”

My lips part. I gape in shock and nearly drop my candle.

That is not a woman’s voice. It’s deep and rich and very, veryangry.

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