Page 22 of Ash and Feather

When I looked up, I found myself standing at the head of a familiar hallway. This one was silent, completely devoid of any people or signs of life. The air hung stale and heavy, as though it had been undisturbed for a very long time.

My chest caved in, slowly but surely, as I realized where I was. I should have been paying more attention to where I was going. Because this hall…of course I found it familiar.

My room had once been behind the second door on the left.

And all my siblings…their rooms had been here, too.

My older brother might not have been in the palace—physically—but it didn’t matter. These halls still held him. They still heldallof us. I didn’t dare open any doors to see if their rooms remained intact, but I swore I could hear the laughter of my younger siblings echoing out from them.

I could smell Elora’s paints, her latest work of art still drying on one of her many easels.

Closing my eyes tightly caused shining blobs of black and blue to spill into my vision—like the splatters of ink that always covered Sylas’s hands and clothing, remnants from his hours of studying and note-taking.

My heart pounded as if we were playing a game, as though they were all looking for me.

Why was I hiding from them?

Then the smell of blood eclipsed it all.

So much blood.

Then screaming. Pounding footsteps. A weight against my chest—the weight of my little sister, too heavy for my younger arms to bear. Too heavy, too heavy,tooheavy…so I was too slow.

Too late to save her.

The memories rose like waves, each one crashing with more violence than the last. Cursing under my breath, I staggered back, kicking free of the shifting water and sand I imagined around my ankles, refusing to let it pull me into deeper, darker depths.

As calmly and quietly as I could, I turned and hurried away from the hallway.

Only to round the corner and find myself facing a dead end, looking up at a half-covered portrait.

The black mourning shroud that had been hung over it had begun to droop on one side, revealing part of a painting of the once-complete royal family.

There was my father—whom everyone always said I favored—with his serious glare and a crown of twisted, diamond-studded gold resting on his dark blond waves.

There was my mother, somehow striking a perfect balance between power and warmth as she clutched one of our family heirlooms: a golden sword with outstretched eagle wings forming the guard.

My elder brother stood beside her with a proud smile and his hand on my shoulder; even now I remembered the way he’d dug his nails into me as we’d sat for the painting, trying to goad me into crying out. He’d been unsuccessful. I had a high tolerance for pain—then and now—and the painted version of my younger self wore a determined, grim expression.

My younger brother and sister were below me, still covered by the mourning shroud. It was a small mercy, not having to see their faces; I might have stared at them forever if given the chance. The temptation to uncover them was enough to make my fingers cramp and itch with the need to move, but I kept my hands at my sides, unflinching.

It’s time to leave.Over and over I told myself this—leave, leave, leave.

But the truth was that I had never truly left this place.

I didn’t know how to.

Countless years had passed, but I still remembered all the horrors that had happened here with a kind of cruel, brilliant clarity.

I closed my eyes, trying to make it easier to turn my back on the painting of my family.

An instant later, I felt a series of sharp pains on my ring finger, as though the dragon there had coiled more tightly around my skin before biting into it.

Looking down at the dragon’s sparkling ruby eyes roused me back into something like awareness. I didn’t know how long I had until Mai’s spell wore off—but I knew I couldn’t be standing in this cursed hallway when it happened.

I made my way back to the lofted area overlooking the entry hall. I wanted to sprint down the spiraling staircases and out the front door faster than I’d ever sprinted in my existence. Maybe I could finally shake this palace and its memories off my trail if I just ran away from it all fast enough.

But I walked, because running would have been too loud, and the palace seemed to be filling up with more and more people all of a sudden; I couldn’t risk bumping into someone.

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