Page 54 of A Storm of Fire and Ash
Sivka chuckled.
Cendrin grunted. “If you’re here to help, girlie, then help. Do not stand in the way. That bread won’t shape itself.”
“I was thinking more of tasting than shaping,” I replied, sliding onto a stool and stealing a peach from the counter. I took a bite and went to reach for a slice of bread.
Cendrin slapped my hand lightly with a wooden spoon. “Get your greedy skinny fingers off my masterpiece,” he teased.
“You wound me, Cendrin,” I said with a grin. “I only wanted to ensure this bread wasn’t poisoned. You know, since Sivka here likes to play games.”
“If it were, I’d have fed it to Sivka first,” he deadpanned.
I laughed along with Cendrin.
“Rude!” Sivka cried dramatically, pressing her hand to her chest. “I slave away every day keeping morale high, and this is how I’m repaid?”
“I can feel the morale,” I teased, nibbling on the stolen bread. “It tastes like treason and cinnamon. Better than your bitter, sexy tea,” I glared at her playfully.
Sivka feigned innocence. “I have no idea what you are speaking of. I was simply just following the Queen’s orders.” Sivka laughed and plopped a bowl of spiced berries in front of me. “Eat. You look like you could use some food.”
The warmth of the hearth and the chaos of the kitchen grounded me—pulled me from the swirl of memories and magic. A deep growl resonated in my head again.
“Help.”Its deep voice roared. It sounded far away.
My eyes went wide.
“What’s wrong?” Cendrin asked. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“Did you guys hear that?” I asked.
They both looked at me like I was crazy. But I could feel it. Like something had awakened in me. And it wasn’t going back to sleep.
Without another word, I slipped down from the stool and made my way towards the gardens. I’m not sure why, but something deep inside urged me to go there.
The castle was quiet, unusually so. My flats padded softly against the stone floors, the cool air brushed against my arms as I wandered without purpose—or at least, that’s what it might’ve looked like. But I felt something. A pull. A whisper beneath my ribs, a low thrum in my bones.
I wasn’t walking aimlessly.
I was following instinct.
“Help.”
The voice crackled through my head like a sudden gust through dead leaves—hoarse and desperate. I froze in the middle of the corridor, my breath catching in my throat.
“Who are you?” I whispered aloud, barely moving my lips. “Where are you?”
Silence.
Only the distant drip of condensation from the ceiling answered. I swallowed the tightness in my throat and continued forward, every step heavier with unease. My feet carried me past the familiar corridor where morning light usually spilled in from the gardens—but I didn’t turn toward the warmth.
Instead, I stood once more in front of the massive iron doors, rusted and weathered, veins of ancient magic still etched like spiderwebs across their surface.
The Queen had told me casually and with a dismissive wave, that the lower chambers beneath these doors held nothing but rats and old, forbidden books that no one was allowed to read. Useless things. Dangerous things.
Yet something behind that iron—someone—was calling for me.
“Help,” the voice roared again in my head, clearer this time. So loud it made me flinch.
My hand tingled.
