Page 15 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
I kick off my boots and fall into bed. I’ve survived my first day at Shadow’s Keep, though it seems to have lasted an eternity. I seem to have a couple allies, though for the most part I’m surrounded by enemies. The Commander. Gielle. The professors and trainees. Today has only proven that the mysteries of my past are growing more complex.
Do I really have some kind of hidden magic?
Can Professor Julian really uncover the reason for my amnesia and get my memories back?
I know one thing for certain… I may now be hidden away from the hunters, but I’m not sure I’m any safer than I was before.
Chapter Eight
Dawn calls tome an hour before it arrives. I’d barely slept anyways. My body is too used to my old schedule, rising before the day, getting the fire built in the forge before all the shops opened. It’s comforting that at least I still have this, when everything else in my life has been completely turned upside down.
But my comfort is short-lived, because I don’t have anywhere to go. There is no fire, no forge, no work to distract me. I should feel safe here, behind the walls of the castle grounds. Safe for the first time I can remember. But I don’t feel safe, I feel restless. I have to go somewhere, I have to move.
My muscles complain as I get out of bed, pain lancing through me. I lean against the bed post for a moment, gritting my teeth against the wave of it. Then I force myself to move, to change out of my night clothes into my usual gear: slim-fitting pants, boots, a tunic and a cloak. Plus, my daggers, of course. I turn to survey my room after I’m done: the simple wooden furniture,the lifeless coals in the fireplace, the cobwebs in the windowsill. It’s so strange to have this small, permanent space that is mine, not some pile of hay in a barn.
I turn for the door but then realize I’ve left the bed unmade. Even though I’m alone, other than Trix who is sleeping at the foot of the bed, completely oblivious to my waking, a faint blush creeps across my cheeks. Being in this place makes me feel incredibly uncivilized. As my fingers grasp the rough-hewn cotton sheets and I pull them into place, tugging them and smoothing them down, I realize I’m not sure how I even know how to do this. I freeze for a moment. What long-lost memory exists to explain how I know how to make a bed, and why I need to make it?
Shaking my head, I finish and then turn and stride out of the room without a backward glance. I’m used to moments like this, it’s nothing new. But with everything else changing around me, it’s even more jarring than usual, I feel even more off kilter. It’s as if even my usual weirdness is weird to me.
At first, I don’t know where I’m going. I wonder if I’m even allowed to be out here before the sun rises, wandering the dark halls of the castle. It’s been made clear to me that I’m not allowed to leave the grounds, at least not until the Guardians figure out why I’m being hunted. If I encounter one of the guards, will they think I’m trying to escape?
I decide I don’t care. The idea of going back to my room feels like walking into a prison cell. I’m far too uneasy to be cooped up right now.
The hallways are shadowy, my boots echoing eerily as I make my way through the darkness. Stripes of moonlight cut across the floor where windows dot the stone, some small pockets of silver, others wide swaths of it where the glass stretches from floor to ceiling. The smell of smoke hits my nose, and bakingbread. I’m not the only one awake after all, there must be servants in the kitchen.
I can also smell flowers, a faint momentary waft of them, a breeze sneaking in from a cracked window or door somewhere. It’s then that I realize where I’m going, though my feet had known all along. I need to be outside, with no walls to surround me and no roof above my head. I find the nearest exit and step out into the cool pre-dawn light. The sky is still nearly black, with just the faintest hint of plum lightening the horizon. I pull my cloak around me to protect against the chill, which serves to make my muscles and joints tighten, another wave of pain moving through me.
My hand finds the cool stone of the castle wall and I lean against it a moment, both to allow the pain to ease, and to get my bearings. Walking through hallways in the dark is one thing, traversing the grounds outside is another. But the moon casts a faint glow over my surroundings, and I find I can see well enough. I sweep my gaze over the grounds, still in awe at the size of the place.
It has to be a mile from this side of the castle to the far wall, its crenelated top like giant teeth. I’ve only been shown this one building. What’s in the rest of them? Professor Julian had mentioned an armory and the Guardians’ quarters, but there are at least a half dozen others, some quite large, which I have no clue about.
There are so many things I don’t know about this place, these people.
And I far from trust any of them.
What if I kept walking until I reached the walls of the castle grounds? What if I were able to distract the guards and sneak past? Leave this place forever?
For a moment, I stand there, frozen in conflict, only the wall tethering me to this place. If I leave, I’ll be on the run again.How long will that last? Another eight years? The rest of my life? I know, deep in my heart, that one day those who hunt me will catch up to me. I’d only survived this long by pure luck. I can’t keep going forever.
At least the situation I now find myself in is different. Maybe I’ll finally get some answers. Or maybe I’ve just found a new set of enemies. As the saying goes,keep your enemies close…
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and I head toward the river. My feet carry me down the cobblestone paths, through the lush gardens, across one of the sprawling verdant practice fields. Then across one of the arched stone bridges that crisscrosses the rushing river, into the forested park beyond. In the dark, I wander the paths, feeling myself relax. In the distance I see moss and ivy-covered walls, half-crumbled in places, like some sort of slumbering creature. One of the ancient fae ruins Professor Julian had mentioned. I make my way toward it, and when I reach the first ivy-covered wall, I walk along it until I find a way in.
Ducking my head, I push through a curtain of flowering vines and step through an archway into an abandoned garden. In the moonlight, this place seems peaceful. Still. Sacred. Had it been a place of worship once upon a time? Why had the Guardians let this building fall into disrepair, be reclaimed by nature? Perhaps it’s actually cursed, and there’s a reason no one ever comes here.
Whatever it had been, it’d been something large, expansive. I turn in a circle when I reach the middle of the space, my eyes roving over the misshapen walls, noticing the way the moonlight pools in some places and amplifies the shadows in others. At the back of the dwelling, a staircase winds along the wall. I walk over to it and test its sturdiness with one boot before carefully following the arc of the steps up and around.
The stairs end abruptly about a dozen feet above the ground, and it’s there that I crouch down to wait for the sun. The mossis damp beneath me, and I smell the green of it, the acrid earthiness. From my higher vantage point, I can make out a few things beyond the walls of the building. An old fountain claimed by vines, flowering with white and crimson blossoms. A half-collapsed stone bench. Some sort of statue too covered in age and ivy to identify. An angel perhaps? Or some royal fae of old?
Birds begin to sing a few minutes before the first rays of the sun break over the mountains in the distance. At first there is just a ribbon of blood-red on the horizon, then it changes to a persimmon glow that creeps up the sky slowly, as if spilled liquid, staining the canvas of the night. I begin to perceive color in the landscape below. The shades of black and gray take on a tinge of green where the vines have overtaken things.
A flash of movement to the left catches my attention. Someone is walking up the path toward my garden. My breath catches as they pause before the hidden archway and then duck beneath it as I’d done. As light begins to spill across the garden, it illuminates a flash of pale skin beneath a black cloak. The figure strides toward me purposefully. Do they know I’m here? Not that I’m exactly hidden, but I’m perched against the back wall in a place that someone might not notice unless they—
The figure—a man, most definitely from the stride—pauses abruptly and looks up. The cloak falls back, sliding away to reveal dark hair and jade-colored eyes.
The man who’d rescued me. The man I’d been warned to stay away from. Daemon.
Our eyes lock and his face registers surprise for a brief moment. A zing of connection moves between us, something I can’t quite describe. Again, I have the strangest feeling that I’ve known him for a very long time, but there’s also a prickle of warning that moves across my skin. Like I’m caught in the gaze of a predator. The two feelings war within me, and I feel a flushmove over my cheeks, my breath still in my chest as if afraid to stir. His face goes blank, his composure regained.
