Reign of Shadows (Reign of Shadows, #1)(3)

“I look forward to it.” Sivo’s voice rang out cheerfully. In the grimmest hour, he was forever optimistic. “Well, I’m off to bed. See you girls in the morning.”

“Good night, Sivo,” I called. Normally he would hug me, but he hastened away. Probably to remove his boots and clean up any trail of mud he’d left.

Alone in my chamber with Perla again, I moistened my lips. “I could have helped Sivo pick more.” Silence. “Four hands can gather more than two. . . .”

“I’ve said all I’m going to say on the matter.” She lifted a stack of towels and moved to the armoire. Her joints popped as she bent to store the linens inside. She slammed the doors shut with decided force. “Don’t bring it up again tomorrow and ruin Sivo’s day. Can you promise me that?”

I exhaled, nodding. “I won’t bring it up tomorrow.”

She snorted, not missing that I promised for only tomorrow. Stopping before me, she cupped my cheek with her work-roughened palm. “I’ve only ever wanted you safe. Protected.”

I squeezed her hand and appealed one more time. “What will keeping me locked up inside this tower ever accomplish?”

“You’ll live.” Frustration rang in her voice.

“Not forever,” I argued. “We all die, Perla.”

“Some sooner than others.” Her voice hardened. “Your parents met their deaths too early. I won’t have the same fate befall you. You’re the queen of Relhok.”

The words never ceased to startle me. I didn’t feel like a queen. “A queen stuck in a tower. What good is that to the people of Relhok? How is that a better fate?”

“What good will you be dead?” she countered. “Someday the eclipse will end and the dwellers will go away—”

She stopped at my choked snort. No one knew when it would end. If it ever would. The pressure of her hand stopped me from commenting further.

“Someday it will all end,” she repeated. “And then you’ll be free of this tower. Until then, you’ll stay inside and be safe.”

Her hand dropped from my face. Her steady tread moved away, and she lifted the remaining stack of linens from the bed. I felt her gaze linger on me. “That is your fate.”

She departed the room then, the soft leather soles of her shoes whispering over the stone floor.

Alone in my chamber, I opened the balcony doors again and stepped back outside. My chest burned with an uncomfortable tightness and my face flushed hotly as my conversation with Perla tracked through my mind. Suddenly I couldn’t draw enough air into my starving lungs.

Frustration wasn’t a new sensation, but tonight was the first night I felt anger bubble up inside me. I clasped the cold stone railing until the blood ceased to flow through my fingers and my knuckles ached. Perla couldn’t determine my fate. Only I could. If I decided to do something, even she couldn’t stop me.

“This tower isn’t my fate.” The words flew out over the deep mist, a pledge to myself.





TWO


Luna


SEVERAL HOURS AFTER Perla and Sivo retired for the night, I crept through the darkness down the winding stairs leading to the bottom of the tower. The rabbit’s scream echoed faintly in my ears as I made my way, a reminder of what awaited me on the Outside. I didn’t push the memory away. I clung to it, letting it keep me vigilant.

I had accompanied Sivo enough times that I didn’t need to feel my way in the dark as I descended. I didn’t need to skim my hands along the dank walls, where moss and bracken grew between the cracks. I knew where to place my feet. I knew the precise moment to duck at the low threshold. I knew where to squat in the circular room, where to clasp the latch that led into the antechamber and to another door—this one on the ground floor.

Closing the door to the antechamber behind me, I disrobed in the cold, inhaling the moist, moldy air. My fingers trembled slightly as I unlaced the ties at the front of my bodice and stripped off my gown, my uneven breath a whisper in the chill. Everything had to go, right down to the ribbons in my artfully plaited hair and the slippers on my feet. Perla insisted on the ribbons as though we were still at court, where things like coiffed hair held meaning. Instead of here, where there was only the passing of days. Existing and not living. Fresh resolution swept through me.

I hung my garments on the peg near the door, my bare skin puckering to gooseflesh. I donned the appropriate attire, always left in this room that smelled of bracken and earth. It was a precaution. Dwellers possessed an excellent sense of smell and we didn’t want the aromas of the tower—baked bread, crushed mint and leaves, and beeswax candle—that clung to our everyday clothes attracting them. My hands found my outdoor wear easily. I reached past Sivo’s bigger garments hanging on the peg next to mine. Thanks to Perla, mine were less worn than his, the doeskin jacket not as soft as Sivo’s. Tonight they would see some use.

My palms skimmed over the supple leather of my snug trousers. The fabric was ripe and well seasoned. Sivo had seen to that, rubbing and dragging the clothes through leaves and dirt until they smelled as pungent as loamy earth.

I plucked a satchel from where it hung on another peg and then picked my weapons from an array on the shelf. A knife for my boot. A sword and scabbard at my waist.

A distant, almost imperceptible sound pulled me up. Angling my head, I listened, picking out the noise. It wasn’t from within the tower. Sivo wasn’t awake. This sound floated from Outside. I heard it almost every day from my perch on the balcony. One of them was moving about. Perhaps more.