Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

B listering cold wind stung at my face, freezing the tears that fell onto my cheeks. It burned at my nose and ears, dried out my lips and tongue and eyes. The howling sounded like screams, and yet, over it, I could hear my name. "ODYSSA!"

An enormous gust pushed me back, knocking me off balance and sending me tumbling to the ground. Jagged rocks cut into my palms and the backs of my thighs through my dress. In front of me, twisted spires of blackened stone rose like jagged teeth from the ground, casting sinister silhouettes against the black sky. Out of the shadows at the base of the cliffs, Rhyon emerged, dressed in his night clothes and barefoot, entirely out of place in this realm of darkness and decay.

"Rhyon," I breathed. He shouldn't be here; somewhere like this wasn't safe for him. And it was too cold for him to be out without shoes and a coat. "No, you shouldn't be here."

The wind rushed from behind me now, whipping my hair around my face and obscuring my vision. Spluttering, I swiped at it furiously, only to find Rhyon now crouched in front of me, his head cocked as he stared down at me. His eyes, usually bright with laughter and a warm amber, were pitch black and soulless.

I scrambled away from him, only to cry out as I backed into more jagged rocks that had not been there before. "What are you doing, Rhyon?"

"This is my new home, Odyssa. Don't you like it?" He smiled at me, showing off his bloody teeth and gums. "Come play, Odyssa. Then we shall always be together. You and Mama and me."

"What about Emyl?"

He traced his little fingers down the patterns of my Death marks on my shoulder as he hummed. His touch was like ice, burning trails of cold fire into my skin as he followed the lines. "But these will have to go first. Then you can come play with me."

In the next breath, his fingernails sharpened to points and he gouged them deep into my flesh.

I woke on a scream, panting and heaving as I clambered out of bed and fell to the floor. My shoulder burned and as I clutched at it, my fingers grew slick with blood. Panic gripped my heart as I tried and failed to stand, but each time my legs too weak to hold me up.

The door burst open and the curtains parted to let in bright daylight that stung my eyes. I squinted against it, trying to see who had come in.

"Oh my god." The soft words were followed by the sensation of my sheets being pressed to my shoulder and a calloused hand on my brow. Finally, my eyes adjusted enough to see that it was Zaharya bent in front of me. "What happened?"

I still couldn't breathe, couldn't trust my voice to speak or my body to listen. It had been a dream , yet why was I here on the floor with my shoulder bleeding, just as he'd left me in that land of barren nothingness? Bile rose in my throat, and I pushed away from Zaharya, scrambling and barely making it to the toilet before I vomited.

Drops of spittle and vomit clung to my hair as I heaved, unable to pull it out of the way as the pain caused another wave of nausea.

A cool cloth on the back of my neck had me flinching and then vomiting again. Zaharya's nimble fingers pulled my hair back from my face, and I felt it as she twisted it and secured it at my nape. She was saying something, but I could not hear over my own heaving and panting.

It felt like hours passed before my body was finished expelling everything I'd consumed the previous day and then some. But finally, on shaking limbs, I fell away from the toilet and crumpled against the wall.

Zaharya changed out the cloth on my neck and brought another to my face, wiping at my chin and cheeks. It felt like agony attempting to open my eyes, so I stayed in the eternal darkness. I didn't want to see the way she was surely looking at me anyways.

"Does that happen often?" she asked as she continued cleaning me up. She pulled the cloth away from my face and tossed it into the bathtub, rising to dampen another in the sink before returning. This one she used to dab at my shoulder. "Did you do this to yourself?"

"I—" My voice was nothing more than a croak and my throat was raw. I sighed, leaning my head back and trying once more to open my eyes. This time was marginally more successful, and I had a glimpse of concern on her face as she wiped at my shoulder. I squeezed my eyes closed again. "I've had nightmares since I was sick." I cleared my throat, wincing at the pain. "It has never been quite this bad before."

The cloth paused on my skin where my neck met my shoulder. Her voice was carefully neutral. "Nightmares about what?"

I licked my dry lips and swallowed, trying to get moisture back into my mouth and throat. Telling her the truth, especially after what I'd heard her say before, would be foolish. But she was trying to survive, same as me.

Taking my silence for an answer, she stood, taking the cloth with her.

"Wait," I called, reaching after her pitifully. I would tell her, I would tell her whatever she wanted, so long as I was not alone. I could still see his face, feel his hands in mine, and I feared what would happen if I fell back to sleep, even from exhaustion.

"I'm not leaving," she called as she stepped back into my bedroom. Only a moment later, she returned, pressing a glass into my hands. "Here. Drink this, slowly."

I tried to take small sips so my stomach did not revolt again, but the cool water felt like bliss on my tongue and throat.

She pulled it from my hands and placed it on the floor beside me. "That's enough; you'll get sick." Gentle fingers prodded at my shoulder and I could feel them trace over torn flesh. I couldn't bring myself to look down at it, but I knew it would follow the patterns of my Death marks, just as he had done in the dream. Was it even a dream? I couldn't tell anymore. "What happened, Odyssa? Camelya said you were ill. She asked me to listen out for you."

Indignation tried to ignite, but it sputtered out and fell quiet in the face of the sorrow at reading that letter. I cleared my throat again, swallowing down the acrid taste of vomit still clinging to the back of my tongue. "She brought me a letter. My youngest brother has been infected with the blood plague."

A heavy sigh left her lips and she shuffled until she was sitting on the floor beside me, our backs against the wall. "I am sorry to hear that, Odyssa. I know you were here to try to provide for them."

"I know I have yet to prove myself to you all, and that you believe I will put you in danger. I heard you all talking that day I went to the wine cellars," I said. Her eyes widened, but I continued. "I want it known that I would do anything for my younger brothers. Anything . And despite choosing to come here to give them a chance at living, I am in agony every moment. To read that letter and know the youngest has—" My voice broke and I swallowed back the burning tears. "You all may not think I am, but I promise I am trying, and I will continue trying until my last breath. I am not asking to be friends, but I am asking for understanding. I would never put anyone in danger knowingly."

Silence held for a moment. Then, finally: "I understand. We all know what it was like having to adjust here. We've all been locked in here essentially since it started, and perhaps we've grown too callous."

It was hardly a resounding victory, but given the circumstances, sitting on the floor of my bathroom, I was glad we'd come to an understanding. The dream flashed back through my mind and I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly starbursts danced in my vision instead.

"What was your nightmare about?" she asked.

Deep breaths were calming, typically, but now they shuddered and trembled through my lungs. I switched to shallow ones, the breath holding high in my chest.

"I suffered from hallucinations when I was ill. My mother thought it was the fever, but I had vivid dreams, nightmares of cold and bleak lands filled with nothing but screaming bodies and Soulshades, of cliffs that towered over rivers of blood and fire that was so hot it felt cold when it burned you." I shook my head, clenching my hands into fists in my lap. "I thought it meant I was going to die, that I was seeing what my future would hold. I have nightmares about that place constantly since I recovered. I forget what happens in them, but the setting is always the same." I turned my head to look at her, ignoring the twinge in my shoulder. "Tonight I dreamed my brother was there in that place."

"Is this the first time you've had that nightmare?" she asked. "With your brother there?"

"Yes."

"Do you think there's something more to them?" She paused. "Do you think Sonya is trying to send you a message?"

"The goddess of wisdom would surely be kinder. If it's anyone, it is Kalyx telling me my brother's fate."

She bit her lip. I'd long given up on the gods, but Zaharya, it seemed, came from a place where they were still revered rather than reviled. "Do you truly believe that? That the gods would be so cruel?"

"I don't know what to think anymore. But if they are real, if they are still with us, I have a very hard time believing they give a damn about us right now. If they cared, surely they would have intervened, no?" I sighed when she did not reply. "I came to this castle to try to feed my family. To try to find out if there really was a treatment or if it was just city gossip. And now it has all been for nothing, yet I cannot leave."

"The treatment does exist."

"I know," I said, looking up from my lap to meet her gaze. "I overheard it being discussed at the party. That was why I stopped to listen."

Head tilted back against the wall, she closed her eyes for a moment before lowering her chin and standing. She held out her hand to pull me from the floor, grasping my forearm tightly as I stumbled with the dizziness that accompanied the sudden move. "We need to clean your wounds. Do you do that often? Hurt yourself in your dreams?"

Despite the many truths I'd spilled tonight, I held back on this. She may have believed me about the Soulshades before or the hallucinations now, but if I told her that I'd been injured in my dream, by my little brother, and then woke to those same injuries… I did not need to be gifted with sight to know what would be whispered about me. "Never before."

She hummed, reaching into the cabinet beside us to pull out a wooden box I hadn't known was there. Opening it, she pulled out bandages and various bottles. Her eyes tracked my stare. "That's how we knew you were lying about the wine cellar."

I snapped my head up to look at her. "What?"

She nodded down at the box. "You said you went to the infirmary after you cut your hand. But the castle doesn't have an infirmary. Or at least not one that would tend to us. We have these kits in our rooms, and anything that cannot be treated with them…well, then it cannot be treated." She poured clear liquid from one of the bottles onto a wad of cotton and pressed it to my shoulder.

The gasp I let out shuddered through my entire body, and I yanked away from her, panting for breath as the sensation of fire burned through the wound and deep into the muscle. Before I could recover, she was affixing a bandage over top.

"I won't ask who stitched your hand. I have a feeling I already know." Bottles rattled as she packed everything back into the box. "So I will just remind you once more: you have no friends here, Odyssa. You should trust no one, but especially none who enter the ballroom willingly and not as part of a job."

I chewed on my lip. "Do you know where the treatment is kept?"

The sigh she released was long-suffering. "I knew you were going to ask."

"I do not know your story, Zaharya, but if you were in my place, what would you do?"

"I may not be in your place exactly, but I have seen the fate of those who have been, and you are following the same path." She bent to return the box to the cabinet, slamming the door closed. "And they have all been killed for it."

"Please."

She stared at me for a moment after she stood, her eyes looking deep into my soul. I did not flinch or falter and kept her gaze. Another sigh, and her shoulders slumped. "The prince demands a price for the treatment. And very few have been willing or able to pay it." Her long finger reached out, tapping my breastbone. "And that is all I will say about it."

My hand darted out to grab her wrist as she went to leave. "I need to get it, Zaharya. I will pay whatever cost."

She smiled sadly at me. "They always say that, and yet somehow, no one ever returns with the treatment." Extricating herself from my grasp, she patted my cheek. "All you can do is hope, Odyssa. Hope that since you survived, your family will too. You cannot let your grief distract you, not here. This castle, these people, they will turn your grief into a weapon and gladly wield it against you. Don't give them the chance."

I followed her silently to the door, trying and failing to grasp at the words flying through my mind.

"Try to get some more rest," she said. "I'll wake you when it's time to prepare for the ball."

The door closed softly behind her and I was left reeling, stuck inside this room, inside this castle, inside my nightmares. My shoulder smarted and I looked longingly back at the bed, but I knew if I closed my eyes again, all I would see was Rhyon's face, covered in blood. And that, I could not bear to endure again.

Yanking open the wardrobe, I pulled off my nightgown and changed into a plain black, floor-length, long-sleeved dress.

No, sleep would not come again for me tonight. And if it did, I would send it away screaming as I had before.