CHAPTER 20

AUREN TURLEY

My eyes have adjusted to the dark.

I sit tucked in the corner of the cell with my legs crossed, back braced against the walls. Above me, the green window has gone black with the night.

I've discovered it's not really a window. It's not made of glass, but something else that refuses to break. I know—I've tried. I'm sure other prisoners before me have tried too. Which makes me wonder why they put it there in the first place. Probably for false hope.

I wonder if it's made other prisoners go mad.

But that won't happen to me. I won't let it. Even with this feeling that writhes within my skull. Even with the things that wriggle through the tunnels in my mind.

I have to keep stopping myself from delving a finger into my ears to try to scoop the sensation out. I've made them raw already, scraped with my filthy nails and left to scab. I had to bite my nails down just so I'd stop scratching.

Sleep comes in tossing fits. Thinking makes my head pound. And being confined in this cell makes my eyes twitch and my teeth grind because I hate this feeling of being caged.

But I don't lose control. I don't waste my energy on more fits. I focus, as often and for as long as I can. Though sometimes I jerk awake, unsure of where I am or how long I've been out, confused all over again.

The three small marks gouged into the floor help me keep track of the passing time. I'm not sure it's very accurate, but I've tried to make a mark every time I get food, which, admittedly, isn't often. Apparently, traitors don't get three meals a day, and sometimes not even one. Especially not after attacking a guard and trying to steal his sword.

But while it's not a perfect system, I need those marks. I can't trust my mind, and I certainly can't trust anyone here. They say I've been in this cell for a long time, though I don't think that's true. They say I'm a traitor, but it feels like I'm the one who's been betrayed.

I'm going to figure this out. And I'm going to get out.

I focus on the hunk of fleshy yellow fruit sitting in my palm. I've been trying to rot it for hours, but the magic doesn't reappear. Hasn't at all, not since that piece of bread I molded.

My eyes flick to the floor. Right next to the leg of the bed, in a neat little pile, are the bread's blackened crumbs.

With renewed determination, I pull my attention back to the fruit, my fingers sticky and stained from its juice. "Come on…"

I stay hunched, teeth gritted, urging the magic to come up.

But nothing happens. Just like it hasn't for the past three meal trays.

It did though. The proof lies in those clustered pieces beneath my bed.

I needed to keep those molded bits visible so that I don't forget it really happened. Because whatever Una is doing to me is making my mind jumbled and my truths harder to see.

I know that magic was real. Just like I know there's something crawling in my head. Una can say there isn't, but there is .

I feel it. Feel them .

Like they know I'm thinking about them, the things suddenly squirm, making my neck crick and my skin shiver unpleasantly.

I want these fucking things out .

I curse at my hands, at my magic, at this gray cuff around my ankle.

Although I don't remember all the details with perfect clarity, I know I released power and rotted the bread. I know my hands went slick with dots of liquid gold while I was furious and lashing out.

Even though I'm not screaming and pacing, it doesn't mean I'm not angry. That anger is still there, waiting just below the surface. It's the silt beneath the sea. The sharp teeth beneath the rabid foam.

But there's something stopping it from rising up. Something more than just this cuff at my ankle. I just don't know what it is. I don't know why I was able to do it in the first place. Or why I'm here.

Why can't I remember anything?

Panic starts to spiral in my gut, but I can't let it. I can't be swept up, or I fear I'll drift away completely.

So I keep trying. For hours.

I lose track of time within the confines of this cell. Lose awareness of everything else but what I'm trying to do. Of the magic I'm trying to call.

I feel it there, so why won't it come?

The green window begins to peel back the night, and daylight lightens the cell. It paints a lawn across my floor. Grass growing where roots can't sprout.

Gritting my teeth, I squeeze my eyes shut.

Focusing. Grounding. Gripping myself from the inside with a forceful clutch.

"I am Auren Turley," I whisper.

I know that with innate certainty, and so long as I have this truth, I can find the rest.

I will find the rest.

And I think the key to doing just that is piled upon the floor in decayed crumbs.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and forget about being trapped. Instead, I embrace the calm tingle of morning as the sunlight breaks in. In meditative quiet, I rummage through the deepest parts of me until I uncover my festering fury.

It's ready, just waiting for me to call to it.

So I do.

I let it warm me, and as soon as I tap into it, the burn begins to spread. Surprise catches my breath, but I force myself to focus. My shoulders snap back, jaw tightening, teeth biting.

"I am Auren Turley," I say, firmer, louder this time.

It doesn't matter that there's no one but the dark to hear. I say it again. And again. I let the warming ire heat my words until they singe my lips.

Within that flaming mantra, I think of the way that rotting power felt. The way it streamed from my slick palms and infested the doughy lump.

I call to it. Demand it to answer.

A blackened root suddenly surges out from the shadows deep within my core. It stretches from a burst-open seed that's already begun to sprout, and I feel it sizzle and bead.

Then I sense it—the telltale presence of power.

The cuff at my ankle tries to dampen it, but my liquid gold takes the weight. Distracts it.

Allowing the rot to break free.

My eyes snap open, mouth parting in thrill. Black lines reach up from my palm like searching stems. They latch onto the pulpy fruit, and instantly, the yellow begins to darken. The sticky skin begins to collapse. Mold spreads around it, freckling it with spoil and sucking it dry.

My heart pounds with heady excitement.

I did it. The rot came back.

But now, the true test begins.

My pulse trills with exhilaration as I toss the fruit away. Then I pinch my fingers around one of the rotting roots sprouting from my palm. Without hesitation, I pluck it out of my skin…

And shove it into my ear.

I inwardly beg . Please work.

The magic wriggles for a moment, like a fish that doesn't know which way to swim. My eyes slam shut, and I screw my face up in determination as I will the magic to do my bidding.

I feel the rot slither in.

Pure grit. That's the only way I'm able to stay sitting down, to keep my focus instead of jumping up and yanking it out of my ear in a panic.

The sensation is horrible. Shiver-inducing. My fingers curl into fists as it starts to make its way deeper. As it travels further.

Chills scatter down my arms, and my entire body shudders. My neck cricks again, though I try to hold still. Even though it feels awful, I don't let myself stop, even when my anxiety doubles, triples, and I shake all over.

Keep going…

My back molars grind so hard my jaw aches, but the pain is a good way to distract from the sensation as the rot travels deeper.

As it breaches my brain.

I feel the things there writhe and dig, feel them leaving caverns through my mind and eating away at my memories.

And I tell the rot to attack .

The magic swarms, latching onto one of the worm-like creatures. As soon as that happens, a collision of magic bursts in my brain, making me see stars.

I'm thrown physically back from the crash of power against power. I fall, hitting the ground hard, though I barely feel it.

I feel everything inside so much more.

The intruder in my head screams, and the sound is like a wailing wind I think I've heard before. The screeching scrapes against the walls of my skull, making me convulse against the filthy ground.

It fights, tries to flee, but the rot seizes it anyway.

In seconds, my rooting ally constricts around the invading worm and withers it to a pulp. Instantly, memories spew up from its disintegrating corpse like they've been sprung from the satchel of a thief.

The memories fall like rain, pooling in the gaps and crevices that have been burrowed through me. As they fill, I get a scattering of memories that bury back in my depths where they belong.

I see myself being dumped in this cell. See Una pressing her bony fingers against my dazed form. See me being dragged there and the palace's courtyard filled with soldiers. It all flows in backwards.

My mind makes connections just as the scenes burst behind my eyes.

Ludogar, murdered. Emonie's ear butchered. Wick knocked unconscious. I remember their names, their faces.

What were we doing here? Why were we captured?

Vulmin Dyrūnia .

A flash of the symbol from the ring Emonie passed to me. Of a broken-winged bird…

Wick, Emonie, Ludogar.

Then another name whispers in my ear.

Ly?ri.

The restored memories jolt my eyes open just as the root in my head withers away, utterly spent. I sit up from where I was sprawled on the floor. I'm panting, covered in sweat and shaking from the rush of adrenaline.

It worked. It actually worked .

And while I let myself celebrate this victory, I feel more of those things still writhing. Still tunneling.

How many are there? Dozens? Hundreds? Just how many memories have they eaten their way through? What else have they stolen?

The rest is still out of reach, poked through with holes. But now that I've gotten my first taste at my lost memories, I want more. I want them all.

I realize when I glance at the window that there's no soft glow of daylight left. My cell is darkening, nighttime dragging in as my stomach bottoms out.

What felt like seconds was actually hours .

It took me that long to destroy just one of those things. Who knows how long it's going to take to get rid of all of them?

I wipe at my sweaty face, trying to wipe away my anxiousness too. I try to call more rot, but it doesn't work, and I had a feeling it wouldn't. But I don't let it discourage me, because now, I know that I can do it.

One by one, for however long, I'll rid my mind of these tunneling worms.

Because I am Auren Turley.

And I'll do whatever it takes to save myself and break free.