CHAPTER 5

I blink.

Stare.

Hands curled in my lap. Bare feet against the cold stone floor. The wall feels rough against my arm where I lean against it, and I stare at the single window of green stained glass. It's the only pretty thing here, but it's covered with bars.

A woman's voice speaks. "Did you hear me?"

My head lifts.

Heavy.

Did you hear me?

The question echoes—not in the room, but in my ears.

"Yes."

The woman in the room with me—Una—cocks her head. She has hair that grows in blocks. The sections are perfectly symmetrical squares, making her scalp look like a chessboard. Her tan skin is speckled with freckles of blue. Eyebrows are two flat lines and brown—the same color as her blocky hair.

Square hair, circle freckles, lines for brows. The shapes on her are overwhelming.

But it's her eyes that are the most unnerving. Blue stripes cut down through the irises. Just like the bars on my window.

I don't like her.

When she comes, she says she's healing me. But I think she might be lying.

"What did I say?"

With great effort, I fix my attention on her. She sits on a stool right in front of my pallet bed, leaning in close.

Always so close.

"You said I am loyal to King Carrick."

She nods. "That's right."

An echo of pain thuds through my arm, my ribs. As if it's remembering broken bones and bruises. Lingering trauma. Every time I breathe or move, I expect it to hurt, but it doesn't.

"You were a traitor, but you have changed your ways. You owe the king your life. You are loyal to him, aren't you? Ready to prove yourself?"

I nearly flinch from the hard nudge in her voice.

"Yes."

My voice is clustered. Caught. Like every word is getting stuffed into this already small dungeon cell.

"Do you remember being a traitor? Do you remember turning yourself in so you could beg for mercy from your king?"

Beg?

I feel my brows pull together as I try to pick my way through my mind, but there are too many holes. I keep stumbling. Keep tripping over them.

My eyes drop to the cuff around my ankle where its cinched over the leg of my pants. My feet are bare and dirty, but the cuff is a smooth, drab gray. It looks almost like colorless dirt packed beneath glass. It makes my skin itch and drags me down with a burdensome weight.

I begged for mercy?

Una's lips purse with impatience at the question I've muttered aloud. "Of course you did. You're a traitor, and if you want to live, you must do better."

"Yes."

I must do better.

"Focus on how merciful King Carrick is. How much you want to please him," she orders.

How much I want to please him…

There's an echo, like a bell after it's been rung. The impact of the clang just out of reach.

My eyes drift to the window. The color drawing me in.

Deep green. The color soothes me.

Una makes a noise. "We must try harder, mustn't we?"

My head is so very heavy with the nod. My tongue the weight of a brick, though it still drops out a word. "Yes."

"Yes," she repeats. "Never fear. I am very good at what I do. I will get you there."

She scoots her stool even closer and lifts her hands. I tense. "No, please—"

Ignoring me, her palms clasp over my ears, making me shudder, while something inside of me shudders too. My back stiffens, muscles locked up. Nearly paralyzed.

"Repeat after me."

My eyes get caught in the net of her gazing stripes.

"I was a traitor."

My lips follow hers.

The digging goes deeper, and in those holes, I see myself. See myself falling at the king's feet, begging for mercy, telling him I was wrong as lightning streaked across the lavender sky.

No…not lightning. It was a crack. In a ceiling. In a wall. A house breaking …

There was thunder, but it ripped out like a scream.

I close my eyes, feeling something squirming within the dark, emptied depths of my mind, trying to shove up through the hollows.

"Focus," Una snaps.

Her voice pulls me in, while something else oozes out.

"Repeat after me," she commands again, her voice droning.

My mind flashes, the squirming stops, and I see myself bowing for the king. The memory shoves in, presses down, trying to fit into the gaps.

"I was a traitor."

My voice melts with hers, eyes opening.

"I turned myself in."

Her fingernails dig deeper against the sides of my head.

"King Carrick is merciful. He will let me live if I atone."

My lips lash out every word. Monotone. Filling up every available space, gorging on it, near-bursting. Stuffing into my pitted mind with forceful shoves.

"I am loyal."

Loyal .

"I am beholden to his benevolence."

Beholden .

Her striped eyes bore into me, fingers digging into my ear, caterpillars munching through my forgetfulness. Filling up the holes with dirt that doesn't seem to fit.

"I am lucky to be here."

Lucky .

That word gets caught in the dripping ceiling. Swells and sticks.

Lucky?

"Yes, very lucky. Most traitors are killed. You have agreed to make yourself useful to the king and do whatever he asks."

I nod again, though I can't blink past the murk.

Una's hand drops from my ear. The digging stops. The shudders subside. My muscles slowly relax.

"Do you remember?"

I open my mouth but shut it again. That frown digs in deeper.

"Do you remember?" she presses.

I'm staring through that green window again. Binding to the color. It reminds me of summer grass. Of a shadowed forest. Of—

Overwhelming grief suddenly crashes over me, with waves too big to withstand. Grief and an undertow of panic rise up. My frantic eyes fly back to Una as I lurch forward and grip her arm. "I'm supposed to do something." My fingers dig in. Squeezing. Desperate . "I was supposed to do something!"

When she just stares at me, I try to jump off the pallet bed, but Una's hand stills me. "Yes. What you need to do is prove yourself. You need to serve your king."

"But…"

Her striped eyes narrow. Making another line that digs between her eyebrows. "That's all you have to do," she says sternly. "Please the king."

I frantically shake my head, my heart racing. "No, no, no. I was supposed to do something else. Someone…there's someone…I…I can't…"

Una slaps me.

Hard.

The strike across my cheek flushes with a throbbing sting, freezing me in place.

"Stop this fighting! Give in," she shouts through her teeth, her gaze livid.

I stare in shock, mind reeling, confusion boiling over.

There was something…

Her palms clamp viciously over my ears, squeezing so hard I panic that she'll crack my skull. I try to scrabble away, but she won't let go.

There isn't just digging that I feel this time. There's a swarm . Things squirming, slithering, eating their way through. I go slack. Droop like a dying vine as I'm inundated.

Infested.

I don't know when I shut them, but my eyelids peel open again when Una's hands leave my ears to cup my face as she forces me to look at her. Her touch is cold. Like she stowed her hands in a patch of snow and rooted through the frozen grains.

I'm floating. I wonder if I can float right past the bars of her eyes. Right through the ones on the window too.

Bars? Why are there bars?

"You're Auren Turley."

Yes. That feels right.

That's the only thing that feels right.

"I am Auren Turley."

"You will serve the king."

That must be right too.

"I will serve the king."

Her hands drop. A sigh does too.

She gives me a look of irritated pity, but with all the shapes on her, I can't help but notice the dark circles now under her eyes. "Sleep, Auren."

Rest is best when sleep is deep…

The holes in my head shake.

She leaves, and I watch the solid stone door scrape shut. Hear a lock click.

Bleary-eyed and hollow-headed, I scoot back on the pallet bed, tucking my knees in front of me and clasping them with my curled arms. I rest my pounding skull against the wall and let out a shaken breath.

My gaze drags back to the window.

I feel like the color is something from a dream. Or maybe I'm in a dream, and that's why it all feels so strange. So…flat. Missing something.

Missing everything .

Through the tinted glass, I see the faintest trace of a star glittering in the void. One speck of light within all that dark.

"There was something I was supposed to do," I whisper to it.

It doesn't say anything back.

"There was something…"

I wish I could remember.

"Maybe this is all a dream."

Yes. This is a dream, so I just need to make myself wake up.

A voice from somewhere whispers to me. You have your own light, little sun. So you must carry it with you when it grows dark.

I want to cry, because it's grown so very, very dark.

Sadness waters my lids, so I let a single drop fall down my cheek. And that star that I've been watching falls down the face of the night, matching the descent of my tear. Leaving nothing but darkness behind.

I close my eyes, and my lips move in a voiceless whisper that only the sky can hear, with words that somehow materialize on my tongue.

When tears are like starfall, when bleak is like night,

We remember the dawn that will bring back the light.

When my eyes open again, my gaze becomes steady. Strong. A breath pulls in and blows out. That green view grounds me.

I blink away every bit of moisture as I stare at the empty spot where the star fell, and something in me pulls taut.

My face sets with determination. Something down my spine hardens.

This void in the sky, this void in my head… it won't defeat me. I won't let it.

I might not know anything else yet, but I do know this truth with innate certainty.

My name is Auren Turley.

And I am stronger than the dark.