“No, not anymore.” We step into his chambers and he settles my books on the coffee table before cleaning up the vial I shattered with a few flicks of his hand.
“Shit, I meant to get you a new blanket today and I forgot. Here, you can use mine.” He sweeps into his bedroom to retrieve it and sets it on the couch.
The polite thing to do would be to refuse it butI’m not polite.
“Is there anything else you need?”
I need…a way to get out of here. I can’t say that so I just shake my head. He offers me a single nod before turning away. He stops to lean against the frame of his door. “Goodnight.”
“Ni—“ I start to murmur.
“Pet.”
My upper lip snaps up, curling against my top teeth. The last thing I see is his shoulders shaking with laughter before the door shuts.
In the kingdom behindthe Wall, there were two princesses. Identical twins. They were inseparable back then, spending their every waking and sleeping moment together. They had their own bed-chambers, of course, but Pandora still saw fit to sneak into Syra’s each night, and they would lie there giggling and tickling each other, making up stories about the wonders they imagined were outside the Wall until they found their sleep.
Their birth had left them motherless, and seeing as they were only girls, their father didn’t care much for them at all. It was Old Matron Sybil’s duty to keep them under thumb but her old age and their unruliness often saw to them gallivanting around the castle.
On this particular day, they were especially dismayed. Tomorrow, it would all come to an end. Tomorrow, they would make their vow and take the Shroud. It was effectively the last day of their childhood. They knew everything was soon to change and were looking for a final adventure to mark the end of their young, free, and careless years.
So when they found that old locked door on the lowermost floor of the castle, in the dusty crypts, it didn’t even take much convincing on Pandora’s part to get Syra to go into it. She braved one of the stone caskets, pulled out a rusty sword, and pried the door open.
Pandora trekked back to peel a torch off the wall, and they set off. They followed the tunnel for miles. At one point, it emptied out in the abandoned theurgynate mines, and Syra started expressing her desire to head back. But Pandora found another door and convinced her to continue on, remarking maybe the tunnel would lead outside the Wall completely, and they could flee and never be Shrouded.
The tunnel didn’t lead outside the Wall. Instead, it led them inside of it. The room was small, only twelve feet across, with stone blocks of theurgynate littering the floor. Pandora never imagined there was an inside of the Wall. It took her several minutes of studying the grey stone blocks for her to recognize it.
On the far wall was a door yet it didn’t lead out in the direction past the wall, only straight back into Eden. The spiral staircase leading up and up and up seemed to have no end. Several stories up, Pandora could see a small chunk cut out of the stone. A window. “Come, Syra, we can look out and see the other side,” she said gleefully, pointing up to it.
Syra was hesitant at first, but she gained enthusiasm as they climbed. The first window was on the Eden side and they could see their castle from the distance. They’d never traveled so far away from it before. The next window, several stories higher, was on the other side. They would finally see outside the Wall, something they’d been imagining for their entire lives. Pandora started running up the stairs in her excitement. Syra voiced her complaints for Pandora to slow down. These stairs were old and rickety, and there were no handrails, but Pandora ignored her.
Oddly, the temperature seemed to drop lower the higher she climbed. She had almost made it to the window when an uneasy feeling washed over her, and she slowed. A quiet humming sound permeated from the other side of the wall. She turned back to ask Syra if she could hear it as well when a burst of energy she could only describe as lightning or a gust of wind hit her squarely in the chest and launched her off the stairs. The pain of it was excruciating, and she let out a harrowed cry as she fell and fell and fell.
“Pet.”
I startle awakewith a gasp to find a hand grasped around my shoulder. I yank it off forcefully, awareness slowly trickling in as luminous green eyes peer down at me. “It’s okay,” he coaxes, showing me his other palm in surrender.
I unclasp my hand from his wrist and pull myself up with a groan. The daemon is blaring in sharp, painful bursts. My eyes scour the room for any signs it’s unleashed its destruction. Detecting none, I rub the sleep from my eyes and pat back my sweat-slicked hair.
“Didn’t look like a very restful sleep.”
I give a reluctant grunt in response. I must’ve been thrashing with my nightmare. Once again, he’d been gone by the time I woke up today, and I spent the day nestled on the couch with my new collection of books. He sinks down on the other end of the sofa, settling his face in his hands. “What are you doing?” I ask hoarsely.
He tilts his head to the side, still propped against his hands as if he doesn’t have the energy to hold it up. “Keeping you company from whatever plagues your dreams.”
“Your company isn’t needed,” I say briskly.
“Fine. Maybe I’m the one that needs company then.”
Surprise ripples through me. “Company from yourpunishment?”
He sluggishly lifts a shoulder. “I can think of worse company, and my options have grown rather slim,” he muses. I wrap my arms around my knees, coaxing the daemon to settle, jerking slightly when it lances down my arm.
“Are you cold?” He’s mistaken it for a shiver. He waves a hand, and flames erupt in the fireplace before he tracks his frown back to me. “You don’t have a way to light that, do you? You should tell me these things.”
I stare off into the flames, and we slip into a short silence. “Maybe it’s you that plagues my dreams.”
He turns his head back to me, pupils wide and eyes slightly glazed. “Is it?”
