The guardians leave me on the cold stone floor, and I’m still thinking about that patch of stars as the darkness rushes in.
My eyes blink open once. Twice.
It’s still night. I’m still alive.
Laila.
Is she hurt? The guardians have never punished her, but what if this time they make an exception?
It will earn me more punishment, but I don’t care. My arms tremble as I lift myself off the floor. I cry out, my back raw, the skin peeled away. My shirt’s fabric scrubs against the bare muscle. I see black, but steady myself.
I manage to make it to the door and freeze when I turn the handle.
They’ve locked me in.
I follow the rules, generally, unless Laila asks me to break them. I’m not with her all the time, though. In training, we are on different parts of the mountain. The warriors follow mandates, and so do I.
But knowing I have so little time ... knowing I can count on one hand the number of years left before the Gauntlet ...
I shake the handle, but it doesn’t give. I try to kick it down, but my diminished strength is nothing compared to thousand-year-old wood.
I try to summon shadows. In my desperation, they flicker to life. They inch forward before disappearing completely.
I sink to the floor, and—
I can’t breathe. I can’t—I can’tbreathe.
No. The opposite. I’m breathing so much that I can’t get a full breath in my lungs. I clutch at my throat, try to make a sound, but nothing comes out.
Out.
I need to get out. I need to be out of this room they’ve locked me in. I need to befree, finally, please. Please, please, let meout.
LET ME OUT.
I fall to my knees and barely feel the stone beneath me. I bang on the room’s narrow windows, then scrape at the glass, as if I could claw myself out—
And then I’m clutching sand.
The soft hiss of melting waves sounds to my right. Silvery sea foam fizzes around my knees.
Slowly, I look up, and see the Nightshade castle, the one my father resides in, towering above like a beast.
Impossible.
How?
This must be a dream ... but it isn’t. My back still burns. My eyes are blinking over and over and nothing is changing.
I’m really here. One moment I was wishing I could be out of that castle ...
The next, I was on the other side of Nightshade. Dread falls through my stomach.
Impossible. I can barely control shadows, I definitely don’t—
I don’t have a flair.
I don’t havethis flair. I can’t.
