This is what I wanted. To be free. To beout. I should feel relief, cold as the sea pooling around me, but all I feel is the sharp poison of panic.
Because I know what this means.
No. I look up at the castle. It’s perched precariously on the cliff, like a creature waiting to strike.
He can’t know.
Father can’t know I can do this.
I have to get home. But how?
How did I get here in the first place?
Sunrise bleeds along the horizon, and all I can think about is Guardian Asa opening my room to find it empty.
The thought of her face brings me a twisted joy. And a pleasant idea pierces my panic.
What if I didn’t go back? What if this is ... a gift? They can’t punish me if they can’t find me ...
Hope has me finally taking a full breath, filling my lungs with salt and brine and morning breeze. I could do it. I could run away. The people of Nightshade don’t know what I look like ... they’ll think I’m just a normal boy. And then ... maybe I can go farther. To places most Nightshades haven’t even dreamed of.
In seconds, I plan out a whole life, one that is filled with quiet moments, honest work, and maybe a family. One that doesn’t have to kill each other for power.
But then, as always, my thoughts return to my father.
He won’t care that I’m gone. He practically doesn’t even know I’m alive. But when he realizes I was able to escape a locked room ...
Only one other person in our history has had this ability. Cronan Malvere. The founder of Nightshade. And if Father finds out I can portal ...
He will want me to be heir.
An image of Laila, dead, among the rest of my siblings flashes through my mind, and I shake my head, banishing it.
No. No one will know. It will be a secret, and Laila will kill me without knowing. Never knowing.
My ribs feel like they’re closing in on themselves. My eyes burn. I have this chance ... thisonechance to be free ... And I’m letting it go.
For her, I will return to the castle. I will figure out how to get back.
The sun is steadily rising. The guardians will be at my door soon.
I need to get back.
I claw at the sand, thinking about the castle. Pleading with the blazing sun and cold brush of sea toplease. PLEASE—
It takes hours, but it is that surge of care for her that finally gets me back in my room. The door is still locked, from the outside. They haven’t tried to come in yet.
I fall forward in relief, shaking from the cold of the ocean, finally feeling the sharp sting of salt in my wounds.
Relief smothers it all.
I’m here.
Laila will be safe.
No one notices the sand in my shoes.
BOTTOMLESS
