Haunted (6 page)

Good,
Gillian thought.

THE INSTANT THAT Gillian awoke, she realized she was alone.

“Shayne?” she said, getting up. He wouldn’t just leave her alone. “
Shayne?
” she called out.

Where was he?

Though she ran from the library and into the corridor, she forced herself to slow down. She hunted carefully, looking in every room she passed. Meticulous at first, panic slowly got the better of her. She had always been good at controlling her anxiety, but this was different. Every moment that went by made her more and more afraid. Minutes ticked by, and then hours. She sprinted through the halls, and bounded up the stairs, all the while calling his name. The only sound that came back to her was a mocking echo of her own words, making her want to scream. But as she climbed yet another set of stairs and charged onto another landing, she skid to a stop.

It was a tower of sorts, maybe one of the turrets they’d seen from outside.

“Gods, what is this place?” she muttered.

Inside the small rooms that branched from the narrow corridor, the walls were lined with manacles. A metal table with winches occupied one room. Pokers leaned against a cold hearth in another. Empty cages had whips resting on them.

She put a gloved hand to her mouth. Before she could stop herself, she turned, doubled over, and dry-heaved. There was nothing in her stomach. Still coughing and gasping, she backed up. Then she turned and ran. Down the steps she bolted, to the previous level, so fast she couldn’t stop herself. She flew across the hallway and hit the opposite wall. Trying to get her breath, it was all she could do just to lean against it. Awful things had happened in the tower. She was sure of it. She glanced at the stairs, and jumped so badly with fright that she nearly fell.

Mina was watching her.

“Where is Shayne?” Gillian gasped, straightening up. “Where is he?”

“I can’t say.” She was in some sort of pensive mood today.

Gillian advanced on her angrily. She felt pity for the woman, but her patience was at an end.

“You can’t say or you won’t say?” Gillian demanded. “Which is it, Mina?”

“Can’t,” the dead woman replied. “Much as you might want to blame me for the predicament that you are in, none of this is my doing. This is something only you can fix.”

“What do you mean fix?”

Mina’s smile seemed so genuine.

“You’ve always been able to fix things––until you couldn’t. Frankly, in some ways, you might actually be best at fixing things by breaking them first.”

Gillian clenched her jaw. “All I need is to find Shayne, so we can get out of here.”

“I know. I can’t help you, though I wish I could. All I can do is protect you.”

“
Protect me?
”

“The city hungers. Can’t you feel it? I can protect you, but only to a certain point. Oh my love, you should never have come.”

With that, Mina faded like wisps of smoke on a breeze.

“No!” Gillian screamed, but it was to an empty hall. Her hands balled into fists, and she stood there quaking. “No!”

Gods, how was she going to find Shayne? The palace was huge. Then she had a crushing realization. What if he wasn’t in the palace? The city outside was enormous. She’d already been at this all day. Her seething anger began to fade, and along with it a fraction of hope.

“Shayne,” she muttered, leaning against the wall.

She remembered how she’d felt when she’d been without him in the Midnight Market. But at that thought, another memory came flooding back. Without realizing it, she reached into her tunic pocket, and found the pouch of dragon’s eye seeds. They were meant to show her what she needed to see, to reveal what was hidden. There was nothing that she needed more than to see Shayne. If he had been hidden from her, she needed to know.

But the risk of poison was real. Although Mathias had seemed cavalier about it, she knew that too much could end her life. But what would that life be if she lost Shayne?

Pouch in hand, she made her way back to the bottom floor and found the library. She sat down on the blankets where they’d slept and touched the flattened depression where he’d lain.

“Shayne,” she said softly.

She poured out three seeds instead of two. She wondered how much more potent the dosage would be. But before she could wonder about it much, she popped the seeds into her mouth, swallowing them whole. She closed her eyes, feeling the heat immediately, like the burn of good whiskey. For some reason, the heat concentrated on her mouth and lips, as well as in her belly.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked around. There was the same faint glow. She got to her feet, aware of a feeling of euphoria. But when she exited into the hallway, she froze.

Two ghostly girls carrying enormous trays of meat and cheese came towards her. They giggled at some shared joke. Though she dodged them, they never looked at her. Behind them a serious man wearing a sword strode past. Gillian took a deep breath. Though he glanced at her, he followed the two girls.

They can see me,
Gillian thought. But as she looked down at herself, she was grateful for the clothes that Mathias had purchased. Nondescript, they helped her blend in.

As she made her way down the hallway, she paid attention to the glow that limned the edges of the rooms and halls. All around her, people were talking. The more she noticed them, the more she realized there was a great deal of commotion. A man who passed her excitedly told his female companion that the Oracle would speak the fate of the city. Though it had the air of a festival, Gillian’s stomach plummeted.

Galia, the woman that she had once been, had been called the Oracle. Though Gillian turned to follow the couple, she was nearly run over by a party of African men in blindingly white caftans. They were led by a tall woman whose hair was covered.

“And we thank you for the time you have spent with us,” the woman was saying. “I pray that your voyage was successful, and that your return trip to Cush will be good.”

“Thank you,” said the one in front. “We have been welcomed most handsomely in your beautiful city. We can only hope that you will send envoys to ours, so we can show you how mighty and generous our lands are.”

Gillian realized that there was a good chance that they would be using the portal. She hurried after them, falling into step, eyes down. She might have been a servant girl, and listened as they chatted about the trip. The men from Cush complimented everything about Tenebris, from the beauty of its order to the richness of the citizens. They promised great wealth in trade to come.

The woman inclined her head. “I am only sorry that you will not be able to stay for the foretelling tonight. The Oracle will read the fate of the city. It is a great celebration for us.”

The small group came to the curved wall in the central courtyard, though Gillian hung back at the entrance to the short corridor. She was surprised to see that there was only a single guard at the other end, though when she thought about it, it made sense. Neither she nor Shayne had found a way in.

“How very fascinating,” said one of the delegates. “This is not what the portal looked like when we entered your city.”

The woman smiled with a touch of frost.

“No, it does not. Make no mistake, my lords. Tenebris is protected. Foes who march into Tenebris do not get the chance to march out.”

The woman snapped her fingers and a slender girl stepped forward. She was dressed in the plain robes of the two servant girls Gillian had seen––but with one significant difference. She wore a steel manacle on her wrist.

A slave?
Gillian wondered, rubbing her own wrist.

“Go on,” the woman said.

The girl was trembling uncontrollably, but still she stepped up to the gate. She took a deep breath, lifted her hands, and placed them on the smooth stone. The girl stood stock still for a moment. Then the trembling turned to a shake. Gillian watched in horror as the girl fell on her back, her lifeless eyes staring and wide.

Almost as one, the delegation from Cush stepped back.

“What has happened to her?” one of the delegates demanded.

“There is always a price to be paid upon leaving Tenebris,” said the woman idly.

The gate made a soft shushing sound and slid down as if it were an elevator. Inside was a plaza much like the one in Cappadocia, with graceful arches ringing a central dais.

“There,” said the woman. “Please stand on the pedestal and wait. After a moment, the energies will awaken, and take you back to the mountains.”

Hesitantly, the men entered the courtyard. As they took their positions, the sky above the plaza began to churn. Within the portal, the wind whipped up. As the temperature dropped, Gillian’s skin was covered with goosebumps. The clouds above rumbled and lightning struck. Momentarily blinded, Gillian threw an arm over her eyes. By the time she lowered it, the delegation from Cush was gone.

As the gate slipped closed, soundlessly rising up, the tall woman sighed and turned to the guard.

“Make sure the balance of this slave’s debt is transferred to a sibling or a cousin,” the woman said. “Then bring them here.”

The guard nodded curtly, before kneeling down next to the girl. To Gillian’s shock, her body had withered into a near skeletal husk.

“It was a shame, wasn’t it?” he asked, straightening out her limbs and closing her dry eyes.

“What was?” asked the woman, turning back.

“Celia here. She’d opened the gate so many times. She’s been working here since the turn of the year. She must have been close.”

“To her freedom? Yes, no doubt. Probably another few weeks.”

Gillian’s heart ached for Celia, though she had to have been long dead.

The guardsman stood, still gazing at the young woman. “Why do some openers die, while others live?”

It had the ring of an old question, and the woman shrugged.

“The Goddess wants what she wants, guardsman,” she said. “She takes who she will.”

The woman seemed about to turn away, but instead watched the guardsman who continued to stare at Celia. He seemed unable to look away.

“The Goddess can be in many places,” the woman said, her tone softer. “We all know this. She speaks within the Oracle. She moves inside the city itself. And it is she who animates the gate.” The guardsman gazed at it. “But even a goddess is not without needs.” The guardsman looked at her. “In fact, for all she does, isn’t it right that her need is great? Isn’t a life a small price to pay?”

“I suppose,” he muttered, frowning a little.

The woman exhaled. “It is not for you or I to judge,” she said.

“Well, of course you are right, mistress. It just seemed a shame. But blessed Firefly Festival to you and your family.”

The woman smiled. The genuine warmth there somehow made Gillian furious. It would have been better if the woman had been heartless. Instead, she was someone with a job and a family.

“Of course,” she said warmly. “All my best to yours as well.

Before they would notice her, Gillian turned and lost herself among the people in the hall. Tenebris wasn’t what she had thought––not at all. When she returned to the world––if she returned to the world––everyone would know. It had been her intent all along, but now her motivation was different. Stories of people like Celia had to be told. Tenebris was as deadly as it was beautiful. Somehow that had been forgotten.

Gillian walked faster, looking for any bends in the light around her. Her power was coming to its peak now. Heat was rising off her body. She was exquisitely in control of herself and everything that was happening. She willed that power, and bent it to her task: finding Shayne. She pictured him, the strong body and beautiful smile. She imagined the way his one blue eye caught the light. She thought of finding pleasure at his hands. She imagined everything they had done together and everything they wanted to do together, and let her gaze drift.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something silvery. She remembered that night on the mountain with Shayne, when she’d followed the silver cord back to him and her body. Here it was again. It swirled through the air, glittering and almost alive. Resisting the urge to touch it, Gillian followed where it led.

The people around her hardly spared her a look, their excitement for the festival building. One little girl in leather sandals and a beautifully embroidered tunic marched by with a single red firefly in a glass ball. A pair of young boys, barefoot and in plain gray tunics, carried between them a banner sewn with what looked like glittering beetle wings. But these were things that Gillian could only glimpse. Her focus never left the silver thread. It wafted through the air, passing through people that Gillian had to avoid. The further she went, the more vibrant and thick it became. Soon she was in the living quarters. She and Shayne had passed these, but given them only a cursory look, figuring the portal wouldn’t be here. As it led her away from the main hall, the people fell behind her. Finally, it disappeared into a door at the end of an arched side vestibule.

The door that Gillian approached was grand. It was half again as tall as her, and there was a stylized eye burned into the finely grained wood. She fought the impulse to knock, and opened the door quietly. The room was instantly familiar.

The space was small but luxuriously furnished. Orange silk wall hangings softened the stone, and on the ground was a gorgeous brown rug, woven in a simple, geometric design. But the bed was the primary piece of furniture in the room, and on it lay Shayne. Like a prince on a bier, his hands were crossed over his chest, eyes closed, face peaceful. For long seconds Gillian stared. When she finally saw his chest rise and fall, she nearly cried.

Though she wanted to run to him, a woman sat close by on a stool. When she looked up, it was like looking in a mirror. She was dressed in a beautiful gown of white and gold. It flowed around her and clung to her breasts, held at the waist by a delicate gold chain. Her hair was lighter than Gillian’s and far longer. The look, though, the look of weariness was familiar.

“You must be Galia,” Gillian said softly, as though she were intruding.