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“My mother’s Catalyst?” Again, a nod. But I stood frozen, hand stuck between his and a brooch.
“Please.”
“Where am I to find my mother’s Catalyst?” Especially without finding myself in a worse way. After this morning, I had a feeling everything would only get worse if she found me outside my rooms. “She will be with my mother…”
“Not… Catalyst,” he interrupted, his words still broken by moans. “Kitchen. Go to the kitchen.”
“The kitchen?” Which was it? He needed my mother's Catalyst, but not her Catalyst, and something in the kitchen. My panic was making it impossible to decipher, I couldn’t think beyond the knot in my throat, beyond the pounding of my heart in my ears.
“I don’t understand.”
“Kitchen,” he said again, the grunts fading into heavy breaths, the sound so low I could barely hear it above the water in the bath.
“Boy?” He didn’t answer. He didn’t stir. He just laid there, breathing as the deep shade of his blood dripped onto my bed.
Goddess.
I couldn’t help him, if only because I couldn’t see him. Curse old rules and whatever Mother had done. I couldn’t lose him! He needed my mother’s Catalyst, or something in the kitchen, but there was only one of those places that I could go.
“Please be okay.” I squeezed his hand before taking off, ready to race out the front door and right to the kitchen.
I froze before I even wrapped my blood slick hand around the knob. Booming laughs and taunting voices echoed from the other side, freezing me in place. The soldiers were still there. They stood there, laughing, trapping us inside. Keeping me from getting help.
What kind of game was this? Did they drop him there to die?
I turned, his still unconscious body struggling to breath where he lay on the bed, the blood that was rolling down his back soaking everything until it appeared almost back. They had expected him to die.
They wanted him to die, and they wanted me to watch.
Betrayal wrapped over my core, knotting against the panic that already lived there as I turned and practically threw myself out the heavy door hidden in the wall, my feet flying down the stairs.
The staircase wrapped itself into the dark, there were no lights there, but I had traveled it enough that I didn’t need them anymore. I knew every step, every hand hold. I knew where every door was hidden in the smooth stone that circled the old winding stairs.
I soared by door after door, skirts flapping wildly behind me as I counted the exits for the one I needed. Beyond my target, the stairs continued down to a large open pit far below the Runturin. The Boy and I had only gone down that far once before, only to race back up at the smell of death and dying that lingered there.
That hollow cavern was six doors down, I needed the fifth door down. The kitchens. The Boy and I would usually only go to the third, to a small storage room that led to the main hall. Every other door was harder to conceal, or had been covered by something. Like the kitchen.
I knew where the door led, but I didn’t even know if it would open. The second I burst from the corridor this exit would no longer be a secret, but I didn’t have another choice.
I knew the second I passed the third door, my shoes sliding against the extra layers of dust that lined everything below that from ill use. I barely slid thanks to the new boots, the grip holding tight as I took the stairs two at a time.
With each step I swore I could hear his breath, that I could hear the agonizing pulse of a heart that was struggling to beat. With each step the heat that waved its way over my skin began to dull.
I moved faster, throwing the door to the kitchens open with such force it sent the table someone had placed on the other side over, and all the potatoes that were atop it rolling everywhere.
A woman shrieked, a boy swore, a dog barked wildly as I flung myself through the opening, heading right for Lari who was staring across the long worktable in horror.
“I need something for whips,” I demanded, slamming my hands onto the counter. Whoever had screamed before screamed even louder.
It was only then that I remembered my hands were covered with blood.
I should clean them, wipe them, do something to hide the red stains, but I couldn’t move, all of that burning heat in my face boiling over as it threatened to explode in other ways.
“Please,” I whispered. “He’s going to die.”
Lari looked up from the blood, her eyes wide, those full lips pinched. “The Boy?”
I nodded, that burning, sparkling warmth growing at the thought of him on my bed alone, of all of that blood. The heat continued to flare, the sensation moving right to my hands. The bracelet burned, my skin beginning to glow as waves of heat continued to fan over my body.
