Page 49 of Waking Roslyn

Her words weren’t nearly satisfactory, but as a common groundskeeper, I was hardly in a position to demand more information from the daughter of a duke. No matter how pretty she was. No matter how kind and engaging and…effervescent. No matter how much she felt like a friend.

She wanted to learn something useful, and I had the ability to teach her.

I stepped forward, resigned to pushing aside my curiosity and focusing on her training, but then I noticed the way she rubbed at her left wrist. “Is your wrist hurt?”

“What?” She looked down at her hands and pulled them apart, as if surprised to see that she’d been rubbing her own wrist. “Oh. That.”

My brow furrowed. “Are you hurt?” I asked again.

She shook her head. “No. Not really.”

“What does that mean?”

She chewed on her lip a little bit. “I told you about the stories we hold.”

“Yes…” I remembered the odd comment she’d made about how I had a story stuck in my back. Something about my dislike of Edmund.

“Well,” she said, holding up her wrist, “I have a particular story here that hurts me once in a while.”

“About what?” I asked, mostly excited by the prospect that she might be willing to confide in me more.

She looked torn, like she was desperate to tell me and yet holding herself back. Luckily, she decided to speak. “There are two earls in Saldine who hated my father more than anyone else. And because of that, their children do not like me.”

So she told me the story of her aching wrist, and with each word, my heart broke a little more.

Before

Saldian Palace

Roslyn, Twelve years old

Panic and tears clogged my throat, and I could feel the bruises forming on my arms from where they’d grabbed me.

I missed the days when they would only pull my hair.

“This isn’t funny!” I shouted, yanking on the rope that bound my wrist.

“We only tied one wrist,” Everett said as he backed away and started up the steep stone steps. “I’m sure you’ll get out, eventually.” His grin was cruel.

“Come on,” Everett’s sister Nina said, pulling on his arm. “Let’s go.”

Neil still lingered, looking at me. For one tiny moment, I thought he might decide he was being too cruel and untie me. Then a dirty little smirk curved his lips and I recoiled. “I still think we should tie both her hands.”

My heart dropped and I bit down to keep my chin from trembling. I should never have followed them down here. I should have stayed safe in the library. But when they had run past, shouting about exploring the dungeons, I’d been curious. I’d never seen the dungeons of the Saldian palace. They were mostly used for storage since the jail had been built.

And now I was tied to the wall.

“Neil, come on,” Nina insisted. “Before someone finds us.”

He gave me one more sneering, arrogant smirk before following the other two up the stone steps, taking their torch with them.

My breathing was quick and sharp as I frantically picked at the knot around my wrist. There were narrow slits in the wall, enough to let in some faint light, but the shadows were deep and terrifying.

I screamed for help.

I yanked against the binding on my wrist, but that only cinched the rope tighter, so I kept clawing at the knots.

When my screams finally brought someone down to the dungeon, my wrist, my fingers, and the rope were all bloody.