It suddenly occurs to me that I don’t know why I am outside.
I gag and cough in the thickening smoke. It’s burning my throat in its spread toward the blurry tree line. I can’t breathe. I’m frightened.
I want my mum.
Something moves on my right, but before I can look, there’s a crash and one side of my home caves in and flames leap out. Followed by screams, first Mum’s, then Dad’s. Scared. Then furious. Calling my name. My heart clenches and crumbles all in one breath. What have I done?
I scream and start running, tripping, clawing toward their voices, but hands pull me away and pick me up, and I’m tearing them off, trying to get back. I have to rescue my parents. But the grip is too strong. Tears freeze into rivers midflood down my face, and I can do nothing but watch it all fade as I’m dragged away. Knowing I have somehow destroyed the best part of my world.
“And thus the Sea of Elisedd churns noisy, and thus her sapphire waters turned salty . . .”
Oh good grief, is that minstrel still howling?
I open my eyes with a plan to inform him just how very bad my head hurts and how his serenade is not helping. But it occurs to me that his voice has altered to an octave higher and much prettier, and in fact has become very much like a girl’s.
As has his face.
I blink.
Squint. Blink again.
What in hulls?
It is a girl, with auburn hair braided around a freckled countenance barely older than mine. She’s singing and setting a tray of tea and bread by my bed. My insides dissolve at the smell. I can’t remember the last time I ate. It would’ve been with Brea on the road yesterd—
I bolt straight up, scrambling my thoughts around the canopy overhead and the soft substance beneath me. And then I’m out of the enormous berth faster than a whipping boy running for his mum—horrified at having been in it, let alone having been discovered there.
The room spins drunkenly for a second, swooning with my aching head as I grasp the nearest bedpost for support. How did I get in here? I can’t remember anything beyond standing on the auction block.
The singing girl stops. “Ah, so you’re awake.”
“Who are you? And where am I?”
“It’s ’bout time, cuz we gotta ’urry and get you ready, right?” She settles the tea tray and ignores my question. “Adora wants to talk to you before it starts.” She tips her head my direction and clucks her tongue, as if chiding me to quit standing around.
Ready for what? “Where am I?” I repeat, taking in the room as quick as my eyes can absorb it. The huge, arched ceiling, the fireplace, the hideously expensive tapestries hanging on either side that are the color of my bloody feet from my nightmare. And the window—the giant window with its breathtaking view of the evening’s purplish, smoke-strewn skies melting into a hillside that surrounds the High Court city. I peer closer at its white, pointy buildings and staggered streets leading up to . . . to . . . the Castle! And behind it the jagged Hythra Mountain peaks.
I turn back to the girl.
She’s holding a steaming cup of tea. “You’re in Adora’s house,” she says as if annoyed I’ve not caught on to this yet. She waves the cup precariously and frowns at the air next to my head. “You best be careful, cuz it’s hot, right? And we ’aven’t got a lot a time.” She shoves the cup closer. Except she’s not quite holding it toward me. More to the side of me.
My hungry stomach turns sour as awareness registers. “Are you serving me?” I back away, shaking my throbbing head. “Look, I don’t know how I got in this room, but if they find me here, you and I are dead. I need to leave. Now.”
“Well, we’d do it a lot quicker if you’d just drink the tea already. Cuz it’s Adora’s orders you’re in here, but now she’s orderin’ you downstairs, right? An’ I wouldn’t make her wait if I was you.” She folds one arm across the cream-colored peasant frock draping her curved body like my mum’s used to, and with the other hand continues to offer the cup at an awkward angle, her eyes still peering off somewhere behind me. “She really don’t like to be kept waiting,” she adds, voice lowered as if she’s sharing a confidence. “Especially on party nights.”
I rub my pounding temple. Party nights? I take the teacup with my good hand just so she’ll stop standing there so uncomfortable, but she just keeps standing there anyway. I drink a hesitant sip. She stares without watching me and grins. “Good, i’nt it?”
It is good. And I’m famished. I gulp down half the cup before slowing under the gaze of her brown, unfocused eyes. They have a funny look to them. Suspicion surfaces. I tilt my head and shift my whole body to the right, to see if she’ll follow my movements. She doesn’t. Her stare is glued to the exact same spot. Oh.
She’s blind.