“No, I want it all,” I reply, trying not to scowl. I guess I won’t have much to do except unload things. The trunks will be heavy, though. Maybe my room isn’t at the top of the tower. Has no one ever thought about the logistics of this? It’s simply ridiculous. My maids packed me dozens of dresses, as that’s what’s required in court, but standing here on the beach, I’m tired just looking at the sheer mass of trunks that I’ll have to put away.

That’s a problem for another day, though.

I watch in silence as the heavily loaded sled is brought to the heavy double doors. They’re pulled open with a mighty creak, the hinges rusty, and the interior of the tower is pitch black—I can see nothing inside. It’s like a tomb. I look around for the Darkfell party but I don’t see them on the beach. Perhaps they’ve already come and gone and their sacrifice waits within. I touch the bodice of my dress where my knife is hidden, glad that Erynne sent it with me. She’s far more suited for this sort of thing than me. I’m the court flirt, not the one to handle intrigue.

I’m certainly not pious, like Meryliese must have been.

The priests begin their songs to the Golden Moon Goddess, and I know I should pay attention. Instead, I watch, fascinated, as the workmen shove my sled up to the door and then push it deep inside with a loud scrape upon the stone floors. One of them pushes too hard and his hand disappears in after the sled, swallowed up by the shadows. He immediately cries out in distress and pulls back, clutching his hand to his chest. “It burns!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the knight accompanying me snaps. He casts me an uneasy look. “It’s just shadow.”

I say nothing. The priests continue on with their prayers, burning incense to the goddess and as I watch, an acolyte sacrifices a bird, pulling it from a cage and cutting it open from breast to tail. The blood carries on the wind, flecking the face of the knight at my side, as if reminding me what horrors await me inside.

“Come, my princess,” he says, taking me gently by the elbow. “It’s time.”

Now? Already? “Surely the priests have more prayers,” I babble, trying to pull free from his grasp. I’m not ready yet. The sun hasn’t gone down, and that means the golden moon has a few hours before it rises. I have time, don’t I? “I’m sure they have yet another song to sing.”

“My princess,” the knight says again, his voice kind. “Do not make me carry you.”

Dragon shite. Panicked, I let him pull me forward, casting another mute look of distress at the priests. They give me pitying looks, their gazes straying up to the tower. We move towards the yawning darkness of those double doors, and even the wind seems to die in anticipation of my entombment.

“Please,” I whisper to the knight. “Please don’t make me go.”

“I must,” he says. “The king wishes for me to ensure that you are placed safely inside.”

Lionel knows I want to run. A hot bubble of panic rises in my throat as we pass by the man seated next to the bricks, waiting to seal the door behind me. “Please,” I say again as we move to the threshold. I grab the doorjamb and try to brace myself. “Please don’t do this. I can escape. No one has to know⁠—”

The knight pries my hand off the frame of the door and shoves me inside. Hard. I tumble to the floor next to the heavy sled of trunks, and before I can sit up, the double doors creak closed behind me.

“Bar it,” the knight calls out to his men. Then to me, “We will be here in one year with more food and supplies for you, Princess Candromeda. Thank you for your sacrifice.”

I sit in the darkness, too numb to even cry. I’ve been telling myself for days that it’ll be all right to cry once the doors are closed and I’m trapped, but now that I’m here, I feel empty inside. Blank. I stare at the tiny line of sunlight under the doors, listening as the bricks are laid in place with scrape after scrape, and that last bit of sunlight disappears from sight.

It’s pitch black inside the tower.

Pitch black, and I’m utterly alone. I don’t even know where my candles are, or where my medicine is.

Or where my enemy is…just that they’re somewhere in this tower with me.

Chapter

Six

Trapped.

It still hasn’t entirely sunk in. I listen to the men bricking the door up behind me, to ensure that I won’t abandon my post as the sacrifice to the goddess. If I panic and flee the tower, I doom the war fleet, and I doom the crops for the next seven years. It’s vital that I stay where I am. That I do my duty to my people.

Seven years of this.

I can come out when I’m thirty-one.

Yay.

The noise of the bricks being smacked into the mortar echoes inside me. I lean against the sled full of trunks, and it’s so heavy that it doesn’t budge. I pull myself atop one of the trunks, settling my skirts in the darkness and listening. It’s only when silence greets me that I realize that the noise of the bricklaying has stopped. They’re done.

I’m truly bricked up inside this tower. No one will know if I am here for another year, when they deliver more food. I’m to spend seven years in this darkness, with nothing and no one.

My chest becomes tight.

I jerk to my feet, panting, and I claw at my bodice. I can’t breathe. I can’t draw a deep breath and I desperately need one. Gasping, I tear at the laces that go up the front of my bodice in such an ugly (but practical) manner, until my breasts bounce free and the entire corset loosens with a rush, my knife clattering to the floor. I lean against the trunk, sucking in deep breath after deep breath in the darkness.

I can’t do this. I can’t.

I surge forward, feeling in the absolute darkness for the wooden doors. My trembling hands hit stone first, and I move along the cold wall until I find the wood of the doors. It takes me a moment to locate the handle, and then I tug on it.

The doors don’t budge. They don’t even groan. It’s as if they’re completely and utterly locked in place. The anxious knot returns to my throat and for a moment, I feel as if I’m going to vomit. Or cry. Or both. I give the door another tug, harder this time, and it’s useless. With a moan, I press my brow to the wood, collapsing against it.

You can break down later, I tell myself. I know you want to cry, but you can do that after you pull yourself together. Find your medicine. Light a candle. Get to your room, where it’s safe. There’s too much to do and no one is going to help you.

Right. Okay.

Taking a deep breath, I turn around—and scream.

Two gleaming, shining, evil green eyes gaze out from the darkness across the room. The Fellian. The one that I need to kill before they kill me.

And they can see in the dark.

Dragon shite.

“Stay away!” I cry out in a trembling voice. “Leave me alone!” I drop to the floor, feeling for Erynne’s knife. How could I be so careless as to abandon my only weapon moments after I enter the tower? I’m an idiot.

To my relief, I find the knife quickly and jerk it from its sheath, holding it aloft in the pitch black around me. I look up, searching for the eerie green eyes, but they’re gone. Heart pounding, I get to my feet and peer into the darkness, listening for sounds, but I think I’m alone again. There’s no sound but that of my pulse.

With a relieved little sigh, I clutch the knife close. “Am I alone now?” I whisper.

The blade shivers.

“Is she going to kill me?”

There’s no response, but at the same time, the air feels pregnant, as if there’s a question unanswered.

“Are you sure?” I ask the knife.

No answer. Hmm. That’s not a good sign. Either I’m asking the wrong thing or the knife isn’t as omniscient as I thought.

One problem at a time. I need to find my quarters and get situated. I need to make my medicine, too. Already I’m feeling weak and a little sweaty, a sign that I need my dose and to eat something to settle my stomach afterwards. Riza will have a bag prepared for me for today, I know. I just need to find it. I run my hand over the mountain of trunks, but finding where anything is stashed feels monumental. Luckily, I have help. I touch one trunk. “Is there a candle in here?”