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Cold scraped against my cheek, and I rolled to wipe it away. Wetness covered my skin. I pulled my hand away, opening my eyes. Tacky rust colored my fingers and I blinked. The background behind my hand sent a raw chill through my form.
The queen’s kill room.
I scrambled to my feet, stumbled backwards, and gasped. The entire place was coated with blood from ceiling to floor, and the pool was nearly empty. My mother’s sword stuck straight up from the bottom of the pool. The glistening steel was as pristine as it had been when I took it from the wall at home.
I blinked and then the slow roll of memories of my last couple of days replayed in my head. My gaze shot to where I’d last seen Henry. A blood-covered lump lay on the ground, but nothing else remained inside the room.
I stumbled to him, dropped to my knees, and touched his shoulder. “Henry?”
He stiffened before lifting his head from the ground. He stared up at me with wide eyes before glancing around the barren room. A crease appeared between his eyes. He sat up and slid back against the wall.
His gaze hardened. “I’m not falling for this again,” he growled.
I closed my eyes and hung my head. How could I show him it was me and not the queen pretending to be me? I rose to my feet. The motion stretched the fabric across my back. I winced, and an idea formed.
I slowly undid the buttons on my vest, then the shirt underneath and peeled them off, hissing at the bloom of pain in my shoulder and all down my back as I pulled the fabric away from the raw skin.
Henry’s gaze landed on the cut on my left shoulder. His jaw tightened, and he glared at me.
My shoulder injury wasn’t enough to convince him. I turned, praying that the cut doled out by the dead still traversed my back.
The chains rattled behind me and I turned.
Henry was on his feet. His breathing became ragged as a tear slipped from his eye. “I thought I lost you,” he whispered and hung his head. Tears cut clean paths through the grime layered on his face.
I closed the distance and wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him as tight as I could. He nuzzled his head in the crook of my neck. We stood like that long enough for me to start shivering. I pulled away and put my blood-soaked shirt back on.
“Think you can unchain me?” he asked and turned, holding his hands out expectantly.
I stared at the steel holding him in place.
He looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow.
I met his gaze and sighed. “The queen took all of my magic.”
He slowly turned towards me, blinking like a million dust mites were attacking his eyes. “But...but I thought when she stole magic, it killed the mage.”
I wiped my face. “So did I. But for some reason, she couldn’t just steal my magic. She needed my permission to take my magic.”
His jaw dropped.
“Apparently, I was far different from any of the others who came before me. As it was, my magic kept death from spreading through me and turning me into one of those vile things the queen commanded. She didn’t know I had been struck by one of her dead minions.”
I turned and crossed to the area in front of where I had been chained and crouched down, feeling my way through the disgusting layer of blood-soaked ash. My throat tightened on a gag. I could have sworn this was the spot she had dropped my lock picks.
“She didn’t know I was fighting a battle even more deadly than she was. So, when I finally agreed to let her take my magic, it was already as tainted as I was. I pushed it out of me as forcefully as she tried to take it. I think the transfer shocked her enough to give me that opportunity to strike her down.” I crawled in circles while sifting through the ashes of my friends. Talking seemed to be the only thing stopping me from dry heaving.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for my picks. The queen found them while I was passed out. She dropped them just out of my reach before she had my mother run the sword through my shoulder.”
His silence settled on the room.
I glanced at him and met his gaze. “You weren’t the first one brought in here.” I pressed my lips together to stop the sudden swell of mental anguish. I needed to focus on getting Henry out of the chains before I could deal with all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. “My sacrifice paled in comparison to what our friends sacrificed.”
My fingers brushed over a bump on the floor, and I stopped, digging my nails against the rock until a small pin pressed into my finger. I scooped it up and wiped it on the cleanest spot I could find on my shirt. I crossed and knelt down, undoing his ankle shackles before I released his hands.
The metal clanged on the floor as he pulled me into his arms, holding me as tight as I had held him a few moments before.
“I need to get out of this room,” I whispered, and he turned us toward the door. I broke his grip. “Wait.” I turned and crossed to the pool, then stepped into the layer of blood and gore coating the stairs. This time I did gag, but that beautiful steel blade had saved my life and I was not going to leave it behind.
With the sword clasped in my hand, and Henry’s arm wrapped around my waist, we became the first captives to ever walk out of the queen’s kill room.