The ceiling soared so far above us, painted with the sun and clouds, the stars and moon, the details so beautifully wrought one could almost believe it was the sky, the unimaginable scope of it, day and night, magically condensed into this one room. The hall was much longer than it was wide, and the walls were covered in an assortment of weapons, huge, heavy, brutal things that sent a shiver over my skin. But nothing could compare to the wall made almost entirely of windows directly across from us. They were two stories high, like the ones in the library, but rather than a view of the gardens and the hedge, these windows looked down on nothing—and everything. I knew from the view in the library, and the painting I’d found, that the hall abutted the sheerest cliff imaginable, with a waterfall flowing directly beneath it from the underground river that our well tapped into, tumbling several hundred—maybe even a thousand—feet to the valley floor below, the bottom of it lost in a bed of mist.
And in the middle of the windows was a short staircase that led up to a single, massive door.
Something went through me, a thrill that danced up my spine. A call that spoke to me beyond the narrow confines of sound, beckoning to me.
“Please tell me you’re not planning on trying to open that door.”
I swallowed an unexpected laugh. “I wasn’t expecting to find a door. It can’t be that easy, can it?”
“But where would it go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a staircase below it to a secret cavern or something?” Though the painting hadn’t shown anything like that, so I doubted it. “The door to nowhere,” I whispered.
“What?” Halvor glanced at me.
“‘The door to nowhere’ because even if it could be opened, what would you do that for? To jump?”
There was a pause, and then: “Or what if … what if that’s the gateway?” Halvor’s voice, though hushed, still echoed through the empty room, reverberating back to us from the motionless weapons hanging on the walls on either side of us. We moved steadily toward the staircase, passing through the massive room, my eyes roaming over the ornate workmanship that had carved the thick wood and iron into whorls and swirls; the designs reminiscent of the beautiful ironwork of the gate outside, when the hedge peeled back enough to reveal it.
“The gateway,” I repeated, so soft it was barely audible, and yet a shudder went through me. Was it my imagination or had the trembling originated from the stones beneath me, as though the citadel itself shivered in—what? Anticipation? Fear?
I shook my head. The night was getting to me. It was just a building—stone and mortar and nothing more.
But, then again, the hedge was just leaves and thorns and vines.
“It can’t be the gateway. Why would it be on the edge of a cliff—and surrounded by glass windows? The rakasa would never have made it to Vamala, they would have been trapped here,” I pointed out, forcing away the strange trepidation.
“Well, it wasn’t like this when the gateway first opened again,” Halvor explained. We reached the base of the staircase and stopped, both of us staring up at the strange, useless door. “The original citadel was in ruins when the rakasa came back. The Paladin who came through to defend Vamala rebuilt it like this—intentionally, I would guess, because that is no ordinary glass.” He paused, then turned to me. “Zuhra, why did you ask me how strong Paladin glass was?”
I made myself turn away from the door—though it was a struggle to do so for some reason—and looked to the glass on either side of it. “I can’t stay here forever,” I began slowly. “I have to escape. We have to escape. I thought … maybe we could break the glass.”
“And then what—jump?” he echoed my earlier question.
“No, of course not. I don’t want to die.” I turned to him. “I’ve thought about it a lot. There’s a waterfall somewhere below this room, right? So that means there has to be a tunnel or something where the river is flowing. If we break the window, we could attach a rope in here and climb down to wherever that waterfall is coming from. If we have to,” I continued when he looked about ready to object, “we can climb all the way down the whole damn mountain. But I can’t live here for the rest of my life, locked up with my mother and all of…” I waved my hand around to encompass the room, the citadel, the hedge—my entire tiny world.
Halvor was quiet for a long moment. “And where would you find rope strong enough and long enough to accomplish this?”
I tried not to let myself grin. “Sami and I found a bunch of it in the stables a couple of years ago. We’ve never had any use for it, so it should still be there.”
“Heavy rope? Strong enough for full-grown adults to climb down?” He stepped toward the windows, pressing his hand against the glass as if testing the thickness.
“No, it’s some old twine. You don’t think that would work?”
Halvor spun around in disbelief—until he noticed my pursed lips and cocked eyebrow. “Oh. You’re mocking me.”
“No, I’m teasing you. You insulted me by asking such a question. Of course it’s thick, strong rope. I wouldn’t have considered this plan otherwise.”
“Right. Of course.” He had the grace to look chastised. “Since you have obviously thought this through quite a bit already, how do you intend to break the window? Paladin glass is extremely strong. Honestly, I’m not sure what it would take to shatter it.”
“I don’t know.” Then my gaze focused on the wall behind him. I gestured to the side of the room. “Would one of those do the trick?”
His eyes widened. “I should hope so.”
I wasn’t exactly familiar with weaponry, but the ones hanging on the walls appeared to be pretty terrifying—and hefty—in my opinion. I wasn’t even sure I would be able to lift some of the larger ones on my own, but with Halvor’s help …
“Which one do you think will work best?” I headed toward a massive ball with spikes all over the surface, attached to a long, thick piece of wood. “This one looks promising.”
“That mace probably weighs as much as you do,” Halvor commented.
“Then come help me.”
“You want to do this now?” He came up beside me.
“Of course. Sami can’t keep drugging my mother, night after night. This is our chance.” I reached out toward the mace, as Halvor had called it, but right at that moment I thought I heard something and paused with my hand outstretched. “Did you hear—”
“Zuhra!”
My name echoed through the citadel, a little louder this time, accompanied by the slapping of feet against the stone floors. Halvor and I shared an alarmed glance and then I sprinted back across the room, toward Sami, who was still shouting my name. Something horrible must have happened for her to be so reckless, even with my mother having taken a sleeping draught.
“Sami, I’m here!”
She was already halfway down the hallway when I burst out of the Hall of Miracles, my heart in my throat.
Sami reached for me as if she could will me to her side; her face was mottled red and sweat slipped down her cheeks, dampening her gray hairline. “Zuhra—it’s Inara—she’s missing!”