The Secret World of Briar Rose(13)
“She won’t be sleeping for long,” Ezran said. “But you will.”
His sword plunged through the wardrobe as Corin jumped to the side and barely missed the blade. She kicked the door open to Ezran’s chest and lunged forward, slashing his face with the metal handle of the comb. She felt like she’d cut hard marble, some precious art that had been preserved for centuries, one so valuable that her life would be taken as penance for tainting it.
Blood spurted from his cheek as he reared back, buying her a fraction of time to escape the chamber. She ripped off the door handle behind her and jammed the comb into the hole to trap him inside.
At the staircase, she glanced back and forth between both directions, her mind screaming to make a choice. Go downstairs and run away. Go upstairs and find a sliver of a chance that Elly would be there.
She chose when Ezran’s sword smashed through the door.
Spiral steps spun in her dizzying vision as she ran up the stairs. Her body was failing her, too weak, too starved. Ezran’s boots slapped against concrete, charging close. His sword slashed her heels when they reached the top. She let out a cry as she rammed open a wooden door, the entrance bursting under the weight of her collapse. The three women inside the room gasped at the stranger bleeding before them, as if uncovering a malformed creature lunging from the dark. Corin had bruises and open sores everywhere, blooming like ripe plums over a wretched face. She looked worse than an intruder. She looked like a madwoman.
Maybe she had gone mad after all. Because as she looked up, she swore the girl sleeping inside the tower was the princess herself.
Satin sheets tucked the girl’s pale body in a billowing mattress. Blond hair spilled over pillows and lace, while a vine of flowers wrapped around her head like a crown. The flowers were the color of bruises, wrinkled and small and yet to bloom, too ordinary an accessory compared to the extravagance that surrounded her. In contrast, a garden of roses covered the wooden frame of the bed like a blanket. The largest one bloomed on the left side of the girl’s chest, bright red like bloodstain.
Everything was alive, while the girl looked like she was already dead. Her skin was ashen, her lips more gray than pink. One of the women had lifted the girl’s arm, so that at the tip of her finger, a drop of blood gleamed under the light. Instead of dripping down her hand, the bead floated in the air, a small, swirling orb of red.
Corin’s attention snapped to Ezran as he grabbed her by the collar. The slash she made across his face had already disappeared. She didn’t understand how marble could restore its cracks, while her broken body retained every wound in permanent memory.
His face, in its pristine condition, came closer to her broken one. His breath was cold as he snarled, “You don’t belong here, thief.”
Ezran swung his arm back, his sword ready to plunge into flesh, as she braced for the pain. It came not as darkness, but a blinding white flash. Instead of a blade puncturing, her skin tingled under light. The sound of a distant bell shook the tower, followed by the crackle of air being torn apart.
A hole opened like a glowing mouth. Not on the floor, or the wall behind the bed, but in the empty space above the girl’s head. The flowers in her hair lifted in bloom. Their purple bruises washed away into pure white. Petals swirled in the air, the smell of floral mixing with blood.
Then, from the other side, Corin heard her sister.
Elly’s voice came from inside the hole, breathy and far away. It reached for Corin’s skin, gripping onto her bones, tugging her veins like invisible string. Corin could recognize that voice anywhere, even as a distant echo. Her sister was there. Somehow, she was inside, calling for Corin.
Suddenly nothing else mattered. Not the cluster of women shouting, not the tightening grip of Ezran’s hand on her collar. He tried pulling her away, but she would not let him take this from her. She swung her fist, barely felt the hard crack against his face or the dent in his cold skin. Her legs sprinted forward, chasing Elly’s voice, as the tether between them tightened. She leapt to the opening and let light swallow her body. Ezran’s presence dissolved behind her like grains of sand slipping through an hourglass. The sleeping princess vanished. The women’s shouts turned to echoes. The room spun in a blinding blur. Her vision filled with white, burning so brightly that she could not tell if she had met or escaped death.
As she crossed over, Elly’s voice turned clearer.
She’s real, Corin.
Corin could have sworn she heard her sister laughing.
I told you so.
CHAPTER 6
102 YEARS AGO
AMELIA TREKKED THROUGH the forest, her boots sinking into snow. White coated the bare trees surrounding her, and bits of crystal fell on her cheeks like teardrops. In the distance, the sun barely rose over the castle, hitting her eyeline. She blinked hard from the winter light, pulled the collar of her wool jacket to her chin, and winced at the air nipping her face.
A bulky figure walked beside her, cloaked in bear fur to blend with the towering trees. His muddy footprints were so large they could swallow her own feet. Amelia didn’t understand why her father took her to the woods. Winters in Gyldan were so cold that even wild faeries hibernated in the forest, refusing to come out unless humans tantalized them with jewelry and coins. She had asked her godmothers to accompany them on their trip, but they preferred lounging around the castle, content with their crackling furnace and wool blankets made from rabbit fur.