Ruin (Dark Seasons: Foolish Kingdoms Book 2) by Natalia Jaster

Author:Natalia Jaster [Jaster, Natalia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-29T16:00:00+00:00

20

Briar

I hastened through the double doors and shut them behind me. In the darkened throne room, I plastered my back to the partitions as if to ward off intruders. A profusion of heat sloshed in my stomach, forcing me to flatten my palm over it.

Everything ached. Everything scalded.

My body siphoned oxygen, and my heart rate struggled to calm down. I had rushed here after dinner … after hearing what he’d said. I fled in vain as though those words wouldn’t follow me here, as though I had a prayer of resisting them.

Located in a remote section of the castle, the throne room felt detached from the complex. The broad doors muffled any noise traveling through the corridors, any activity beyond.

I craned my head to the ceiling and shut my eyes. After a few minutes, my outtakes slowed. The empty room enveloped me.

Of all my choices for escape, why had I chosen this one? Slumping, I blinked at the space as if it would provide the answer.

It shouldn’t be possible for silence to possess its own sound. But as I stood in the shadowed chamber, a cavernous echo filled the space, like the atmosphere itself was breathing. It gave an illusion that the walls and floor could talk, the architecture emitting a hollow sigh as thin as fog. For such a powerful place, where public decisions were made that would affect a kingdom, the room appeared ancient, secretive, and mysterious.

Father and I used to come here at night too. During those eventides when we explored the castle together, at some point we would end up here. He would tell me stories about the monarchs of old, and I would sit in Mother’s chair, my short legs dangling over the seat. I would pretend I already wore a crown, and Father would pretend to be one of my subjects.

A wistful smile slid across my lips. Perhaps if I listened closely enough, I would hear remnants of our conversations, the memories lingering in this chamber like ghosts.

A large flag hung from the rafters, its facade bearing Autumn’s coat of arms, with its leaves, gilded stalks, intersecting axes, and fox. I stepped gingerly across the glossy floor and ascended the dais, where two chairs presided. Upholstered in supple brown leather and carved with intricate leaves, the high-backed chairs stood in a slash of moonlight. Motes floated in those beams, glittering like pixie dust. It made this place seem archaic, where wonderful and terrible things happened, where judgment and mercy converged.

Battles had been waged and settled in this room. Defeats and victories had been announced here.

The left chair belonged to Mother. The right one was mine.

Stillness permeated the room, so thick it overwhelmed my senses. I could not explain this phenomenon, even to myself. Just as I could not justify many things that had occurred in the past week.

Rhys’s threat. Poet’s dagger.

The meeting to which I’d arrived late. The fight with Poet in my suite.

The things we said to each other. The things we hadn’t said to each other.

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