In the Shadow of the Goddess (Book 1 of The Fallen Gods Trilogy)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jill moved to the stairs at a pace that belied her panic: sedate, tranquil, unconcerned. It took all she was just to keep to that stride. Self-preservation wouldn't allow her to think about the fates of other prisoners she'd left behind, about the two people she'd just seen die, about the fact that she'd lied just to save her own life. The guilt she felt at being too useless to save them could come later. Now, all she wanted was to get as far from Nikolos as possible.

Despite her best intentions, she began to run as she climbed. She fell, banged her knees, skinned her right palm and tore her glove, hit her shoulder and cheek on the wall. The pain didn't even register. At the last, she hoisted her dress up to her thighs, threw off the blood-drenched golden cloak, and tumbled up the remaining steps.

At the top, she burst through the door, swinging around wildly to slam it closed. With shaking fingers, she fought with the door's bolt and slid it home with all the subtlety of a gunshot. The screams from below were abruptly muffled, but not gone. Or, was she just hearing them echoing in her own head? Didn't know. Couldn't think any further.

But with the bolt sliding home, something inside her broke. Huge sobs exploded from her chest, following by frenzied panting. Rationally, she knew she was hysterical and had to calm down. Had to plan her next move. Had to get the hell out of Priva Keep. Instead, she sank to the floor, huddling in her torn and bloody dress with her head between her knees, and cried.

Her mind looped back to the boy. Evidence of her guilt was on her face, hands, and arms, drying in crusting streaks. She held her shaking palms in front of her face, staring at them as if they belonged to someone else. There was something on her right forearm. A glob of...something. Yelping, Jill swiped at it and sent it flying down the cold, badly-lit corridor.

Behind her, beyond the locked door, the screaming intensified. Jill stiffened. The Butcher of Brinn was working his way through the caged prisoners, picking them off one by one until he'd taken the edge off his rage and temporarily blunted his hatred of Tamas. She knew that now, had caught that in his thoughts—though how she'd caught it was not something she wanted to speculate on. Rather, she hauled herself to her feet, picked a direction, and ran blindly. Anything to get away from the screams, the guilt.

Working from memory, she picked her way back to the Keep's main entrance. Just up another flight of stairs and...

A flurry of servants rushed by at the top of the stairs. Jill flinched in fear, but she wasn't even spared a glance. They passed her blindly, carrying a heavy bucket between them. Two other servants followed closely on their heels. Jill rushed her way to the top, and stopped. The smell of smoke hit her first: thick, dense, and black. It coated the lungs like paint, seeming to choke the air out of her. Torn, she hesitated before raising up the last few stairs.

She gasped. Fire. She'd found the entrance way with its horrific tapestries, but the way was blocked. All the tapestries were all on fire.

Servants hurried frantically, emptying their buckets onto the blaze in an effort to douse the fire. Some coughed, collapsing from the smoke and the heat. They were either stepped over and ignored or pulled back from the flames. In every case, it looked like they were fighting a losing battle. However the fires had started, all the tapestries would be completely destroyed.

She nearly collapsed out of sheer hopelessness. Desperate, she backtracked down the steps and ran without thinking. Now she had two things to get away from; both were equally deadly.

I'm lost, she noted two flights of stairs and three long hallways later. Completely and utterly lost.

Spurts of tears streamed down her cheeks, coming and going with the panic squeezing her heart. She tried another corridor, her shoes clicking on the black and white checked marble tiles. Like the rest, this one was dimly-lit, nearly windowless, covered with awful tapestries and containing a few scattered chairs. She tried the door at the end, fought with the heavy brass handle, and found herself in a dining room. It seemed the length of a high school gymnasium and she stopped on the threshold, taking in the two empty fireplaces and the enormous wood table that looked like it could seat fifty or sixty people. This room had windows covered with heavy blue drapes on one side of the wall, and large portraits featuring bloody battle scenes on the other. Like the rest of the Keep, excluding the dungeon and the entrance hall, the room was deserted.