Something With a Prince

Chapter Thirty-Five: Take it With You

Tallethea

I arrived at the correct hallway with a few minutes to spare, granting me enough time to browse over my options of weapon. By options I mean selecting between a small knife and a tiny dagger.

Spread about a foot apart on a small table, the first fit my palm well, with a standard black hilt and embellished handle of wood. It was flimsy looking and poorly balanced as well as dull. The second was barely large enough to fit over three fingers on the handle, quite like the daggers purse-pickers use to cut open bags. It was ornate and gleaming in the morning light. It was also sharp beyond belief. The only other thing was a thick leather vest which I very quickly and happily put on, enjoying the warmth and security of not just being in my undershirt anymore.

It was all a joke, completely and totally. Unless I was pairing fruit for my next challenge there was no chance these would do me any good. For a moment, I looked around the hallway to see if I could find anything better to take in with me, but there was nothing more than the rug beneath my feet and a locked door in front of me. No other doors populated the walls, which seemed to sigh at the slightest breeze despite being made of stone. Shivers raced up my arms and back, as I took a deep breath and pulled the knife from the table. It wouldn't do much damage without force, but it was better than going in blind and wielding a toothpick. Turning it over in my hands, the knife felt like holding bone, far too light and arid. Fragile. I would have put it back, but the moment I selected it the other disappeared.

That's when the windows shattered into the hallway, glass flying into my face and hair, ripping at the skin of my hands. A storm-like haze drifted across the floor, curling around my feet, and dampening my boots.

Click click. Scrawwwwwk.

Pivoting on my toes, I met the door as it swung open to a black and rainy sky. The mist clawed up my legs, pushing me into the rain. Wind tore through the hallway like a scream, scattering over the stone and ripping around my ears and hair. Stumbling forward through the open doorway, lightning cracked overhead as the door slammed shut behind me. Ice cold raindrops drenched me within seconds, and my boots squelched in thick black mud. Instinct begged me to try the door again, to beat against it with my fists until it opened, but that was beyond pointless.

So, I faced forward, willing my knees and legs to move me through the sludge and into the crackling eye of the storm. Visibility was nonexistent, but dead ahead was a yellow glowing light. A clearly cursed and deadly light, so deceptively welcoming in its glow that I almost wished to stay in the rain. But this, of course, wasn't an average rainstorm. The droplets falling from the sky were so cold I was getting slivers of ice stuck in my skin. Stinging, aching, shooting slivers that melted under my flesh and attacked my blood. On top of that, the mud was sucking me under. Living and rolling under my boots, it caked my calves and bubbled with every step. Tripping and teetering me around like a rag doll as I tried to pick up my pace.

Lighting cracked violet over a midnight sky, giving me just enough light to be afraid. The thunder was deafening. A kind of thunder that knocks the air out of you and rattles the bones in your ears and chest. Every time it rolled, I felt as if I were being shoved to the ground, sound beating down on my shoulders. The world was empty except for that light, and the chaos it commanded. I screamed as lightning split over my head, getting closer. Static pulled at the hairs of my arms, and I ran. I ran like hell. Pressing through that mud and thunder with everything I had until I was somersaulting into the light, landing hard on my back.

My hair clung to me in freezing strands, coating my forehead, neck, and back as it hung in mad curls and tangles. Even the leather around my torso seemed more constricting as I gasped for breath and took in my surroundings.