A Court of Bones and Twilight

Chapter Six

    Knock knock knock.

    The sudden noise made my jump, bolting upright on the luxurious mattress, bo already half raised. I looked around quickly, searching for the threat—and finally realized what I'd heard. Knocking. Someone was knocking on the door. It was so ridiculous it made me want to laugh. I was a prisoner. No matter how nice the room where they'd placed me—and, much to my surprise, it was lovely—I didn't really have a choice of whether or not to answer the door. I was certain that they'd open it themselves if I didn't do it quickly enough. "One minute!" I called to whoever was there, taking my bow and arrows from where I'd put them under the covers the night before—in easy reach.

    Last night, Daor had led my up three flights of stairs and through a maze of hallways I had no hope of backtracking to a plain wooden door. I had been understandably surprised from the moment we started going up instead of down. I had been expecting a dungeon. However, the room on the other side of that door had born no resemblance to my dank, rat infested imaginings. This room was not only clean, there was a deep, cushioned chair in dark violet, and the largest, softest bed I've ever seen. There was a plush rug between the two, that I wanted nothing more than to walk back and forth on without my boots. There was also a tall, well stocked bookcase against one wall, in the area one might normally expect a window in such a nice room—clearly they weren't willing to give me an escape route in whatever strange attempt this was to show consideration to the upcoming torture victim, even if they had left me my weapons.

    Best of all though, was the door in the wall beside the bed, which led to a small, private washroom. When I'd arrived last night, and finished checking over the room for threats, the first thing I did was strip off my clothes and scrub of the forest grit that had built up over the past few days—we couldn't wash much with all the streams frozen. Now I was back in my leather leggings and my boots and my long sleeved white cotton shirt, the collar laced up loosely, my quiver back across my chest, and both my bow and my bo strapped to it. I gave my fur lined coat a long, assessing stare. I didn't want to risk not having it if I got a chance to escape... but on the other hand, it might prove too cumbersome in an escape. In the end I decided to compromise, pulling off my quiver to slip on the lighter weight, unlined doeskin jacket that I usually wore under the coat. I did up the laces quickly, and restrapped my quiver. I was as ready as I'd ever be for whatever hell they were planning.

    I swung open the door without warning, hoping that if someone was waiting to attack, they would have been lulled into laxness by the minutes it took me to get ready. I needn't have bothered. It was Daor again, standing just where he had left me last night with a bland expression on his face. I allowed my muscles to relax, although I continued scanning the hall nearby. Empty. Daor gestured to the right. "Please follow me miss," he said, and turned to walk in the direction he'd pointed out.

    I trotted after him. Miss? I thought with amusement. He seriously called me miss? I was a seemingly feral leathphór prisoner. Those must have been some intense rules of etiquette they enforced here.

    He lead me though more twisting corridors, up and up a few more flights, and eventually over one of those horrific open top bridges that led between various towers. I looked straight ahead at Daor's back, careful not to look down. Just the knowledge of how high up I was, of how one wrong step or strong wind could be the end of me was more than enough to make me sick. I didn't know what the High Fae were thinking, building something like this. Then again, their magic would probably be enough to save them if they were to fall, and I suppose it wouldn't matter much to them if the occasional servant took a dive onto the palace roof or the flagstones far below.

    I breathed a sigh of relief once we were inside again, and followed Daor up another flight of stairs, where he led me to a spiral staircase. If it weren't for years of physical conditioning, I probably would have long since collapsed from exhaustion from all these stairs. This spiral set was different from the others. An iron latticework of twisting pieces that all interconnected to resemble a spill of clouds of some sort—a hurricane, maybe. We climbed until the staircase ran out in a small hallway with a door on either side.

    Daor took me to the one on the right, knocking twice and opening the door with hardly a moment's pause. The room we entered took my breath away.

    Sculptures. They were everywhere, complicated works in all sorts of strange forms. Here was a man with the face of a lion, holding a slim dagger with jagged edges, head cocked and staring down at the body of a woman with deer hooves, her face frozen in gut wrenching agony. There was a great, wormlike creature, with viciously sharp teeth tearing through dozens of tiny people, who scrambled around it with crude spears. Past that was a girl with bat wings and wolf's eyes, a dead expression on her face as she squeezed what appeared to be a human—or faerie—heart, so blood dripped over her hand, the other hand gripping a broken arrow. There were dozens more, a room filled with works frozen in white clay, so detailed they could have been real creatures frozen in stone. I shoved away my surprise and wove after Daor, my eyes still running over each of the pieces. As we neared the far side of the room, the sculptures became fewer, until we passed what was obviously the artist's work station. Sheets of canvas covered a section of the wooden floor, and on it was a half formed lump of clay, just beginning to take on a humanoid shape. I couldn't even tell yet whether it was male or female, but it appeared to be holding its arms out in front of it for... something.

Then we were past all the sculptures and standing in front of yet another set of stairs. This set was simple wood, and led us up to a spacious loft area. A ladder ran beside them as an alternate route. I sucked in a breath.

"What is this?" I asked quietly.

A chuckle like dark wind rose from the nearby shadows. "I believe you already know the answer to that, half-breed."

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