Page 17 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

A hand grabbed my shoulder from behind, burning cold and searing hot at the same time.

The hand yanked, and then I was falling. Falling. FALLING.

No ground beneath me, no cliffs beside me, no river in front of me, just falling into a pit of inky nothingness as the screams grew louder and louder.

I woke on a gasp,my body recalling the nightmare as if it were real. My skin was cold yet hot at the same time, sweat beading on my neck and then freezing as it rolled down into my hair. My chest was heaving and my breath was coming in pants as visions flooded me. The nightmare had been familiar, yet not, filled with ice and shadows and screams. This nightmare was no different from the others in that as soon as I woke up, the finer details slipped from my grasp, no matter how tightly I tried to hold onto them, leaving only the lingering feeling of cold and fear.

And so I lay there, staring up at the ceiling of my new room in this prison of a castle as I caught my breath. Already, the images were fading, but I knew the feelings would linger for the rest of the day. Light was shining between the cracks in the heavy curtains across the windows, tinged red by the damning mist, but bright enough that I knew I’d been asleep quite a while.

I could not shake the discomfort from this dream, the feeling of claws skittering down my neck and heavy eyes on me, the sounds of distant screaming and sobs of people I never saw. Sleep would not return today, not without immediately pulling me back into the constant hellscape of my nightmares.

Perhaps this extra time would allow me to explore the castle more while most everyone else was still sleeping.

Rising from the bed, I finally took a moment to examine my room. I’d been far too tired last night, far too tired to even climb beneath the blankets, but now, I was practically vibrating with energy. The room itself was nice, small yet still more opulently furnished than our entire house had been. Two large windows took up most of the western wall to my right, and in front of the bed was a small sitting area tucked against the wall.

A wardrobe along the other side stood between the bed and another door, which led to a bathing chamber with a large bathtub and vanity that I was certain would be the only positive of my enduring stay at Castle Auretras.

It was a room far better than most other servants could ever claim, so I supposed it would be wise to accept without fuss.

When I spun back around towards the bed, I had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming as I slammed myself back against the wall. As my mind caught up with my eyes and I recognized the cat-shaped shadow perched on the end of my bed, my heart began to slow.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed at it. My hand moved down to cup my throat, feeling my pulse skitter beneath my fingers. “How did you even get in here?”

It merely tilted its head to the side. As with everything about this strange cat, the movement was beyond the norm a cat could tilt its head, its entire head now perpendicular to the ground as if its neck had been broken and the head was just flopping over to the side. Thankfully, the motion did not linger, and it hopped from the bed and prowled past me.

My bedroom door swung open as it approached.

“I am not following you,” I said as it stopped in the open doorway, looking back at me. There were many things people had called me, but stupid had never been one of them. And I knew that following a Soulshade cat out into this castle when the door opened on its own accord was the very definition of something stupid. “I will find my way on my own.”

It huffed.

“I will not.”

The bright yellow of its eyes seemed to glow brighter and a cold breeze rushed into the room from behind me. The curtains shifted, though I knew I had not opened the window. Unease churned in my stomach. I’d never seen a Soulshade be able to manipulate the living world before, and though I could not rule out that all of them could do it, it made me that much more apprehensive of this creature.

While leaving the room might have been ill-advised, I couldn’t deny that I was curious. I wanted to learn more about this place and the people inside. Besides, disobeying the Soulshade cat seemed to be far more dangerous to my current condition than venturing out into the castle. So I straightened my dress as best I could, pulling my hair from the messy twist it had been in and smoothing it down before following the cat to the door. “Fine. But only because I was already planning to leave.”

I hadn’t been expecting an answer, not in words, at least. Just like the night before, the cat led me down the hallway, twisting around corners while hugging its body along the walls. It made my skin crawl, the unnaturalness of the shadowed being, so I avoided looking at it as much as possible.

After a handful of more ornately decorated hallways, it stopped in front of a set of wooden double doors with roses and thorn-covered vines carved into the facade. It sat, tail twitching as it looked up at the door handle and then at me.

“Oh, you cannot open this one on your own?” I groused. Turning the handle, I pushed the door open.

The smell hit me first. Old parchment, leather, ink. I inhaled the scents deeply, relishing them. It had been too long since I had been in the presence of this many books.

I looked down at the cat, my heart strangely soft and my eyes strangely damp. “Thank you for showing me this.”

It lifted its paw and licked at it once, twice, three times before putting it straight out like it was pointing.

Following its guidance, I peered further into the library only to see a familiar figure. The broad shoulders of a man and messy dark hair. His back was to us, but I knew without an inkling of doubt that this was the man from the night before, the one who had seen me in the balcony. The door swung shut behind us, the click of a lock sounding.

I glared down at the cat. “Traitor.”

“I know you are there. The cat did not need to tell me.”

When I looked back up, the man had spun to face me, the corner of his lip quirked up. And then the room tilted.

My vision blurred and I blinked, shaking my head in a failed attempt to clear it. The library had turned into my nightmares, the shelves of books replaced by a barren landscape of jagged black rocks, of ice-cold air, and shadows undulating along the walls.No, NO!

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