Page 72 of The Cerulean Sister
I should not have followed him.
He watches me with a smug look. I am at his mercy and he knows it.
On reflex, I press as hard as I can into my tether for Calliape, but there is nothing. I’m stuck in place, screaming internally, calling out to her, but she can't hear me.
He waits, his hand extended.
And then his patience snaps. "Grab her," he commands.
The two nearest guards happily grip me by my arms. Their violent digits dig into my skin as if I am thrashing to get away, but I remain still.
"I am cooperating, Lord Hollis! But I will have my confessions heard. I will atone to the temple and to First Mother."
He takes a dramatic step toward me. "Yes, yes, of course, salvation awaits."
There is something so terrifying about his tone and the way the light from the candles blacks out his eye sockets and makes his smile look feline.
I glance at one of the guards out of the corner of my eye, trying to get any indication of the reason for taking me down intothe belly of the Estate. I know it's useless, but I try to pull my arm away from him, slowly moving it toward my body, but his grasp tightens like two crushing rocks.
I wince and pull back more, and the guard on the other side with the same frozen expression restrains me.
I lose control, pulling in every direction I can, fighting as if I am drowning, like the restriction will continue to tighten until I am choked out.
"Calm yourself." Lord Hollis touches my cheek.
A sharp, zapping pain shoots through me, starting from his fingertips and travelling to the bottom of my feet like a strange current.
Then a numbness washes over every muscle and I go slack, not able to hold myself up or speak, only pant for breath as if I have been running for hours.
"There, that's better, pet."
My head bobs to the front and I watch the stone floor pass us by as the two giant guards hold my limp body up, dragging me along. My feet scuff and fall down each step.
The floor changes abruptly, and we are walking at a slow decline, the tile turning to larger, raw-cut stone, and then I realize there is only one thing under the Estate and that is where I am being taken.
Lord Hollis is bringing me to the dungeons.
Chapter
Twenty
The sound of trickling water on stone rouses me from whatever state Lord Hollis has put me in. I can taste the metallic residue of blood in my mouth when I can finally lift my head. I'm propped up in a chair by invisible restraints that hold my torso against the hard backing. My wrists ache from unseen ropes tied tightly on the armrests.
The roughly cut wall in front of me is wet, like the stone itself is sweating. Beads of moisture pool at the base, a thinly cut troth of faster moving water, carrying it from one end of the room to the other.
The torches behind me cast golden, dancing shapes on the glistening wall, leaving the shadow of my sitting silhouette empty and dark.
I follow the glow, tracking with my eyes to gain a sense of place, desperate to know where I am. The light stops in one corner, getting lost on the entire wall next to it, and then I realize it's not a wall but rather open on that side.
I stare hard at the opening, long obstructions catching vertical reflections of the light.
Bars.
This is a cell and that side has bars.
I'm in the dungeons below the Estate where they keep murders, thieves, and the people who commit crimes against the temple. Those waiting for execution for treason. I have done something worse than treason in the eyes of the temple. I have made the priestess order look weak.
I think of how 99 will react when he realizes the temple has lied, that they have accepted me back under false pretenses that I would be forgiven like others who have strayed by simply confessing my sins.
