Page 60 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
None of them places I wanted to find myself in.
Shivering from the top of my head down to my numb toes, I turned around.
The servants’ stairs spidered through every castle and fortress I’d even stepped foot in. Dax and Dara liked to hide in the ones at Grandpa Constantine’s mansion when we were playing, taunting Clara and I through the walls.
I rushed to the end of the corridor, making so many turns, I was sure I wouldn’t find my way back.
My gaze flitted from one doorknob to the next.
Too polished, too perfect.
The door I was searching for needed to look like it had been used by hundreds of overworked hands daily.
Finally, mercifully, my gaze landed on a simple door handle which had lost its lustre right in the middle.
When I opened it, a cold wave hit me so fast, I couldn’t breathe for a few moments.
My bloody, tattered dress was of no use in this weird place. I might as well have been walking around as naked as Lunara did during the full moon.
A spiral of stone stretched above and below me. The walls were peppered with small windows barely big enough to jut out a hand–or fire an arrow. The steps were indented and worn in the middle.
This must have been a defense tower used for everything other than warfare.
My bare feet slapped against the stone as I forced myself to climb. The stones were so cold, I was afraid each of them took off a layer of my skin.
The small windows and the snow beyond them made it difficult to discern more than I already had.
The surrounding buildings were starting to take a grimmer shape with each level. These houses were long and low, but their roofs ended in tall, mean points at the front and back, like they were trying to spear the heavens.
Arrogant buildings fit for an arrogant leader.
Cursing the Commander spurred me on, even as my lungs protested each step. Right now, it was easier to let anger guide me than have despair claim me.
The nerve of him, making me sayplease.
As if I didn’t have manners.
As if I was nothing but a youngling back in school, chastised by her strict, disapproving tutor.
And I was supposed to marryhim?
I would have rather chucked myself out of this tower.
By the time I reached the end of the stairs, I’d imagined a million different ways I’d make him sorry for treating me like that and for his lies.
I pulled myself up by the worn stone banister, rather than climb with my now uncooperative legs.
Just like the pain had faded during my training days in the sun, I’d get accustomed to this cold ache spreading through me now, long enough to find a way to free myself.
I leaned down, hands on my knees, back rippling with desperate breaths. I didn’t know how long it took my heart to stop trying to beat itself out of me, but when I finally rose, I found myself in an octagonal turret, bare except for a fraying door shaken by the winds–and seven more stairs that stood between me and it, as if mocking me.
The gusts hissed between the door’s battered planks.
I knew I’d be facing a mean snow storm this high up, but I wasn’t prepared for the force of the wind to slap me back as I opened the door. I had to hang on to the chipping wood to keep from tumbling all the way back down.
Teeth barred, arms tensed to their limits, I pulled myself back toward the opening.
The snowflakes felt like daggers against my skin.
