Queen Of The Great Underworld

25

4. Darkness had a sinister way about it. Any noise, even my own breath, became a threat. Every time I faded into sleep, I lurched awake once more, startled by the sensation of the darkness devouring me.

5. I hated it.

I spent as much time as possible cataloging my thoughts on darkness, organizing them in my mind to hold the terror at bay. But as time crept by—at a pace I couldn’t discern without light—the pages of my mental lists began to scatter apart. Thirst and hunger made it hard to think.

I tried to be frugal, nibbling here and there, taking tiny sips of water only when thirst threatened to overtake me.

Now, I reached inside my bag and found only a sliver of cheese and one apple core. I ate the cheese. I sucked the remaining fruit off the core.

And that was it. The food was gone. The water was gone.

My mind scrambled for lists and numbers, but a fog drifted through my thoughts, preventing movement. Connection.

I tried to sleep, and I must have lost consciousness for a while, because when I awakened, my body screamed with thirst. I could feel my skin cracking and crumbling. I could feel my tongue scraping the back of my throat. I could feel my eyelids fall like sand over my eyes.

In the unwavering silence, I heard the drops of water falling from Aaru’s ceiling and landing with a faint plop into his cup. Eventually the sound of the water drops changed, deepening as the cup grew fuller, and then the hiss of a small splash followed.

The cup was full. Overflowing. I shoved my hand through the hole like I’d really be able to grab the water. I shoved my arm, even my shoulder, as far through the hole as I could reach, but my own body blocked me. If my arms were longer. If I were tiny. If I were able to change into smoke and float through the hole and dive into the water . . .

A hysterical giggle fell out of me. If I could change into smoke, I’d be able to escape the Pit, guards none the wiser.

As quickly as the laugh happened, I stopped it. I buried it. My heart thrummed in my ears, but that was an inside-me sound. It wouldn’t break the silence. Not the way a laugh would. Besides, who laughed in prison?

A headache raged behind my eyes, and deep, aching thirst festered inside me. Hunger, too, but mostly that desperate thirst for the water in the next cell. It was there. So close. With only a wall between that cup and me.

Why hadn’t my parents freed me yet? They should have been working night and day to secure my release, and how hard could it be to convince the Luminary Council of my importance?

What if Mother and Father weren’t even trying?

What if I really was meant to stay here forever?

Give me peace, I prayed. Give me grace. And then: Save me, Darina. Save me, Damyan. Cela, cela.

But the only answer was the smothering dark.

I CLAWED AT the wall, desperate for the water on the other side.

I passed out, exhausted from my struggles.

I counted my own raspy breaths until even my numbers failed me because they, too, needed to be fed. Sometimes, I dreamed of rushing rivers. Wide rivers. With giant green plants growing on the banks and thousands of fish swimming along the current. And a chef to . . . do whatever it was that people did to prepare fish for eating.

Distantly, I was bored. Of not moving. Of not seeing. Of not hearing. Even if I’d had food or water left, I’d have devoured it all just for something to do. Sometimes, I felt like I was floating.

A day or a million years after Yarrow locked me in the dark, I finally heard a noise. A sharp clang of metal smacking metal.

Alertness flooded my body. I tensed, c****d my head, and listened around the thud of my own heartbeat, but the sound didn’t return.

Perhaps I’d imagined it. Mother always said what an imagination I had.

Wait. No, she didn’t say that about me. She said that about Zara, her favorite daughter. Pookiewith the imagination. Pookiewith the perfect grades. Pookiewho got to stay out late and could spend entire days in her nightgown if she didn’t have anything better to do.

Pookiewho didn’t interfere where she didn’t belong. Pookiewho hadn’t ended up in the Pit. Pookiewho was probably eating an enormous meal right now, of big, flaky cloudfish seasoned with a thousand different spices, sitting on a bed of quinoa and cheese and spinach.

She’d probably complain about it. She hated spinach. And cheese. And good things.

Right now, I hated imaginary Zara.

I’d give anything to see her again.

The clang came again. It had definitely been real.

As quietly as possible, I pushed myself onto my elbows and leaned out from under the bed. I listened hard, holding my breath so the noise of air rushing through my nose wouldn’t deafen me. But that made my heart beat louder, heavier, and my chest ached with a different kind of starvation. I dropped my mouth open and pulled a breath through a wide-open throat, but air scraped my raw and parched flesh.

Only silence waited in the darkness. Even when I squinted and tried to see through the sticky blackness, there was nothing.

A swarm of dizzying winds fluttered through my head. My throat ached from the air, and I had to drop back to the floor and breathe regularly. I closed my scratchy eyes, praying for relief. Praying for tears. Maybe if I could cry . . .

My body was too dry to cry. My body was a desert. I touched my rough, swollen tongue to my lips. Cracked. Split. Blood crusted in the creases. And when I ran my fingers across my forearm, skin hissed against skin. Skin flaked off. Muscle flaked off. My fingers dragged against bone. I was falling apart.