When Blood Runs Cold - Chapter 253

Bursting into my room, I round on the awaiting Reshma, breathing heavily after my sprint down the corridor. For a moment she stands there in shock, quivering slightly at the sudden intrusion before she realises that the intruder is, in fact, me.

“Jeez Serena,” she grumbles teasingly with a roll of her eyes, flopping back down on the bed against as I hastily jam the jaw shut behind me. She rolls her eyes. “You could have knocked before you came barging on in here like a race horse. I thought you were Azrael!”

“No time,” I inform her quickly, skittering around my room to collect the sparse supplies that I have hoarded over the past few days. Reshma shoots me a strangled look, brows rising on her forehead.

“No… time?”

I don’t bother to tell the brunt of it. Slinging off my disgustingly revealing clothes, I rifle through my wardrobe in pursuit of some more sensible attire for where I am about to be going. Fortunately for me, my wardrobe is delightfully diverse. I shudder to think where exactly all these clothes had come from, or more specifically, who owned them before they came to be stuck here.

“I’m going out there to find the soul again, right now.” I explain breathlessly, tugging on a turtleneck over my chest, fumbling around with the fabric at an irritatingly restricted pace. One last time I reach out to ensure the pendant is slung around my neck, and upon finding it’s weight upon my chest, I sigh a temporary breath of relief. At least I am protected, at least I will be marginally safe now. But it is a short lived victory.

“But Serena,” Reshma whispers through gritted teeth, her eyes darting warily around my room, fearful of being heard. “You told me that last time the soul said she did not want you to find her- she said that she’d find you. You are setting yourself up for failure. How much time do you have?”

Wrinkling my nose, I grab my sachet, tugging it over my shoulder.

“About fifteen minutes, maybe.”

I do not tell her that is a generous estimation. But from the disbelieving look plastered over her face, I can assume she has figured that one out all by herself. Fiddling with one of the pens on my desk to calm her nerves she begins to gnaw on her lip- a nervous habit of hers that really needs to stop. By the amount of times I worry her in a day, at this point she is going to tear through her lip.

“Serena…” she warns with a stern look. I wave her off.

“If I don’t find her, the fate of the King is at stake, the fate of this entire place even. Azrael is getting listless, his attempts so far have been in vain. I need something to pacify him, and right now, the only thing that will do it is a glimpse of the soul. He is starting to doubt, Reshma. What if he starts to doubt me, too? I need her to help me.”

Aghast, Reshma presses herself to the opposite wall.

“You are giving her away?”

Stopping still at the door, I shake my head. At last, I turn to face her.

“Of course I am not! The last thing I want is Azrael to get his dirty hands on a soul. But right now, I need to somehow convince him that the soul is out there, I need to convince him of the King’s integrity or his life is going to slip away very quickly. This is the only good way to do it. I promise you Reshma,” I assure, bowing my head slightly as my fingers grip around my bag. “I am not going to let him take the soul, not now, not ever. That is the last thing I want.”

There is a moment of silence, a second of further time wasted, before Reshma bows her head. The defeat against her features is obvious. Carefully, she puts the pen back down onto my desk.

“Alright,” she relents at last, leaning further back against the wall. “And what do you want me to do?”

Smiling gratefully, I ask:

“I need you to cover me in case I don’t come back in fifteen minutes. Tell Azrael that I have injured myself or something, anything believable that can stall for time. He will be outside his room. But I promise, I will be back as soon as I can.”

“Alright,” Reshma relents, throwing up her hands. “Good luck. But you owe me big time once we get out of this place, you realise that don’t you?” She laughs, leaning in to prod me in the ribs. Realising going in for a hug will only waste more time, I merely nod my head, pulling my sachet further up my shoulder.

“I know, I know. Once we get out, I will order you the finest food from my homeland, how does that sound?”

“Good, but would be better if you threw in a round of drinks too,” she jests with a wink.

Rolling my eyes, I turn to the door.

“Thank you, Reshma” is all I say, and with that, I’m off.

***

Three minutes down on the clock and I have barely made it out the palace let alone into the forest.

“Shit,” I mutter, inspecting the palace grounds for any watchers before slinking out at as high a speed that I can manage without seeming overly suspicious. Fortunately, it would appear that all the men inside are training, or at the very least preparing themselves for the gruelling mission that Azrael is about to set upon them- the weight of their lives hanging about their heads. It would seem the noose has already settled around their necks.

Gulping down my worries as I grip my sachet to keep it in place, I continue running. I can’t afford to let anyone else die today. Already in the past week Azrael has discarded so many faeries that it seems impossible that he still has enough to help run the palace. Yet somehow, he manages, but strangely I have never seen a single body. People simply disappear, and I am left wondering if they are merely dead or have been taken elsewhere.

Azrael has no flame, so he certainly isn’t extracting their souls. But that isn’t the only things you can do with corpses.

But for now, I force myself to forget all this. All my work will have been for nothing if I can’t have him pacified some how. If Asocrates dies, I will be on my own, and Azrael will only get more brutal with his methods, more sadistic, more… clever. I need to keep him less temperamental and more predictable, because having a wild Azrael scampering about the palace adds a whole new level of insanity to this thing.

I doubt I will be able to find the key then, and then I will never get out of this mess.

So I keep on walking.

By the time I have reached the edge of the forest, another minute is down, and stress is bubbling through my blood like water through a spout, instilling me with a twisted apprehension. It is dark here, and with nothing but the dim twinkle of the stars above my heads to give me guidance, I begin to doubt whether I will be able to see the soul, let alone find her. Besides, I haven’t been in these woods without the wolves to guide me to her. Nor did I ever plan to, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and this is just about my only way forward. Lets hope I can make it on my own from here.

The first step into the shadowed darkness of the undergrowth is bone chilling, and the following appear no better. With each step through the towering trees who boast gnarled and rotting bark, the behemoth flowers and mushrooms that glow with a sickly luminescence and the harsh, dead cold, it feels like another step into death. But gritting my teeth, I shoulder my way forward, quashing the smaller patches of bracken and thorns under my feet, careful to avoid the slightest inch of a cut that could give me away. But just as the darkness becomes unbearable, and the foliage so thick that I am certain it is not the way I came, a new presence presses upon me. Stopping still, I hover, listening.

It transpires to be only an inkling at first, a slight tingling sensation down my spine that urges the notion that something is not entirely right about the place. Then comes another feeling, something icy, dominant, the press of a weight against my forehead, as though all thoughts in my mind are blurred, fuzzy scraps of cotton, melting like liquid through my veins. It feels like my head is going to burst. Then, all at once, the feeling disperses, leaving me light headed and empty, swaying on the spot and utterly disorientated. Clutching my head, I bend over double.

“What the-”

“I thought I told you,” says a voice in the trees, silvery and full with an airy laughter- or perhaps that is just the wind? “Not to come looking for me.”