Page 33 of The Dawn Chorus

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it does.’

Chapter 5

Scars

SCION CITADEL OF PARIS

7JANUARY2060

I could no longer sleep without any light. Since our arrival in the safe house, I had kept the shutters cracked by day and a lamp on through the night. Light had always disturbed me before, but if I turned it down to an ember-like glow, I could just about drift off. I always did it. There was always light.

So when I woke to absolute darkness, I knew why.

There was no alarm clock this time. Just the never-ending black of the Westminster Archon.

Fear paralysed me. Even my jaw was locked. I breathed hard through my nose, staring at where the ceiling had been, where now there was a void.

Darkness. Chains around my limbs. And close by, unmistakable, thedrip, drip, dripof water.

Flux. The new versions must be doing this to me. Taunting me with visions of safety and freedom. Giving me hallucinations so solid, so authentic, that they were indistinguishable from reality. I had fever-dreamed myself to Paris, lived for seven days there. How long had it been in the cell?

How long until my execution?

Heat wavered in my eyes. I clenched my fists. If Nashira wanted me to beg for death, I would. Let Suhail come. Let it end.

As if I had summoned my death, the door opened.

The rush of my blood was deafening. A flood in my head, the herald of the water. I had thought I would be brave, even grateful, when my killer came – but now the moment was at hand, I remembered all the things Nashira had said to me. About witches, drowned and burned for nothing. About traitors, hanged and drawn and quartered.

I was a witch. I was a traitor. The executioner would butcher me with a red-hot blade, drag out my entrails while I was alive. Nashira would hear me scream before I left this world. She would make me suffer for standing against her, for taking what had once been hers …

Whimpers escaped my lips. A tear seeped past my temple and soaked into my hair. I had to move. I struggled to escape my chains, but my limbs only half-worked. Held in place. Buried alive.

Somewhere in the roar, a voice. More questions. More threats. More whispers about sordid humans. Whatever it was, I refused to let it be the last thing I heard.

I sensed movement. Suhail Chertan, come to take me to my doom. Blood pooled in my middle, turning my fingertips to ice. I wrapped them around the nearest object and flung myself at the monster in the dark.

Colliding with the bulk of Suhail was almost enough to knock me back on to the waterboard. I swung my weapon with all my might. It rushed through empty air. The momentum buckled me. With a scream of frustration, I struck again, with such force that my weapon flew from my hand.

The darkness kept me blind on one plane. Not on the other. I reached for the æther, lunged for the dreamscape, and then I was on him again, groping for his throat. I could hear my own voice, but the words had no shape. This was the language of terror.

Yellow eyes ignited in the dark. Rephaite eyes. I went limp with dread, my fingers loosening, every bone and nerve giving up in one go. His aura was all over me. Before I knew it, a huge pair of hands had scooped under my arms, and I was weightless.

I found myself on a soft, flat surface. For an instant, there was space. I was unbound. I could breathe. Moments later, panic kicked in again. The darkness grew and thickened until it smothered me. Coughing and heaving, I scrambled back until my head smacked into wood, and I curled up like a child in the womb, pleading for mercy.

The fight was lost. Even if I could escape this room, I would only run in circles until someone caught me, hauled me away. I would die in this place, in darkness and agony—

‘Paige,’ a voice barked.

My name.

Suhail had never used my name.

In an instant, a hush fell in my mind. Every breath was magnified. I could feel the mattress under my knees, the headboard grating on my spine. A bed. Not the waterboard.

‘Who is that?’ I tasted salt. ‘T-tell me.’

‘Only me, little dreamer.’