Soul of the Crow: An Epic Dark Fantasy (Reapers of Veltuur Book 1), стр. 67

Forgetting about the memory tree entirely, I maneuver through the hanging branches to the glass door and let myself inside.

At the back of the greenhouse, I face the wall of glass boxes.

It’s only fitting, really. My brother and mother lost their lives to the aacsi, and because of their deaths, my father has finally decided it’s time to end my sister. What better way to end all of this than in the same way it began?

I reach up to retrieve one of the boxes, jumping and nearly dropping the thing when the creature inside attacks the glass case with a hiss. It hardly looks more than a simple rock with sharp edges, but when it keeps throwing itself at my hands, where the beds of my fingers are pressed into the glass, I see the tentacles splay out from its maw as it prepares to launch its parasites at the first contact with skin it can make.

It hits me all too hard that I am holding a box with a deadly creature inside it, and I find myself feeling even more antsy to find my father. Before the first banquet of the Festival of Wings, the king always treats himself to a nice, warm soak in the baths.

Tucking the box against my chest, I exit the way I came, waving briefly back at Borgravid without another word.

I tense when I walk past the secret passage. It’s not that Borgravid would know it’s there, but I worry he does and that any second now he’ll yell after me and ask what I’m doing. Although he just proclaimed his allegiance to me and doing whatever I need, I really don’t think killing the king was on the list of things he considered I’d be planning.

I walk as fast as I can through Sungem Courtyard, trying desperately not to draw any more attention to myself than I can help. It’s mostly a futile attempt, since now that I’m cleaned, many people recognize me, and stare perplexed at the clear box in my hands. Thankfully, not too many people in the palace know what is kept inside the Forbidden Garden though, so although they are clearly interested in my presence, none of them are alarmed. Still, when I pass a table of sheer cloths and embroidered fabrics meant to decorate the banquet hall, I grab one and drape it over the box.

The aacsi has finally stopped thrashing inside by the time I reach the door to the bathing house. Steam leaks from the crack below the doorway. I feel it lick my face like the hot breath of a wolf, just seconds before it bit into me.

Somehow, I manage to suppress a moan before I step inside.

The door’s silence as I open and close it acts as my accomplice as I sneak into the nearly empty sauna. The darkness, too, conceals me in the large room, and I walk on silent toes down the rows of steaming baths. Each one I pass is empty. Dozens of baths, ready for the festivities to begin, but not until my father has this moment of solitude.

I finally spy him in the farthest corner of the expansive room, as far away from the commotion as he can be. I creep behind a pillar even though with his head resting back along the edge of the bath and a mask of papaya covering his eyes, I know he has no awareness of my presence.

Each step I take forward is more hesitant than the last, as the severity and finality of it all hits me.

But I have no time for second guesses. I am here to save Gem, and I’m the only one that can now.

My toes reach the edge of his overflowing tub. The small puddle that’s spilt over onto the stone floor seeps into my shoes, wetting my toes in warmth as if I am already standing in my father’s blood. I guess, in a way, I already am.

With one hand on the lid, the other clutching the bottom of the container, I bend down, placing the glass box beside my father’s head. I take a final, deep breath and open the lid.