There’s a sketch of the first baron, and I believe I saw him in the gallery. Imagine having family portraits painted for six hundred years, lining them up generation after generation. I keep reading and finish half the book in one sitting, but it’s dry, and none of the facts help me understand where everyone went and why Njål is cursed.
Sighing, I close the book. This doesn’t account for what happened to the treasonous lord, either. Probably he was executed by the crown, and it’s unlikely that his descendants came for revenge centuries later. This type of research is outside my area of expertise, and I fight disappointment as I stand, rolling my neck and shoulders to ease the strain of sitting in a hard chair reading about dead people for hours.
On a whim, I pass by the gallery, taking an incredibly circuitous route to the kitchen. I walk until I identify the sketch from the history book. The first baron looks a fair amount like the next with broad forehead, deep eyes, a long nose, and an underwhelming chin. As I glance between them, a scene flashes into my head. The great hall is decorated for a party with candles in glass sconces, glittering like fireflies. Women in silk gowns laugh brightly, but the tones are hollow, as if something dreadful will happen if they stop. A velvet tapestry stirs and the baron slides out from behind it. He grabs a woman in a green dress—arm across her throat, hand over her mouth, and pulls her behind the hanging, and then they’re both gone. Nobody has seen a thing; the dancing continues while I process the ancient abduction I’ve just witnessed. I have no notion why the keep is showing me such things, giving me pieces when I can’t even be sure they fit the puzzle I’m trying to assemble.
There must be a secret passage in the great hall.
Instead of going to the kitchen, I detour to the great hall. I’ve no idea why I’m bothering, as it’s far too late to save that woman from whatever grim fate has befallen her. But maybe the keep will show me something else, more relevant to the current situation. What do I expect from a cursed edifice anyway?
Yet I still pace the great hall, searching for the tapestry from my vision. I hate that word, as it reminds me of my stepmother, but there’s no better term. Eventually I find it, a touch faded but not tattered or moth-eaten, as one would expect in such an antique. I move the hanging aside and find a solid wall. Undeterred, I run my fingers over each stone and along the mortared edges, knocking now and then to see if it sounds hollow. The wall is too thick for that, but I’m convinced this must open somehow. Maybe not from this side?
Then I find it near the top, barely within my reach. I press my finger into the divot and hear a click, then the wall opens slowly. I hesitate and then dash to the kitchen. I’ve read enough novels to know that venturing into darkness unprepared is a poor idea. When I return, the panel is ajar and I’ve got a candle in one hand and a kitchen mallet in the other.
Instead of a secret passage, I’ve found stairs leading down. They are stark and sharp, like razored teeth guarding the throat of the beast. For some reason, chills course through me and they just won’t stop, as if I’m in terrible danger. Possibly that should be enough to warn me off, but I don’t think it’s imminent, more like the echo of old terror. I think what I’m feeling belongs to someone else, so I shake it off and descend carefully, shining the candle to see where to set my feet.
It wouldn’t be strange if the keep had a dungeon, but it does seem odd that it’s situated directly below the great hall. I emerge in a big, dark room, and even after all these years, I still smell a faint tinge of copper. So much blood must have been spilled here. With a trembling hand, I move the candle and confirm my fears. I have no name for most of the implements and devices here, but they’re all sharp and spiked, blades coated in red-brown residue, chains attached to ceiling and walls.
And bones. So many bones.
The tremor in my hand intensifies, moving through the rest of my body, until I can barely keep a hold of the mallet. As if I’ve been ensorcelled, I move to the far corner of the room, where a skeletal corpse hangs, still chained at wrist and ankle. I take in the green scraps of her ballgown and know I’m looking at the remains of the woman I saw taken. Beside her, someone hangs in harlequin rags, skull turned toward her.
“What the hell are you doing? How did you find this place?”
12.
I startle and scream, dropping the candle as I raise the mallet.
From the shadows, Njål snatches it mid-air, so swift that the flame goes out. He radiates suspicion and fearsome energy, the most danger I’ve ever sensed from him. I don’t want to have a conversation down here, but he’s between me and the stairs leading out. There’s no way he’ll let me leave without getting answers.
“Sometimes the keep shows me things. I saw a woman being . . . taken from a ball. I don’t know why it wanted me to see that.” In fact, I wish it hadn’t shared this with me, but now I know why Bitterburn feels like a tomb.
“You get these . . . impressions often?” he asks in a strange tone.
It takes me a moment to realize that fear shadows his voice. Njål is afraid of what I’ll learn, of what Bitterburn will reveal. I should be alarmed about standing in a torture chamber
