Tempting the Fates

Chapter 15

My heart felt as if it had sunk to the bottom of my stomach. I forced tears back, promising myself that once I was alone, I could freak out. I tucked the scroll into my dress where no one would spot it and followed the hallways back to the foyer. From there, I hurried back to my room. Once I had shut and locked the door behind me, I ran to the fireplace and threw the letter into it. As the paper caught fire and went from a burning orange flame to dark ashes, I fell onto my knees on the hearth. Silent tears poured from my eyes.

I had done all of this- left my life, come to the Underworld, agreed to marry a stranger- just to save my dad's life. And what had come of it? My life was in danger and my dad had been kidnapped and possibly even killed.

Anger bubbled inside me. Life just had a way of kicking you in the teeth after you had already fallen. My body shook with adrenaline as fury replaced the sadness. I stood, spotting a vase on a nearby table. I needed to do something to calm the dark feelings inside me, lest I burst. I grabbed the vase off the table and threw it against the wall with every ounce of strength I could muster. I screamed in frustration as it left my hand. It hit the wall with an ear-piercing crash, and shattered into thousands of pieces, spraying in every direction. As soon as the pieces settled onto the ground, I sagged with a relieved breath.

The feeling was short lived as I looked around and realized what a mess I'd made. There was an incomplete puzzle lying on the floor around me, and I could not put it back together. At the thought of seeing anyone crouched on the floor, cleaning my mess, I felt a pang of guilt. I dropped down and started picking up the pieces. The satisfying sound of the fragile fragments as they scraped along the floor left a trail of goosebumps down my spine.

I was so focused on my senses- the way the ceramic felt so smooth against my skin, the sound of the pieces clinking against one another as they landed in my palm, the sight of the bright floral pattern broken into pieces against the dark tile- that I was too clumsy. I dropped a piece into my cupped hand, and the jagged point pierced my skin. My knee-jerk reaction was to squeeze my hand, and I felt the sharpest pieces slice into my palm.

"Ah!" I screamed. I threw my hand open wide, and my fingers curled in agony. I pulled the ceramic splinter from my hand and gasped as the skin burned and blood began dripping onto the floor. I tossed the bloody shard onto the tile and it shattered again, leaving red droplets splattered by my feet. I breathed through my nose as I looked around for something to stop the bleeding.

The door burst open. I had expected it to be Hades, but it was my handmaiden. She looked winded, as if she'd run the entire way there. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she took a relieved sigh as she realized I wasn't in any immediate danger.

"I'm sorry." I whimpered, sounding more like a child in trouble than a soon-to-be queen. "I shouldn't have thrown it–"

Her eyes locked on my hand. "Do not move, miss." She whispered. She rushed to the bathroom and came back with clean cloth and a basin of hot water. Skillfully avoiding the danger on the ground, she knelt beside me and took my hand, washing it with the cloth. She held it firmly against the wound to try to slow the blood flow.

"Thank you." I sighed. "I'm sorry about the vase."

"The vase was yours, miss. You are free to do with it whatever you wish." She brushed off my apology. "Allow me to bandage you. Please, step away from the mess." She motioned for the chair in front of my vanity. She lifted me off the floor and guided me to the chair. I took a seat and waited until she returned from the bathroom with a sewing kit and bandages.

"Oh, you have sutures!" I exclaimed. "Here, let me do this." I opened the sterilized package, cleaned my hand again with alcohol, and handed her the tissue forceps. "Can you use these to expose the skin?"