Counting Shadows (Duplicity)

after all.

Twenty-Four
    My panting breaths echo in the passage. I turn and shoot Lor a small glare, and he smirks back, seeming to read my mind: It’s not fair that this walk isn’t winding him at all.
    “You know,” I growl, “when you said you wanted to get ‘out’, I was expecting a visit downstairs to see Farren, or something like that.”
    “What can I say, sweetheart,” Lor replies. “I don’t like living up to expectations.”
    Our voices reverberate throughout the small tunnel, reminding me why I hate this passage. Sure, it’s convenient having a hidden tunnel connected to my library. And, sure, it’s pretty much the only way I can escape from my chambers without an escort. Still, the passage is tiny and dank and claustrophobic. Not exactly what I call travelling in style…
    “How’d you find this place, anyway?” Lor asks. He’s hunched over to avoid hitting his head on the dripping stone ceiling. But his pace is leisurely, his strides as confident as always. He doesn’t seem to notice that I’m scrambling down the steep passage, desperate to escape its confines.
    Or maybe he does notice, and he’s just enjoying watching me get uncomfortable.
    Yes, that’s definitely it.
    I gasp in a breath and remember that Lor asked me a question. “I had a vision of it.”
    His smirk melts away, replaced by a puzzled expression. “You’ve mentioned these visions a couple times. What are they?”
    I think of telling him to stop prying, but then I realize that I’m going to break out in a sprint toward the exit if I don’t distract myself somehow. And a conversation would be the perfect distraction.
    “They’re the reason my country hates me,” I reply. He raises an eyebrow, and I take it as a cue to go on. “The visions started when I was about three. I started seeing… things. When I described it to Father, he thought I was seeing the future.”
    “What’s so bad about that?” Lor asks.
    “Nothing. Sages see the future, and my country has a great respect for them. Everyone thought they were extinct, so as soon as Father declared I was a Sage, the people practically revered me.”
    “That doesn’t seem to have lasted,” Lor states drily.
    I rub my face and glare at him through the cracks of my fingers. “Thank you, Sir Obvious Statement.”
    “That’s Prince Obvious Statement. And, seriously, I want to know. What happened?”
    I take my hands away from my face and look forward, focusing on the steep floor. I don’t want him to see my face or the angry sneer twisting my lips. It’s been years since the people started accusing me of witchcraft, and I should be over it by now.
    But I’m not.
    “When I got older, I figured out that I was seeing the past, not the future. Everything I saw had already happened, and when I finally told my dad this… Well, things didn’t go well.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning Sage’s don’t see the past, only the future. But magic-users often have glimpses of the past.”
    “And I’m assuming magic-users aren’t welcome in this land?”
    “The penalty for using magic is death. The only reason I’m still alive is because Father has a soft spot for me. Plus, he doesn’t personally think I use magic. He thinks I’m cursed.”
    And I am. I can’t think of a worse curse than seeing the past, and knowing I can do nothing to change it. The wars, plagues, famines—they’re all set in stone. And the deaths…
    No. I’m not going to think about the visions of death, the ones with my own thoughts in them. I can’t think about that, because I can’t be the Unknown.
    Hopefully.
    We approach the exit of the tunnel, a small wooden door leading out to the castle gardens. But, even as I reach the door and press on it, Lor doesn’t respond. He stares at me with a mixture of curiosity and wariness, and I try to ignore his glance as I shove open the rickety door and step outside.
    Right into the path of a man.
    I yelp and stumble back, and the man whirls toward me, his eyes narrowed. Lor scrambles out of the tunnel and slams the door closed, as if he thinks the man hasn’t already seen it. The man’s lip curls into a smirk as he examines the vegetation-covered door, which blends perfectly into a stone wall of ivy.
    “Well,” he says, tilting his head as he examines me, and then Lor. “It looks as if this castle has more secrets than one would imagine.
    He has a strange accent that makes his words sound like a gentle, monotonous purr. It would