“Like this, Kazi. Put your hands here.”
I feel his hand in mine, warmth against the cold, Jase teaching me the jig, the way the Ballengers dance it. His face glows as we twirl around an empty, crumbling ballroom that once held ancient kings and queens and the most powerful people on the continent. And for this night, it still does. It seems our feet don’t touch the ground. They all watch us, ghostly, willing it to never end, leaning forward the way ghosts do, wishing, remembering.
“Do you hear that, Jase? They’re applauding us.”
He looks up at the empty balconies and smiles as if he sees and hears them too. “They’re applauding you.”
Would my memorized steps impress his family? Was I nimble enough? Graceful enough? Enough of anything? Because I did want to impress them. I desperately wanted that. To show them I knew how to do other things besides steal their Patrei. Show them I could learn to be part of a family.
He spins me, lifting me into the air, the muscles of his shoulders flexing beneath my hands, then he lets me slide downward between his arms until our lips meet. The music we imagine together beats against our skin, the air, the swooning murmurs of those watching, Jase’s boots tapping our promises into place, unassailable, enduring—
A crash jarred me awake, a door slamming into a wall. The ballroom we danced in vanished. I was back in my small dark cell, my dream dissolving in a quick gust, my arms cold again. Heavy footsteps clipped the cobbles in the hallway outside my cell door. I tried to use them as a measure for the passing days. They came as regularly as the taunting beam of light, but I was still uncertain how much time had passed. Some days were worse than others, delirium getting a strong foothold, it seemed, all the way into my soul. I fought against it. Sometimes it was Jase who brought me back from
the edge. His voice reached through the darkness. Go with the current. Just a little farther. Keep going. You can do it.
Had it been five days? Ten? Maybe far more. One dark day rolled into the next with no beginning or ending. The footsteps grew louder. Soon I would hear a faint plop, followed by the skitter of rats as a hard roll was dropped through the tiny opening at the top of the door. I had to hurry to get the meager lump of food before the rats did. It was all they fed me. One roll a day. Strangely, they wanted me to stay alive. But they wanted to keep me weak too.
They were afraid of me.
I had killed three of them, that much I knew—and maybe at least one more after I was captured. All the lessons from Natiya, Eben, Kaden, and Griz had become second nature in that chaotic moment when we were attacked. My desperation to save Jase had exploded through me like a hot flame. Every nerve blazed with one goal. Saving him was all that mattered. Had I? Had he gotten away? I couldn’t fail again. Not this time.
Where are you, Jase?
I told myself he had made it into the cover of the forest. I told myself a lot of things, every day bolstering myself with a new possibility when both fear and logic shook me with their cold hands. Five arrows. One in his chest. The chances of surviving that—
I told myself that a hundred arrows couldn’t stop him, not even one in his heart, that he had made his way to someone for help. I held on to that thought, fast and tight, like a rope keeping me from plunging off a cliff. But who would help him? Where would he go? Had our attackers breached the walls of Tor’s Watch?
The thump, thump, thump of the arrows still vibrated in my throat, steel piercing his bone and flesh again and again. Blood ran everywhere. A familiar voice crept in, my own, whispering cruel thoughts that had haunted me my whole life. Sometimes people vanish from our lives and we never see them again.
No! I argued with myself and struggled to my feet. I pushed the lid off the water barrel and cupped some water into my hands. It had an earthy, ripe taste, like cider had once been stored in it. The barrel hadn’t been
refilled since I was thrown in here. Maybe once the water was gone I would be too. I leaned against the wall and slid back to the floor, out of breath from the small effort. My festering wound throbbed, my brow was on fire, and yet I trembled with cold. I didn’t know much about injuries, which only now surprised me, considering the life I had lived. Even my two months in a Reux Lau prison cell hadn’t resulted in any injury. Had my mother made a wish upon a wish stalk? Many wishes to protect me? Maybe now they were all used up. My chiadrah. Is she coming? Is that her I hear walking closer? I swiped my hand over my sweaty brow. No, Kazi, that was before. You’re in a cell now, and Jase is—
There was shuffling outside the door as my captor paused and slid open the lock on the peephole. But this time there were two sounds, first the soft plop of the roll and then a second sound. A firm slap. Something heavy hitting the ground. I pulled in a breath, bracing myself, then crawled on all fours toward the door, the chains on my ankles rattling behind me. I pressed on the wound, sticky ooze wetting my fingers.
“Cowards!” I screamed, pounding on the door before the footsteps retreated. My daily response was proof that I wasn’t too weak or dead yet. That I would kill them all. I would. And Paxton would be first.
But the burst of anger against the door took more energy than I had to spare, and I collapsed against it, dizzy with pain, then fell in a heap to the floor. One more day, Kazi. Make it one more day. How could I steal keys from my jailors if they never opened the door? How could I do anything when I grew weaker by the minute? Jase, where are you? I have to know. Maybe needing to know was all that kept me going. I still needed to be there for him. Which meant eating.
I reached out, feeling for the roll, and my fingers closed around it. I could live on a single measly roll far longer than they could imagine. As long as it takes. My stomach was no stranger to emptiness. I had years of experience at this. I tucked the roll in my shirt and felt for the second item I’d heard fall. Had I imagined it? Dreams and delusions were my constant companions in this devilish place.
My hand touched something soft. I snatched it up and examined it with my fingers. Knotted cloth? A handkerchief? I squeezed. It contained
something pliable. I sniffed. Sweet. Food? Some sugary delicacy? A trick? I unknotted the cloth and dabbed my finger into the thick sticky paste, then tapped it to my tongue. Honey—laced with leafy herbs? This was not food. It was medicine. A poultice to leach away infection.
Medicine, from one of them?
Maybe at least one person on the other side of that door wanted me to live. Someone who was afraid too.
 |
More medicine came the next day, and the next, and next. Some of it I ate. I guessed that it couldn’t hurt and might actually help. The oozing stopped. My brow cooled. My mind cleared. The wound seemed to be shrinking, the skin weaving itself back together. An extra roll was also dropped each day
—with a chunk of cheese hidden inside. I eagerly devoured it, but I was still weak from days of being chained and starved. And darkness. Complete soul-sucking darkness. It seeped into my bones like a numbing liqueur.
My benefactor didn’t reveal himself, but each day I felt the fear through the door, dread that I might call out and reveal him—or her. I sensed they were taking a great risk for me. Who was smuggling medicine and extra food? Who wanted me to stay alive?
I heard the daily signal that food was on its way, footsteps, and I knelt near the door, ready to retrieve my roll and medicine, when I noticed a rumble. A different sound. Many footsteps. The rumble grew louder, and the door flew open. My hand shot up to protect my eyes from the piercing brightness. I squinted and blinked several times, trying to adjust to light I hadn’t seen in days, maybe weeks, and finally I saw what appeared to be a squad of guards crowding outside the doorway. All heavily armed.
“Get to feet,” one of them ordered. “We go for walk.” “And if too weak to walk, we drag you.”
“By hair.” “Your choice.”
I looked at my half dozen captors, uniformed soldiers, all with shaved heads, tall, hard, and muscled, looking like they’d been carved from the trunks of giant trees instead of being fashioned from flesh. Three of them
were a head taller than the others. There was something unnatural about them. Their skin pulled tight and their eyes were dull, like worn pewter plates. Soldiers? They spoke Landese with a strong accent that I didn’t recognize.
I winced as I pushed up from the ground, holding my side, forcing strength into muscles and bones that shivered with weakness. I steadied myself against the wall. “I’ll walk.”
