‘Indeed,’ he said, the word sinking in like an inked signature on a death warrant.
The men waited for his orders, expectantly. There was only one option here.
‘Take him to the cells, there’s a shipment due out to Moredon tomorrow. He needs to be on it.’
‘Swinton! Where is she?’ Bren started as the guards began to drag him away. ‘Are you taking me to her?’ he yelled.
But Swinton had already walked away, leaving Bren to his struggles.
One hundred and three Ashai souls. And Bren.
Chapter 32
When Bleak returned to her rooms after supper, she found that someone had stoked her fire and lit the candles on either side of her bed. Her sheets were turned down and her pillows had been fluffed. She stood there for a moment, staring. So this was what it was like, living among the rich. She lifted the gown she was wearing over her head and hung it carefully back in its place. She looked down at the bodice that constricted her breathing and pressed her breasts together. Gods, how was she going to get herself out of it? She was twisting to see how it laced up in front of the mirror when there was a loud knock at the door. She walked towards it and pulled it open.
‘Do you always answer the door like that?’ Fiore said a little breathlessly, eyebrows raised at her undergarments.
She swiped a robe from the chair in the corner and wrapped it tightly around herself.
‘What are you doing here?’
The Battalonian baulked at her sharp tone. ‘I, uh … It’s about your friend, Bren.’
‘What about him?’
‘I thought you should know —’
A hand clapped Fiore on the shoulder. Swinton. The commander was out of breath, too, looking daggers at his friend, then at Bleak’s undressed state.
‘Captain,’ he said, ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I must speak with you.’ He glanced between Bleak and Fi. It looked bad, she realised.
‘Fiore was just coming to me with news of Bren,’ she said, still clutching the robe to her body.
‘Who?’
‘Bren.’ She rolled her eyes. He knew very well who Bren was.
‘I’ll be there in a moment, Dimitri,’ Fiore said.
‘Not in a moment, now.’
Fiore turned back to her, urgency etched on his face, but the commander hadn’t moved. It was clear he’d be escorting Fiore to their supposed meeting.
Fiore fumbled with his words. He shook his head. ‘I just wanted to tell you, we received word from Angove. Bren has arrived safely and has returned to his family.’
Bleak’s eyes narrowed as she looked from Swinton to Fiore. Why the urgency? She focused on Fi and attempted to sink into his thoughts, to find out the truth of the matter. She heard nothing. No contradictions. No lies. Her whole body sagged with relief. Thank the gods. No matter what happened to her, Bren was safe.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as Swinton released his grip on Fiore’s shoulder and pulled him away from her door. She closed it and returned to the hearth, where she poured herself a wine. She had never known such relief. She hadn’t even realised how much she’d been suppressing her concern for her friend until now, how much she’d pushed him from her thoughts altogether. She let herself picture his fair hair, broad chest and teasing grin. But as soon as she did, she remembered Tilly’s arm splayed across him, the two of them in Tilly’s bed. Her stomach turned and she reprimanded herself. Bren was safe. That was all that mattered.
Bleak didn’t sleep well, despite the luxury of having a bed. She dreamed vividly of choppy seas and Bren calling her name. She woke well before dawn, hearing the servants already bustling about the halls, preparing the castle for the day ahead. When she got out of bed, the air was chilly, and the polished stone floor beneath her bare feet was like ice. Wrapping the quilt around herself, she moved to the little window on the far side of the room. Two storeys below was a group of squires training by torchlight in the fog. She watched as they artfully struck and dodged each other with wooden practice swords, the training master critiquing their footwork with harsh words. The boys’ faces were scrunched up in concentration, their brows damp with perspiration.
Bleak wondered what it would have been like to have such structure to her childhood. Henri, Swinton and Fiore had all been trained and educated in the ways of their people. The extent of her education amounted to how to steer a fishing ship and what knots to use. She could tie a hundred different types of knots and gut a fish with her eyes closed, but she’d never have the discipline, the knowledge, the experience that they had. She wasn’t ungrateful, though. She knew she’d had more advantage than a lot of other Angovian gutter rats. Senior had even taken it upon himself to teach her how to read, even if it had been with a pile of battered old trading contracts. She’d never liked it much, the reading; she’d always preferred a rope between her hands and the seas churning below the hull, but she understood why he’d taught her. She wondered what they might have read together, had they got their hands on a decent book.
She sighed and turned back to the room, considering the small bathtub in the corner. A bath might have helped the seedy feeling settling over her. She was hungover, she knew it, and she didn’t care. She hadn’t had a fit last night and her hands had stopped shaking, and for a while, even the tense royal dinner hadn’t bothered her. If the king had dragged her all the way from Angove out here, by the gods, she’d at least drink the man’s wine.
She decided it was too cold to bathe, and finding a servant to fetch hot water seemed like too much of an effort at this time of day, so she went to the wardrobe and rifled through the silken dresses.
Who did they belong to? She let her hands roam over the fabrics, quietly marvelling at the intricacy of the stitching and the creative detail of the cuts. If she focused, she could vaguely remember her mother in similar finery, and those layered skirts she’d clung to as a child. Perhaps if Bleak hadn’t lost her parents, she might have grown up in gowns and petticoats rather than dirty tunics, pants and muddied boots. She’d never know. She glanced at her soiled clothes lying crumpled in the far corner of the room. She should have washed them in the basin last night and dried them before the fire, but by the time she’d celebrated Bren’s safe return to Angove, she’d been in no state for domestic duties.
If I survive this, I’ll quit, she thought. I’ll find some other way to manage myself.
Bleak turned back to the dresses. Perhaps putting in the effort for the king would appease him. She snorted – unlikely. But yesterday’s clothes stank of horse and smoke, so she squeezed herself into last night’s bodice and attempted to mimic how the servants had laced her up. When her breathing was adequately restricted, she chose a silken lavender gown with silver thread embroidered down the front panel. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. Her hair was wavy from being pinned wet the night before. It fell around her face now, highlighting her striking blue-and-hazel eyes. She stepped closer to her image, noticing the new freckles across her nose and the deep circles under her eyes. She swept her hair up into a careless topknot. The shorter strands at the front still escaped the tie and framed her thin face. She looked different; she couldn’t deny it. Although the way she held herself was still that of a hot-tempered gutter rat, she somehow looked healthier. There was more muscle on her bones from all the exercise in Valia and on the road.
A knock at the door sounded. She shrugged and stepped away from the window, her dress swishing as she moved. She opened the door a fraction. Two uniformed guards greeted her.
‘The king requests your presence,’ one of them said.
‘Now?’
‘Yes. We’ll escort you.’
Bleak’s stomach churned uncomfortably. ‘Is that necessary?’
‘Wouldn’t want you to get lost.’
‘Umm … Alright, I’ll just get my coat.’
‘Be prompt, if you will. The king has a busy day ahead of him.’
Bleak closed the door momentarily and looked a
round her rooms, panicked. Surely this was unprecedented? It was barely dawn – surely he didn’t mean to have her killed so soon? Bleak twisted Allehra’s cuff around her wrist nervously. The leather had faded in the sun, but the markings themselves were as bold as ever. It made her uneasy. Allehra had hidden its true nature from her, and Henri. What was so different about the cuff that not even the Matriarch of Valia could know of it? Bleak got the distinct feeling that she was being used. It didn’t sit well with her. Another knock at the door sounded. She tugged down the sleeves of her dress, covering the cuff, took a fur from the wardrobe and wrapped it around her shoulders.
‘Just a minute,’ she said. She pulled on her Valian boots and tucked Allehra’s daggers into them. She lifted her skirts and tied the dagger she’d stolen from Fiore around her upper thigh with a sash from one of the dresses.
‘Make haste, please, Miss,’ called one of the guards.
She hurriedly rearranged her skirts, hiding where Fiore’s dagger rested closely against her skin. She took a deep breath. Senior had always told her to trust her instincts – when it feels like a wave’s about to break, it probably will. With one quick and final glance at her reflection in the mirror above the basin, she swung the door open and greeted the guards.
‘Lead the way,’ she said, with more confidence than she felt. She wondered if that’s what everyone did in the capital: faked their assuredness until it became real. The guards’ pace was rushed as they led her down the candlelit passages, shadows flickering across the portraits of kings and queens past. For all the bustling she’d heard outside her room earlier, there wasn’t a servant in sight.
A large hand at the small of her back steered her around a sharp corner. Finally, they took her down a large staircase, through the great hall where they’d dined last night, and into the throne room. They planted her before yet another dais – before the king. He was a handsome man, she realised, tall and stately, even sitting down, with a sturdy, pale-gold beard, the whiskers of which he now tugged on as he considered her. Henri, Swinton and Fiore weren’t there, and neither was the queen. Besides the two guards who’d escorted her, it was just Bleak and the king.
She curtseyed as best as she knew how. ‘Your Majesty,’ she said, her voice unsteady.
His gaze fell upon her.
‘The cuff,’ the king said suddenly, spotting the leather around her wrist. ‘Remove it,’ he barked at the guards.
Bleak started. The king missed nothing. A blustering guard approached and tore it from her. He threw the cuff into the fire, and backed away from her, face pale, returning to his position.
Bleak looked back to the king and fought the urge to step back. His smile transformed his face into something sinister, and there was more than that …
The king nodded to the guards. ‘Leave us,’ he commanded.
Without a word, the men left, the huge doors clicking in place behind them. Now, they were well and truly alone. She could feel her heart hammering against her sternum.
‘You’re the one who calls herself “Bleak”?’ he said, his voice as smooth as silk.
She nodded, clasping her hands together in front of her body.
‘You’ve caused quite the stir in my household, Bleak,’ he said.
‘Your Highness?’
‘Majesty,’ he corrected her. ‘“Highness” is for princes and princesses. In any case, because of you, one of my men lost an eye and several others are currently off-duty thanks to injuries they received during your brief stay with them. I’ve had to postpone plans by weeks because of your unwillingness to submit to a royal summons.’
‘I apologise, Your Majesty. I … I didn’t understand what was going on.’
‘Do you now?’
Bleak looked up at him, her heart sinking. This wasn’t going to end well for her.
‘No, Your Majesty.’
Bleak focused; she was going to need her magic now. She needed to use it, to help herself, to help Henri, too. Letting the throne room fade around her, she concentrated on the king’s mind.
A foreign power shot back at her. She had to steady herself after the invisible impact. She looked down at her naked wrist, feeling exposed.
The king clicked his tongue. ‘You didn’t truly think that would work, did you?’
Bleak kept her face blank. ‘Your Majesty?’
‘Don’t insult me,’ he said, his voice deepening. ‘Trying to read the king’s mind? How treasonous.’
‘I —’
‘Don’t waste your breath on more lies.’
Bleak was silent. A strange sensation was spreading from where the cuff had rested against her skin, up her arm. Where was her magic?
Arden’s nose crinkled with dislike as he gazed at her, tapping his long fingernails on the arm of his throne.
‘So the rumours from the healers were true,’ he said. ‘A young mind whisperer amidst us. Seeking a cure, of all things.’ His laugh was quiet but no less horrifying. ‘I’d heard about an Ashai stupid enough to seek a cure in my city, but I had no idea it would be you. I’d recognise you from a mile away …’
Bleak couldn’t breathe.
King Arden leaned forward in his throne. ‘You’re a Thornton,’ he said.
Her knees buckled. The sound of the name on his lips near stopped her heart.
‘How?’ was all she could manage. She needed to find that darkness within her, the one she’d found in Hoddinott, now. But what then? Kill the king? Could she kill him? Kill the royal household?
The king ignored her question.
‘I find you guilty of treason and of using magic against the crown. I hereby sentence you to lifetime imprisonment at Moredon Tower, Alarise Thornton,’ he said.
Bleak’s breath caught in her throat. Alarise. Alarise Thornton.
The king rang a little gold bell at his side, and a different pair of guards stormed in, gripping her upper arms, their chainmail grazing her skin through the thin silk of her dress. The king nodded to the guards.
‘Why?’ She found her voice, broken and alone. ‘Why do this? What have I ever done to you?’
‘It’s nothing personal,’ the king shrugged, ‘not for me, anyway.’
‘What —’ she struggled against the iron grip of the guards, ‘what are you doing to the other Ashai folk?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough.’
Vomit hit the back of Bleak’s throat as adrenaline flooded her veins. She was going to die. She’d thought about death before, often even, after Senior had passed. She’d always imagined dying out at sea, with the waves crashing across the deck and the salt water filling her lungs. Not like this. This death would be slow, full of rot and anguish, on the whim of some crazed monarch, at the hands of some sadist who ran Moredon Tower. For the first time in her life, she turned to the gods, whose existence she’d never truly acknowledged before.
Help me, she pleaded silently, I need help. Help wouldn’t come. Help had only ever come in one form in recent years, and she’d spurned it. Bren. Her chest heaved. She waited for her power to surge, as it had the last few times her emotions had bubbled over. Nothing happened. She clutched at whatever energy usually took hold of her from within, but it wasn’t there.
‘I said, take her,’ the king snapped, and meaty hands closed around her painfully. She fought to stay calm. She would not give the bastard the satisfaction of tears or screams. Not now, no matter how terrified she was. She was dragged towards a different set of doors.
‘Alarise,’ his voice called, and the guards shuffled her to face him once more. His eyes bored into hers. ‘Perhaps you’ll find what you’ve been looking for all these years at Moredon.’
What did he mean?
She trembled as the guards pulled her along the halls of the castle. She paid no attention to where they were going; her mind was racing. How did the king know? Had she known him before her parents were taken? Did he know her as a child? What had happened all those years ago that had led them to this moment?
&nbs
p; As they turned a corner, someone barrelled into her. Caught unawares, the guards loosened their grip, and she cried out in surprise, catching herself before she hit the hard floor. She found her footing, and met the dark eyes of a young boy – no older than ten. He was clutching a strange-looking book to his chest as he blurted out his apologies. For a second, he reminded her of someone – someone at the back of her mind, though she couldn’t quite place who … And then his thoughts slammed into her. Oremere. She staggered at the sound of the name. Oremere. It hit her again, and with it came a mess of dotted symbols, a language or code she didn’t recognise. As Allehra had taught her, she focused, found her centre. The boy’s mind was buzzing with the four continents, Ellest, Battalon, Havennesse, Qatrola … Oremere.
Oremere … Where had she heard it? No, seen it. The forest. Valia. A carving on a stone; a name or a phrase, from long ago.
The fifth continent, the boy’s mind told her.
Suddenly, the image of a map filled her head. She recognised it as the one Bleaker Senior had used to navigate the seas. The masses of land were all spaced out across the waters, but below Qatrola was a continent she’d never seen. The boy looked at her with wide, fearful eyes – was it possible he knew what she was doing? Why did he look so afraid? The guards shouted at him angrily and shoved him from their path. She craned her neck to turn back to him, but he sprinted away.
It took Bleak a few moments to remember that the guards weren’t taking her back to her rooms. They didn’t go up the stairs, but down a spiral stone staircase she hadn’t noticed before.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded, as they led her through a maze of tunnels beneath the castle. She had a sinking feeling that she already knew where.
The dungeons were damp and cold. They were nothing like the pits in Valia. These were real dungeons. The men held in the cells they passed were practically animals, hissing and swearing at her as she was dragged along. The thoughts she heard from them were even worse. Some of them hadn’t seen daylight in a long time, let alone a woman. She cursed herself for wearing a gown. She was freezing and exposed, her fur having fallen from her shoulders long before. The two guards were less than gentle when they threw her into a cell at the end of the lot. At least the straw she fell into was clean. They locked the cell door behind her and left her there.
Heart of Mist Page 30
