I pulled my hand back from him, but slowly, not jerking away. “My marriage is not on the table for discussion,” I said, trying to sound as strong as I could.
His blue eyes pierced me again. Could he see that I had considered his offer? If he did, he gave no indication. “Zaira, I’m so disappointed in you. You’re so shortsighted. But of course you are, it’s the nature of youth. Not all of us can be raised to be emperors from birth. You haven’t had the life experience I have. You may think you’re invincible, that there are no broader considerations to your actions.”
“I am fully aware of the broader considerations. Rislandia is my home. And I am loyal,” I said.
“True loyalty would save lives. And at what cost? A life of comfort? Do you not know how this empire would shower you with praise?” He jerked his head to the side, frowning. “No, this will not do. I told you that you had three days to consider joining me. I shall give you one more chance to consider. You will agree tomorrow, I will see to that. Your father will be brought here. And he will receive a lash each time you resist, until his death if need be. Now out!” He shouted the last words.
The guard opened the door upon the shout, trudging over to me.
I went limp, letting the guard take me by the arm. My father. He was all I could think about. My heart thundered. On one hand, I would see him again, which is what I’d been longing since I’d first left my little farm village.
The guard dragged me all the way back to my cell. I wasn’t in the mood to cooperate today. He roughly tossed me back inside. I fell, bracing myself with my hands as he locked the door behind me.
I immediately moved to my cot, dug my face into the pillow, and bawled into it. Did I really break this easily? The thought of my father getting lashes had been the final straw. The only alternative would be to marry that terrible, terrible man. And I may have to do it. I must have lain there sobbing for almost an hour, I still couldn’t keep good track of time. My soul hurt. I had no way to win, no way out. My delusions about rescuing my father and gallivanting about on an airship to save the kingdom had been just that—delusions. Talyen had bought into them, and look where it got us.
I had no business being here, no business running around as if I were some hero. It was like the first time I flew the airship — I’d led us into danger and crashed. Every time I took action, that was the end result.
Just when I thought there was no hope left, Toby returned and snuggled up against me. I pulled myself up from my pillow and sat, inspecting Toby’s collar. In all likelihood he’d wandered around, not found someone. Toby was loyal to me but was a little chicken when it came to other people.
I pulled the note from his collar and unfolded it. My original scrawling was there, asking if anyone was there. When I flipped the scrap of cloth over, I saw writing that didn’t come from my hand.
Zaira? Could that be you?
Toby had found someone for me to correspond! And this person knew me. Someone from the ship had responded. Or, it could be my father. The crew had taken to calling me Baronette or Ms. von Monocle after all. This hand was more familiar. It had to be him or Talyen. My spirits lifted, and I sniffled. I wish there were more of a note there, but this was at least something. I could communicate, assuming I could get Toby to go again.
I tore off another scrap of cloth from my sheet, this one larger. What would I say? Yes! This is Zaira. I tried to lead a rescue mission but failed. That presumed too much that my new correspondent was my father for certain. I snorted, and that sound echoed down the hallway. No, nothing like that. Instead, I wrote:
Yes, this is Zaira. It’s good to talk to someone. The guards are so cruel, and so is this country. Who are you?
I tucked the cloth and the pen into Toby’s collar again. It wasn’t much of a conversation starter, but I’m sure anyone in here would agree that the Wyranth were an oppressive people. All of them I’d met had this anger to them that could flare out of control at any minute.
This time, I walked to the front of the cell, where the bars were, and set Toby down. “Go find our mystery writer again,” I told Toby.
Toby squeaked and scampered down the hall.
I still stood there when the guard came by to see why he had heard noises. I remembered from the first day how he didn’t tolerate chatter. “What’s going on down here?” he asked.
“Nothing. I miss people, is all,” I said.
“The Iron Emperor is being gracious to you,” the guard said. “You should be grateful in return.”
“He’s giving me an ultimatum. That’s not grateful, it’s terrible.”
“You haven’t seen terrible, girl.” The guard shook his head. “Most prisoners are executed. Slowly. I shouldn’t even be talking to you,” the guard said. He turned to go back to his station.
I don’t know why it was then I thought about this, but it was the first time I’d had to question it. “What’s the Iron Emperor’s name? That’s a cold title to be called.” Cold like the iron bars at my hands.
The guard stopped and looked back. “It’s blasphemy to utter his name. You should stop thinking such things. Heed my advice.” This time he walked away before I could get any more information from him.
In truth, I’d enjoyed the conversation. Beyond the one line of my note, this was the first I’d had any outside the strange emperor with the blue eyes. I built a little rapport, even if the guard had taken to simply warning me. I had to remember that these guards weren’t necessarily evil themselves, but held down by oppression. All soldiers did what they thought was right, for loyalty, for country.
Thinking of my people made me miss my friends all the more. Talyen and Harkerpal, James, Mr. and Mrs. Gentry, and even Mr. du Gearsmith. One way or another, all of those people took care of me. As I considered it, there had been a profound difference between those I knew and loved and these Wyranth. It was compassion. The Wyranth seemed to have none. The world to them was but forwarding some grand plan of the Iron Emperor. What that plan was, I had no idea. I wish they would just stop. Rislandia was no threat to them. If they left us alone, we’d leave them alone right back.
I hung my head as I moved back over to my cot. Then I plopped down. How could a simple note get my hopes up so high? That’s how far I’d fallen. I had such freedom before, whether on the farm or on the airship. Now I had anything but freedom. If I didn’t give into the Iron Emperor. I certainly would be tortured or killed.
I sat and waited. For a while I tried to count the drops I heard in the hallway or make out some of the whispers from further down the hall. After a time, sitting became tiring, and I needed to get up to stretch. I looked out of my bars, trying to see down the hall, but it was too dark, too huge to see anything other than the empty cell across from me. Just how many prisoners did they keep down here?
I had no one to answer my questions. I wish I’d been thrown in a cell with some of the others, even if it would be cramped and with no privacy. Instead, my cell had been down the hall. I didn’t even have someone I could whisper across to. The Iron Emperor may be my only human contact for the rest of my life. My shoulders slumped, and I pressed my head against the bars.
I’d been rambling to myself in my own head. This was worse than despair. It was boredom.
More time passed, and finally I heard the scampering of little ferret feet. I perked. “Tobytobytoby,” I called to him in a whisper. I made a clicking sound with my tongue.
Toby came right back to my cell. I crouched, and he hopped into my arms.
“There’s momma’s little boy.” I kissed him. He kissed me back with a little slobbery tongue.
I set him down and pulled out the cloth. That couldn’t have been time enough to find someone to reply, could it? I opened the cloth, seeing my bigger note this time. I flipped it around. I was nervous, wanting so desperately for real conversation with one of my people. This note had many more words to it, I could see as I unfolded it. I held my breath as I held it up toward the meager light. Then I read the
note.
Zaira! There’s so much I need to tell you. How it both brings me joy and pains me to know you’re here, my daughter. I love you. – Theodore
We struck them hard, but they have a new form of anti-airship artillery. The mission didn’t go as planned. Harkerpal made us set down at Loveridge in hopes that the heavily forested area would conceal the Liliana while we figure out repairs.
An excerpt from Captain von Cravat’s log
Day 9 of the Month of Princes
17th Year of Malaky XVI’s Reign
My father wrote that line. I couldn’t believe it. He was close. I squealed in excitement, and that echoed through the dungeon.
“Quiet back there!” came the angry voice of the guard. I ignored it. What did it matter? I had a note from my father. For the first time in years, I’d actually talked to him. He penned these words! I traced the letters with my fingers. By Malaky, how I missed him.
Tears streamed down my cheeks again. It embarrassed me to think about how much I’d cried these last few weeks, but I’d had so the biggest emotional ups and downs. My tears had been justified in every occasion, but these were different. Words from my father brought me tears of joy. I kept being told he was alive, first by Talyen, and most recently by the Iron Emperor, but this was my first tangible evidence that he truly lived. All I wanted was to hug him, to hold him.
I rushed over to the bed to scrawl another note on my sheet. Toby ran and hid under the cot. I wrote:
I’m so happy to hear from you. I love—
In my excitement, I hadn’t seen that the guard followed up on his call for quiet by padding down the corridor. He watched me from outside the cell and banged his baton on the iron bars. “What are you doing, girl?”
I jumped, dropping the pen and the piece of fabric. “Nothing, just…” I couldn’t think of a plausible excuse. I’d been caught writing notes. But what did that mean? No one had told me I couldn’t.
By the way the guard glared at me, I could tell he couldn’t care less about that technicality. He slammed the door to the cell open, pushed me aside, then swiped the pen and fabric off the floor. He stared at the message for a moment. “You’re passing letters between cells?” he asked, more to himself than me.
He turned his head and yelled. “Tyree! We need to have someone permanently stationed back here. Our prisoners are getting rowdy!”
The guard who must have been Tyree stalked toward the cell. “Everythin’ okay?” he asked in a low voice.
“They’ve been passing letters between the cells. This is supposed to be solitary,” the first guard said.
Tyree nodded. “Fine, I’ll stay stationed here and let the next shift know.”
The first guard nodded. “Very well.” He turned back to me, and then jabbed his baton into my stomach.
I hadn’t been expecting him to attack me. I doubled over from the pain. His blow both knocked the wind out of me and made me want to wretch. He’d hit hard enough that it would bruise for certain. I held my hand to my stomach, keeping pressure on it through the pain. I found myself unable to keep upright and collapsed to the stone floor.
The guard kicked me on my side. He snarled. “Do not test the limits of this dungeon, girl. Remember that.”
I couldn’t respond. My mouth hung open, gasping for air. I rolled on the ground in pain.
The guard turned and left the cell, locking it on his way out. “I have no idea why the Iron Emperor doesn’t just dispose of this one,” he said to Tyree. “She’s worthless.”
I groaned on the ground and, fortunately, Toby didn’t come out from under my cot until both guards moved somewhere out of sight. Toby couldn’t understand my pain, but looked worried all the same.
I caught my breath as I laid there on the cold stone floor. My stomach still hurt both to the touch and whenever I tried to move, sit up, twist, or turn. It’d be a few days before that went away.
The physical pain meant little to me compared to the sinking feeling in my chest. I’d been on the cusp of a real conversation with my father only to have it taken away. I should have been quieter, more cautious. I banged my fist on the cot. Another failure in a long line of the Zaira von Monocle comedy of errors.
I sat and leaned my head back against the cot. Toby crawled into my lap and purred at me. At least I had Toby. He’d love me no matter what, even if we had to spend the rest of our lives in a dank prison.
It felt like we were going to spend the rest of our lives in this cell. As the shock of the pain wore off, I grew weary. I fell asleep on the cot. Tyree brought a pile of mush that they called our rations, some of which I fed to Toby. The two guards now took shifts walking in front of the cell. I had no alone time save for a few minutes in between the two. I couldn’t believe how well Toby kept hidden, like he had a second sense to when they came. My last vestige of hope had been taken away. It had to be close to evening time, which left me but a few hours before I would be back in the presence of the Iron Emperor. This time, he would threaten to hurt my father if I didn’t comply with his demands for marriage. Did I have any other choice? It would be the only way I could get out, the only way I might be able to save my other friends down here.
That short timetable filled me with dread. I hoped the next day would never come, that in some bizarre fashion time could stop in this cell. I’d gladly stay in a prison like this for the rest of my life if it meant my father would be safe. Though he probably felt the same way about me. I missed him more than I had realized.
This was all my fault. If I hadn’t come on the mission, the Iron Emperor couldn’t have used me as a pawn, wouldn’t be threatening my father. Even though this prison provided a terrible existence, at least he still lived.
I buried my face in my hands. What a disaster.
Down the hall of the dungeon, I heard a crack that sounded a lot like the baton smashing against the steel of my cell. Someone else must have been misbehaving. Crack! Crack! I heard more. That couldn’t be good. Were the guards beating someone? The sound could have been bones snapping. Despite the fact that I hadn’t endured tortures, my gut told me that other prisoners in this dungeon didn’t have it so easy.
I lifted my head to peer into the dimly lit corridor. Of course, I could hardly see anything in the soft flickering light, and with the turn of the corridor a few cells down, that cut off any potential view.
A man cried out in horrifying pain. Much worse than I had just endured, though thinking about it caused my stomach to ache in sympathy.
Then I heard what sounded like a gurgling noise. I covered my mouth in horror. Was one of my crew dead?
There had to be something I could do. I glanced around the cell, looking for something, anything that could at least cause a distraction. There were the pots, one of which was filled with urine as I’d had to go before my nap. I shuffled over to the pot and picked it up.
Footsteps fell from down the hall. I had to distract the guard to the point where he’d not be able to think of any other prisoner. I saw a shadow on the stone floor below, and I did my best to hold for the timing. I’d get him before he could see me there.
With a swift heave, I dumped the contents of the pot through the iron bars.
The guard must have jumped back, because I didn’t see him in front of my cell. “By Malaky, what the— Is that piss?”
By Malaky? Wyranth soldiers didn’t use those words. I’d missed hearing them myself. Thoughts of the king brought me comfort, reminded me of home. I moved up to the bars, clutching at some off to the side that weren’t doused in urine. I pressed my head to the bars to see more clearly.
The person there stood in a Wyranth uniform, but I couldn’t make him out in the shadows. The uniform didn’t fit, however, similar to the way that the clothes had hung on me when I wore them, like they were meant for someone bigger.
The person in Wyranth garb stepped toward my cell.
I edged backward. Dumping a pot of urine was a badly thought out plan. It wouldn’t do anything other
than make the guards angrier. At least that anger would be directed at me and not someone else. I clutched my stomach, remembering the pain and bracing for what would come next.
The Wryanth soldier tilted his head at me, and I could almost make out his face. “Zair-bear?” he asked.
My eyes widened. James! He looked so ridiculous in the Wyranth guard uniform. Understanding who stood before me gave new meaning to all the sounds before he had arrived. It must have been James taking the guards down, which he did quickly before they sounded the alarm. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I didn’t hallucinate.
“I come to your rescue and you try to dump piss on me?” James asked, glancing back at the puddle on the stone floor.
“I didn’t know it was you! I thought you were one of the guards. It doesn’t matter. James! I’m so happy to see you, and you couldn’t have come a moment too soon!” I wanted to hug him, but the iron bars still loomed between us. “I don’t suppose you have a key to the cell?”
“Hmm?” James blinked. “Oh,” he said, fumbling through his Wyranth uniform. He reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a key ring with several keys on it. “I’m not sure which one is yours.”
“Well, try them, dummy,” I said.
“Piss and insults. I swear, I’m going to head right back to the Crystal Spire and forget I ever came to this ugly city,” James said, trying out a couple of the keys. On the third try, the lock clicked, and he pushed the door open.
Even though I was grateful, and this had to be the direst situation of my life, I couldn’t help but tease more. “Come on, this is far more fun. This is the type of adventure you’d been dreaming about since we were kids.” I smiled. Though it had been only a few weeks prior, living on our farms seemed so distant now. We had been so innocent, so naive, and what now? Before he could respond, I rushed out of the cell and engulfed him in the biggest hug I could muster.
For Steam and Country: Book One of the Adventures of Baron Von Monocle Page 20
