by Raye Wagner
The girl had been right. One bath wasn’t enough. The water had kept flowing even though Irrik hadn’t returned. The girl had changed my bedding, brought me fresh clothing and a blanket, plus more food. All while telling me what a grand lover Lord Irrik would make. Sick.
I’d rather marry a donkey with one and a half legs.
Ty called louder this time, his voice tinged with worry. “Are you al’right?”
I blinked through the last dregs of my amazing sleep. I kind of felt like a person today and would have if I didn’t have the monster to thank for the way the warmth of the bath had defrosted some of my soul.
I also felt guilty I got a bath and Ty didn’t.
“I’m fine. Sorry, Ty. I’m right as—” My mother’s expression caught in my throat. Right as rain.
“I’m fine. I was allowed a bath yesterday.” Ty had probably heard my groans and splashes. Blood rushed my cheeks at the thought. I supposed I should be well past caring about that now.
“Yes,” he said, drily. “I heard. It was a different kind of torture for me.”
If he’d been in front of me, I wouldn’t have let the grin cross my face.
I rolled over on my bed and grabbed a hunk of bread, nibbling on the edges. “Do you have any food left?”
Ty cleared his throat. “Not much. A mite of cheese and maybe a crust . . .”
“I have some. Let me share with you. I was only asking so I could give you some to replenish your safe store.”
I tore the rest of the loaf in half then did the same with the cheese and dried fruit. I wrapped the portion in a strip of cloth and pushed it through the bars toward him. “Here. I know it’s not as much as you gave me, but it’s something to fill your belly tonight. Or today.”
I gave it one more push, hoping I’d wiggled it far enough into the hall for him to reach it. My cheek was smooshed against the stone wall.
“I’m sorry there’s not more,” I said.
“Don’t be,” he said in his husky voice that was now more comforting than any other sound.
The rawness in his voice squeezed my heart in a vice, and I had to swallow back my emotion. “How did you do this all alone?”
“Now that I know you, I’m not sure.”
My chest constricted with loss. I wanted my mother. I wanted Dyter. I missed Arnik. I wanted someone to hold me, to hug me, to tell me things were going to be all right and mean it.
“I miss my mother,” I said, and a fat tear slipped down my cheek and landed on the sharp stone I sat upon.
“I know, beautiful. I know.”
I choked on a cry, forcing it back, not wanting to place more burden on this man.
“Tell me about her,” he said, surprising me.
I closed my eyes and thought of her soft, familiar face. “She took us away from my cruel father and started a new life in Verald,” I said. “Back when I was a baby. Then we settled here, and she discovered she had a knack for gardening.”
My memories of her loosened, and I told him of her kindness, her humor, her strength, pausing short of recounting the night she’d died.
“She sounds incredible,” Ty said.
I let more tears flow, whispering, “She was.”
The lock to my cell clicked, and I lay in my blood on the sharp ground, too weak to move after another torture session—this time with a leather belt, right here in my prison cell. The king had briefly joined Jotun and me and had been displeased to find me so functional—and so clean. Bile rose in my throat as I noted my earlier prediction was correct—Lord Irrik did bring me more pain, and I, like a fool, accepted his dangling carrot, the nice warm bath, knowing the game he played and knowing the king would be watching.
I’m a fool.
The cell door was pulled open and a person strode towards me in confident steps despite the dark.
Tyr dropped to his knees beside me, and I couldn’t help sobbing like a baby as soon as he reached a hand to my hair. Dried blood caked a chunk of it to my cheek, and my body was covered in welts from Jotun’s treatment.
I choked back tears as he stroked my hair. “How long was I out?’
He held up three fingers.
“Hours?” I asked.
A nod was my answer.
There were a few scuffles as he arranged the objects he’d brought with him in a row. Without moving me to the bed, he made quick work of washing me. It showed how far gone I was emotionally that I didn’t feel one iota of embarrassment. His movements were quick and clinical, which helped. After that, he helped me change into a fresh tunic and threw the other in a bucket before carrying me to my bed. He lifted my arms and began rubbing the same ointment onto my skin in careful strokes. The ointment soothed me instantly, and I sighed, earning a smile from him.
“Is it daytime, Tyr?” I asked.
He paused and took a deep breath before pressing my hand to his jaw. The color of the sun was reflecting off the freshly plowed fields this morning. It reminded me of your hair.
I closed my eyes, pressing my trembling lips together, and tried to draw up the image he’d created. “Thank you.” My voice broke.
I couldn’t help the welling emotion in my chest. In this dungeon-hole, Ty was like my sun, and Tyr was my moon. The circumstances accelerated the bonds between us, and my feelings couldn’t be rationalized away.
Next, Tyr massaged the ointment on my face then the bruises around my neck. He shoved off the blanket and worked on my legs for a while. I tried to stay still as he lathered my skin in the stuff.
After the ointment, he wound bandages around the worst of my injuries and pulled the blanket back over me.
There was a scrape of pottery and plate on stone next to my head, and then he turned toward a bucket of water he’d carried in. He reached into it and drew out a scrubbing brush, but he stopped shy of bringing it to the bloodied ground, lifting his head as something caught his eye by the bars.
Striding over, he crouched in the corner where I sat to talk to Ty.
“What is it?” I whispered.
Tyr returned and knelt next to me, holding out his fist. He held a handful of moss. It looked spongy and—well—green. The only splash of color in this gruesome place.
“That wasn’t there yesterday,” I said in confusion. “I sit there all the time. My butt would know the difference.”
He held the moss closer to my face and shook his head.
“I don’t understand,” I said helplessly.
Voices echoed down the corridor toward us. In a blur of movement, without saying goodbye, he collected his two buckets and clicked the lock after himself. I held my breath for the sounds of discovery, but they didn’t come.
And after that, neither did Tyr.
“Ty,” I whispered after clawing from sleep. It’s all I seemed to do in here. The dark messed with my clock mojo, although thanks to Lord Irrik I knew three weeks had passed. “You awake?”
No one answered. He hadn’t answered my calls after Tyr left either.
“Ty?” I held my breath for his husky reply. Nothing. I squeezed my eyes shut, working through the fear that he might be gone for good. I wasn’t sure I could take being alone down here. I’d known the alternative now, and a large part of me doubted I’d be able to do without Ty, or some human company.
With the pain gone, the need to eat before I lapsed into exhaustion swelled.
I worked on my body, wiggling my toes, fingers, bending my knees, and drawing my hips up before rocking side to side. After an age, I made it to sitting and stared at the food and drink Tyr had left.
The bag was like the burlap kind Mum would take when she went to trade at the Market Circuit, and it was stuffed full of cured meat, cheese, seeded bread, brak, and dried fruit. Stuffed full. A feast.
Next time, I would demand Tyr tell me why he was helping me. I mean, Madeline had helped me when I first came, but what Tyr was doing was a whole new level of danger and self-sacrifice. The king killed Madeline for trying to trick him. What would he do
to Tyr?
What if Tyr was a part of the rebellion? I hadn’t considered this before. . .
What if he had contact with Dyter and Arnik? Despite my best endeavors not to let it, hope took root within me.
I was a moron to even have the thought. Would they fight their way past hundreds of guards and then kill the king’s Drae? Would I invite the same people into the castle that I’d been trying to keep out?
At least Irrik hadn’t been back. There was one blessing in all of this—because I’d been seriously planning on kicking him in his Drae face. He was probably lucky he hadn’t been back.
—Beaten Girl Turns the Tables on Jerk—
—Drae Bursts into Tears After a Punch to the Throat—
—Ryn Throws Seeds in Drae’s Eyes to Win Fight—
“Ty?” I called again. There was something wrong with me to be laughing at my own jokes in the king’s dungeon after the worst experiences of my life. Especially as Ty could be lying there half dead for all I knew.
Ty’s words came back to me about keeping my food safe, and I searched for a spot to hide a portion of my feast treasure.
I nibbled on brak—Dyter’s specialty, a forlorn part of me reminisced—and studied my small cell. All stone, and the only place I could find to hide anything was by my bed and under my blankets. I sat on my bed, munching on bread and brushing the specs of grain off my lap and onto the stone. I regretted wasting the seeds, as small a food source as they were. A quick feel told me the grains were lost to the cracks in the stone floor. And actually, on second thought, my blood was still splattered all over the cell from Jotun’s belt whipping.
The soap queen had not fallen that far.
I grimaced, scanning every stony brick of the cell. Even a toddler would know by simply looking at my room that anything of value would be stashed by my bed, which made it a terrible hiding place. The only other object in my entire cell was the straw and the chamber pot. I’d long since moved the pot to the front of my cell so I could dump the contents out into the hall instead of having to deal with it in my room. It had been the only option when the receptacle was full several days ago. The smell was atrocious, but by the next morning, the hall had been rinsed clean.
Tyr’s handsome smile flashed in my mind, and I seriously hoped he hadn’t been the one to clean up the mess.
I was desperate to keep my food bounty, but the only idea I’d had, besides hiding it by my bed, was repulsive. Maybe repulsive was good. I thought of the oiled cloth from the first time someone had left me food, and fingering the material under my bed, I hoped the cloth would be enough of a barrier.
I scattered the smelly straw around the chamber pot and took the wrapped package of food and the flagon of nectar and put them in the darkest corner of the room, the space I’d initially used as a bathroom. The pot was several paces away, but the very idea made me cringe.
Hopefully my hiding place would make anyone planning to take my food cringe, too.
The victory was small.
But for the first time, I felt like I might be starting to play the game.
15
Ty didn’t return that day.
I couldn’t tell if it was Tuesday or not, but Jotun didn’t return for me either. I’d overheard Lord Irrik say I’d been here three weeks. Did that mean I’d been here a month now?
A month since my mother died. Moons, but I missed her. Ty filled the hole somewhat, but no one could ever replace my mother.
Somewhere in the middle of wondering why Jotun opted to have Tuesday off out of all seven days, I must have drifted off again in a sleep that wasn’t sleep at all. I tossed and turned, imagining Lord Irrik in my cell, and the king, and then both of them laughing at me. Dyter appeared, and even Mum, her face in anguish as she tried to comfort me. The knife was pushed into her chest. Then the king’s Drae pulled it out and handed it to me.
When I awoke, someone was brushing my arm in a cool caress.
“Tyr,” I mumbled.
Keeping my eyes closed, I relished the gentle contact, but my arm was stiff from being flung up over my head. My aching muscles screamed to move, and I withdrew my arm from his attention. As I moved, the brush of his fingers tickled, and I giggled, opening my eyes.
My lips parted, and it took me a while to understand I was still in my cell.
A dark circle, almost as big as my face, hovered right above me, and there were pale petals of yellow surrounding it. I blinked, and the anemic sunflower came into focus. The giant flower had fallen over and hovered directly over my head.
Inhaling through my nose, I almost choked on the smell of fresh vegetation.
In. My. Dungeon. Cell.
I pushed the sunflower away and sat up.
I’d finally broken. It was the only explanation.
Surrounding me was a tiny garden. Barley grass, wheat, and a small stalk of corn had sprouted from the meager dirt layer between the stones. Other plants I didn’t recognize had begun a doomed life cycle, wilting in the darkness of the cell. Not believing my eyes, I ran my hand over the spikes of the barley, and the thin plants tilted and fell, their roots in the stone of the dungeon cell inadequate to sustain them. I picked up a shoot and bent the tender stalk.
What made them grow?
Yesterday, I ate bread with these exact seeds on it. Today, the same seeds were full-grown.
I stood in the middle of my cell, spinning on the spot.
The moss yesterday. The patch hadn’t been that big the day before, not even a patch at all. Now I was sure of it, though I’d been puzzled when Tyr held it out to me. There was something wrong with this dungeon cell.
“Ryn?” Ty rasped, making me jump. “You still alive?”
“I’m here,” I answered, looking down at my shredded shift. “Are you al’right? You’ve been out for a long time.”
He coughed. “I’ll live. Jotun found out we’re sharing food.”
“He won’t move you away, will he?” I asked, holding my breath.
“I can’t say,” Ty answered. “I told him I wouldn’t share with you again.” He paused. “Do you have any food?”
I laughed under my breath. “Such rebellious tendencies.”
“It goes with my rugged, dark looks.”
“Is that what you look like?” I asked. “Dark hair, dark eyes, a beard?”
He was surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”
“I have powers you wouldn’t believe.” I glanced at the garden in my room.
Crossing to the chamber pot, I could just see the outline of the flagon of nectar.
I unplugged the cork and drank several gulps before forcing myself to stop. I found the oiled cloth behind the clay flask and unwrapped it and the burlap cloth beneath. The cheese was salty and dry, and the dense, nutty bread dissolved in my mouth, leaving several whole grains to grind with my teeth.
My gaze landed on the plants by my blanket as I chewed. Pumpkin. Barley. Kamut. Pursing my lips, I shook a few of the seeds from the loaf I held into a far corner, not touched by the current crop.
“Do you want some cheese and bread?” I asked Ty. “If you have an extra container, I can pour you some nectar.”
“Some what?”
“Nectar. The fruity drink we get. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s kind of like mead.” Dyter had never served anything like it, nor had Mum.
He chuckled. “No, but thank you. I have some of the drink left. Do you have enough?”
I sighed, looking at my dark cell. The phosphorus glow cast an eerie light, and the fronds and leaves looked sad and pathetic in the dark.
“Someone left more for me,” I answered. “A friend, I think.” It was as close as I’d come to telling him about Tyr.
Awareness of my situation struck me. Besides the obvious ongoing torture-and-death problems, I was in serious trouble right now.
As I crouched to pass the food to Ty, I said, “Hey, Ty? Have you ever had plants grow in your cell?”
He snorted. “What?”
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“Like, you go to sleep and wake up with a sunflower by your head, that kinda thing?” I asked. “It’s just, how would they grow in here? It’s so dark and . . .”
Holy pancakes. I sounded crazy. And sounding crazy when I had several friends was okay but not when I just had one.
At least he was caged in and couldn’t run.
“What do you mean? You’re wanting to grow plants? Are you sure you’re al’right?”
I didn’t answer, just stared at the growth at my feet. “Um.”
“Ryn?”
I touched the tip of the sunflower with my toe. The leaves and stem were scratchy on my bare, sensitive skin. Regretting my next move because the sunflower was the first bit of beauty I’d seen in here, I bent the stalk to rip the flower head off.
“What are you doing?”
“Hold on,” I worked the stalk back and forth. Turned out, sunflowers had really thick stems.
“What—?”
“Nearly there,” I huffed. The flower ripped off after a full minute of bending and twisting, and I glared at it as I crossed to the bars. “I’m passing something to you. And . . . well, here.”
I stretched as I passed the sunflower head, shoving it through the gap in the bars. I felt the tug as he took the thick stem from me, and I listened as he pulled it into his cell.
Then nothing.
I raised my brows. “Ty?”
“W-where did you get this?”
I settled back against the stone. “Funny story, actually. Yesterday, I brushed sunflower seeds onto the floor, along with some other grains. Then, I wake up today and there’s this mossy oasis in my dungeon cell.”
It was true. I’d crossed the cell several times, only feeling spongy moss underfoot instead of sharp stones.
“Seeds,” Ty said.
I frowned. He wasn’t being very quick on the uptake. Shock, I realized, mentally hitting my forehead.
“I know it’s really strange,” I said. “That’s why I was wondering if it’s ever happened to you? Is there magic in this castle?” I knew nothing about such things.
There was a lengthy pause. “There must be. I have no other explanation for it.”
