by Raye Wagner
My mind felt as though I was clawing out of a fog. It felt . . . familiar.
The girl continued her morose chatter as she led me from the washroom. “Most days, I don’t know why I don’t just give up and become fertilizer for the fields like everyone else. Did you know that King Irdelron heard decomposing matter nourishes the soil? The bodies are piling up out there now; my friends, my family. Beats me why I keep trying, but I do. I think it’s just habit. Ain’t that awful?” She smiled sadly at me, her scars pulling tight. “Maybe it’s because the crops ain’t gotten no better for it. I could never abide waste.”
A gruesome image of a field of dead bodies flashed through my mind, and my stomach churned. Then an image of my mother flashed across my mind, dagger in chest, and I searched blindly for a wall to support me. My mind experienced the same snapping sensation of an hour before as it cleared.
Kiss fog. My hate for Lord Irrik returned and multiplied until I was shaking as memories assaulted me once more. I wiped my lips. How long had I been out of it? Minutes? Hours? I could’ve been escaping this whole time.
“That bastard,” I hissed, and then I scrubbed at my lips.
“Shh,” she hissed, glaring at me. “Don’t even think—oh, you’re talking about Lord Irrik?” She chuckled then whispered to me, “Don’t be upset with him. He didn’t mean nothin’ by it, ’cept to help. Usually, he doesn’t even bring anyone in. He’s not the worst of the two. That’s for sure.”
Not the worst of the two. Was that meant to be a recommendation? I’d claw his eyes out if I ever got a chance. A part of me saw that my bitter hatred for the Drae was incased by large doses of my own guilt and self-hatred, but whatever my role had been in Mum’s . . . death—I pulled in a ragged gulp of air—he’d definitely played a part by signaling the king’s guard to follow me in the first place. We hustled through a passageway the size of my entire street, and my heart began to thud as the last of Lord Irrik’s kiss wore off. Guards lined both sides of the hall as we neared a huge set of double doors, which extended to the ceiling and were covered in gilded designs.
The guards were dressed in their navy aketons with black trim, each holding a spear with a sword strapped at his side. They didn’t look at us as we passed. But I felt their complete attention on me and picked up my pace.
What would happen beyond those doors? I scrambled to make sense of what had happened thus far: Irrik had followed me, set tails on me, and when the guards came, Mum . . . I squeezed my eyes shut and saw her blood everywhere. She’d taken my place. There was something I was missing, and it made me want to pull out what remained of my hair.
On the surface, the king thought I was a rebel, and what I said next would determine if I lived or died. I knew that. But there was something more, a whole other importance that mother was terrified to have the king know, something she was willing to die for. Or she could’ve tried to run with me. She’d been trying to keep me from notice. She’d had a blade with Phaetyn blood.
As we reached the gilded doors, I forced my legs to move, certain I was about to die.
I wished there was a way to get a message to Dyter. To Arnik. To anyone. I didn’t want to die without saying goodbye. They’d find my mother’s body and would never know what happened to me. I chewed on the side of my lip and ran my hand through my hair—what was left of it—and a few long strands, which must’ve been missed when the girl cut it, came off in my fingers.
Two huge guards, nearly as large as Lord Irrik, broke from the lines and hauled open the doors of the throne room of King Irdelron.
The girl beside me whispered something, but her words were lost in the terror of my mind. With a last shove to get my feet moving, she retreated with the door, keeping out of sight.
My feet took me into the room, stuttering just like my heart.
Long tables, twice the size of my bed, lined one entire wall, and were laden with food. Roasted birds with golden skin sat atop platters loaded with root vegetables, the rich juices of the birds soaking into the potatoes, carrots, and turnips. A hunk of meat, at least the size of my torso, was cut into slices, revealing a tender pink center to its dark seared crust. There were plates of breads in every imaginable shape and size, and next to the piled rolls were ceramic crocks. Bowls of greens, containing fresh leaves of lettuce and cooked beans sat beside an entire pig with an apple in its mouth in the very center. There was roasted orange squash and a platter of grilled corn.
A table with dainty finger cakes, cookies, and pies the size of my palm sat beside it. There was so much food, enough to feed several Harvest Zones, and the air was rich and sweet with the scents, but no one was eating.
I glanced through the room. There were two dozen other empty tables, and the opposite side of the room was barren, except for the raised dais where King Irdelron sat on his throne, a gilded monstrosity. The back of the throne was a handspan taller than the Drae standing next to it. Lord Irrik.
Next to the king, on the other side, was a smaller throne, much less ornate and also empty. How many queens had sat on that chair? He’d had many wives during his life, extended as it was with Phaetyn blood. How many queens had he murdered when he tired of them? How many of his own children had he slain to ensure he remained king?
King Irdelron appeared nothing like I’d expected. First, he looked far too young for his alleged age of one hundred and thirty, more like forty. His hair was like maize, so golden and fair it didn’t seem natural. His eyes were a vibrant green, the color of the leaves on Mum’s pea vines. And his skin was smooth and fair, like he and the sun were unacquainted. I couldn’t believe the rumors. How could he be over one hundred? And then my gaze landed on the gilded vial that hung around his neck.
“You’ve kept me waiting, girl,” King Irdelron said from his throne. His voice was calm and quiet, but there was a thread of something cold underneath.
I glanced at the Drae, but Lord Irrik’s face could’ve been carved from stone where he stood in the shadow of the throne.
The king raised his eyebrows and said, “I don’t take kindly to waiting.”
9
The doors creaked open behind me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off this man. The girl had been right. The Drae was a monster, but the king . . . The sickness pouring off him was warning me to run and hide. He wasn’t particularly tall, nor his features sharp or twisted. He didn’t have the physical prowess to give the impression that he could fell me in a sweep of his sword. He radiated something much worse.
The girl who’d cut my hair was shoved beside me. A guard towered over her. She fell to her knees and scrambled back to her feet as I watched from the corner of my eye. Shame filled me at my cowardice, but I didn’t dare help her.
The king fixed the girl next to me with a pointed look. “What happened to Lord Irrik’s friend, dear Madeline?” He fingered the chain from whence the small flask hung then ran the bottle back and forth on the chain. “You haven’t been doing things you oughtn’t, have you?”
The girl replied in a wooden voice, “She went berserk, Your Majesty. Said she had to use the pot, but the next thing I knew she was trying to kill herself.” She curtsied and said, “Sorry, sire.”
Her gaze flitted to Lord Irrik, but the Drae watched me, his mouth curved down in disapproval. I glared back, trying to convey my disgust without the king mistaking the glare as meant for him.
“Madeleine, it pains me to see you lie,” the king said with a kind smile. He extended his hand and waved toward the door. “Jotun, at your hand.”
Madeleine sucked in a deep breath, and at the same time, the soldier nearest to her drew his sword. In one fluid movement, he swung the sword in an arc, slicing through the young girl, eviscerating her from one hip clean through her rib cage in a diagonal line. Her lower half crumpled to the ground, and her top half almost seemed to float in the air momentarily before falling to the gray stone floor. She landed on her side, and blood gushed from her gutted torso, her heart still beating, pumping the blood out of her
system and onto the floor. Her eyes widened, and she ran her hand over the stump of her body as she watched her life spill out before her.
“At last . . .” She sighed before her head fell back on the floor.
Bile burned the back of my throat, but I was learning I could only feel so much and go through so much before all the screams and tears were gone. That was where I was right now. I stared at the body of the girl who had tried to spare me some of the king’s wrath by cutting my hair and rubbing ointment on my face.
My mind told me she was dead now, but even though I saw the truth of it before me, I couldn’t process the perpetual horror I was experiencing.
I’d never seen brutality like this before. I’d seen cruelty from soldiers but never the river from whence the streams came. This man was the namesake. His savage inhumanity sat underneath his average face and average height and mild manner. I’d have to be a fool not to quake in fear.
There were different rules in this place.
This was not a game I knew how to play.
The king cleared his throat, and I looked at the fair man. He licked his lips as he closed the bottle. His gaze returned to me, and his eyes glinted with the first pieces of hardness I’d seen.
“You are to curtsey before your king, girl. Or did your rebel mother not teach you manners?”
His words were a trap, and I peered down, my gaze falling on the bloodied hem of my tunic. My mother was dead because of his orders. He didn’t kill her with his hands, but what he’d done was worse. The king had no idea who he’d killed with his instructions to his guards. I doubted he cared. The girl, Madeline, lay on the floor at my feet.
I curtsied. Low. And waited.
“Hmm. You may rise.” Turning in his seat to face his first, King Irdelron asked Lord Irrik, “Does she not speak?”
Lord Irrik stared through me to the back of the room. “Mostly nonsense, sire. She hasn’t been coherent in my dealings with her, limited though they’ve been.”
His voice was emotionless, but another glint ran through the king’s expression as though he heard something I did not in the Drae’s voice.
He leaned forward. “She’s truly worthless?”
“That is for you to judge, sire,” the Drae said in a disinterested voice. “I followed a woman from the rebel meetings to her house. When I questioned the girl’s mother, she pulled a knife.”
“Your mother was a rebel, girl?”
I kept my focus on the king, and my tongue twisted before I managed the words, “If she was, Your Majesty, she did not include me in her plans. I had no idea she was anything more than a mother until tonight.”
It was true.
The king’s gaze slid to Lord Irrik, who was still as a statue. “She’s pretty, don’t you think, my Drae? Is that why you lowered yourself to kiss the daughter of a rebel? Three times, according to reports from others in my guard? Once in her house, once on the street, and once at the gate to my castle?”
Three times? I felt violated.
“She was hysterical. She came into the room as I killed her mother and started screaming. Her screams irritated me.”
I gritted my teeth but remained silent as I processed what Lord Irrik had said. He killed my mother? No, she’d asked him to, to protect me. He’d refused, and she’d stabbed herself. But then he stepped on the blade to finish her off. The images flashed through my vision, twisting and distorting in my memory.
“Is that so?” the king mused. He tapped a finger on his jaw and propped his chin on an elbow to one side. He glanced toward the Drae again. “Have we apprehended any other rebels?”
“Three others. The rest have gone into hiding. I don’t believe the same strategy will work again. They are fast learners.”
What others?
The king’s face twisted, and the mask he’d kept in place until now slipped. “Peasants,” he sneered, turning his attention to me. “Trying to kill me and take my throne? Do they think I will ever let another take it, girl?”
I jerked, heart hammering. “No, King Irdelron.”
That was the truth as well. They knew he was a power hungry, selfish sod. If he’d kill his own children, it was no surprise he’d kill the peasants.
The king glanced over my head and raised both brows before setting his eyes on me once more. I heard twin sets of footsteps march up behind.
The Drae to the right of the throne twitched, nearly imperceptibly.
Cold realization settled heavily in my chest. The king wasn’t going to let me go. He was going to kill me. My eyes slid to Madeline’s corpse; she’d said there was only one way out of here, hadn’t she? The seconds stretched, and I contemplated my fate. I had accomplished nothing of significance in my life, and I didn’t want to die here.
I tensed as the footsteps halted beside me. If the king thought I wasn’t going to try to run he had another thing coming. I waited for the order that would seal my fate, muscles coiled to escape.
Lord Irrik spoke, “Perhaps it would be wise to question the girl. If she knows anything, she may be able to corroborate whatever the other three prisoners disclose. She’ll be easier to break than the others.”
I shifted my eyes to the Drae, furrowing my brow.
The king still watched me with his assessing gaze, and I hoped I hadn’t betrayed anything.
A slow smile twisted the king’s features. “Lord Irrik, what an excellent plan. You echo my own thoughts. Though I must ask, seeing as you’ve kissed her several times, is your lust for her going to interfere with the interrogation?”
Lust! What the hay?
King Irdelron leaned back in his gilded throne, and studied me over his steepled fingers.
The Drae’s face remained impassive. “I am bound by oath, sire. And I would never lust for a human.”
Irdelron laughed, a cruel barking sound. “Then you will be alone for eternity.” He raised his hand and waved me forward. “Jotun, take this wisp of a girl and find out what she knows. Feel free to show her your brand of hospitality, but don’t kill her. I want her alive—for now.” His eyes slid to Irrik, then back to the guard. “When you’re done, find suitable accommodations for such an esteemed guest.”
His words were all courtesy, which was enough to convince me I wouldn’t be getting hospitality whatsoever.
Dyter told me of the king’s dungeons. Just the other day he’d told me how many people escaped them.
None.
Madeline’s blood had seeped across the ground and was nearly at the outer edge of my left boot. At last, she’d said—the girl who’d made me feel like a toddler with the wisdom in her eyes, wisdom I was convinced was forged from haunting experience. Was it so bad here that death like that was preferable? The girl had told me she was uncertain why she hadn’t given up, that it was just habit to live. She’d told me to do whatever was necessary to stay alive. To find my corner.
Yet she’d welcomed death in the end.
How long would it take me to become like her? Would I welcome it, too?
Jotun, the guard who murdered Madeline, crossed to me. His features were nondescript, from the muted color of his hair and eyes, to the color of his skin, neither light nor dark. His expression was blank deference to his master. He moved forward without a sound, despite the weapons he carried. He was one of the big guards, the ones close in size to Lord Irrik.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
The king laughed. “Oh, it’s no use talking to Jotun, girl.”
The guard grabbed my arm, his thick fingers circling my bicep in a loose grip. It was useless to fight him. I’d seen his earlier speed, and now I felt his strength.
For no other reason than in this dark room I knew him best of anyone, I lifted my eyes to the king’s Drae. His lip curled into a sneer, and I knew whatever “help” he’d offered was officially at an end.
I was on my own at seventeen. I’d wished for excitement, and it brought me this. My heart was broken, shattered. My chest was empty. I had no
one.
I followed the soldier out of the king’s presence, past the rows of guards, and down an endless staircase. This one was damp with fewer torches. Small windows spaced farther apart and up out of reach offered the only light. The first rays of the morning sky penetrated through.
I stumbled, and only Jotun’s hold on my arm kept me from tumbling down the stairs. He said nothing as he yanked me upright.
“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered. Now that we were out of the throne room, my attention turned to what was coming next with exhausted acceptance. Maybe if I knew what to expect, I could prepare.
Jotun remained silent, and I couldn’t be sure if he was ignoring me or hadn’t heard.
Swallowing my pride and fear, I raised my voice and asked again, “What are you going to do to me?”
The guard didn’t stop walking. He didn’t turn to look at me. He didn’t even glance my way. He just continued propelling us forward with his grip on my arm.
The windows stopped as we descended, and the distance between the weak light of the torches grew. We reached a stone landing on the stairway, and an ear-splitting scream tore through the air. Stagnant, fetid air clung to me, pushing its rank odor into my lungs. A gust of cold rot blasted me as we passed an open doorway, and I instinctively reared back, bumping into the guard.
Jotun pushed me away, his grip on my arm tightening as he increased the distance between us with just the extension of his arm. I’d never met anyone so strong, aside from Lord Irrik.
We passed several wooden doors, all closed. From the gaps in the slats came muffled sobs or pleas for help. The sound of metal grinding came from behind one door, and a sharp scream was cut short by a wet gurgle.
So many doors, and behind at least three of them were people I knew, according to Irrik. Were they being tortured? Were any of them my friends? Dyter? Arnik? The thought of one of them being severed like Madeline made my knees weak, and I discovered I wasn’t as completely soul numb as I’d thought.
