Panic blossomed in my chest like a thick, red flower. My heart banged against my ribcage, and my breathing grew ragged.
“No!” I cried.
Svensen’s grip tightened. “You behave,” he said, “and I’ll take off those ropes. You’d like that, right?”
My head whipped back and forth instinctively. Something about the dark, open circle at Svensen’s feet terrified me more than anything else I’d seen in the course of this horrible night.
Svensen’s eyes glinted hard in the light from his torch. “You’re going in there,” he said. “Whether you go in with the use of your arms, or not, is up to you.”
A low, pained whimper filled the air between us, like the cry of an animal caught in a trap. It took me a minute to realize the whimper was coming from between my lips.
Svensen’s shoulders sank. “Look. It’s not so bad. Once the tide recedes, it’ll be dry. And no one will come to rape you here.”
I bit my lip until my mouth filled with the hot rush of blood, trying to force myself to listen to the reason behind his words.
“You’ll see the stars.” His voice was low, as though he were telling me something secret and horrible.
“Fine,” I said. It sounded like a sob.
Svensen nodded. A second later his torch swung behind me, and he cut the cord holding my wrists behind my back. My arms burned as I pulled them across my chest, rubbing the raw, angry welts his rope had left.
“There’s water down there,” Svensen said. “It’ll come to your waist, but the tide’s ebbing. Give it a few hours, and you’ll be dry.”
“H-How high does the water get?”
He frowned. “High enough. You’ll be fine until the full moon.”
I opened my mouth to ask what happened on the full moon, but the grim look on his face convinced me to remain silent.
“Do you need a hand down?” he asked.
Our eyes met in the dim flicker of his torch. I stared at him, trying to determine if he was mocking me. Or threatening me. But no, his eyes carried no trace of malice. The only emotion on Svensen’s deeply lined face was an exhaustion so deep it was almost palpable in the air between us.
“No,” I said.
I dropped to my knees, then swung my feet into the black hole in the ground. My shoulders and arms still burned from being held behind my back for so many hours, and my entire body trembled. It was no longer warm; cold air pushed up through the hole in the floor, raising the flesh on my bare legs.
I pictured Fenris as I pushed my body toward the narrow opening and tried to remember the curves and hard, muscular lines of his body. His sparkling eyes. The way he looked as he slept in my arms, with his eyes closed, his face peaceful. Remembering the way my husband’s chest felt against my skin as it rose and fell in my arms, I let myself drop into the darkness.
THE MONSTER AND THE PRISONER: CHAPTER TWO
Svensen was wrong. The water didn’t come as high as my waist. Cold, swirling waters lapped at my calves as the iron gate above me slammed shut with a resounding clang. I held my breath, waiting to see if Svensen would say anything, but I heard only the faint, receding echo of his footsteps along the stone passageway.
I shivered. The water at my feet was bitterly cold. With my hands outstretched, I felt my way around the confines of my cell. If I knelt down, wetting my thighs and the hem of Týr’s shirt, I could indeed see the distant, cold glimmer of the stars through the rows of thick bars set low in the wall of the cell. Water swirled through the bars, sometimes obscuring the sky completely, and sometimes receding enough to let me see the jagged rocks beyond.
Feeling blindly along the far side of my cell, I found a small, roughly carved shelf filled with a collection of what felt like twigs, or bones. The little crack was just large enough for my body, if I curled up like a cat. Sighing in relief, I pulled my legs from the icy water.
I ached all over. My wrists sang with pain, especially where rough stone rubbed the raw cuts from the ropes. I was painfully thirsty, and my stomach cramped and groaned.
I felt like I should cry, or rage against the night. Perhaps I should scream until someone came for me. Perhaps I should try to pull the thick bars off the bottom of my cell. But I couldn’t even find the strength to lift my head from the cold stone shelf. The ocean hissed and gurgled in the darkness below me, and I closed my eyes, trying to remember what Fenris looked like when he smiled.
I WOKE SHIVERING.
The morning brought pale sunlight to my cell, which was almost dry. I forced myself out of the little shelf while my cramped muscles screamed in protest. Wincing, I rubbed my arms and examined the raw scrapes on my wrists. They still burned when I touched them, but my skin was cool to the touch, and the pain no longer extended up my arm. Thank the stars for that. If these cuts got infected here, it could well be the death of me.
I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry. The walls and floor of my cell were slick with algae and studded with the hard, white stars of barnacles. They dripped with water. I was desperate enough to press my chest to the stone walls and open my mouth until I caught a drop between my lips.
Salt. Of course. I spat, cursing my stupidity. Hadn’t I always heard the ocean was as salty as tears?
I sank to my knees and stared through the rusted metal bars. The sea undulated slowly just beyond the walls of my cell, moving like a great beast breathing as it slept. Golden sunlight streaked the waves. Of course. I’d always known Nøkkyn’s castle lay at the terminus of the Körmt river. This must be the Western Sea. A little shiver ran through me; for a heartbeat, I forgot my discomfort. To think that I would live to see the Western Sea.
I wrapped my hands around the thick bars and tugged. They didn’t budge, of course. Perhaps Fenris in his wolf form could rip them from the stone. I thrust my hand through the bars, waving my pale fingers at the sea as if signaling to someone. The indifferent ocean did not respond to my hail. I patted the stone above and below me, feeling nothing but rock and the sharp bumps of barnacles. There was a thick mat of oily green seaweed all around the bars, but it lay just out of reach. The previous occupant must have had longer arms than me, I realized with a shiver.
Sinking back on my heels, I stared at the glistening ocean beyond the bars. My throat was so dry it almost hurt to breathe. For the first time, it occurred to me that I may well die in this pit. My arms wrapped around my waist, cradling the tiny spark of life growing there. Again I felt that I should cry, or scream, or something, until someone came to the iron grate in the ceiling of this cave. But I felt strangely detached from the rough stone beneath me, or the cold seawater dripping from the algae-streaked walls behind me, or the sparkling, unreachable sea before me.
I closed my eyes, listening to the hiss and gurgle of the vast Western Sea. It felt like I had lived an entire lifetime since Fenris took my hand and led me to the edge of those potato fields, showing me the three fresh graves. Someone cared for your family, he’d said. As if burial was the same as compassion.
Something cold brushed my toes, and I looked down to see a wreath of foam dancing in and out through the thick bars. My numbed and distant mind registered this as the rising tide. I watched water surge and bubble over my toes. When it began to slosh around my knees, I scrambled backward until I hit the wall behind me. Eventually, the water forced me back into the rough shelf where I’d spent the night. This time, as the sun shone through the submerged bars and turned the rising water an opalescent green, the little waves swelled and rose until they splashed over the edge of the shelf, soaking Týr’s shirt and making me shiver in violent, uncontrollable waves.
You’ll be fine until the full moon, Svensen had said last night. How long until the full moon? I tried to think, but my mind ebbed and surged like the waves filling my cell. My memories felt like shards of broken glass, viciously sharp when I tried to pick them up, their cruel edges stained by blood. How long ago had Fenris and I seen the black sky of the new moon? How long ago had we kissed in the furs, both
giggling with the knowledge that the seeds Fenris planted inside me had indeed taken root? And when had we decided to visit my family, to move our bed and furs into the hayloft of the empty barn?
I remembered ashes. That hayloft was now just an empty patch of autumn sky, filled with wind and the cries of crows. The ocean gurgled and hissed against the rocks. I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing at all.
TIME SOFTENED.
Before I entered the dungeon, I would have said nothing was easier to track than the rise and fall of the great, burning sun in the sky, or the cycles of the bright moon as it trekked across the heavens. But now, as I spent most of my time drifting in the hazy middle ground between sleep and waking, my days and nights became as pliable as warm wax. Sometimes I’d close my eyes and open them hours later, finding that the waters in my cell had receded to nothingness. Or I’d find the ocean slurping at my fingers. Sometimes I’d expect the cell to be dark and would wake to find it filled with sunlight, or I’d expect midday and find only the distant, faint glimmer of the stars.
Occasionally, someone brought me food and a battered skin of water. Even that was fluid and changeable. I thought I’d gone two days without water after Svensen first shoved me down the hole, but perhaps the waterskin slipped between the bars only hours after I’d awoken. Usually I’d hear the heavy thud of boots against the metal grate, then the scrape of a bread crust thrust between the bars. If I was too slow, the bread would land against the slick rocks, its surface streaked with rust like bleeding wounds. Or it would land in the water, and I’d have to scramble to catch it before the hungry ocean pulled it through the bars of my prison.
The waterskin was more important than the bread. That I always caught, and I drained it in a heartbeat. It was never enough. I always pushed it back through the grate, hoping it would be refilled. Once, one glorious morning, it came back almost immediately, filled with more sweet water.
I dreamt of that water. The chatter of the Lucky river filled my aching, tormented nights. I’d imagine myself sinking into its tannin-rich waters, opening my mouth, drinking and drinking. I felt I could drain the entire Körmt river with my thirst.
And the ocean kept rising. High tide lapped at the edge of the stone shelf that first morning and soaked Týr’s shirt. That night, it spilled across my lower leg. The tides rolled on. Eventually I had to hold my head up while the waters licked at my ear. Then I was forced to press my lips against the stone ceiling, as if I were kissing the slick rock, while the waters covered my body.
Once the tide finally began to recede, I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to warm my shivering, frozen limbs. How many more tides did I have, I wondered? How long until the water filled my cell like rain fills a bucket, all the way to the top, until it spilled through the rusty grate above?
Closing my eyes, I let sleep carry me back to the shores of the Lucky.
THE MONSTER AND THE PRISONER: CHAPTER THREE
“Hello?”
I groaned. Bright light filled my cell, hurting my eyes.
“Hello?” the man’s voice called again.
My breath caught in my throat. For a moment, I wanted to hold still, to see if perhaps I could avoid detection.
“I’m here to pull you out,” he called.
I recognized that voice. Svensen, the man who’d captured me at the ruins of my family’s farm. Frowning, I tried to decide whether I was happy to hear him or not.
“Come on,” he grunted. The metallic clang of keys reverberated through the little cell, followed by the squeal of rusted metal. The grate clanged loudly as it fell backward. Torchlight flooded down through the opening.
“Come out if you’re still alive,” Svensen called. “I’m not going down there.”
Squinting against the light, I pulled myself from the shelf and splashed into the knee-deep water swirling in my cell. My body cried in protest. I’d had to fold myself almost in two to fit on the shelf above the water, and my back and legs ached when I stood.
Holding the algae-slick wall for balance, I pulled myself through the frigid water. Light danced across the dark slick of the ocean. I held my hand over my eyes, trying to see past the torch’s glare. Svensen looked down at me. His expression did not change when our eyes met.
“Water,” I croaked.
He nodded, and his head vanished from the hole in the ceiling. He reappeared a moment later, swinging a waterskin in his fist.
“I’ve got water,” he said.
My vision blurred. I blinked away the onslaught of tears, willing the moisture back into my body.
“Thank you.” My voice sounded harsh, as though my very throat were streaked with rust.
He gave the slightest indication of a nod, then leaned back. His hand reappeared, this time without the waterskin.
“Take my hand,” he said.
It was not so far, the distance between my cell and freedom. I could trace the grate with my fingers, after all, or push the empty waterskins through the holes. I reached for Svensen. His fingers closed around my wrist. He took my arm with both of his callused, warm hands and, grunting, he pulled me through the hole.
The tunnelling hall above my cell looked much bigger than I remembered. I rubbed my hands along my arms, trying to stop shivering, as Svensen replaced the iron grate, closed the lock, and handed me the waterskin without a word. As I drained it dry, he bent and picked up a length of heavy chain. I handed the empty waterskin back to him, and he fixed me with his tired eyes.
“You’re to be chained,” he said.
I said nothing. What good would it do to scream in the dungeons? And I lacked the strength to run, or to fight him off.
He held up a thick, gleaming band of metal. My eyes widened as he stepped so close to me that his broad chest brushed my breasts. Something cold closed around my neck with a snap that echoed up and down the tunnel. Svensen stepped back, holding the chain in his hands. The chain that was now attached to a collar around my neck.
“Follow me,” he said. His voice was as flat as the Körmt river.
I fell into step behind him, raising my fingers to trace the band around my neck. The hinge in the back was made of cold metal, but the strap holding it shut felt like leather. Given time, and a knife, I could probably work it open.
So, they must not be planning to give me time.
Or knives.
I REMEMBERED THE FIRST time Svensen had taken me through the dungeons. Their winding, pungent hallways were much more lively now. Screams and catcalls followed our progress, giving me a vague sense of the time. When Svensen had first brought me here, our torch had been the only light, and almost all the cells had been silent. But that had been the middle of the night. Now, I caught sight of torches flickering down a handful of separate hallways, and all the prisoners seemed to be awake. I tried not to look at the cells, or the pleading, stick-thin hands sticking between the bars, begging for water.
We turned out of the dungeons earlier than I’d expected and followed an unfamiliar, narrow stairway up and up, until I lost count of how many steps we’d climbed. My legs burned with exertion, although I didn’t dare pause to rest. The chain that stretched from the collar around my throat to Svensen’s hands didn’t allow much give.
Svensen pushed open a wooden door. The scent of roasting meat swirled through the stairwell. My mouth ached, and I whimpered. Stars, how long had it been since I’d had more to eat than a rust-streaked crust of bread? Svensen stepped through the door, and the chain between us pulled tight. The latch at the back of my neck bit into my skin.
“Come on,” he said.
He did not meet my eyes. He may have been hauling me to my doom, or preparing to set me free in the streets of the vast city; his expression gave nothing away. I stepped after him and found myself in a narrow, brightly-lit corridor lined with windows. The floor was rough slate, and the wooden walls were unpainted. I was about to ask where we were when a door on the far side opened. A young woman in a servant’s dress bustled through. Her fa
ce was flushed, and her eyes were on the ground.
“Hello,” Svensen said.
The girl jumped.
“Bruna, right?” Svensen asked.
She paused in front of us, her eyes darting from Svensen’s face to the door on the far side of the hall. She bit her lip, then nodded.
“Listen, Bruna, I’ve got to take someone to see the king.” Svensen tilted his head in my direction. “Could you find us a bit of food first? A little plate of leftovers will do. Just take it from the dogs, actually.”
Svensen’s lips spread in a wide smile. For the first time, it struck me that he had once been an attractive man. He probably still was, to some people.
The door behind me swung open, allowing the buzz of distant conversation to wash over us. Footsteps filled the hall, and I turned to see two other servants hustling through the door. They both nodded politely at Svensen and acted as if I did not exist. Bruna seemed to relax as the other servants swept past.
“M’lord,” she said, bowing low as she backed through the open door.
A moment later she reappeared, this time carrying a wooden plate in her hands. My mouth ached at the sight of it, piled high with fat slabs of potato and two thick ribs. When Bruna handed it to me, an overwhelming surge of pure, animal joy swept through me so powerfully that my hands shook and the rib bones clattered.
I fell upon the food like an animal, not caring how I looked or what Svensen was saying to the slight serving girl. The thick slices of potato were still hard in the center, and the meat was charred black. No matter. To me, it was the most glorious feast in the Nine Realms. Once I’d devoured the tubers and ribs, I brought the bones to my lips and licked them clean. I would have split the bones and eaten the marrow, had I a knife, but a quick glance at Svensen’s impassive face told me a knife was unlikely to be procured.
Instead, he held another waterskin, and this one was plump with liquid. Reluctantly, I surrendered my plate with the bones still intact and took the waterskin. After draining the skin in luxuriously slow sips, I felt deliciously sated. If I closed my eyes and ignored the cold scrape of the metal band around my throat, I could almost believe all was right with the world.
The Complete Fenris Series Page 24
