Chapter 9
Roselyn
One of my kidnappers was a lanky man with scars all over his face and long sandy brown hair. His name was Gidion and he looked to be in his thirties. There were two younger men – barely more than teenagers – with short hair the colour of spun gold. They didn’t tell me their names; they were handsome and quiet. But the last of my captors was the one who held my attention, because she was a woman, and everything I knew told me she shouldn’t be the one in charge.
When her eyes shifted to lime green she told me her name was Sharra. She said that no one wanted to hurt me – they were simply using me to trade for a friend. But in my mind were the five men they had slaughtered – huge, Pirenti soldiers who were not supposed to be easy to kill. Whoever these people were, they were dangerous and violent. They flew me on that glorious pegasis to a hut in the forest – a small wooden shack with nothing inside but a straw palette and a table without chairs.
‘Where are we?’ I asked, not expecting an answer.
‘We passed the border not long ago.’
‘We’re in Kaya?’
At the fear in my voice, Gidion glanced up sharply. ‘It’s all right. You’re safe.’
Which was a lie – Kaya was full of monsters and demons that wanted nothing but the blood of Pirenti folk. I followed the others into the cabin and allowed them to sit me on the palette. The two younger boys stayed outside, while Sharra and Gidion stood in the middle of the hut and watched me.
‘Who is the friend you wish to trade me for?’ I asked eventually, unable to bear the silence.
They said nothing, but their eyes sharpened.
I frowned, looking between them. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Nothing,’ Sharra answered. ‘Don’t be frightened. You’ll be home soon.’
Don’t be frightened?
‘Have you eaten, Roselyn?’ she asked, strangely gentle.
Dripping caramel all over our hands, his tongue on my chin. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. Let me know when you get hungry or thirsty, or if you need to relieve yourself.’
I couldn’t help but imagine what would happen when my husband learnt of this. I shuddered – Thorne had been born to destroy things.
Then again, it was quite possible that Thorne resented me enough not to go to the trouble.
‘Is this some sort of trick?’ I asked. ‘Do you plan to kill me?’
‘No,’ Gidion shook his head. ‘We know how life is in Pirenti. You are not your husband, or your queen. You’re barely more than a child.’
‘I’m twenty-one years old.’
‘Yes,’ Sharra murmured. ‘And when did he marry you? How old were you then?’
I’d been sixteen. Sometimes I look at you and think you’re still just a child, and then other times I think you must be the oldest woman in the world. He’d said that to me in the first month of our marriage. He’d stopped being fascinated by me not long after that.
‘If you wish to use me to harm my husband,’ I said flatly, ‘I will never let you.’
‘No, not that either. Like I said,’ Sharra explained patiently, ‘we just want to trade you.’
‘Who is your friend?’ I asked again.
They exchanged a glance. ‘She disguises herself as a boy,’ Gidion murmured. ‘Calls herself Avery.’
I tried to remember the name, but couldn’t.
‘She would have looked like a small, blond Kayan boy. She might have been captured or … killed …’
And then it struck me. ‘There was a boy in our dungeons. He was caught by Ambrose and taken to the isle. He had strange purple eyes.’
Gidion made a sound, a kind of gasp, then rested his head in his hands. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘What has she done to herself?’
I stared at his slender hands – they had ugly, knobbly knuckles, but they were trembling in a way that was not ugly at all.
‘You love this person,’ I stated.
Gidion lowered his hands and levelled me with a gaze that seemed far more honest than his earlier politeness.
‘Not even a thousand wishes could bring him back from where he’s been taken,’ I said. ‘The prison isle is the nightmare of this world.’
The Kayan man shook his head very slowly, disbelief colouring his eyes cobalt. ‘You’re supposed to be stupid. That’s what everyone says.’
I didn’t know what to say; I felt ashamed. ‘You have nothing to trade for,’ I muttered, looking away. ‘You don’t need me.’
‘We’d only have nothing to trade if she was dead. We can still get her back from the isle,’ Sharra said, mostly to Gidion.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Maybe it could have been possible in another life, another world. But in this life, the prince took the boy himself, and there’s naught under the eyes of the Gods that can stop Ambrose from finishing what he starts.’
Gidion and Sharra both stared at me, and then Gidion said, very simply, ‘You don’t know Ava of Orion.’
I was about to reply when the reality of what they were saying hit me. I felt myself freeze in shock. If they were telling the truth, then that boy who’d been so cruel and brave in the dungeons had been a woman! No – it was impossible. Women weren’t made like that. Weren’t forged from iron like men.
I sat quietly, allowing myself to make wishes. I savoured my last few moments of life and freedom before I told them the truth that might very well condemn me to death. ‘Your plan isn’t going to work,’ I spoke softly and felt both sets of eyes focus on me.
‘Why is that, Roselyn?’
‘Because they won’t care that you have me. They won’t trade a single thing for me.’
‘Who won’t?’
‘Any of them. The Queen hates me, and my husband …’ I swallowed, closing my eyes a moment before meeting Sharra’s pale green gaze. ‘My husband doesn’t love me at all.’
As the moon rose outside the window, we lay down to rest. They gave me the palette, saying they would sleep on the floor. The boys outside would be on watch duty, so if I tried to escape, I wouldn’t get beyond them.
I wouldn’t try to escape. I wasn’t capable of such things. For six brief seconds I contemplated it, and then my mind was off somewhere different, somewhere between the clarity of numbers. Hours passed and I couldn’t sleep. I’d already counted the wooden slats in the roof, and then all of the nails in the wall next to me. Too many of my wishes weren’t coming true. It was throwing everything out of kilter. I wish for a pegasis of my own, one I can ride forever and never land. I wish I could live in the sky.
‘What are you counting, Roselyn?’ Sharra whispered.
I rolled over, looking at where she lay on the floor next to my palette. ‘Nothing.’
‘Can’t sleep?’
‘I don’t sleep well without my husband.’
‘The husband who doesn’t love you?’ She propped herself on her elbow. Her eyes were the most amazing, unnatural shade I’d ever seen. They didn’t make sense, eyes like those. I wanted to understand how they worked, but didn’t dare ask.
‘We sent the message. If they are not at the border at dawn for the trade, we’ll let you go.’
I studied her face in the shaft of moonlight. I didn’t believe her, not for one second.
‘Roselyn, in Kaya we don’t steal innocent women and slaughter them. We fight our wars in self-defence.’
I’d never thought much about the wars Thorne fought. I considered violence and brutality a natural part of the world, but one that I already experienced enough of at home without seeking out more information. It had never occurred to me that my people might have instigated the violence – that this fighting could be our fault. Or that there were places in the world where brutality wasn’t an everyday occurrence. A sudden, new wish came to me: I wish I was from somewhere other than Pirenti. Too many wishes that couldn’t come true – I had to stop.
‘Why are you married to a man who doesn’t love you?’ Sharra asked me softly. Gidion was snoring gently on her other side.
Secretly, I thought the question was the stupidest I’d ever heard. Did she know naught of the world? How offensively entitled she seemed.
‘I didn’t choose to marry him. Nor did I choose for him to be disappointed in me.’
‘But … can’t you leave him?’
I stared at her. ‘Leave him? Leave him how?’
‘Break the marriage and leave the fortress.’
I squinted through the darkness, trying to see if she was making fun of me. ‘You do not simply break a marriage to a Pirenti man, let alone the Prince himself. You do not leave the slaughterman of the north, unless you wish to be hunted down and carved into a thousand pieces.’
Sharra’s mouth fell open. Her eyes shifted to a sickly yellow that reminded me of fear. ‘That’s awful.’
‘He is my husband,’ I reiterated slowly. ‘I belong to him. I am privileged.’
She shook her head. ‘Roselyn, it shouldn’t be like that. Does he hurt you?’
He hurts me less than everyone else.
‘Is that why you have those bruises around your neck?’
‘Stop,’ I murmured. ‘Please.’
‘Life shouldn’t be like that,’ Sharra went on. ‘It’s wrong. Men don’t treat women like that in Kaya.’
‘I was not born in Kaya,’ I told her simply. ‘I was born into another life. In the north it is cold.’
She didn’t reply to that.
A world had opened up between us, and I knew all of my previous wishes had been foolish. Something compelled me to ask, though, ‘Are you and Gidion married?’
‘No, we’re bonded,’ she replied. ‘We’re supposed to be married next season but with Ava gone … I don’t know anymore.’ Deep regret twisted her mouth. ‘We should never have let her leave. Or let her be treated so poorly. It’s just that it was … it was such a shock, losing him. Ava was such a bright thing, once. And now it sounds as though we’ll be too late to help her, and I …’
I didn’t know what Sharra was talking about, but Ava must have been the boy-girl’s name. She made more sense to me, with a different name. She was a woman who’d been beaten and caged, and thinking about her like that made it very hard for me to continue to hate her. ‘Bonded. Isn’t that what kills you all?’
‘If one of us dies, the other does too.’
‘An ugly fate.’
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘It’s perfect. Why would I want to live without Gidion?’
I opened my mouth but nothing came out – the truth of her statement came to me all at once. I wish I could bond with someone. No. I took the wish back and made another. I wish I could bond with Thorne. Then maybe he’d love me the way I loved him. I thought of the freedom a woman would have if her husband loved her with the same need with which she loved him.
‘You should think about coming back with us, Roselyn,’ Sharra yawned. ‘To live in Kaya.’
I blinked and stopped counting partway through a row of nails. For a moment, there were no wishes and no numbers inside me. There was only one thing. And he arrived at the hut moments later.
Ava
I woke to the setting sun shining through my window. Ambrose was silhouetted against it, tall and broad.
‘What happened?’ I asked, sitting up. I felt tired and sore.
‘You collapsed,’ he said, not turning. ‘They said you’re fading.’
‘Who said that?’
‘Some old guy.’
‘And you always listen to old guys?’
‘Usually.’
I breathed out heavily. ‘Right. Well it’s happened before. I always recover.’
‘Then you’re not dying?’ He turned to me. I couldn’t see his face with the sun shining so brilliantly behind him. It was throwing a warm light over the whole room.
‘I don’t know.’ Then I remembered who he was and a loathing so powerful stole over me. ‘You said you were there,’ I murmured. ‘when she was murdered. You were there, and you were a prince, but you did nothing. You just watched as your mother killed my mate.’
Ambrose’s gaze was dark. ‘Yes.’
‘That brother you miss so terribly is the slaughterman of Pirenti, the most loathed man in the world,’ I spat. I felt dizzy with hatred and frustration. I’d never felt so weak, so staggeringly impotent. I wanted revenge, but it was like trying to catch hold of air.
‘You’re monsters, all three of you,’ I hissed.
Ambrose folded his big arms over his big chest. It made so much sense to me now, his size and strength. When they challenged him for his crown, he killed them all. He had to, had to make sure he was able to. I’d heard the stories about the two princes. No one tried to challenge them anymore – they were too savage, too impossible. It was the quickest way to dig your own grave.
‘Calm down,’ the prince ordered flatly. ‘You’ll pass out again.’
A gasp of fury left me and I flung myself out of bed. I hit him in the chest as hard as I could. He didn’t block me. He stood still, so I hit him again and again. I went for his ribs and his lungs, wanting to steal the breath from him, and then I hit him in the face, harder than I’d ever hit anyone before. His head snapped back, but I punched him again. I punched him until my arm ached and I couldn’t breathe from exhaustion. There was so much sorrow in me, deep in my guts. It hurt and it screamed and it made me want to bleed.
Finally he grabbed me by the arms and held me still while I struggled wearily. ‘I hate you – you disgusting, evil man.’
‘I know,’ he growled. ‘I know, Avery, but stop – you’ll hurt yourself.’
I sagged, wrenching myself out of his clutches and stumbling to the end of the bed. When I looked at him my eyes turned white, and I put all of that hatred into my voice. ‘I would rather you had let me die than owe you the debt of my life.’
Ambrose looked dangerous; something in him was coming alive at the sight of my eyes shedding all colour. This was how the warders he had murdered would undoubtedly have looked at him. This gaze was what he had been born to fight. But all he said was, ‘You owe me nothing.’
‘I hate you but I owe you everything. Where am I supposed to go from there? What am I supposed to do?’
‘I don’t know, but calm down, would you?’ he snapped. ‘You’re acting like a brat.’
‘I hate you.’
‘I know that – we’ve covered it. Don’t you think I’d like to go back and save the girl, if it would make you happy?’
I was unable to look at him. There was a huge purple bruise forming around his left eye, and a cut had opened up along his cheek.
‘I can’t change shit,’ he snapped. ‘I can’t change the fact that my mother is a monster, and she was so cruel to Thorne that she turned him into a beast. I can’t change how she enjoys hurting people and wants us to be the same.’
I stared at him, feeling oddly deflated. ‘And what of you?’
‘What about me?’
‘What did she do to you?’
‘Nothing – she ignored me. I didn’t exist to the Queen until I was fourteen and she realised I had the potential to become a soldier. I was a small kid until then – the runt of the family.’
‘The runt?’ It was difficult to believe, until I remembered the man in the dungeons who was supposedly his brother – a truly monstrous man.
‘When she realised, she sent me to the army barracks in Vjort for some northern punishment.’
‘What’s northern punishment?’
‘At sixteen all men from Pirenti are sent to the barracks up north for hazing.’
‘But you were—?’
‘Fourteen. That’s not the point.’
‘What’s hazing?’
‘Hazing is being tied to a tree, naked in the snow, and being left there for days. It’s being burnt in your sleep with brands. It’s being denied rations and having your weapons blunted and your armour stolen, and being set loose with the wolves. It’s anything and everything you can think of to torture a person, and they didn’t go easy on me because I was the Prince – my mother made sure of that.’
I felt queasy, imagining him as a little boy sent into that kind of nightmare. The scars along the length of his spine made sense now. ‘How did you survive it? How could anyone?’
Ambrose shrugged. ‘None of it bothered me much. It’s just hazing – so it has been for an age and so will it exist long after I’m gone from this world.’
‘It’s torture, Ambrose. It bothers everyone.’
He met my eyes. ‘I spent a childhood instinctively learning what people fear – I can smell it. And those men who hazed me – all the people who have ever hurt me – they reek of terror when they draw near. It distracts from the pain when you know your attackers’ true feelings.’
I swallowed. ‘Why did they fear you so much?’
He looked at me, then, and didn’t say a word, but there was a glint in his eyes that made me cold inside. It was obvious – very, very obvious, why people would fear him.
I slumped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. ‘How do you stand living in such a country?’
‘It’s so easy for you to judge, isn’t it, Avery?’
‘Yes.’
I heard him sigh. ‘You’ve got no bloody clue. Things are more complicated than good and bad. Don’t you think there’s value in being able to protect yourself and your family? In being able to fight and win wars?’
‘But what are you fighting and winning for? There’s no reason to any of it.’
He crossed the room and idly knocked his knuckles against the wall, as though a fist was all he could make with his hands. ‘We fight so we don’t die. It’s that simple, and it will always be that simple.’
‘You’re a simplistic fool.’
‘Maybe so, but I know what I love and what I hate. That can be enough.’
‘It’s not enough for me.’
‘Because you want to prod and poke and control everything. You’d love to change the world so that everyone is the same as you.’
‘Bullshit!’ I protested. ‘I don’t want to change anyone!’
‘You’re constantly trying to change me.’
I opened my mouth to argue but nothing came out. I stared at him, and suddenly I was laughing. ‘But you need to be changed.’
After a moment he cracked a smile. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh, pretty boy.’
‘Don’t get used to it, pig.’
‘Don’t they teach you manners in Kaya, Avery?’
I rolled my eyes, sick of him. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘Fine.’ He strode towards the door. That seemed to be the nature of our relationship – vacillating between moments of amused camaraderie and savage fighting. It was exhausting.
‘Ambrose,’ I said suddenly, unsure what was about to pop out of my mouth but sure I would rather fight with him than be alone. ‘You’re embarrassed by your mother, aren’t you?’
He stopped at the door and whirled around.
‘You’re embarrassed to be from Pirenti. You’re embarrassed of what you can’t control.’
‘Don’t you dare tell me what I feel, you arrogant little shit,’ he snarled. He was across the room in several long strides, towering over me. ‘I pity you, Avery. You truly believe you know everything.’
I didn’t respond because I didn’t have a clue what to say. He turned away, his jaw clenched – apparently I had hit a nerve.
‘Why did you save me back there?’ he asked abruptly, his tone clipped and furious. ‘I’m taking you to prison.’
I took a deep breath. Something about his words just then hurt me more than anything else since I had woken. For some naïve reason, I had thought that he might not want me to go to prison anymore, but this was all the reminder I needed that Ambrose was the Prince of Pirenti. He was endowed with the task of delivering me to prison, and about that he was single-minded. I was nothing to him but a job.
‘I know that,’ I bit out.
‘Then why?’
‘Because … it’s because Ave— Ava always said it was better to have mercy than blood on your hands.’
‘That’s a lie,’ he said. ‘You’re so full of hate you wouldn’t think twice about murdering anyone from Pirenti.’
I licked my lips and forced myself to nod. ‘That’s true.’
‘Except me.’
I found his face sharply.
‘You want to hate me. You desperately wish you could, but you don’t.’
I felt my broken heart start to beat fast and heavy. He didn’t move, so I rose from the bed and walked towards him. We both stood in the spill of the orange light as the sun sank steadily lower. ‘When my eyes turn white, it means there is hate in my heart, and there’s no tricking the eyes.’
His pale blue gaze flashed with something unrecognisable, and for a moment – one tiny moment in time – I thought I saw a fleck of gold in it, but then it was gone, and I knew my mind was playing tricks on me. That was impossible – more impossible, even, than me being able to smile.
‘Your eyes aren’t white now,’ Ambrose murmured. ‘They’re bright purple.’
My anger sank away. I was like shattered glass spilling its contents all over the floor. ‘I want to kill your mother. You want to take me to prison. We’re an unstoppable force and an immovable object. Do you know what that’s called?’
Ambrose smiled slowly, and for the first time I noticed how beautiful his smile was. It made his eyes all glittery like shards of crystal. ‘Fun,’ he answered.
I stared at him in the fading sunlight, feeling my eyes change colour. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know which colour they were turning to. My answer was just as simple: it was called death. And there in lay the difference between us.
Marla entered the room and gave us a quick once over. ‘You’re out of bed.’
‘It seems so.’ I didn’t like this woman. She had an air of disdain about her.
‘You are required in your room, pig,’ she said to Ambrose. She’d called him the exact same thing I just had, but I almost hated her for it.
He blinked and then grinned, finding this hilarious. ‘And what would that be for, sweetheart?’
Marla shifted to the side so that we could see the two armed men flanking her.
‘Ah, I see,’ Ambrose murmured. He shot me a look, shrugged and then strode from the room.
‘Someone will be in to help you wash and dress, sire,’ Marla told me before shutting the door behind her. I distinctly heard the sound of a lock being turned.
Well then, I probably should have assumed that ‘guest’ actually meant ‘prisoner’ – it was rather obvious in hindsight.
Several young boys entered with a big tub and then set about filling it with hot water, carried in one bucket at a time. I nearly wet myself with anticipation, watching the steam rise off the water. After they’d gone I stripped off all of my clothes for the first time in what felt an age, dumping the filthy pile in the corner. I unravelled the cloth around my chest and carefully plucked the pins from my hair, letting the long locks fall around me. My poor hair – it was full of dirt and grease and needed a very good wash. But at least it was still my hair, the one thing I’d ever really liked about myself.
With a prickling sensation along my spine, I steeled myself and moved before the mirror. Two years was a long time to pretend, a long time to remember. I didn’t know what I’d see, what to expect. I drew a deep breath and opened my eyes. A woman stood before me, a strange one. She was a different shape to the girl I remembered – her breasts fuller, her legs longer. She was thinner – I could see her ribs under her skin, scraping to get out. Her hair had grown all the way to her hips, but it was dark with all the dirt it held. Strangest of all was the expression this woman wore. It was distant and unimaginably cold, like it belonged to a creature made of hatred and fury. She looked old and weary and haunted. She was a monster, something completely other. I tried to find myself in her, but even when I stepped right up close to the glass and peered into those purple eyes, I couldn’t recognise a single thing about her. She was abstractly beautiful, as I had always wished to be, but I now found her ugly, understanding as I did now that real beauty simply came from happiness.
There was a sound behind me and I whirled to face my intruder. A girl about my age, with short dark hair. She had the same awful burn mark on her face in the shape of a wolf.
We stared at each other for a long moment, and then she remembered to drop her eyes. ‘Forgive me, my lady,’ she blurted, closing the door she had just entered. ‘I came to bring you a change of clothes, but now I see you may need a different set.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone I’m a woman. My travel companion especially cannot know.’
The girl nodded. ‘Of course, my lady – I won’t tell a soul.’ She smiled. Her eyes were green, and she was quite pretty. ‘Hop in the bath,’ she coached. ‘I’ll help you wash that beautiful hair of yours before it is tied back under your cap – even if it is a crime to hide it away.’
Climbing into the water was bliss. It was so hot it scalded every inch of my skin, but I didn’t care, because I felt clean for the first time in months. In years, actually.
‘I’m Hannah,’ the girl said as she gently combed out the tangles in my hair and then set about washing what was left with a lavender-smelling soap. I smiled wryly as I realised it was very similar to the soap I used at home. I sank back against the tub and closed my eyes at the feel of her fingers in my hair. How funny, how stupid, that I still couldn’t cut my hair. It remembered things I couldn’t bear to.
‘Avery.’
She smiled. ‘How odd this is. Why do you do it?’
I didn’t reply.
Hannah set about wiping clean my filthy body. ‘Oh, my lady!’ she exclaimed when she came to my bruised ribs. ‘You’re black and blue! How did this happen?’
‘I’ve got so many injuries I can’t even remember how I got them all.’ An expression across a fire; a boot slamming into my body; pale, angry eyes – stories I’d never expected to collect.
‘You will need these injuries tended to. This arm looks nasty, as does your poor hand.’
I didn’t bother explaining that I would probably be dead before the injuries could do me any real harm.
‘Climb out and I’ll dress you. Are you sure you want to wear these ugly men’s clothes?’
‘I’ve no need for pretty attire.’
‘But … why? Don’t you want to feel pretty?’
‘What for?’
‘Well … I don’t know. So men will find you pretty?’
My eyebrows arched. ‘I take it you haven’t bonded yet?’
‘No,’ she sighed. ‘and I’ll probably never meet my bondmate stuck here.’
‘You don’t like it here?’
Hannah shrugged. ‘I worry that my mate is in Kaya waiting for me and I’ll never get there.’
I shook my head. ‘You will find each other.’ For a long moment we said nothing until finally I murmured, ‘Prettiness means nothing in real life.’
The sad truth was that Hannah reminded me of myself when I was younger. I’d been romantic and whimsical, and though I’d never really cared about bonding, I had certainly wanted to attract men. I hoped very dully that she would grow out of wanting to impress the opposite sex. Then I thought that perhaps that sentiment came from my dead soul and that girls like Hannah should be able to enjoy such trivialities in their lives. I couldn’t figure out a balanced perspective on the matter. It all seemed too stupid for words.
‘How did you meet your mate?’ Hannah asked, her eyes shifting to a lighter green. It was an unsettling colour and spoke of wariness, or foreboding.
I walked away, not wanting to be touched. Looking down at my hands, I licked my dry lips. ‘I’d taken my da’s boat out for the first time on my own.’ Why was I telling her this? Why do it to myself? ‘He’d sworn til his face went red that I wasn’t allowed to sail it by myself for at least another five years, so I stole it. I was fifteen. A northerly wind swept in and blew me off course and I had no idea what to do. I was blown south along the coast until I reached a small cove. I was crying by that point, like a complete coward, but he saw me from the shore and rowed his own boat out to meet me. I had my head in my hands, sobbing, and when I felt the boat rock I looked up to see a young man step into it, a man with black hair like I’d never seen before. He looked down at me, and he smiled, and both our eyes turned to gold.’
Another life, another world – remembering was like ice in my veins.
Hannah sighed wistfully, and to my horror, her eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s … it’s so awful.’
I shrugged and started dressing in several layers to make myself bulkier. Hannah watched as I pinned my hair up. It occurred to me that this was a rather pointless effort if I wasn’t going to be allowed out of this room.
‘What are the rules here?’ I asked, straightening from my bootlaces.
‘Rules, my lady?’
‘Can I leave the room?’
She blushed bright red. ‘I was instructed to explain that you have been given limited activity time.’
‘Activity time?’
‘You may venture outside only during daylight hours, but you are to be supervised at all times.’
I sighed. ‘And Ambrose?’
‘He cannot leave his room at all.’
‘Where is he?’
She hesitated, unsure. ‘The floor above you, one room to the right.’
‘Thank you. You can go now, but have my food sent up to his room, please.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘That’s all thank you, Hannah.’
Hannah bowed and retreated in a hurry. Outside on the balcony, I peered up at the floor above. The walls of the building were completely covered in vines, so I didn’t have too much trouble swinging myself up onto the next floor and shimmying across to Ambrose’s room. I felt slightly woozy as I hauled myself up over the railing and onto his balcony though. After briefly squeezing my eyes shut to dispel the dizziness, I saw Ambrose lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
I tapped on the glass window and he smiled very slightly. The muscles in his torso stretched as he jumped up to unlock the window, and I tried not to look at him as I climbed in. ‘Why don’t you ever wear shirts anymore?’
‘Because I used part of my shirt as bandages for you, and burnt the rest for light in the tunnels.’
Right – obviously. ‘I just came to tell you that they’re not going to let you out of this room, and there’s nothing I can do about it. So when I leave, you’re on your own.’
‘Oh, lovely. You’re in another pleasant mood.’
The lock on the door clicked and a guard pushed two trays of food into the room.
‘You told them you’d eat here?’ Ambrose asked.
‘I’m not eating here. I sent my food for you.’
He stared at me. ‘Why?’
I crossed and pulled the covers off the two bowls. One had a delicious smelling vegetable stew, the other contained a tiny serving of what I could only imagine was a tasteless gruel. ‘That’s why,’ I muttered. ‘I’m not hungry – you can have mine.’
Ambrose shook his head, still watching my face with unnerving sharpness. ‘You need to eat, Ave. I won’t have your food.’
‘I can’t taste it,’ I snapped. ‘What I eat makes no difference to me. I’ll have some of the gruel, if it will make you happy, but there’s no sense in me eating the stew when you could enjoy it.’
There was a flagon of dark red wine with the bowls. ‘Sit down,’ Ambrose ordered me, lifting the stew and the wine. ‘Outside on the balcony.’
‘I’m not staying.’
‘Just do it, would you?’
I frowned and went to sit on the cool marble of the balcony. It was weird, having everything made out of such expensive stone. It seemed excessive. But then again, if marble was all that was available, it lost its value pretty quickly.
The sky had slid to a deep, inky purple, and the moon was bigger than I’d ever seen it. It held a faint red sheen, and I knew that if we went to Pirenti it would be a rich scarlet shade, like blood – like it had been the night Avery died.
Ambrose plonked himself down with his back against the glass and placed the bowl of stew between us. As he busied himself pouring wine, I took the opportunity to look at him properly for the first time tonight. He was suddenly – bizarrely – handsome. It was amazing what a good wash did for a man. His skin was clean and smooth, and he even smelt nice. His eyes under the strong brow glowed more brightly in the light of the night sky.
‘Do you know how I first learnt that you existed?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I smelt that lavender soap you’re wearing. Honestly, Ave – are you trying to seem like a girl?’
I couldn’t help it – I burst into laughter. He grinned at me, and for a moment our eyes met. ‘Come on,’ he sighed. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘So eat.’
Ambrose shook his head. ‘I love food,’ he said bluntly. ‘It’s one of the simplest pleasures there is and tonight you’re going to learn that.’
‘Ambrose, I have eaten food before. Twenty years’ worth—’
His eyes snapped to mine and I froze. I felt my heart pick up speed as we stared at each other for an impossibly long moment. He’d heard it – he knew exactly how I’d slipped up – but when he continued he said nothing about my age. ‘You haven’t eaten food until you’ve eaten it like I do.’
I breathed out, heart slowing back to its normal rhythm.
‘I won’t be able to taste it,’ I repeated loudly.
‘That’s bullshit – you’re just not trying.’
My mouth fell open. ‘Your arrogance and presumption never cease to astound me.’
‘Whatever,’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Tonight, I only eat what you eat. So take a bite, please, because I’m starving.’
I didn’t have a clue what game he was playing. ‘It’s no concern of mine if you go hungry – I’m leaving.’ I stood up and reached for the railing.
‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not.’
‘For starters, you wouldn’t have sent your food up for me if you didn’t care. But more telling is the way your eyes go dark blue when you lie – you’re an open book to me, Avery.’
I stopped with one leg over the railing. He smiled smugly and I hated the bastard.
‘Just sit down and take a bite.’
Jaw clenched, I did so. The stew was very bland and I enjoyed telling him so, but he only took a mouthful when I did, so I found myself eating more than I would have, forcing the bites down. Oddly enough, I actually didn’t enjoy the thought of Ambrose going hungry. I was sure he was used to eating enough to feed a small country.
‘Can you taste the salt?’ he asked softly.
I held a piece of the meat in my mouth, sucked on it, and shook my head.
‘What about the spices?’
I skewered a big piece of potato and chewed it carefully, rolling it around in my mouth. Something sharp hinted at the edge of my taste buds but I couldn’t catch hold of it.
‘Close your eyes,’ he ordered gently.
I glared sharply at him, nervous. Then did as he’d said. I felt strange and vulnerable as I urged my tongue to find flavour in the food.
‘There’s sage and rosemary in the sauce,’ Ambrose murmured. ‘It’s there when you swallow.’
I swallowed – and there it was. A hit of heavy scent, filling my mouth and nose. My eyes flew open to find his, and I gasped.
Ambrose straightened at the expression on my face, then very slowly his mouth creased into a wide grin. As though he was proud of me. ‘There it is. Your eyes are bright green.’
I closed them again, feeling close to tears. My heart thumped heavily – woozily. There was so much precious flavour in my mouth – I hadn’t tasted anything in years. My face in my hands, I felt a warm palm against my spine moving up and down comfortingly. It was a big, rough hand, callused and dry, but very tender.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ he murmured, voice scratchy. ‘It’s almost as if you’re still alive.’
Alone in my room, I curled into a ball and cried.
If you were here I’d run my tongue along your skin and taste you, and I’d say I’m sorry for the piece of life I remembered without you, and how for a moment upstairs I forgot the shape of your hand against my back and the look on your face when you ate something you liked. I’d tell you how hopeless I feel, how very sad. I’d kiss you, because I never kissed you enough. I never had enough of you at all. I never got the years we spoke of, the life we planned. I never had the children we were supposed to, the family you promised me. I never got enough of your laughter.
Ambrose
When I stood on the balcony, I could hear him crying in the room below. It took every piece of strength I had not to climb down there and hold him.