Chapter
26

Britta

IT’S OBVIOUS I’M IN THE DUNGEON EVEN BEFORE my eyes peel open—the stench, disturbingly familiar, punches me in the nose.

Two blinks turn into twenty as I try to make sense of the darkness. No light breaches the pitch-black. And though I’ve never been uncomfortable in the dark, this is a different sort of darkness. It’s suffocating and endless and cold. Bitter cold.

If there were light in here, I bet I’d be able to see my breath. I focus on each inhale and exhale, raggedy strips of sound, to pretend I’m not alone. I’m not trapped in a void.

In a dire situation, learn your surroundings. Something can always be used as a weapon. Papa taught me this years ago. It matters not that he meant if I lost my bow during a hunt, or if I got caught in a mountain cat attack again.

I grope my way along the damp ground, scuffing and scraping my dress on the uneven stones. When my fingers meet with chilly iron bars, I want to cry in relief because I’m grateful for a spatial understanding of my surroundings.

This cell isn’t where they kept me last time I was thrown in the dungeon. Unlike the smooth metal that imprisoned me before, this metal is raised and pocked in some areas, crumbling in others.

I move along the bars, searching for a door. My hand flattens into slick malodorous liquid.

I squeak, surprised. The metallic scent of blood taints the dank air.

A cold sweat breaks out above my lip. The Great Hall bloodshed fills my thoughts. I shake my head, trying to erase the gore. My throat swells and I gag. I scrub my hand on my skirt, telling myself it wasn’t blood that I touched. It was old water. Perhaps piss. Though—seeds and stars—I hope not.

I rub my palm, rub till it’s raw. It’s definitely the smell of rust, not blood. It’s rust from the corroding cell bars.

I rattle the rough, flaking rods. Rattle them harder. My teeth click. “Hello? Hello?”

Nearby, shuffling sounds, a pained moan, but the black obscurity is too disorienting to pinpoint where it came from. If only there was a hint of light, anything with the pretense of warmth that could keep my thoughts in check.

“Who’s out there? Finn, is that you?” Please let Finn be alive.

Another shuffle, and then a cough. “Brit-t-tta? Th-th-that you?” The easy smile and carefreeness has been stripped from Finn’s voice.

“Finn, yeah, I’m here.” Relief blankets me, smothers my wayward thoughts.

He lets out a sound that could be a sob or a scoff. “I’m c-c-cold, Brit-ta.”

The tick of his teeth tapping together has me standing and reaching through the bars toward him. “I know it’s cold. You’re doing well though. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I—I heard yelling. I ran out in my nightclothes.” His voice breaks. “The guards were killing themselves. I—I didn’t know what t-to do.”

“It was a coup,” I say.

Scuffling and scraping come from his direction. “I didn’t mean they fought each other. I—I meant they threw themselves on their swords.”

Any response turns to acid on my tongue. They were killing themselves? Possible explanations run through my head, all of which point to Phelia, mind control, and siphoning energy from Channelers.

Finn sniffs. I think he’s crying. He sniffles again and chokes on a small sob. I wish we were in the same cell so I could put my arms around him to share some warmth and comfort. He was captured in a nightshirt, he doesn’t have the layers this gown does, and the horror he just shared is too much of a nightmare to believe.

“Shhh,” I whisper to him. “We will be fine. Be brave, Finn.”

His bars creak like he’s leaning against them. “I’m n-n-not ever the brave one. That’s Cohen.”

“He’s not here. It has to be you. No one else can face this battle for you.” I don’t mean to sound callous. But I know better than anyone that the darkness has a way of stealing hope. If Finn’s going to make it through the frigid night, he needs some fight in him.

Down here there’s more opposition than just our jailers. The dungeon is notorious for killing men with winter sickness before they can be sent to the guillotine.

“I’ll be brave, Britta. H-h-how are we going to get out?”

I don’t know what Jamis and Phelia have in store for us. “We’ll find a way,” I say, determined to make it so.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Light sputters through the pitch-dark, yellow flashes providing a sense of the cavernous room, edged with cells. This level of the dungeon has one exit, a stairwell where the flickering light emanates. I was right—this isn’t the part of the dungeon where I was previously held. I remember hearing the moans and cries of prisoners then. Now, I hear nothing. They’ve either cleared out the dungeon, or Finn and I are far from everyone else. It’s only been a few hours since I woke in the dungeon. Could it be Lord Jamis coming back to tell us why we’re still alive? I grimace at the thought of what he might want from Finn and me.

“Finn?” I whisper, alarmed that we’re soon to have visitors.

He doesn’t answer.

I stare at him, but my damn sight is spoiled like drops of golden oil in black vinegar. I rub my eyes against the crook of my elbow since I’m still not sure what I put my hands in. Then I look around again. The light’s coming closer.

Across the room, a huddle of limbs under a thin piece of material must be Finn. He doesn’t move. For the first time since being thrown in the dungeon, I focus on his energy, desperate to sense that he’s still alive. The low buzz of his life hums in the darkness. After a moment, his energy is joined by the accompaniment of soft, airy snores. Finn is sleeping. Only sleeping.

I rest my head against the bars, relieved.

Lantern glow fills the cavern.

The moment she enters, I recognize Phelia. The neckline of her dress and long sleeves cover her odd skin markings. I slink away from the bars, disgusted and frightened. And disgusted with myself for being so frightened.

Phelia’s shoes clack against the stones until she stops outside my cell. I push aside my fear, but what remains is shame. For the things she’s done. For sharing her blood. For wanting to know more.

I shield my eyes from her bright torch, but not before seeing the man-size onyx stain on the middle of the dungeon floor. Blood. These dungeons are filthy with old stains, but this one has a slight sheen. It’s not very old. It’s definitely blood.

It takes all my self-control not to examine my hand.

“Hello, Britta.” A rake over soft soil, that’s the texture of her voice. “Are you faring well?”

I screw up my face. In the dungeon? “Naturally,” I grind out.

“Ah, you have your grandmother’s pluck.”

Her comment kicks me in the chest with a combination of grief alongside truthful warmth. I wasn’t expecting to feel the verity of her words. She lowered the guard around her energy the day I met her in the woods. But I expected she would’ve put it back in place.

“Please don’t speak of her,” I say.

Phelia closes in until her face is nearly pressed between two bars. Her head quirks to the side in a hummingbird flick. She doesn’t take her eyes off me. “Enat was my mother. Doesn’t that give me the right?” The cadence of her question is more like a schoolteacher’s or a minister’s, as if she’s about to make a point.

“What do you want, Phelia?”

Her mouth pinches. Her near colorless pale blue eyes appear eerily golden in the torchlight. She looks like a starved cat. “That’s not my name.”

“It’s the only one I’ll call you by.” My anger turns me brazen.

Phelia looks at my hands where they’ve clutched the bars once again. “You’re hiding behind boldness, Britta. But you’re frightened. I can feel it in your energy. Frantic like a rabbit.”

I scuttle away.

“I saved you once. Did Enat tell you?” Her eyes dig into me as she runs her fingers along the cell bars. “The Purge hunters were going to discover that you were a Channeler. They would’ve killed us both. So I took you to meet your grandmother at the border to have your power stripped so you could live in Malam without fear. The old crow wouldn’t do it, though.”

Her fingernails hit metal. Tink, tink.

I keep quiet.

Tink. “You have no clue what I’ve done for you.”

My breath is fire in my lungs. I don’t want to ask, and yet I want to know, even though I feel like a trapped mouse to a calculating mountain cat.

“A border guard found us,” she continues. “I never saw his arrow coming until it hit us both.” Her hand moves to her chest, resting just over her heart. Her eyes don’t leave mine. “Through you and into me.”

My shallow intake of air rakes through the icy darkness. This doesn’t line up with the stories I heard. Papa said she left me when I was a few months old. The touch of her truth, though, tells me he lied. Only, that makes no sense. I would’ve felt the chill of his dishonesty.

She watches me shake my head. “We would’ve both died that day,” she says. “But the guard was a fool, and he came close enough for me to grab him and take back what he tried to steal.”

She grips the bars, coming as close as she can to me. “I saved you, Britta.” It’s a snarl of a whisper. Like the aftertaste of bitter ale, an unspoken threat lingers behind. You owe me.

I cross my arms, holding them tight to my body. “Why are you telling me this? I haven’t asked for this.”

A cruel smile stretches over her face. “This is what you want to know. I can see the questions in your eyes. You want to know more about me.”

“I—I don’t.”

“Liar.” She taps her forehead. Her cloak shifts around her like bat wings. “I saved you that day, Britta.”

Every bit of me recoils from hearing the scratched way she says my name. I fight to keep my face expressionless. “Why have you come here?”

Finn coughs. She made me forget he was across the dungeon.

“Don’t you desire freedom from the dungeon?” Phelia asks in a casual way as if she’s offering bread and ale.

“Freedom in exchange for what?”

“The guards will release you if you agree to stay at the castle.”

“Until when?”

She paces the width of my cell. “You will work alongside me until you’ve learned to master your Spiriter gift.”

No time frame? That’s ludicrous. Not that I’m tempted. I’d be insane to make a deal with someone like her, a murderer and manipulator. And yet, I cannot help but wonder if she would keep her word. I’m a quick learner. I could master my ability.

Which is madness. It must be a trap.

“You need time to think about it,” she says, reading more into my silence than I wish her to.

I don’t respond.

She props the lantern on a wall holder and departs, climbing the stairs and disappearing into the dark. Once she’s out of sight, I glance around. It feels like a miracle that I can see my hand in front of my face. Leaving the lantern is such a small act, one Phelia likely gave little thought to, but the light she left in the room makes all the difference.

I can see the reprieve on Finn’s face as he rests his temple against a bar.

His knees look knobby and cold under his nightshirt.

“She’s your mother?” he asks.

“Yes.” I clench my fist over my belly, holding pressure there until my insides settle. My fingers find the old scar on my chest, the one I always thought was from the woods.

“I’m not like her,” I say, reassuring him. The words are swallowed by the frigid darkness.

I am not like her.