Chapter
29

Britta

THE DUNGEON DOOR CREAKS. I SIT UP, PRESSING my back against the bars. I wonder how much time has passed. It feels like an eternity, but I’m sure it’s only been one night. Shadows that march across the wall indicate there is more than one person coming to visit.

Phelia isn’t alone. She’s with someone whose steps remind me of a bear. Loud, solid, slow.

“Britta.” Phelia’s voice is like razors, slivering my ears. Dark energy emanates from her in a way that feels like it should blot out all the lanterns.

On her heels is Lord Jamis.

My muscles seize with the need to launch myself at him, to inflict the same pain on him that he did on my father and every person in the Great Hall.

“Miss Flannery.” The same smug arrogance he used the first time we met comes out, except this Lord Jamis is a gaunt version of that regal, deadly man.

“It’s been a while.” He steps around Phelia and raps his knuckles on the bar. Behind him, the shadows of more men appear, likely his traitor guards. “I find it entertaining that you’re rotting here, yet again. Is this your third stay in the dungeon?”

A hiss slips between my barred teeth.

“So nice the atmosphere hasn’t affected your charm.”

“What do you want?” I lunge in his direction, slamming my hands against the cell bars. He jolts back, and I cackle at him, feeling a rush of sick pleasure that he’s as uncomfortable with my presence as I am with his.

“You think to intimidate me?” His lip twitches.

“I don’t think to do it. I just do.” My words are all bluster, but it aggravates the man, which is all the power I have in this stench-soaked cave. I push off the bars and slip into the pitch-black of my cell, watching his expression sour and harden.

Bruised crescents under his eyes make his beaky nose more prominent. It’s clear the time he spent in the dungeon took its toll on his body. He is a scarecrow with a raven’s face.

He steeples his fingers and taps them to his lips, as if in contemplation. But I know this man and I know how deep his deception can run. He has something planned.

“Aodren didn’t escape.” His words come out with claws, like a cat pouncing on its prey.

My mouth falls open. If he were killed, I would’ve felt it. Wouldn’t I?

My instant reaction is to seek out Aodren’s energy. It only takes a few seconds to recognize the pull that I always feel when Aodren’s near. It’s still there, still holding tight.

Ah, Jamis is a clever, sallow snake. He didn’t necessarily lie. Aodren must still be in the castle. But why? Did the king come back for me?

Unexpected emotion itches my eyes. I blink hard, forcing it away. For the first time since I woke in my cottage and realized Aodren was on the other end of the invisible rope tied to me, I’m grateful, so very grateful, for our connection.

Phelia watches me with an expression like she’s puzzling out a question. “I think she’s still connected to him. Her expression says as much.”

Seeds. Did I just walk into a trap?

A gleam refines Lord Jamis’s carrion eyes; he’s found himself meat to tear apart. “Miss Flannery, it seems you are useful to me, once again. You are going to tell me where Aodren is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lord Jamis turns to Phelia.

Perhaps it’s my imagination—she seems to hesitate. Phelia doesn’t look at me when she speaks. “She lies.”

I clench my hands so tight, blood vessels might burst. My revulsion for her escalates. The fact that she can dutifully work alongside Lord Jamis sickens me. How can this woman be my flesh and blood?

“Tell us where Aodren is.” Still not touching the metal, Lord Jamis steps closer to the cell.

“No.”

He quirks an eyebrow, raises his hand, and beckons the guards.

They walk out of the shadows, steps unhurried as they drag something between the two of them. I cannot see past the bright spot of the lantern to make out—

Oh, mercy. No.

Gillian—covered in so many mottled marks I know it’s not a trick of the light—is nearly unrecognizable.

My breath heaves through my chest, shredding my throat. I rush to the bars, pressing myself against them to get closer. “W-what have you done?”

“You are confused.” Lord Jamis moves, eclipsing my view of my handmaid. My friend. “This is what you have done by not cooperating.”

My eyes bulge out.

“Cooperate and she lives. If not, she dies.”

His terrifying truth burns like a thousand bee stings to my chest.

“Tell us where Aodren is hiding like a little mouse.” His mouth twists and turns around the words. My hands choke the bars.

“I don’t know where he is,” I say, choosing my words carefully, just as Lord Jamis did. My gaze flicks to Phelia as if in challenge. It’s the truth. I don’t exactly know where Aodren is at this precise moment.

“No?” The lantern makes Lord Jamis’s teeth look yellowed and decayed.

“Gillian hasn’t done anything. Let her go.”

His hand flicks in the smallest of motions. The guards drop her to the ground without care. Her body flumps on the soiled stone dungeon floor. I press a fist to my mouth. After all Gillian’s done for me, the care and friendship . . .

“Please don’t—don’t hurt her.” I take in all her bruises, and rage rises, a tornado under my skin.

“What about her?” I point at Phelia. “Have her tell you where the king is. Surely, she can sense people’s energy better than I can.”

Lord Jamis ignores me.

Changing tactics, I narrow my eyes on Phelia. “You say you’re my mother. Then don’t let him hurt her.” Spit dots my chin from the force of my speech. “Please.”

She takes a step closer to my cell. But she says nothing and does nothing, despite how I’m watching her, pleading with her.

I feel like the time I slipped through the ice on the lake beside Papa’s training grounds—cold, numb, and full of useless frantic fight. My blood is slush in my veins. My energy throbs in my hands, wanting to push it into Gillian. To heal her. Save her. But she’s not close enough for me to touch.

I shake the cell bars as hard as I can. “If you have the same power as me, then you find the king.”

The challenge, thrown on the muck and stone separating us, goes unanswered. Her gaze switches to something like awe focused on my hands, which are wrapped around the metal bars. Bars that are now bowed slightly outward. Not enough to escape. Just enough that it’s noticeable.

Bloody seeds. How did I do that? I’m not strong enough to have muscled them into that position. Papa taught me to be capable. Not to bend iron bars.

Phelia blinks in a slow, centering way. Her lids gliding down and up before her pupils settle on me. “So much potential, Britta.”

I want to stare at my hands and see if they look different than before, but I won’t give Phelia the satisfaction of knowing how inexperienced I truly am.

“Don’t you want to learn what more you can do?” Phelia’s eyes gleam as she examines the bars.

“Enough.” Jamis breaks the spell. “Make her talk. I want Aodren tonight.”

“Have your Spiriter tell you.” I tug at the cell again, but the bars don’t bend farther. Perhaps because my energy isn’t focused and my head is spinning too much to control it.

Phelia tsks. “You broke the bind, Britta. Your new bond masks his energy. Only you can tell us where he is.”

I’m shocked she’s admitting so much. This information seems crucial. It almost seems as if she’s helping me. But that cannot be. Can it?

Lord Jamis walks to Gillian, and I freeze, watching his slow steps clacking on the ground. He lifts the toe of his boot. At a snail’s pace, he lowers it over her hand, the one part of her not battered.

“No” comes out of me in a tortured whisper.

Gillian stirs, an agonized moan slipping from her lips.

Every part of me cringes. “Stop. P-please, stop.”

The challenge on Lord Jamis’s expression doesn’t falter. I want to kill him.

“Gilly.” I try to get her attention. “Gillian, I—I . . .” I hate myself for having no words. Nothing to comfort her. No promise to give. Because what can I say? Can I turn over the king of Malam to save my friend?

My gaze volleys to Phelia. She scoots back out of the light’s yellow spill, evident she’s not going to stop him.

Lord Jamis said he’ll spare Gillian if I turn over Aodren. It would be foolish of me to believe him, though. He could change his mind later. He just sanctioned the death of half the noblemen and noblewomen. He won’t let us live.

There is no good choice in this situation. One life for another. The option is the most despicable form of motivation. I cannot send Aodren to his death.

Even so, I say, “I don’t know exactly where he is. But I can figure it out.”

Jamis’s attention cuts to Phelia.

“Truth,” she says, and she’s right because I’m determined to find out exactly where Aodren is hiding.