I’m locked in a cell on the lowest level, where smugglers and illegal traders are usually kept. It’s either ironic or poetic justice; I can’t decide which. Maybe simple necessity, after the front half of the prison was damaged in the attacks. The halls are torchlit, but the cells are shadowed and dim, and as usual, the smell leaves something to be desired. The stone floor is strewn with a thin layer of loose straw, but the walls are stained with every bodily fluid you can imagine.
I thought for sure we’d be taken to the palace, where I’d have to face my brother’s accusations. Instead, we were brought here, where one of my guards stammered through reading me my charges. He kept glancing up, looking at me, then at Commander Riley, as if he expected the officer to let go of my chains and explain this was all a big prank.
Smuggling. Sedition. Treason. I’ve heard the words before, on a nearly daily basis, but they’ve never carried so much weight.
At my side, Tessa was trembling in her shackles, her breathing quick and shallow.
“They won’t hurt you,” I said to her softly. “They’re good men. Just do what they say.”
“No talking,” the guard snapped, but then he blanched a bit and added, “Your Highness.”
Tessa is in a cell at the opposite end of the hall now, on the opposite side. The guards haven’t been rough with either of us, but I don’t want to give them cause, so I haven’t tried to yell to her. I can practically feel her worries from here.
Or maybe what I’m feeling is my own worries.
I don’t know what Harristan will do.
I know what he’d expect me to do, and that’s not very comforting.
I never realized it, but the straw on the cell floors is truly torture. It does nothing to spare me from the cold hardness of the stone, and itches through my clothes when I move. I feel every bruise acutely. My shoulder hasn’t stopped aching, and the wound Tessa stitched over my eye is throbbing, matched only by the pulsing pain in my swollen ankle. My stomach has been making a case for breakfast for a while now. Without sunlight, I have no way to mark the passing of time, so minutes feel like hours. I know the guards change shift at midday, but when it happens, it comes as a surprise anyway, somehow feeling both earlier and later than I expected.
I don’t expect to sleep, but my body has other ideas. I doze fitfully, waking with a jolt every time I hear a boot scrape on stone, but no one comes to my bars. No food, no water, nothing.
By the time the guards change shift for the evening, I’m ready to beg.
I press my forehead against the floor and bite at my lip, clenching my eyes closed. I survived what happened in the village; I can surely survive a day without food and water.
But I was wrong about the straw. This thirst is worse. My head pounds now, and the guard’s hesitant voice is loud in my memories.
Smuggling. Sedition. Treason.
I stood in my quarters and swore to Harristan that I wasn’t involved. And I’m not. Not the way he thinks.
What did he say to me about my feigned friendship with Allisander?
All that matters is what it looks like.
My throat tightens. I’m used to people hating me, but this is altogether different.
I’m not used to my brother hating me.
I’ve stopped hoping he would send for me, and I’ve begun dreading it. The thought of his disappointment weighs on me more heavily than every bruise the rebels gave me. Everything I’ve done to protect him, and I undid it all with pure selfishness. I didn’t need to leave the palace. I didn’t need to spend hours in the Wilds every morning. What did I do? Help a few dozen people prolong the inevitable?
And now Tessa is in the Hold. The one thing I always hoped to avoid.
I wonder who Harristan will choose to dole out punishment. Who will replace me as King’s Justice? My brother’s circle of trust is not broad.
A name pierces my thoughts like a needle.
Allisander.
Harristan doesn’t trust him any more than I do, but I can see the consul using his significant status to force my brother’s hand. It would make Allisander the second-most powerful man in Kandala. He could take whatever action he wanted against the smugglers—and he’s been desperate to do so for months now. My heart thrums along at a rapid clip.
Allisander would make an example of me. I have no doubt.
Maybe he already is. Maybe that’s why there’s been no food, no water. I never starved my prisoners, and he made his thoughts very clear about that.
The thought of Allisander in my place makes my chest tight, and it’s painful to swallow. I spent my life trying to protect my brother, but Allisander would spend his life trying to undermine Harristan at every turn. Against my will, my eyes burn.
Footsteps echo in the hallway, and I try to calm my hitching breath. The guards are changing again. It must be midnight. Shame curls in my belly, and I want to roll into the darkened shadows. With each new guard, it’s a new moment of gawking, the fearsome prince reduced to powerless captive.
I press my fingers into my eyes. Poetic justice, for sure.
“Corrick.”
I jerk my hands down. Harristan stands on the other side of the bars, flanked by his guards. His expression is cool and still. Unreadable.
I’m not facing my brother. I’m facing the king.
I wait for him to say something else. He doesn’t.
That’s not reassuring. A tremor rolls through me, a clenching in my chest. I struggle to force myself upright. I’ve been lying on the cold ground for hours, and none of my joints want to work. By the time I’m on my knees, I’m lightheaded and breathing heavily. Harristan watches this impassively.
I don’t know if I want to cry or if I want to beg for my life. So many times I wished for my brother to come to the Hold, to witness what I was forced to do.
Now he’s here, and I wish he were anywhere else.
“Your Majesty,” I say, and my voice breaks. My breathing won’t steady. I can’t look at him.
He glances at the guard by the corner. “Open the gate.”
The man scurries. When Harristan enters the cell, two of his guards come with him, as if I’m a threat. One of them is Rocco.
Maybe my brother is going to have them execute me right here. My heart races in my chest, but I keep my eyes on the straw, on the boots of the guards.
When Harristan’s fingers touch my chin, it’s so unexpected that I jump, but he’s simply lifting my gaze.
“You’re injured,” he says, and the way he says it is interesting, like he had no idea until this very moment. Which is possible.
He casts a glance around the empty cell. “You outfit your prison rather sparsely. Have you no chairs?”
I frown. “What?”
He looks at Rocco. “Send for food.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
To my surprise, Harristan drops to a crouch to look at me eye to eye. He’s so out of place here, resplendent in green brocade and shining silver buttons, while I’m covered in dust that clings to dried blood and sweat. My face is surely a mask of bruises and cuts, while his is unmarred perfection.
I still can’t read his expression, and for a long moment, we stare at each other.
“You swore to me,” he finally says.
I look away. “I did so truthfully.” But my words sound hollow. I know where I was found. I know how it looks.
“I’ve had Allisander in my face since before dawn, insisting you’re behind the attacks on his supply runs. That you’ve been funding the rebels.”
I jerk my head around. “No! Harristan, I—”
He puts up a hand, and I stop short.
“You weren’t in your quarters,” he says. “You were nowhere to be found. So I sent soldiers into the Wilds.”
Where they found me.
I swallow, and my throat feels like it’s lined in parchment. Maybe it would have been better if Lochlan had killed me.
“I wasn’t working with the rebels,” I say, and my voic
e is rough and shaking. “Please, Harristan.” I sound like every single prisoner who’s begged at my feet. “I have nothing to do with the attacks on Sallister’s supply runs.”
He says nothing, just regards me silently.
Rocco reappears. “Your Majesty.” He’s holding out a leather satchel and a full water skin. I’m so thirsty I can practically smell it. “This is from the Hold stores. Shall I send for more from the palace?”
“Not yet.”
Harristan takes the water skin and offers it to me.
I drink too fast, sputtering on the water like I’ve never tasted a drop, but I’m too thirsty to care. When I finally lower it from my lips, I hold it out to my brother. I have no idea when I’ll get more, so it takes literally everything I have to say, “Will you please send some to Tessa?”
He studies me for a moment, then nods, handing the skin to Rocco, who leaves the cell.
Harristan looks over his shoulder at the other guard. “Retreat to the hallway. Have the prison guards keep their distance.”
They do. I hold my breath almost involuntarily.
Once they’re gone, Harristan sits down in the straw in front of me, then gestures for me to do the same. I stare at my brother, who’s never set foot in the Hold, who’s now sitting on a cell floor. I don’t think I have ever sat on a cell floor.
Well, until today.
He pulls a small length of bread from the satchel, followed by some overripe pears and a slab of cheese that looks a bit spotty.
He breaks the bread in half and looks at it dubiously, but then extends a piece to me. “Here. Eat, Cory.”
I tear a piece free with my teeth. “You could have had me brought to the palace.”
“I was too mad at you for that.”
“Are you still?”
“Maybe.” He splits the cheese, too. “Do you remember that time those boys from Mosswell dared us to race all the way to the river?”
“I do.” It was years ago. I was twelve or thirteen, so Harristan must have been sixteen or seventeen. There was a large stable on the edge of the Wilds that kept ponies for hire, and the boys would slip a few out of the paddock and take them galloping through the woods at dawn. We’d only ever ridden the sleek and polished horses from the royal stables, well-trained and well-bred animals who never took a step wrong. The ponies were fat and furry and ornery, but Harristan has a competitive streak, and we were riding double with nothing more than a halter and a rope, galloping out of the paddock before the other boys had even climbed over the fence.
I remember clinging to my brother’s back, getting whipped by branches and leaves, laughing every time that pony tried to put its head down to buck, because Harristan would jerk its head up and swear in a very unprincely fashion.
I also remember Harristan aiming for a narrow ditch that any horse in the royal stable would have leapt over without hesitation, because that ridiculous pony skidded to a halt, and Harristan and I did not. We went flying headfirst into the mud. We had to tell our parents that we were climbing trees in the orchard and we fell.
“It’s the last time I’ve seen you so bruised,” Harristan says now.
“Lucky me.”
“Stupid pony,” Harristan says.
“Stupid princes, more likely,” I say. I put the cheese in my mouth, and it’s awful, but I don’t care.
“Did the guards do this to you?” he says quietly.
I tear another piece of bread. “No. Those rebels you thought I was helping.”
He inhales sharply and straightens.
I meet his eyes. “I’m very glad you sent the soldiers,” I say, and despite everything, I mean it.
He holds my gaze for a long moment, and I can feel every question he’s not voicing. “Quint has been in my face much of the day, too,” he says, his tone musing.
I’ve been worried about Quint since the instant I was locked in this cell, but I’ve been afraid to so much as breathe his name. “You’ve loved every moment of it, I’m sure.”
“He insists you’ve never had one truly treasonous thought cross your mind.”
Only Quint could think of the perfect way to phrase that to Harristan, because every syllable is absolutely true. “He’s right.”
“He says that every secret you keep is an effort to protect me.”
I should double Quint’s salary—if I ever get out of prison. My throat feels tight again, and to my absolute horror, I feel a tear make its way through the dirt on my cheek. “He’s right about that, too.”
Harristan waits, but I say nothing. I swipe the tear away, and no more dare to follow.
My brother sighs, then reaches out to ruffle my hair affectionately, like I’m a boy.
“Ow,” I say.
He stops with his hand on my head and levels me with his eyes. “Tell me the truth.”
I hesitate. “I think Arella and Roydan are funding the rebels. It would explain their secret meetings—”
“Corrick,” he snaps. “I meant the truth about you.”
“I know what you meant.” But the truth won’t help him, and it certainly won’t help me.
“Don’t be a fool. I can’t bring you back to the palace if I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I was apprehended in a rebel camp,” I say. I want to shake him. And he wonders why I keep such secrets. “Harristan, you can’t bring me back to the palace at all. How would you appease Allisander? How?”
A muscle in his jaw twitches as he sits there regarding me, but he must see the truth in that, because his shoulders droop and he runs a hand across his jaw. “Very well. But I can make sure you’re fed.” He looks at the cut over my eye. “And treated.” He casts another glance around. “And perhaps provided with a chair, at the very least.”
“The prisoners use furniture as weapons.”
He looks startled, and I shrug.
When he stands, I do as well, and I limp behind him to the doorway. He hesitates, but I slam the gate closed between us.
He looks at the lock and then back at me. “I will leave Rocco to ensure you are left unharmed.”
“Ah! My best friend.”
He gives me a look. “Mother and Father tried to protect me, too,” he says.
“I remember. So does the pony.”
“You might think you’re the clever and brave one, little brother, but don’t forget.” He smiles. “I found a way around them both.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Tessa
When Rocco appears at the bars of my cell with a water skin, I think my eyes are playing a trick on me. The stone floor is freezing cold, and even though I tried to sweep the loose straw into a pile, I’ve been shivering for hours. I blink at him, once, twice, then a third time, like my eyes refuse to believe it.
“Miss Tessa,” he says, holding the skin through the bars.
“Rocco.” My mouth is dry. I get to my feet, and it takes more effort than it should. My joints are sore and achy, and my head spins. I have to hold on to the bars to take the water skin from him.
I don’t know why he’s here, and right now, I don’t care. I drain the whole thing in a minute, then press my forehead against the bars, panting.
It takes me a moment to notice there are other royal guards in the hallway. Corrick’s cell door looks to be open, but I can’t see him. I can’t see what’s happening to him.
My heart stops, then restarts itself at twice the pace.
“What’s happening?” I say to Rocco.
“The king is speaking with the prince.”
“Speaking, speaking, or . . . or . . .” My words trail off, because I don’t want to put voice to anything else my imagination is supplying.
“The king is speaking with the prince,” Rocco says again, and I realize that’s all the answer I’m going to get.
I swallow. Corrick said his brother had accused him of treason before we left the palace. We’ve been down here for nearly a full day now, and I have no doubt that King Harristan has known about it
. None of that can mean anything good. The smell of this cell has given me a clue to what’s been done within these walls, and I don’t want to think about any of it. I don’t want to think about Harristan ordering those kinds of things done to his brother.
Exhaustion and fear have caught up with me. My throat tightens against my will, and I close my eyes and breathe against the bars.
Please, my love.
A tear slips down my cheek, and I make no attempt to brush it away. Did I prolong the inevitable? Did I save him in the village only to watch him face a worse fate here?
Booted feet scrape against the stone floor, and my eyes flick open. Rocco has stepped back, standing at attention, and to my absolute shock, I find myself facing the king.
I must be speechless for a moment too long, because King Harristan gives me a quick up-and-down glance before looking at Rocco. “Remain with Corrick. I will send supplies and further orders.” He turns his gaze back to me. “Can you walk?”
I have no idea. Remain with Corrick. I will send supplies and further orders. What does that mean? What has he done? My mouth has gone dry again, and I take a step back from the bars. “I—I—”
He looks at one of his other guards. “Thorin. Carry her.”
They open the gate, and I put up my hands before the other man can touch me. I don’t know what’s happening, but I do know I don’t want to be carried into it. “Wait. Stop. I—I can walk.”
“Good,” says King Harristan. “Come with me.”
I don’t know where I expected to go, but that guard, Thorin, loads me into a carriage just outside the Hold. I’ve completely lost track of time, because I was ready to step out into sunlight, since it was dawn when we were first taken, but the night sky is ink-black and twinkling with stars. The king must take a separate carriage, because I’m alone with Thorin in this one. He’s not as friendly as Rocco was, and sits stony-faced across from me.
I clench my fingers in my skirts, which are dusty and stained with Corrick’s blood.
I don’t know if Thorin will talk to me, but this silence is so full of tension that it’s going to rattle me apart. “Where are we going?” I say.
“To the palace.”
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