Castle of Lies

by Kiersi Burkhart

  When I sat up, wincing at the throbbing in my neck—and knowing better than to admit it hurt—she stooped down in front of me. She put her hands on either side of my face and pulled me close.

  “Do you know why I’m so hard on you?”

  “You want me to be Queen and have what you didn’t have.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes were so wild that I wanted to run to my bedroom and hide under the bed. “That’s why I teach you to brush your hair, walk with your back straight, and listen to what people aren’t saying. But that’s not why I teach you kroga, why we fight with the practice foils until you’re ready to fall over.”

  I knew there was a reason my arms and back hurt every day, but I was too afraid of her wide eyes and sunken cheeks to ask. I knew it would one day be Morgaun’s job to run the dukedom, to tell the serfs what to do, to pay the taxes. But Mother wanted me to be Queen—and queens don’t need to fight. Queens need to be clever and subtle and easy on the eyes. Her training had some other purpose, more secret than the throne.

  “I teach you to protect yourself because of men like Daddy and Morgaun,” she whispered. “The moment that you try for power, my little Thelia, you’ll become a threat. And they’ll come for you.” She shook me, making the ache worse. “You must be able to fight. Never let them get you by the throat and take what they want.” I couldn’t stop my frightened tears, so Mother grabbed my hair. “Why are you crying? This is nothing, Thelia. I am kind. I am helping you. Them—they want to take their wet, sharp pricks and jam them into you. They relish your pain and lick it up off the floor.”

  I tried not to picture what she meant, but I knew. She kept on. “You fight so they can’t trap you. Like your father did to me.”

  “Not Daddy,” I sobbed. The strict old man who always petted my hair, told me I was pretty, yelled and then was always so sorry for yelling—

  “Just like Daddy,” Mother spat. “Now here we are. Prisoners.” Her face was no longer human. She’d had her soul sucked out and all that was left was rage wrapped in skin.

  She may have been awful and frightening, but she never lied to me.

  In the end, I couldn’t protect myself. The elf defeated me. Now I’m here in the King’s dungeon, a prisoner, like Mother always feared. I could’ve struggled, biting and kicking when I saw where they were taking us. Mother believed in fighting until they cut off your hands, or your eyes popped from your head, or you fell over dead. My mother, the eternal fighter, the husk.

  But I saw the way the elf danced along my sword like some kind of skyborne spirit. I saw the blood smears on the walls. There was no way to win.

  The most awful thing is that they’re not the creatures from my nightmares. Was what I saw with my eyes closed perhaps not their outsides, but their insides?

  The moment I’m free, I’ll recover my dagger and slide it under the edges of the elf’s face—the blue one who captured us. Then I’ll peel it off while they still breathe, tearing the skin away one fiber of muscle at a time. First the eyes, then the nose, the lips, the whole thing. When we’re free, I’ll hang it on my wall so I will never forget.

  We must outlast them.

  Parsifal and I have grown used to long stretches of silence. The other prisoners don’t have the energy to shriek and rattle the bars all day, so they spend most of their time lying on their backs, eyes closed, looking dead. Just enough light spills in through the two tiny, barred windows up near the ceiling that at least I know if it’s day or night. Sometimes that’s worse, though—watching time pass without us. Parsifal and I sit and surmise what’s become of Corene. Of Bayled. Of the King. What about Daddy and Parsifal’s parents? Are they dead?

  “We should’ve told the long ears something, anything,” Parsifal grumbles. “Now they’re just going to leave us down here and forget about us, like the rest of these sad bastards.”

  There’s no crime someone could commit that deserves starving to death in the dark, wallowing in your own shit and piss. “If we had told them what we know,” I say, “Corene would’ve been captured too.”

  Parsifal shrugs. “So?”

  I get it. To Parsifal, Corene’s fun to study, tease, and sometimes manipulate—but in the end, she’s still part of the royal family who conquered his homeland and took him hostage. He truly doesn’t care if she lives or dies.

  But this isn’t how I wanted it to end. In my fantasy, Corene married someone else. Or she was disgraced, banished from court, and ran off to live among nomads in the Sand Shelves. Those were the scenarios in which the bereft Bayled took my hand in his, and we ascended the throne together with no guilt on our hands.

  It never ended with Corene held aloft between two beautiful, horrible elves, blood gurgling out her mouth and asking, Why, Thelia? My childhood playmate. My sister. The one person who knows everything about me.

  When Bayled returns with the army, kills every last metal-skinned monstrosity, and sends that cratertooth interloper back to the Klissen—I’ll have a clear path to becoming Queen. As long as he never learns how I got there.

  But . . . I couldn’t wear her crown knowing I was responsible for her death.

  I begin to say something and Parsifal stops me with a finger. “I know. I’m not going to tell, either. No matter what they do.”

  This is where the stone falls—one step short of skipping the last stone on the board, because our foolish hearts are too soft.

  Mother would be so disappointed in me.

  Death is our constant companion here. The smell fills every crevice of this dungeon, no thanks to the inmate decomposing next to us. Parsifal and I do each other the courtesy of turning away and covering our ears when the other has to use the chamberpot—which has long overflowed into a pile in the corner of our cell. While I’m squatting over the pile, my shoes squishing in cold, wet shit, I look down to find blood smeared all over my thighs.

  Parsifal turns around when I wail, covering his eyes with both hands. “What’s wrong?”

  I yank my dress back down and hold out one hand. He uncovers his eyes and looks down at my palms, smeared with blood. “It’s everywhere,” I moan, wiping at the red streaks down my clothes and legs. Parsifal moves toward me.

  “Don’t look. Don’t come close.” But he pulls me into a hug. I don’t even want to shove him away. For once, the human contact feels the way everyone says it does.

  When I’ve stopped gasping for air, I say, “Percy, we have to escape.”

  He lets me go. “Demon dogs we do.”

  “I mean, now.” I gesture to the dead body in the cell next to ours. “This will only get worse. More will die.”

  Parsifal looks both sad and exasperated. “What do you want me to do? Go up to this cell door and say”—he leans toward the bars—“please, my dearest, most beautiful, beloved cell door—won’t you please open?” He laughs and waves a hand at the rigid iron bars.

  There’s a metallic creak. We both spin around.

  Click, click. The lock inside the cell door is turning. CLICK. The door lets out a creak as it opens.

  Parsifal

  Thelia and I gape at the lock. “How did you do that?” she whispers.

  By asking nicely, apparently. I’ve tried that before, but it’s never worked on anyone until now. “Maybe the elf just forgot to lock it.”

  Thelia goes first, pushing the door open. I follow her out of the cell and down the hall. The other prisoners, those with the energy left, rise up like angry spirits. “They’re escaping!” one roars through yellow, bloodied teeth.

  I give him a little wave. “You’re just jealous.”

  We reach the steps that brought us down here. At the top sits an impenetrable iron door. “You first,” Thelia says. “You’re the sweet talker.”

  I march up the steps while the prisoners screech. In front of the immense door, I put my weight on one hip like I would if I were talking to Derk. “Hey,” I say, giving it a coquettish look. “Maybe you could, uh, open up for us? We really need to get out.”


  Nothing happens. “Sweeter,” Thelia whispers.

  I clear my throat. “Dear dungeon door . . .” I feel ridiculous. “You are . . . very attractive. Quite pretty, I might say. Please, uh, won’t you let us out, you handsome door, you?”

  Nothing. The prisoners start howling with laughter. “Stupid lee-tle royals!” one of them roars. “Stuck here, with us—forever!”

  “We’d better get back to our cell,” Thelia says. “In case the elf comes back.”

  “Yeah. It must have just been a fluke.” But it didn’t feel like a fluke. There have been too many flukes.

  We return to our prison cell, pulling the door closed behind us. I don’t know what that elf Sapphire will do if they discover what I’ve done today.

  The next time the elf comes, Thelia’s already at the cell door, shaking the bars—careful to not shake hard enough to open it.

  “Please,” she says, before Sapphire can even get a bowl of food through the slot. “I’m bleeding.”

  The elf’s face gives nothing away, but they say, “Are you i-i-injured?” Their accent is better now, though they still draw out all the vowels.

  They’ve been studying. They want to communicate with us. Good to know.

  “No, you dolt,” she says. “It’s normal. It happens every moon.” She shows them her hands.

  Fear contorts the elf’s perfect face. “Where?” They back away, shoulders rising.

  “It would be impolite to show you.” I can tell she’s getting some pleasure from this. “But it lasts a whole week. I need clean cloths every day.” Thelia gestures at our Unmentionable Corner. “Please let us out of here. We’re living in filth.”

  Sapphire’s mouth opens and snaps closed. They shove the two bowls of food through the small door. “Not my-y-y decision,” Sapphire says, avoiding our eyes.

  “Please,” I echo. “Look. This guy’s dead.” I point at the corpse that smells worse than our latrine. “The rats will be coming for him.”

  Sapphire looks at the body and shakes their head, like they can’t believe it either.

  “Soon,” they say, and they leave as quickly as they arrived. Thelia looks like she’s about to throw her food in rage.

  “Don’t,” I say, taking the bowl. She squashes her eyes closed and I can tell she’s trying not to panic again, but she’s beginning to wheeze. Tentatively, I touch her shoulder, and she sinks into me. “I know.”

  For now, that seems to be all she needs to hear, and we remain motionless until her breathing evens out again.

  We eat in silence, until the dungeon door reopens. Sapphire’s back.

  They head to the cell next to ours and fiddle with the lock, but it doesn’t budge. They pull their sword from the sheath and slash it in one smooth motion. The noise that rings out as the blade slices through metal makes us cover our ears. What kind of steel must that sword be made of? The remnants of the lock glow a fierce orange, and the cell door falls open.

  Sapphire covers their mouth and nose with one sleeve and reaches in with the other hand to grab the festering corpse by the collar. They drag it out of the cell, down the hall, and back up the stairs.

  “Please let us out!” I shout. I could push this cell door open right now and try to run out the open dungeon door, but I’d be caught in a second.

  Then the light at the top of the stairs vanishes. We’re locked in once again.

  Sapphire

  Magic does not gravitate to me. Being nowhere near as talented as Ferah, I can usually use only what is in my hands. But now that handful is thick and dense and powerful. I merely have to gesture for plates and bowls and food to arrange themselves.

  Which is not enough to secure me any important duties. My only role now is tending to prisoners. When I am not overseeing the two in the dungeon, I am responsible for the bedridden King and the priestesses down in their quarantine room: bringing them water and food, emptying their chamberpots. The King is too locked in a battle with his own body to even notice me.

  But whenever I open the door to the priestesses’ cellar, the pink wisp leaps from the pouch at my belt, lands on Ilisa’s shoulder, and picks through pieces of her long white hair.

  “What will you do with us?” she asks every day. And every day, I say nothing. The less they know, the less they will fight. If any of them knew what the cleaning entailed, there would be a riot.

  After the priestesses, I visit the King’s personal Magicker—a man named Forgren who hides under draping black robes. We have allowed him to remain in the West Hall only because the priestesses blocked the door to their cellar, adamantly refusing to let us place him with them.

  “He’s useless without those jewels anyway,” Ilisa said contemptuously. “Take those, and he’s just a sad old man.”

  Something about the Magicker is unlike the other humans here. I wonder if he is also a foreigner. He offered no resistance as I stripped him of all his Magical items, and he even offered up others stashed away in his drawers. Even when he was brought before Commander Valya and instructed to contact the King’s sworn lords, he simply said, “Believe me, I would if I could. But I cannot without the King himself present. Only he and the Princess know the code required for the lords to agree to a surrender.”

  I have begun to study language and history in Forgren’s library while the Magicker sleeps. I am now the most well-versed among us in communicating with the humans. Sadly, this has led Commander Valya to assign me exclusively to the task of caring for important human prisoners.

  Seeing these small, fragile creatures barred in their rooms, provided a minimum of food and water as one would for pets, gives me an uneasy feeling.

  When I complain to Ellze about my tedious assignment, he only smiles wryly. “The Commander trusts you. You should be grateful.” To Ellze, more responsibilities means you are valued. Powerful. Be grateful.

  I cannot fathom how I ever anticipated this mission with such eagerness—especially when I find myself dragging a stinking, rotting corpse out of the dungeon.

  Bits tear off as we go. First an ear. I will have to come back for that. A bit farther up the stairs, an arm snaps and flops around. A soldier on patrol stops in the hallway as I hurl the body against a wall and slam the dungeon door closed, shoving the heavy iron lock back into place. I take a gasping breath of clean air.

  The soldier rushes over to help, then throws a hand across the intake vent of her helmet. “What is this?”

  “Killed by a fellow prisoner.” I stumble down the hall to find fresh air, but everything in this castle smells like human, Magic, and rot, all rolled up into a filthy ball.

  “I know where to dispose of the corpse,” she says. “Do you need assistance?”

  I nod gratefully. I can carry a human body alone, but the shape is awkward. I would not reject the company, either—it is lonely in this alien land, with my duties keeping me so isolated from my comrades.

  The soldier and I heft up the body together, not breathing through our noses. Outside, under the fresh sunlight, we make our way through a courtyard full of slop and mud that was probably once grass. We found humans in every part of Four Halls—including some living in squalor out in the open courtyard. Commander Valya had wood cages erected for them so they could not escape. They shout and sob as we walk by.

  Surely this is not acceptable, even for animals—but what choices did we have? The humans were the ones who had crammed themselves in here and might as well have rolled around in pure Magic. They brought it on themselves. Captivity was our best option, besides killing them. And the High Seer insisted on mercy, on our directive.

  The blue dome of our Magickers’ shield blinks erratically in the sunlight. Outside the shield, the world is pleasantly oblivious to us: white clouds drift past, overlaid by the occasional bird.

  We bank around the corner of the castle, past the empty animal pens. In the stable, horses whinny. We continue to feed them in case we need them. Our force is still some ways away—and, mysteriously, has not encountered the
King’s army. We cannot begin cleaning and relocating until they arrive, as we have barely the resources to keep our patrols staffed.

  But this will not last forever. Once we have evacuated all the humans we can topple this awful castle, expose the beautiful well underneath, and build a new fortress here to secure it. We will stop the reckless spread of raw Magic—and Viteos will gain a new, plentiful power source.

  The humans will get used to their new condition. This is the best outcome possible for them—if we can find and capture the Princess, and prevent a Kingdom-wide rebellion.

  The soldier leads me to the far back of the courtyard, where I’m assaulted by an even worse smell than the one in the dungeon. Bodies. Only a few, but far more than the High Seer would have wanted. A wave of nausea sweeps over me. They have been here rotting since the coup.

  “We could do nothing with them until the barrier went up,” the soldier says, seeing my horrified face. “They are covered in Magic. If we burned them, they would explode. If we bury them, they will reanimate.”

  We toss the corpse of the prisoner onto the pile, and I am glad to be rid of it. As we head back into the cramped castle halls, I ask, “Do you know where I can find cloth? Rags?”

  “I heard they store linens in the washroom near the kitchens. What do you need them for?”

  “To clean up blood.” I shake my head. “Humans are . . . strange and mysterious.”

  The soldier laughs. “They are disgusting. Is it you who must watch the prisoners?”

  “It is not as horrid as you would expect.” Except when I disposed of a corpse.

  The captives are waiting when I make my third visit of the day. The stench of their waste makes my stomach roll, so I cannot imagine how it feels to be locked in there every moment.

  Do not fall into the trap, I remind myself. The humans created this prison for themselves.

  I open the food slot and the girl human, her dark hair in wild, greasy tangles, rushes for the door. “You brought something. Oh, by Melidia’s grace.”