It was simple, nondescript and dark, not unlike the tunnels in Iblia. But unlike in the tunnels, there were windows cut high into the stone which would make it easier for Danyll to wield the elements against her. But he was nowhere to be seen. She crept forward, expecting to see him or another guard at any moment. If she hadn't been a Crowheart, she imagined hundreds of traps would have sprung for her by now. As it was, Edlyn was a sitting duck just waiting for her in her gilded lake.
“Have you seen her?”
At the sound of a girl's voice, Rayne's heart leaped and she pressed herself against a cold stone wall, her breaths shallow and silent. It had to be Edlyn just a few steps away, in some room that Rayne hadn't seen yet.
“Yes,” a man answered. This voice was the one that had threatened to kill her not long ago—the same deep baritone, the same clipped accent. How had her timing been so impossibly poor? Or did Prince Danyll just never leave her side? Rayne certainly hadn’t seen him when her father had greeted her unless he had been lurking in the shadows. “Don’t even think about it. We still don't know if she can be trusted.”
“Oh, Dany,” Edlyn said. The nickname surprised Rayne. She had thought Edlyn would resent her jailer, but there was a familiarity between them she hadn't expected. “If I could just see her—”
“You know you can't. We can’t risk it.”
“I know I’m safe with you.”
He meant they couldn’t risk letting Edlyn around Rayne, not when her loyalty was uncertain. Rayne’s fingers twitched to her pocket. She hated to prove him right.
“Tell me how she is, then. Is she well?”
Danyll grunted in what must have been affirmation.
“Is she beautiful? She was always so beautiful.”
Rayne nearly scoffed in disbelief. It was Edlyn, with her smooth hair and sweet smile, that had always been the prettier of the two.
“Yes,” Danyll conceded, and Rayne felt the blush creeping up her face in the dark.
“Don’t tell me you’re like my Uncle Wynn,” Edlyn teased. “He traded one sister for another and look what happened to him.”
He died, killed by the sister he left. It was a thinly veiled threat that made Rayne smile. Just do it, she told herself, but she hung back, listening, getting to know her estranged sister in the little time they had left.
“You’d kill me?” Danyll asked. “How would you do it? A dagger in the heart? Poison in my drink?” His voice grew lower and more dangerous as he spoke, enough for Rayne to push herself off of the wall and slink along the hallway until she found the door. It was barely cracked. She couldn't see anyone, and the light inside the room was dim, hardly reaching the hallway.
Do it, she told herself again. Just throw the door open and do it. She had no other choice.
Except she did.
She could walk away.
But then what? Keep living a life in between, a life that she didn’t fit into? If she went through with it, she would at least be someone—a Knight, a rebel, a hero, a traitor.
There was a sound from inside the room then, a gasp, a muffled cry, and suddenly Rayne was back in Dusk, watching her friend being beaten to death, a gag in her mouth so that her cries wouldn't disturb the gathered nobility. The sound was so raw and familiar that Rayne didn't think. Couldn't think. She knew only that this time she wouldn't run.
She flung herself at the door, stumbling inside, her crazed eyes searching the room for Danyll. She would kill him first, she decided. But then she saw them, in the split second before they saw her—Danyll with his hands in Edlyn's hair, her back against the wall, her head tilted back so that her neck was exposed to his searching mouth. It wasn't a cry of pain, but pleasure. Of happiness.
Stupid. She couldn't even tell the difference. But for Rayne, love and pain had always been two sides of the same coin. And now more than ever, with her sister's wide, confused eyes on her, she felt them both twisting her apart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rayne
The two of them jerked away from each other, Edlyn scrambling at the neckline of her light blue dress, drawing it closed in one fist and using the other hand to smooth her already-perfect hair. Danyll was the first of them to find his composure, though.
“I wondered if we would be seeing you,” he said.
“I— I wanted to see my sister,” Rayne said stupidly.
“Of course,” Danyll replied, his eyes going pointedly to the knife she still held brandished in front of her. Her knuckles were white around the hilt and her palm was sweaty. She shifted her stance, standing straight and tucking the knife back into a skirt pocket.
“Rayne?” The sound of her name washed over her like a cold shower. Edlyn still looked and sounded so young, with her curls loose around her shoulders and her bare feet. Did Rayne look that young? She felt so much older. The girl took one step, then another, but Rayne didn't dare move.
This was it.
This was it.
This was—
Edlyn raised a small hand and brushed it against Rayne's cheek. Rayne turned her face into her sister's hand and closed her eyes, letting the knife drop into her pocket, losing it in the folds.
“Do you remember when we hid Rin's crown?” Edlyn asked.
Rayne opened her eyes and smiled, surprised. They had been so young and so improper. Not so different than they were now.
“Yes,” she said with a laugh. “How could I forget?”
Rinnan had been in a tizzy, tearing up the castle, chasing his sisters, screaming at the servants. He was a miniature version of their father in looks, but he got his fiery temper from their mother. She remembered Madlin trailing behind them, her hands plucking at the child’s rope around her upper arm like she always did when she was nervous.
“Just give it back to him,” she had urged. The sudden memory of the girl took Rayne's breath away, but Edlyn didn't seem to notice.
“I couldn't believe it when he started setting our dresses on fire,” Edlyn added, shaking her head. “I thought Mother was going to kill him.”
Rayne remembered the screams, the laughter, their dresses going up in smoke, Madlin throwing buckets of water on the smoldering pile while Edlyn ran circles around the impromptu bonfire, dancing and stomping her feet like she had seen the women from Ash do during the gathering.
“You sure did bring that crown out quick,” Edlyn said, trapping Rayne with her gaze. “Fire has a way of bringing things out of hiding.”
Rayne couldn't breathe; it felt like a hand was squeezing her heart. Edlyn knew that Rayne had something to do with the fire in Iblia. Edlyn knew, and Rayne had missed her chance, and now—
“And I am so glad it brought you to us now,” Edlyn said, and the tension dissolved as Edlyn threw herself at her sister, wrapping her arms around her so that even though Rayne wanted to catch her breath, she couldn't. Over Edlyn's head, Danyll watched them with suspicion in his narrow, calculating gaze from across the room, as far away as he could get, it seemed.
There was a crash nearby, the sound of scraping stone that she realized was the door being hurriedly opened, followed by pounding footsteps.
“Ashsky! She's gone—” She had expected her father, but it was the general who rounded the corner. It made sense—he was bound to the prince, their magic deeply intertwined. Of course he would also be able to open the door. Rayne was suddenly aware of her body outlined beneath the nightgown as she hadn’t been moments before. Instead of shrinking into herself and hiding as she would have liked, she stood tall, moving to stand in front of Edlyn.
As soon as he caught sight of her, his lips snapped closed. It would have been comical except for the ball of flame that erupted in his hand, so strong that it extinguished the lamps in Edlyn's room, leaving the general as the only source of light. He thought she was dangerous; he knew the truth. She remembered how he had harnessed enough power to propel the ship, how he had burned Bricboro. He would destroy her and she wouldn't be able to do anything.
Rayne
jerked away from her sister, ready to launch herself at the door, but Danyll's voice was the next thing she heard.
“Enough of that, Tierri,” he said, and Rayne felt the tug in her stomach as strong as if someone had punched her as the flames flared once, blinding her, and then smoldered into nothingness. “She's not hurting anyone.”
Yet, Rayne added in her mind. Not while two powerful wielders were facing her down. Danyll re-lit the lamps with a flick of his fingers, and Edlyn grasped Rayne's arm. She looked worried, her face drawn and pale.
“Although the knife…” Danyll said, trailing off. Something tugged inside of her and before she could stop it, the knife flew from her pocket and into Danyll's waiting hand. She pursed her lips in frustration. He examined the dark wood of the hilt and its carved feathers, then ran a finger down the dull side before looking up at her. “Where did you get this?”
“It’s mine,” she said, avoiding the question.
“You didn't search her before letting her onto our ship?” Danyll asked, turning to the general. “Careless, don't you think?”
She waited for him to object, and then how would she explain how she had gotten it back? “She is a princess,” the general said instead. “She was their prisoner, not ours.” His words echoed the very question she had asked him earlier. “I didn't think—”
“No, you don't think,” Danyll said. “You didn't think that maybe she'd been brainwashed by the foolish rebels? That in five years, she hadn't thought about getting revenge on a family that had abandoned her?”
“Stop,” Rayne said, not able to look at any of them. “Just stop.” He was too close to the truth and her head was swimming. Was she brainwashed?
They didn't listen to her. “She's just a girl,” the general—Tierri, she remembered the prince calling him—said, his voice rising.
“She's a Crowheart!” Danyll shouted.
Rayne turned and ran then, pushing her way past the general and out the door. She had said she wouldn't run, but it was too much. The way they talked about her like she wasn't there, the way Edlyn stared at her with pity on her face. How dare she pity her? As if she hadn't been locked in a stone room for five years. As if she wasn't kissing her captor.
She ignored the shouts behind her, shoving through the stone door and down the staircase. Her room that had seemed like a cell hours before now felt like a refuge. She slammed the door and leaned against it, willing herself not to cry. You're a statue. You're stone. It worked, as it always did, even though the prickling feeling behind her eyes never fully went away. Danyll's words rang in her head like the festival bells. She's a Crowheart.
Eventually she was able to move, crossing the room to the wash basin and leaning over it to splash water on her face before daring to glance into the mirror that hung above it. The eyes looking back at her were not just her eyes. They were Edlyn's eyes, Innis's eyes, Rin's eyes. They were Crowheart eyes. And she didn't deserve them.
✽ ✽ ✽
As the sun rose outside of the palace the next morning, the Hailian servant had dressed Rayne in a red dress made of the most unforgiving material Rayne had ever encountered. She had then tortured Rayne’s curls into submission on the top of her head and left her to stare at herself in the looking glass until another servant brought her breakfast. Rayne made quick work of the fresh fruit and porridge and then began pacing the palace halls. Most of the people there ignored her, passing her without a second glance. Banded servants, pages, nobles with their noses so high in the air they couldn't see her around their own nostrils. The silence in her room had been too much. She needed the comfort of other people, of normal people. Of people who didn't want to kill her.
No one had come to see her after she fled Edlyn's room. Not Danyll or Tierri or Edlyn, though she didn't think her sister was allowed to leave that corridor. Her sister who had hugged her and been glad to see her. Her sister, who was in love with the Ashsky prince. Brainwashed. Maybe Prince Danyll knew a little something about that. Still, she longed for the company of someone who knew what she was going through. Of someone who could tell her what to do.
It wasn't until she was standing at the top of a nondescript spiral staircase in one of the back towers that she knew where she was going. There was only one person Rayne could think of that met the criteria, and she was hidden somewhere below her, locked away in the dungeon waiting for King Innis's judgment. Rayne had heard some of the nobles wondering when the rebel trial would be held. When they would get to see a hanging.
“It’s been so long,” one of the women had said in a whining soprano. Rayne had only half-heard the women’s conversation, but it now pushed itself to the front of her mind as she stared down the narrow staircase.
She descended slowly. The air was frigid and the room below her was dark; she knew she was in the right place. The stairs felt never-ending, and by the time she reached the bottom, she was dizzy.
The door she encountered was made of dark, heavy wood and iron braces, and opened with a loud scrape on the stone floor. The tunnel beyond was empty except for the torches flickering on the stone walls, illuminating the arching ceiling. Here there were no windows, no natural light. Even the air smelled stale and unused. The tunnel ended in an iron gate and beyond it, there was the sound of rattling keys and a man whistling something. To call it a tune would be generous.
“You'll never get in,” came a quiet voice from right behind her, someone's breath hot on her ear.
Rayne jumped, fear of discovery the only thing stronger than her surprise and the only thing that kept her from shrieking. She whipped around and found the general watching her with an amused smirk. He leaned against the stone wall, arms crossed, just out of sight of the barred iron door. Out of his armor, he looked young and handsome, his long brown hair tied back in a bun, his golden band outlined against the sleeve of his shirt that strained against hard-earned muscles.
“I don't— I don't want to get in,” Rayne stuttered, standing and pushing her hair out of her eyes.
He studied her, his eyes raking her from top to bottom in a way that made her distinctly aware of just how uncomfortable she was in this dress. She was wary, but she never felt the tug of magic.
“Then what are you doing here? The dungeons are no place for a princess.” She was so tired of hearing those words, of being called a princess when she had worked so hard to become a Knight.
He shifted, pushing off of the wall, and her eyes fell to her dagger at his hip. “Why did you lie about the knife?” she asked, avoiding his question, hoping that an uncomfortable change in subject might make him go away.
She was wrong. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at her and without responding, stepped out into the corridor.
“Hey,” Rayne hissed at him, but he didn't answer. Instead, he moved to the iron gate and banged on it.
“You coming, princess?” he called over his shoulder.
What was she supposed to do? Trust him? Did she have any other choice? All he had to do was say the word and she would be thrown behind those bars. But in the space of a breath, she made the decision and darted forward to stand beside him, shifting from foot to foot.
“Relax,” Tierri told her and she stilled. It was easier to think of him as Tierri when he wasn't in uniform. He was just another man, a servant; not a wielder, not a general.
He banged again on the bars.
“Coming, coming,” someone grumbled from the darkness on the other side.
“Hurry up, you old bastard,” Tierri said.
Rayne turned to him wide-eyed. What was he doing? Before she could ask, a small man with a tuft of white hair appeared, a ring of keys dangling heavily from his leather belt.
“Well, if it isn't the young king,” the old man said, then he guffawed, his laugh ending abruptly in a hacking cough.
“You'd better not let anyone else hear you say that, Old Sim,” Tierri said, rolling his eyes toward Rayne. “Especially not in the presence of true royalty.”
Old Sim took one loo
k at Rayne and made it obvious he wasn't impressed. “You'd better tell me what you want or I'm going back to my nap.”
“I don't know how you can sleep surrounded by a bunch of criminals,” Tierri said.
“Ha!” the jailer scoffed. “I feel safer down here than I do up there.” He pointed a gnarled finger at the ceiling. Rayne understood what he meant and nodded in agreement.
Wrapping his hands around the iron bars in front of him, Tierri leaned forward. “The princess needs to see a prisoner,” he whispered even though there was no one else around except maybe the inmates beyond the gate. How had he known?
The man looked serious for the first time since Rayne had seen him as he ran a hand over his balding head. “Aw, King,” he said, using what was evidently a nickname for Tierri, “you know I can't do that, not even for your pretty friend.”
“Don't make me pull rank,” Tierri said, but as he spoke he pulled something wrapped in linen from a pocket. Holding it in one hand, he gently unfolded the cloth to reveal a steaming bun slathered in red jam. Sim's eyes nearly popped out of his head, but he took a step back as if distance could repel the hunger.
Sim was shaking his head, but Rayne saw his resolve crumble. He sighed and began fumbling with the keys. “You always know just how to strike, don't you? Some would say you don't play fair.”
“No one should ever mistake me for a fair player,” Tierri said, stepping back from the gate and tugging Rayne with him.
“If I catch any flack for this, I'm pointing all three of my fingers at you.” Sim lifted a hand that was missing its thumb and pinky and shook it at Tierri as he pushed the gate open. Rayne pressed her lips together to conceal a gasp.
“If you catch any flack for this,” Tierri said, “I'm guessing you'll be down to two fingers.”
Old Sim chuckled, snatching the roll from Tierri's hand, and slammed the gate behind them with a loud, ominous bang.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When Rains Fall Page 12