3. Kiera

Chapter 3

Kiera

Heart weary, I hurried to Delysia’s room. Father was likely already angry that I’d kept him waiting this long, but I couldn’t leave yet.

Just as I was about to knock, I heard heavy footsteps coming down one of the halls toward me.

I ducked into a curtained alcove as they rounded the corner and stopped in front of Delysia’s room. A soft knock, the creak of her door opening. A man’s deep whisper and my sister’s hushed giggle.

I peered around the curtain to see the back of a tall man in a soldier’s uniform stepping into Delysia’s room.

I closed my eyes. Oh, Delysia, an affair with a soldier? Father would never approve. And I knew full well what he was capable of, the lengths he would go to in order to destroy a relationship. There was once a time I would’ve risked anything for love, for an escape, but not anymore.

But little sisters never wanted to hear that. She wouldn’t understand until she’d made the same mistakes. But gods, I wished I could change her mind before it was too late.

I supposed the least I could do for her was ensure that Father was busy for a few minutes.

“Love you, little Lys,” I whispered to the door.

Sooner than I wished, I came to a stop in front of the monstrous wooden door of his study. Two of his personal guards flanked it, armed to the teeth and staring straight ahead. They wouldn’t stop me.

Still, I hesitated. I couldn’t ignore his summons, but I also couldn’t help taking this extra moment to drain my face of expression and my heart of feeling.

Even if my efforts were always for nothing.

Gods damn your little weaknesses.

I knocked.

“Enter,” he commanded from within.

I tugged the door open and slipped inside. Of the two studies I’d been in tonight, this one felt more dangerous. Thick velvet draperies the color of my tunic and stitched with glittering gold and onyx thread covered the stone walls. A massive fireplace provided heat and light, as well as a useful incinerator for sensitive correspondence.

Father’s brown eyes, dreadfully like mine, fastened on me as he fed letters to the hungry flames. “Renwell never keeps me waiting. Neither should you.”

He still refused to call me by a name, any name, since the day he’d stripped me of my title and, effectively, my family. I was now a servant to the crown, an apprentice to his most trusted High Councilor. Nothing else.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” I said through stiff lips.

“Renwell told me of your mission.” A hint of disgust wrinkled his thick nose. “Ridiculous to send a girl to do something Korvin could accomplish in half the time.”

My shoulders twitched at the mention of his beloved torturer. “Renwell believes?—”

“Yes, I know what Renwell believes,” Father snapped. “There are times I question that man’s judgment—usually in regard to you.” He threw the last letter into the fire, the flames puncturing it into pieces. “But he has yet to fail me. A quality he needs to train into you.”

Bitterness rose up my throat like bile. “I will not fail, Father?—”

“Don’t call me that!” he snarled.

I flinched. “Apologies, Your Majesty. I misspoke.”

He turned away from the hearth, straightening his heavily embroidered coat of violet, gold, and black with one sharp tug. His beloved crown sat atop his iron-gray hair. The gold points shimmered in the firelight as the chunks of sunstone winked mockingly at me—a perfect match for Mother’s dagger.

His scathing gaze raked over me. “Look at you. Playing dress-up in the shadows when I gave you the greatest life a child could ever hope to have.”

My lips curled into a snarl. “That was no life. You imprisoned me, you beat me, you took away the only chance I had at love?—”

“Silence!” he thundered. He stalked toward me, his ringed fingers clenching into fists at his sides.

My legs quivered from the strength it took to hold my ground.

“So ungrateful,” he hissed, “when you have no idea what it’s like to grow up with nothing, to be nothing. To have the world look down on you and think you’re as worthless as the gods-damned gutter you were born in. You have no conception of how hard I labored for years to educate myself, to ingratiate myself with the very people who kicked me aside as a child. I worked my way up from nothing to be a king—just to have a daughter who refuses to do her duty and further the royal Torvaine bloodline, to ensure Torvaine is the longest-lasting and most prosperous of all the Rellmiran royals.”

Fury and humiliation from our old argument stabbed my chest like a hot poker. “You wanted to auction me off for breeding rights to the highest bidder, all to preserve a crown you got by chance.”

His palm whipped over my cheek hard enough to make me stumble. Bursts of light flickered over my vision as my face throbbed with pain. For a moment, I wanted to scream and fight back, but instead, Renwell’s voice filtered through the cacophony in my mind.

“Never show an enemy how wounded you are.”

I inhaled deeply through my nose and slowly stood at attention once more, my hands clasped firmly behind my back, eyes cast downward.

He barked out a harsh laugh. “I see Renwell has managed to teach you something at least. Look at me, apprentice.”

I forced myself to meet his gaze.

He studied me as if I were the papers curling to ash in his hearth. “I will let you keep your job—for now. But if you ever speak to me that way again, I will make sure you never become High Enforcer. Do you understand?”

My heart twisted. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Dismissed.”

I executed the shallowest bow I could afford and marched out of his study—where I collided with a pillar of darkness. Lurching backward, I looked up into Renwell’s hooded face. His eyes tightened as they focused on my burning cheek.

Wordlessly, he jerked his head to the side, and I followed him down the hall, out of earshot of the king and his guards. I yanked up my hood, and we both covered our faces as we left the palace. The rain had stopped but had left silver puddles on the smooth stone of the bridge.

I spoke over the crashing waterfall beneath us. “He thinks I will fail.”

“Yes,” Renwell said. “He thinks you are weak and will cave under the pressures of this new life.” His covered face tilted toward me. “But I disagree. You will succeed and thrive. Then you will earn his favor.”

“I’m not doing this for him,” I said, my mind full of my parting words with Everett.

Renwell’s tone sharpened. “Careful. That is almost treasonous.”

I halted, staring at him as he also stopped and faced me. “Will you betray me, Renwell?”

His gaze was steady yet unfathomable. “No.”

We continued onward, and the guards let us through the gate without question. No one roamed the dark streets of the Noble Quarter. Everyone must be long abed. I couldn’t help a quick glance at the lord’s house I’d snuck into earlier. Gods, it seemed a lifetime ago already. What would become of my discovery?

As representatives of the provinces of Winspere and Pravara and the royal city of Aquinon, the People’s Council had been tasked with bringing the people’s needs before the king. But when they had rallied behind the belligerent province of Pravara and incited rebellion in the streets of Aquinon, Father had dismantled the council, executed those he deemed traitors, and forbade any mention of the People’s Council.

I’d not heard of them again until tonight. Did some of the nobility—like Lord Garyth—want to bring the council back? What would happen if they tried? Was the prisoner I was about to meet connected somehow?

My mind raced, rehearsing my cover story and trying not to panic over the many unknowns.

We approached the Noble Quarter gate, and a rush of excitement dulled my nerves. The gate separated the upper-class quarter from the rest of the city. Renwell hadn’t allowed me on the other side of it in two years, since my mother’s assassination.

Even if this newfound freedom came with a heavy price, I would happily pay it.

The guards here also opened the gate without question. After all, they were there to keep the rest of the city out, not keep the nobles in.

Renwell hurried me along at breakneck speed, but that didn’t stop me from drinking in the sights. I’d never wandered far from the main city road as it led straight to the taverns. But I could see the Temple rising above the brown buildings of the Old Quarter like a giant pearl nestled in the sand.

Renwell took a sharp left, and we plunged into the Market Quarter. The many workshops and market stalls were quiet and hollow this time of night, but they would wake before dawn. I could already smell cinnamon bread baking. My stomach rumbled.

Gods damn it, I should’ve stopped by the kitchen before going to see my father. Perhaps I would’ve been harder to provoke with a full stomach. My cheek throbbed as if to agree.

A few minutes later, we reached the cliff road.

Most of Aquinon sat atop the cliffs, but the last quarter—the Docks Quarter—could only be reached by way of the cliff road that cut back and forth down to the docks. The high wall that ran around the whole city had a portcullis at the top of the road, to cut off the rest of the city from sea invasion if necessary.

But I’d never seen it lowered. I’d also never walked down this road.

I gritted my teeth as I followed Renwell, trying to focus on my boots so as not to look out over the dizzying height above the Docks Quarter and the harbor. My legs were trembling by the time we reached the bottom.

The docks were a wide, sprawling part of the city that spilled into the Niviath Sea. Full of bawdy taverns and dilapidated houses that leaned over and under each other like drunk sailors. Ships, large and small, bobbed in their berths. The ever-shifting breeze smelled alternatively of salt and ale.

Where most of the city had been asleep, the Docks Quarter was still alive with light, music, and laughter. Mynastra’s Tide was a sailor’s favorite. The singing bone-rattlers on shore leave paid us no mind as they wandered from tavern to tavern wearing their strings of bones. I thought of Everett’s story and almost smiled, but my nerves strangled it.

Ignoring the revelers, Renwell stalked toward the moonlit waterfall—the same one we’d crossed at the top. Without warning, he caught my arm in a bruising grip.

He dipped his head to mutter in my ear. “Act frightened.”

I flinched, my gaze fluttering around the increasingly abandoned buildings. Were we being watched?

Renwell yanked on my arm, and I whimpered, cowering away from him. It was almost a relief to let a sliver of fear show.

He dragged me to two tall black doors. I caught my breath. This must be the entrance to the infamous Den. It was unmarked, unguarded, and clearly avoided. But the doors opened outward without a sound the moment Renwell appeared before them.

“No, no!” I sobbed, digging my heels into the broken cobblestones.

“Shut up, idiot girl,” Renwell hissed as he pulled me forward hard enough for me to stumble. “Or lose your tongue.”

I whimpered again, barely keeping myself upright as he hauled me through the gate. I gasped—in real fear this time—when I came face to face with a Shadow-Wolf on the other side.

He was swathed in black from head to toe, not a bit of skin to be seen. A few sunstone knives glittered in his belt. Worst of all was his dark metal mask, shaped like a snarling wolf. He looked like a drawing I’d seen in an old book on the demons from the Abyss. Waiting to snatch souls into the wandering hell.

Never interfere with my Wolves. That had been one of Renwell’s rules. Seeing one, there was little chance of that.

Renwell hurried me past one then two then a dozen more Shadow-Wolves. They lined the wide, barren yard where training dummies and racks of weapons were set up. A few more trailed in and out of the dark maw of a cave.

My heart pounded louder than the waterfall that cascaded nearby. Gods, the Den was truly cut into the cliff most of the city resided on.

Renwell didn’t hesitate as he towed me into the cave. The sound of the waterfall faded as we rushed through a maze of rocky tunnels that dripped with moisture and smelled of mildew. Several tunnels looked wide enough for a wagon while others Renwell would have to turn sideways to slip through.

What all did he do down here? Did my father or brother ever see it? I couldn’t imagine either man in this sun-forsaken hole.

We came to another gate that a large, greasy man with a fistful of keys opened from the inside. He leered at me as Renwell dragged me through. Rusty doors lined the torch-lit tunnel, and the thunder of the waterfall came loudest from the other end. We must be right behind it.

Renwell flung me into the first room on the left and slammed the door behind us. I caught myself against a heavy wooden chair and immediately recoiled. It was sticky and smelled of blood. Crusted shackles lay like coiled snakes at its feet. A few torches on the walls illuminated the deep crimson stains and scorch marks that marred the wood.

This place, these smells.

Rising panic blurred my vision as I swung around wildly, noting the many weapons strewn about the room. Whips, knives, tools for cutting and sawing.

My stomach heaved.

I bolted for the door, but Renwell snatched my wrist and swung me against one of the walls, pinning me with his entire body.

“Calm yourself, Kiera. Breathe,” he growled.

“Not him,” I gasped, a scream clawing from my throat. “You swore, Renwell. Not him.”

“Look at me.”

I did, black smudges still blotting my vision. The wavering torchlight only deepened the hardness of Renwell’s eyes.

“Korvin is not here,” he rasped. “I will be the one to deal with you.”

Not here, not here, not here. The words ricocheted around my skull until my mind finally calmed enough to grasp them.

A few moments more, and I’d wrestled the hideous memories back into the darkest cavern of my memory where they waited like bats to swarm my sanity.

My shallow breaths deepened. “Let go of me.”

Renwell’s jaw clenched, but he stepped away, releasing my aching wrist.

“Where is the prisoner?” I asked hoarsely.

“You’ll meet him shortly. Do you remember everything we talked about? What you need to do?”

“Yes.” Even though my mind was utterly blank at the moment.

“Good. Now... to make your capture look convincing.”

I swallowed against my dry throat. He had said as much earlier, back in the warmth and safety of my room. But here? Those words felt much more ominous.

Renwell had struck me plenty of times before in training. But to let him felt wrong. Just as it had with my father.

His gloved hands flexed, and his eyes glittered with something like a challenge. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d tested my resolve.

Drawing my chin up, I walked to the chair and sank down upon it as if it were a throne. “Try not to break anything.”

I focused on Mother’s sweet face, her gentle laugh, as Renwell reared back and slammed his fist into my jaw.

Grunting in pain, I clawed my nails into the arms of the chair to keep from fighting back.

He jabbed me a few times in the ribs, making me double over, gasping for air. He slammed my shoulders back against the chair. An animalistic snarl twisted his face as he gripped my shirt sleeve and tore it.

I gaped at him, but he wasn’t done. His gloved fingers dug under my collar and split the seams to my shoulder. He ripped the belt from my waist and lashed my uninjured cheek with it. My hand flew to my face and came away wet with blood.

Finally, he stepped back, breathing hard. He tossed the belt atop a pile of dirty clothes in the corner.

I sat there, desperately fighting against the sting of tears, while he looked over his work.

“Final touch,” he murmured, fetching a pair of chained manacles. He latched the cold, scratched metal around my wrists.

Panic nibbled at the back of my mind like a rat, but I deadened my mind to it.

This is who you are now. Believe it, and the prisoner will too.

Renwell whistled sharply, and the jailer barreled into the room. Renwell tossed him my chains. “Do you have a chain key?”

“Aye, sir.” I watched carefully as the jailer produced a small iron key before tucking it back in his left pants pocket.

“Take this one to the cell at the end,” Renwell commanded. Then he gave me a smirk that sent a shiver down my spine. “And no need to be gentle with her.”

The jailer grinned. “As you wish, sir. Come on, you wretch.” He yanked me forward. As I stumbled past him, he kicked me in the back.

I went sprawling to the dirt floor, barely catching myself with my manacled hands. Rage flooded my veins. This man I could fight back. I rolled over and kicked the leering jailer in the groin.

He bellowed curses and dropped to his knees. Snarling, I struggled to my feet. I paid little mind to Renwell watching me with a small smile. Instead, I swung my fists at the jailer’s head, but he jerked my chains downward at the last moment. I used my momentum to ram my shoulder into his gut. He grunted, his sour pork breath filling my nostrils.

I could snatch the key now, but it had to be where the prisoner could see me do it.

Renwell’s mocking voice filled the tunnel. “Is it really so difficult to deliver one chained, injured woman to her cell?”

The jailer seized my chains and flung me halfway down the tunnel. My battered body screamed in protest. Gods damn it, he was stronger than he looked. But I had to get close to him again.

He dragged me to the last cell and unlocked it. The door screeched on rusty hinges as he opened it and tried to throw me inside.

But I clung to him instead, my nails digging into his fleshy arm. “No! You can’t do this! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“Get off me, bitch!” he roared.

While he tried to shake me loose, my fingers slipped into his pocket and fished out the little key. Gods, I hoped the prisoner was watching. My stomach twisted in anticipation.

The jailer grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked. Needles of fire stabbed my scalp, and I released him. Cursing profusely, he kicked me into the shadowy cell.

I rolled, using the opportunity to shove the key into my mouth.

Two large, rough hands gripped my arm and gently pulled me to the side. A hulking shadow stepped between me and the jailer.

The prisoner.

I froze, shock overpowering the pain pounding through my body.

“Leave her be, jailer.”