Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

~ Mason ~

L etting my head hang down, I sit slumped with one shoulder leaning against the cell wall. The guard has just brought the morning meals, and though it’s been hours since I was whipped, pain thrums along my back, my body slow to heal with the cuff around my ankle blocking my power. It’s a stinging, searing agony that I’ve become accustomed to ignoring over the years, but the guards gave me a rougher treatment than they usually do. It was probably so I’d serve as a warning to the newcomers, though I don’t think it has had the effect they intended.

“Here, your high—” My cell mate, Jaiq’s, words cut off when I crack my eyes open.

He dips his head, peering at me sheepishly. “I mean, Mason,” he corrects. “Here, take mine.” He slides his tray of food toward me, and I peer at the grainy gray mush. It’s the same meal they’ve been feeding us for the entire forsaken time I’ve been in this prison. Thorak—the roots of Thoran plants. It’s a delicacy when prepared differently, but I hated it as a child, and I hate it even more when it’s boiled and mashed like this. Which is exactly why Celzar has been serving this as the prison dish. It’s simply another reminder that I’m here because of him. Though, when I made it clear I’d eat it without complaint, my brother started ordering the guards to skip my meals all together. Either I starve, or one of my followers does. Bastard.

I want to refuse the food, but instead, I give Jaiq a grateful nod. He moves back, finding a place on the grimy floor, and I force myself to bring a spoonful of mush to my mouth. On another day, I would have refused. Jaiq needs this as badly as I do, but the chattering from the cell next door is enough to spur me on. The food tastes like nothing in my mouth. It’s simply sustenance to give me the energy to heal and keep going, and I choke it down.

When I’m done, I already feel a little better, but that could be because of my new neighbors. I haven’t felt hope like this in a long time. Not since just before the last uprising. Many of the warriors in this prison are in here because of me. Because they were loyal to me, including Jaiq. But the day of the last uprising, we’d finally been able to get many of us out. There had been a severe loss of life on both sides, but my most loyal ex-commanders had made it beyond security and into the tunnels. With the help of a few cityfolk sympathizers who had discovered uninhabited tunnels, my friends had escaped. But Celzar had arrived before the rest of us could make it.

Anger pulses through me at the thought of my older brother, but it doesn’t squash the buzzing energy inside me. Because for the first time in years, I finally feel like we have another opportunity.

The new arrivals are still talking in the cell next to me, and I lean my head closer to the wall, concentrating on their conversation. They’re talking to someone new, though I can’t imagine who. Since the last uprising, Celzar increased the number of guards, and visitors are prohibited from ever entering the prison. I know I should keep quiet and glean what information I can, but I’m in too much pain to think clearly, and curiosity has me speaking up. “Who are you speaking to?” I ask, unable to hold my tongue.

“A friend,” one of the male’s replies.

A friend? They haven’t been in the prison long enough for me to think this friend might be imaginary, and I sit up a little straighter, not caring when the pain along my back intensifies.

“And who is this friend?” I ask, my heart beating a little faster.

“Let’s just say she’s a sign our mate, Blake, is still alive,” another male voice replies.

Mate? It’s so strange hearing them use the term so casually. Finding your fated mate was a rare occurrence in Perstalia, and an even rarer possibility in The Haven with the cuffs on, but I don’t let myself dwell on it. A thousand other questions fire through my mind, and I focus on the most important questions that could help with our escape. “And this friend found their way in here? Past security? How is that possible?”

There’s a beat of silence, but then the same voice replies, “When we say ‘friend’ we don’t mean someone like us. Shade here, is a crow.”

“A crow?” I repeat in confusion. I think of the black birds I sometimes saw flying around Perstalia before the city was destroyed. There aren’t any crows down here in The Haven, but from what I’d been taught as a child, crows are clever birds with surprising memories. A thread of something sharp and thrilling goes through me, despite my best efforts to push the feeling away. A stronger explosion of hope warms my chest, but I remind myself that crows can’t follow directions. Maybe one that had been trained to follow a specific route, similar to a homing pigeon, but not a crow in a strange land.

“You heard us. And now that she’s here, we need to discuss our plan to get out of this shithole. As much as I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the hospitality, I was kinda hopin’ you might have some ideas.”

My gaze darts to my three other cellmates. Jaiq was one of the youngest recruits to join the army before the battle with the witches, and he’s proven his loyalty on countless occasions. The two females had once been the ladies-in-waiting for my older sister, Nerelia. They’d been thrown in here when Celzar had locked Nerelia away, and they’d started asking about her wellbeing in the palace. I’m confident that none of them would divulge any escape plans. One of the females lies in a crumpled heap, her breathing ragged, while the other, Renee, stares at me with a hopeful spark in her hollow eyes.

I wet my lips, and I check that none of the guards outside the cell are within listening distance before I go on to say, “How can I be sure that freeing you won’t be a mistake?” From what I’ve gathered, these outsiders are from the surface and from a world we’re far removed from. The last thing I want is to accidentally release an even bigger threat. Celzar might be cruel, but our kind has survived this long.

“You’ll just have to trust us,” a rough voice growls in response.

I pause, considering.

“If we can get word to the others, it could work,” Jaiq whispers, coming up beside me. I clench my jaw. We might only get one more chance. A single chance to try again for the tunnels, and if we fail, we could be locked in this place forever. Or at least, until Celzar finally tires of leaving me alive.

“Look, I wouldn’t trust us either if I were in your position,” a different voice drawls. “But it’s obvious you see that we present an opportunity, and I’m guessing you don’t want to spend the rest of your days in here. Let us out, and we’ll leave and take our princess with us. This king of yours can’t take her power if we’ve disappeared from here.”

I think of this ‘Blake’ they’ve been talking about. She’s obviously important to them, though sometimes with the way they talk, it’s a little hard to decipher their true feelings for the female. Either way, she must be a formidable figure to be stirring such emotion from all four of them, and from the sounds of it, she’s powerful. It would be good to get her away from Celzar.

“I have an idea,” I say carefully.

“Now, that’s just what we like to hear,” one of the males replies eagerly. “What are we talkin’ about here? Do you have a secret weapon hidden somewhere? A secret tunnel? An ‘in’ with one of the guards?”

I clear my dry throat. “I have warriors waiting in the tunnels.”

“Rebels?” someone asks.

“If we can get a message to them, I can advise them of the weak point in the security. If we coordinate so they know exactly where and when to attack, they could give us the opening we need to escape.”

“Nice. Rebels aidin’ a breakout,” one of the male’s replies. “So how do we get word to them?”

“And now you know why we’re still here,” I reply. “We have no way of getting word to them, and because we can’t organize ourselves, any efforts they’ve made to free me have all been thwarted.”

I hear cursing from the cell next door.

“I have a few loyalists in the palace, but visitation to the prison was cut off years ago. Now, unless it’s a worker or the king, no one goes in or out.” I pause. “No one, except your crow friend, I guess.”

There’s another stretch of silence.

“Ah, well that’s not exactly what I was hopin’ to hear,” one of the males replies less enthusiastically.

I hear quiet squawking then, and I furrow my brow, still surprised to hear the noise even though they’d said there was a crow with them.

“And what if our crow can get back out of the prisons? Could she carry a message to your rebels?” a gruff voice says.

Jaiq lifts his brows, and shuffles closer to the wall like he’s desperate to hear every word they have to say.

I rub my chin thoughtfully. “Unless she’s able to follow instructions and memorize a map of the tunnels, I don’t see how that would work.”

There’s another stretch of silence followed by a faint squawk. Then I hear, “Ready to be brave, little one?”