Chapter 3

Givethe traitor enough freedom to condemn himself.

~ King Gavatorin the Elder

The cold of the stone bench seeped through Kaylina’s parka and trousers, numbing her body, as heartless as the glacier-filled mountains looming behind the city. Common sense told her to stand up, move around, and figure out how to get out of the cell. Instead, her treacherous mind fixated on the confrontation with the rangers, on what she should have said to Vlerion, on how she shouldn’thave lost her temper, on how, on how, on how—

“It’s not my fault,” Frayvar said for the fifth time. “Kafdari root is from the altered myristica fragrans tree.”

“I know,” Kaylina murmured.

She hadn’t known when the rangers had spoken of it, but Frayvar had been apologizing and explaining ever since they’d been locked in the cell.

“It’s magical,” he said, “like all altered plants are, but that’s not the problem. It’s from the same tree as nutmeg and mace. That means I’m almost certainly allergic to it. If they make me ingest it, I could die.”

“I know.”

“They execute spies and traitors.” Frayvar paced as he spoke. Five steps to one wall. A thump as he pushed off it with his hands. Five steps to the other. Thump.

Kaylina did her best not to find the thumps irritating. Better to be with her brother than alone. “I know that too.”

“We have to figure a way out of here.”

“Yeah.” She stared up at the dark ceiling. A single north-facing window high on the stone wall let in little light.

“Unless we get an adjudicator who’s much more reasonable than the rangers, we could be put to death by sunset.”

“Yeah.”

“You know I normally find solace in obeying laws and rules, since they’re barometers for what’s socially appropriate behavior, but in this case, I think we have to break out of jail, escape back to the south, and hope the rangers have more pressing concerns than coming after us.”

Back to the south… as failures.

Kaylina grimaced at the cobwebs in the corner of the shadowy ceiling. She’d come to prove herself. How, after less than a day here, could she already be defeated?

No, she wasn’t defeated. She couldn’t give up yet. She had to do something. But what? Her earlier energy had faded, and intense fatigue bound her to the bench as surely as chains.

“Kaylina.” Frayvar halted, spun toward her, and planted his fists on his hips. “This isn’t a logical time for one of your funks.”

“Is there ever a logical time for a funk?” she murmured.

“When we’re not about to be executed.” His voice squeaked like it had when he’d been thirteen.

When she met his imploring eyes, he didn’t look much older than that now. He was still gangly and frail, a target for bullies. For an asshole lord who thought nothing of slamming him to the ground with his overly muscled weight.

Protective anger simmered, helping to push back the malaise. Kaylina sat up, swinging her legs to the floor. “Do you have any ideas for escaping?”

“You’re the schemer.”

“Yeah, but you’re—”

A scream interrupted her, sending a chill down her spine. It came from one of the other cells they’d passed on the way in. A prisoner being questioned? Being tortured?

The scream faded and didn’t repeat. Kaylina found that more ominous than promising.

“You’re the one who’s read every encyclopedia and textbook in the town library,” she said quietly. “Didn’t any of them discuss jailbreaks?”

“In nonfiction, that comes up less often than you’d think.” Frayvar eyed the iron bars of the window. “Metal contracts when it’s cold and expands with heat, which can break or at least loosen bonds. Unfortunately, the inconsiderate guards didn’t give us a torch.”

“These northerners are a rude lot.”

“Extremely.”

Kaylina rose and tried to get her sluggish brain thinking. It was hard. For the whole journey, she’d been on a cloud, planning what she would do when they arrived, lying awake nights, her brain too busy for sleep. But that alertness had been knocked out of her, as if she’d been the one to take a lead ball to the head.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself.

Kaylina didn’t think she was a schemer—maybe a dreamer—but she would do what she could. She walked to the door and knocked, the cold oak so dense it hurt her knuckles.

What she would say if someone answered, she didn’t know, but she had to barter and negotiate if at all possible. She couldn’t let Frayvar be killed because of her dream.

Nobody answered. She pressed her ear to the door. Was anyone on guard in the corridor?

“I’m sorry Grandma sent you after me,” she told Frayvar in case there wasn’t a chance later. In case she couldn’t negotiate his freedom. “When I left—” fled, the insidious part of her mind inserted, “—I didn’t think anyone would come after me. After what I said to her… Well, you were there.” Kaylina rubbed her face, regret lurking. Always lurking.

Frayvar looked toward the window. “Grandma didn’t send me.”

“Was it Mom?”

“No. Nobody.”

“What do you mean? You told me the family sent you.”

“I lied, Kaylina. I can’t believe you didn’t see through it. I’m a horrible liar.”

“Well, I’m used to you not looking me in the eyes, so I didn’t think anything of it.”

He snorted. “I thought you would need someone to keep the books, to be the practical one, and to help make your business successful. I also worried you were in over your head. The north is harder than the south.” He glanced at the bars in the window and the thick stone walls. The jail in their town back home was made from bamboo, the roof from reeds. “Besides, I owe you. You’ve… you’ve always watched out for me. It’s not like the rest of the family doesn’t, but Grandma is the only one who gets me. Her and you.”

“I don’t get you either, but you’re my brother.”

“I guess that’s sufficient. I appreciate you trying to keep that hulking troglodyte from pummeling me.”

“Any time. If the family didn’t send you, where’d you get the seed money?”

“It’s my savings.”

“Twelve gods, Fray.” Kaylina slumped against the door. Now, she really had to get her brother out of there. “Did you tell Mom you were coming? Grandma? Anyone?”

“I left a note.”

Yeah, that was his style. No direct confrontation.

Kaylina couldn’t blame him. Confrontations tended to escalate, even with those you loved. Or especially with those you loved.

“Did you leave a note? Or was it an essay detailing the reasons for your departure over multiple pages?” She tried to smile for him, certain she already knew the answer.

Frayvar hesitated. “There were multiple pages. There was also a business plan. And a pro forma.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“A financial statement calculating potential earnings based on projections and presumptions.”

“So, it was the typical runaway letter.” Her second smile was more genuine, though the weight of responsibility threatened to send her back to the bench. More than ever, she felt it was her duty to keep him safe.

Rising on tiptoes, she checked the bars in the window, attempting to twist them. Their coldness bit into her palms. She supposed blowing hot air on them wouldn’t be enough for Frayvar’s expansion of metal.

“May I ask you something?” he asked with more diffidence than usual.

“Yup.”

“Is this adventure truly about proving yourself… or is it about Domas?”

“It has nothing to do with him.”

Liar, her mind accused, a memory rearing up like an angry horse. Domas backing away from their bed with a blanket around his waist and scowling. “What is wrong with you? You look so normal.”

He’d said that more than once when they’d been together. You look so normal.

Strangely damning words. Like if she’d been born clubfooted with four eyes, her mood swings, her funks, as Frayvar called them, might have been more acceptable.

Kaylina shook her head, reluctant, as always, to open up to anyone, even family members. But Frayvar had come clean to her. Didn’t she owe it to him to tell the truth? Especially now?

“Silana said it was,” he added.

Silana. Their always-smiling older sister who had a husband, two daughters, and happiness and contentment others could only aspire to.

“She wasn’t there,” was all Kaylina said.

“Domas broke up with you, though, right?”

“It was mutual.”

“A simultaneous and equally desired agreement to part ways?” Frayvar sounded skeptical for someone with zero experience with relationships. Maybe logic prompted the question rather than intuition.

“Something like that. Breaking up might have been what prompted the timing of me leaving, but it wasn’t everything. For years, I’ve had this dream.”

“So, it was the catalyst,” Frayvar said.

“Sure.”

Leave it to him to use a vocabulary word to describe her emotional outbursts.

Some intuition took Kaylina to the door again, and she pressed her ear against it. Footsteps sounded in the corridor.

“Someone’s coming,” she whispered.

“We’ll tell them the truth once more. Calmly, so they’ll take us seriously.”

“It’s hard to get people to take you seriously when there’s nobody behind you.”

His lips flattened, but he didn’t deny that. After all his encounters with bullies in school, he had to know that better than she.

“If we have to, we’ll request that the adjudicator send a letter home to verify we are who we say we are,” Kaylina said. “I hate the thought of needing help, but Grandma will vouch for us.”

“It’ll take three weeks for round-trip communication.”

“Three weeks when they’ll have to keep us alive. Time for us to come up with something.”

“All right.” His bleak expression didn’t suggest agreement, but he probably had nothing better.

The lock turned, and Kaylina stepped back.

When the door opened, Lord Vlerion’s broad shoulders filled the frame. Damn it, where was that adjudicator? Someone impartial and fair who would hear them?

Vlerion carried his sword in hand, like an executioner’s axe ready to swing.

When his cold gaze met hers, Kaylina stepped back before she caught herself. Irritation swept through her, more at her automatic response than at anything he’d done. But her brother would point out it was logical to get out of the way of someone with a huge sword.

His face impassive, Vlerion walked into the cell, making room for an older man in ranger blacks to step in after him. A few grays dotted the new man’s brown hair, but he looked lean and fit under his armor.

When Vlerion turned, light from the corridor allowed her to see the red lump on the back of his head. Kaylina couldn’t regret hitting him, not when he’d been going after Frayvar with a sword, but there might be repercussions.

With a sword and dagger belted at his waist and more visible scars than Vlerion had, the second ranger looked as fair and impartial as a badger defending a cub. He surveyed them as Vlerion rested the tip of his long blade on the stone floor and waited.

“This is the girl who hit you on the head?” Was that amusement in the new ranger’s eyes?

“She is.” Vlerion touched something tucked into his belt opposite a dagger. Her sling.

Kaylina’s fingers twitched involuntarily toward it. Not because she longed to brain him—much—but because she couldn’t lose Grandpa’s gift.

“She wants to do it again.” Yes, that was amusement in the other man’s eyes.

Kaylina lowered her hand.

“Many do,” was all Vlerion said.

The older ranger considered Kaylina and Frayvar. “They’re young for spies and murderers.”

Vlerion eyed Kaylina. “She’s close to my age.”

“You’re young too.” Humor glinted in the ranger’s brown eyes again.

Dare they hope he would be more reasonable than the uptight lord?

“Captain.” The first hint of emotion entered Vlerion’s voice—mild indignation. “For six years, I’ve patrolled the Evardor Mountains and climbed the Twin Sisters to fight the Scourge beasts and Kar’ruk spies. I’ve seen as many battles as your gray-haired veterans.”

“As some of my gray-haired veterans, perhaps.” The ranger—the captain of the rangers?—touched a scar along his jaw.

“The Virts have used children as spies before,” Vlerion said.

Kaylina wanted to bristle at being lumped in with children—she was twenty-one, damn it—but she managed to keep her mouth shut.

“They have, but we aren’t at war with the entire proletariat, and we can’t assume everyone who isn’t a noble is an enemy.” The captain’s jaw tightened in a clench. “They’re our own people.”

“Even those who don’t raise weapons against the nobility would cheer to see us burn.” Vlerion’s tone was back to emotionless, but his face conveyed an aloof haughtiness.

“Don’t let your heritage define you, Vlerion.”

“It would be… quite impossible for it not to.” Their gazes met with the understanding of some shared knowledge. Or… a shared secret?

Whatever it was, Kaylina doubted it had anything to do with her. Deciding she didn’t care about their secrets, she raised a finger. “May we explain what led us to that castle? And who?”

“The land agent who mysteriously disappeared?” Vlerion asked coolly.

“Naybor was his name. And when armed rangers on giant hairy beasts show up, people disappearing can’tbe that mysterious.”

That spark of irritation—of danger—flared in his eyes again.

Kaylina reminded herself not to intentionally goad him. He clearly didn’t like her, probably because she was a commoner. That was fine. She didn’t like him either. Asshole.

“I’m Captain Targon. Tell me what led you to the cursed castle.”

“Have you the authority to weigh guilt and innocence and release the wrongfully accused from incarceration?” Frayvar asked.

Targon, whom Kaylina had dubbed the more likely of the two to listen, narrowed his eyes. Perceiving the question as disrespect? Maybe his heritage defined him too. Or he at least believed people should bow down to his rank.

“I command the rangers and report to the king,” Targon said. “I carry his authoritywhen it comes to defending Zaldor against threats, foreign and domestic.”

Kaylina held her hand up to keep her brother from speaking again and launched into a more complete version of what had happened since they’d landed. She was almost surprised when Targon listened. Vlerion also listened, but his eyes said he’d already condemned them as spies.

When she finished, she lifted her hands. “I’m willing to eat that root and answer questions under its influence. It’s a truth drug, right? If it can clear my name, I’m especially willing to eat it, but you can’t give it to my brother, okay? He’s allergic to stuff from the tree it comes from.” Kaylina looked at Vlerion. “That’s why he ran. Not because he was guilty of anything. He was scared for his life.”

Vlerion’s expression didn’t change, and she couldn’t tell if he believed her. She looked back to Targon, deeming him the more sympathetic.

“I volunteer to take that root and be questioned,” she repeated, “if you don’t give it to my brother.”

“You will take the root and be questioned whether you volunteer or not,” Vlerion said.

Targon glanced at him but didn’t naysay the statement.

“I thought it might be helpful if you had my cooperation instead of me biting you when you try to shove something in my mouth.” Kaylina bared her teeth at Vlerion.

“She definitely wants to hit you again,” Targon told him.

“Yes,” Vlerion agreed with an indifferent shrug.

Targon focused on Kaylina. “You two do look like siblings, even if you’re a lot more appealing than he is.”

Frayvar lifted a finger, as if he might object, but he lowered it and said nothing. Good. Kaylina didn’t want him drawing attention to himself. She didn’t want to be called appealing by a scarred-up forty-year-old guy, but he hadn’t ogled her chest or her ass, so she could deal with it.

“For now,” Targon continued, “unless your answers lead us to believe there’s more that we must unearth, I’m willing to question you in lieu of your brother.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m ready.”

Targon held up a hand. “Have you been given kafdari root before?”

“No.” Only after she spoke did Kaylina realize the question might have been a test. If she had said yes, would Targon have believed she’d been in trouble with the law before?

“Then you’re not aware of its side effects and how you might react under the influence.”

“It just makes you tell the truth, doesn’t it?” Kaylina looked at her brother.

“Assuming you’re not allergic to it,” Frayvar said, “it lowers your inhibitions, like alcohol. But it’s even more potent. It makes you eager to share information, but it also removes any reluctance to hide or sublimate your emotions. Depending on the person, its use can result in weeping or rage or both.”

Great. Kaylina couldn’t wait to bare her soul and weep in front of the stone-faced Vlerion and his boss.

Or was the ranger captain his boss? He ought to be, but they stood shoulder to shoulder, and they’d bantered like equals.

“The kid knows a lot about it for someone who isn’ta spy,” Vlerion noted.

“He knows a lot about everything.” Kaylina balled her fingers into a fist, frustration with the situation still simmering. “He reads books.”

She kept herself from implying that Vlerion didn’t—or couldn’t—barely.

“On roots?” Targon asked mildly.

That humor remained on his face, but his eyes were intent, and she knew he was testing them, waiting to see if they would inadvertently condemn themselves. What was going on in the capital that the rangers were so on edge? That they jumped straight to believing that people accidentally trespassing were spies?

The memory of the dead lord floated into her mind, answering her own question. She wished she’d spent more time reading the kingdom newspapers of late. Whatever was going on up here was probably being published in all the major cities, but she’d been too immersed in her own world to pay attention.

“He’s a chef at the Spitting Gull, our family’s meadery and eating house,” Kaylina said to answer Targon’s question. “If something is edible, magical or mundane, he’s read about it.”

Frayvar nodded.

“We’ll see.” Targon raised his eyebrows. “Do you still consent to taking the kafdari root and being questioned?”

Vlerion had implied that she would be questioned whether there was consent or not, but maybe those words had been meant to scare her into compliance. Maybe they had some laws about questioning their own people and needed her permission.

Another scream echoed through the stone walls, one of pain. Neither ranger blanched or reacted in any way. Targon continued to watch her intently.

“Did that guy not consent?” Kaylina didn’t manage to keep the squeak of alarm out of her voice.

“He did not. Evdar Wedgewick…” Targon paused, watching her eyes. To see if she recognized the name? She didn’t. “…is a known terrorist leader who’s been behind explosions around the city that have caused the deaths of innocents, working class andaristocrats. He is being questioned by force since he eluded the effects of the kafdari root and didn’t tell us the locations of the Virt bases.”

It was possible to elude the truth drug? Did that mean that her words wouldn’t automatically clear her?

Kaylina hoped that wouldn’t be the case. She had nothing to hide and wouldn’t fight the questioning. But would they believe her? What if the root addled her so much that she couldn’t think straight, and she somehow said something that would condemn them?

She looked at Frayvar, but he didn’t nod or encourage her in any way. His solemn eyes seemed to say it was up to her.

Since he couldn’t be questioned with the root, she had to do this.

“I consent, and I’m ready.” Kaylina wanted to get away from the sound of a man being tortured and back to fulfilling her dream as soon as possible.

Targon nodded and withdrew something from a pouch on his belt. The cream-colored ball looked like wadded-up chicle. Kaylina assumed powdered kafdari root was mixed into it.

As Targon approached, Vlerion did too, moving to stand behind her.

Kaylina tensed, alarmed by the big men hemming her in.

“Vlerion will hold you in case you grow violent under the influence of the root. It’s for your own good as well as to prevent him from suffering grievous injury at your hands again.” Targon grinned at Vlerion.

He sighed. “Do you have to take so much delight in my bruise?”

Bruise. He probably had a concussion. Kaylina hoped he did.

“Yes.” Targon’s grin widened. “Hardly anyone ever touches you in a fight.”

“If that were true, I’d have a prettier face.”

“Weren’t those scars from a tangle with your father when you were young? When he was…” Targon glanced at Kaylina and finished with a vague wave.

“Yes.”

“I haven’t seen anyone hit you since your first days of training. You’ll pardon me if I wish I’d seen her crack you in the head.”

“Jankarr allowed it because he wanted to see how good her aim is. I would appreciate it if you put him on potato-peeling duty for a few days.”

Listening to them banter almost made Kaylina forget about the screams and think she and Frayvar might be okay, that these men were reasonable enough to believe the truth and let them walk. But when Vlerion stepped closer, his torso brushing her back, and gripped her upper arms, her anxiety returned. The tall men shared looks over her head, the humor in Targon’s eyes shifting to grimness as he raised the cream-colored ball.

Something told Kaylina this wouldn’t go well.