Chapter Thirty-five
Madame Vera was right. The palace dungeons are a dreadful place.
My small cell is one of many in a cold, dark space that reverberates with the sounds of discomfort. Nasal drones, restless shuffles and the sporadic hack of a cough.
I ease against the coarse wall, feeling its chill seeping through my clothes and permeating my bones. A single sunbeam trickles through the barred window near the ceiling, but it provides only feeble warmth.
I can’t believe this is what my life has come to. Me, alone, wasting away in a dungeon while the High Council deliberates my fate.
It didn’t take long for them to crack my mind.
Ten minutes with one of their Astro soldiers, and they knew enough about me to charge me with crimes against all three principalities.
Identity theft. Treason. Maybe even accessory to murder – I heard two prison guards talking about the real Maeve and Wren’s bodies being discovered in Auxin Forest near the waterway.
Madame Vera’s goon, Henk, must’ve finished them off after we left.
With Madame Vera and Taron both gone, having managed to escape Aurora Isle and seemingly vanish, I’m the sole traitor left to pay the price. Her plan worked, and I’m never getting out of here. Not without a miracle, at least.
A wry grin tugs at the edges of my mouth. All I can do is try to find bitter amusement in the irony of my situation.
I’m a guest of the palace – again. Elara’s and my childhood dreams have come true twice now. Only it’s not the warm reception we had in mind as little girls.
To pass the time, I chisel away at the wall with a stubborn piece of stone. It’s my way of fighting off the encroaching madness of being locked in this hellhole of a box.
The only other sound is the steady drip, drip, drip of water from one corner of the ceiling trickling down on to the floor.
For the millionth time, I look up at the small window in the cell. I’ve scrutinized it over and over, and I know that it’s too small for even a child to squeeze through, but again I find myself considering it as a potential escape route.
I stand and start pacing again, my other favourite activity. There has to be some way out of here.
Before … well, it’s too late.
I’ve been trying to push the harsh reality away, but it’s impossible, like trying to hold back the ocean’s tide. I keep replaying the look on Taron’s face. The tears I could’ve sworn were welling in his icy-blue eyes.
The thought haunts me – would he have gone through with it? Would he really have killed me had Madame Vera not called him off?
I think I’m scared to find out the answer. But I choose to believe that he wouldn’t have. That whatever feelings we shared … whatever it was that bonded us in the Reckoning, would’ve been strong enough to stop him.
I wrap my hands around the filth-encrusted bars of the cell and lean my head against the metal.
I wonder where he is now. Whether he thinks about me.
Whether he even cares what became of me.
And I’m livid. At Taron for not fighting harder to get that awful woman out of his head.
At myself, for not listening to him when he told me Madame Vera had no intention of bringing back Elara.
I was unreasonable, stubbornly steeping in my grief. I didn’t want to believe that my beloved sister was gone for ever. I’m struggling to believe it even now.
But even if I had listened to Taron, and we had used our wish to escape to Brim, he still wouldn’t have been free. Madame Vera would’ve tracked him down. As long as she has his soul captured within her Necroseal…
I squeeze the bars until my hands hurt. If only I had been stronger in the temple. If only I had more control over my abilities. I should’ve been faster and smarter.
Madame Vera’s hand was right there. The Necroseal was mine for the taking.
I wouldn’t have known how to help Taron even if I’d had the Necroseal, though. In the vision I saw of him lying in the ravine, he was broken and dying. It was Madame Vera claiming his soul that kept him alive long enough for his body to heal itself.
If I’d somehow managed to free his soul, how do I know that wouldn’t have killed him? These thoughts distract me from my sentence.
The best-case scenario is imprisonment for life. The worst-case scenario … I don’t even want to think about it.
How long has it been? A question I frequently ask myself. Time has been slippery ever since they tossed me into this dank cell.
If I had to guess, I’d say it’s been a week. Measured by the hollow ache in my stomach after the single meal shoved through the bars at each sunrise, and the relentless pain in my back from restless nights on the unforgivingly cold stone floor.
“I have to get out of here,” I say.
I hear a soft laugh from beyond the bars.
There’s a figure standing in the shadows. I’m not sure how long they’ve been watching me.
“Who’s there?” I demand.
Again, that laugh. “Still feisty, I see.”
At the sound of his voice, the neighbouring prisoners erupt into a cacophony of protests, their voices a chorus of discontent. I recognize it then. That melodic, mocking tone.
Cyrus saunters up to the bars, his blond hair dangling freely across his shoulders. He’s clad in a dark red cloak that billows behind him.
“What are you doing here? Have you come to revel in my misfortune?” I snap, even though the sight of his gleaming dark irises fills me with a strange comfort.
It would seem he carries his own scars from the tournament, in the form of a long cut across his cheek that criss-crosses with another at his temple.
In the dim light filtering through the barred window, I can see the splattering of freckles across his nose, the dark circles around his eyes.
His cheeks still hint at the emaciated state he was in after nearly dying at the hands of the Nightshade.
He probably hates me. Maybe that’s why he’s here – to finish me off.
“I came for a little light conversation. Why, do you have something better to do?” He stares at me through the bars, and I keep my expression even, refusing to let him see the true extent of my suffering.
I’ve never been able to figure Cyrus out. He flirts and jokes. But he also threatens and acts quickly on his anger. He’s yet another guy who tried to kill me on the island – I sure know how to pick them.
When I don’t respond, Cyrus says, “It’s your turn to say something now. That’s how conversations work.”
When I say nothing, he continues, “Kara and Savannah were made victors. Those two with their fake-ass smiles.”
“What?” I bristle, rising to the bait, despite myself.
Cyrus hands me two curling pages through the bars. “Read for yourself. It’s the final instalment of the Games Master’s Post.”
I read it quickly in the dim light. Kara and Savannah, trapping the Nightshade and racing to claim victory. A selfless wish.
“A cure for the Blight?” I let the pages flutter to my feet. “How is the High Council going to make that happen? Or did the Astrals actually grant Kara and Savannah a wish?”
“No wish.” Cyrus studies his nails. “The cure’s been discovered for months.”
“The Council’s been hiding it from the public?”
“What can I say? It’s politics. They were waiting for the most opportune time to announce it. My father reckoned it’d be the next time they increase taxes, but I suppose masking a plot against the Accord works, too.”
Politics? Blatant manipulation is more like it.
At least Kara and Savannah still got their cure. It’s not the cure they told us about at the banquet, and I’ll never know the truth behind their intentions, but they’ll still have their names etched into the history books.
Cyrus is quiet. He looks tired, I realize.
“How’s Gideon?” I ask.
“Dead,” he says, without missing a beat.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs, unconvincingly. “What about Wren? Or Taron? Whatever his name is…”
“Gone. With her.”
“Madame Vera, the Soulreaper,” he voices. I’m not sure how much he’s been told about who she is, but probably enough to know why she conspired against the Astrals to claim the wish. He nods slowly, taking it in.
After another unbearable silence, I say, “What do you want, Cyrus? Last time we saw each other, you tried to slit my throat.”
“That’s no way to speak to your Young Prince,” he chides, back to his usual self. He leans in close to the bars and adds, in a low voice, “And certainly not to the person about to break you out of here.”
“What?” The air in the cell shifts. I come closer to the bars and whisper, “What are you talking about?”
Cyrus casts a furtive glance over his shoulder, and then, from inside his cloak, he produces a key. “Go on, take it,” he whispers, pushing it through the bars.
Quickly, I pocket the key. “Why are you doing this?”
“Believe it or not, I like you. You’re fiery.
The most stubborn woman I’ve had the misfortune of meeting.
You were also right. About my family not respecting me.
Looking down at me like I’m some spoiled little good-for-nothing.
This is me proving them wrong.” He wrinkles his nose.
“If you tell anyone I’m admitting to this, by the way, I’ll hunt you down myself. ”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I smile softly, still stunned.
“There’s a banquet tonight in honour of Kara and Savannah’s victory,” Cyrus whispers.
“When the moons are high, there will be a procession through Rava. The royal families will all be in attendance, so most of the Principal Guard will be on duty in the crowds as extra security. Make your escape, then. Use the service corridors. The staff usually take to the taverns when the royal family is out.”
“How do you know all of this?” I ask.
“What can I say? I practically grew up in this place.” He stands back. “I’ll be waiting in a watercraft outside the gates. Oh, and you’ll also need these.”
I look down when he produces something else from the inside of his cloak. A small pair of shears with a bronze sigil dangling from them. My shears.
“Where did you find these?” I ask, taking them. “I thought I lost them in the temple.”
“The Principal Guard collected them as evidence.”
“And you stole them?”
“No, you did. I was never here, remember?” he says. “I had to call in a few favours to have it made, but I thought you’d need it – the sigil, especially. Seeing as your name is plastered across every newspaper in the Accord, and the real Maeve is … well, you know.”
Dead. I gulp, placing the sigil on my palm. The writing carved around the edge emits a warm orange glow before the stone in the centre takes on a hazy grey colour.
Maeve Seagrave. Born on the 20th Day of Crea Waning, Stellar Year 1180. No formal credentials.
“Why still Maeve?” I ask.
“I couldn’t think of another name that suited you.”
“Maybe Talia? My real name?”
He wrinkles his nose. “Do you want the new alias or not?”
“Yes, please… Maeve is fine.”
I suppose that’s me now.
“For this new alias to work, you’ll have to leave Astraloria,” Cyrus says. “Go somewhere you can blend in. Be a shadow.”
The name of a town floats to my tongue. Brim. A place where ships come and go, and where no one stays long enough to leave a mark.
“Thank you, Cyrus,” I say, but he’s already heading for the stairs.
“What for? Gracing you with my presence?” Cyrus grins, and with another swish of his red velvet cloak, he adds loudly for the benefit of anyone listening, “Soak it up, Freckles, because I’m not coming down to this hellhole again. Good luck.”
And then he’s gone, melting into the shadows, leaving me to contemplate this unexpected turn of fate.