6
Flare
Jail cells were all the same in Summer. Dark, clammy, and guarded by brutes.
Lying on my back, I rested atop a bed of moldy rushes covering the stone floor. Whereas Autumn’s dungeon had provided clean cages, high windows to let in the fresh air, and edible food thanks to Poet and Briar, this place reeked of dead fish, the funk having seeped into the walls. Although King Rhys had erected this so-called “Fools Tower” only a year ago, it smelled like the slop they fed us, as if it had been festering for a thousand years, provided they fed us at all.
To distract myself from the scent of decay, I peered through the murk, staring at the lyrics scratched into the ceiling. While balancing on uneven nodules projecting from the wall and using the tip of a whelk, I’d worked in the dead of night when the guards hadn’t been looking. Because they were less likely to glance up, the ceiling had been the perfect spot to engrave Summer’s song.
Gazing at the lyrics, my eyes stung. I longed to dissolve into the words, into the hidden map, to disappear from this place. I yearned to break open every latch in this cell block, spring my neighbors loose, and take them with me.
Still, I refused to give the wardens my tears. They’d robbed me of enough precious things. Even our sadistic king would have to pry the sorrow from me. Not that he cared whether his captives and slaves suffered, or if he was the cause.
A week had passed since the soldiers tossed me in here, forgotten and forgettable to this kingdom. Between Summer and Autumn, dungeons had been my home since childhood. But after being dragged back to where I had originally started, they’d flung me into this newly established tower, which the Crown had built to compensate for the overflow of prisoners.
There was Lorelei, the woman split by two selves, fluctuating between a gleeful child and their scolding mother. Dante, the elder male who spoke to the ghosts of the formerly imprisoned. And Pearl, with irises like shimmering oysters and a nose as large as ore. She suffered from bouts of panic, believing hiccups meant her lungs were shrinking or the pounding of her heart meant she was dying.
Summer belittled her plight, calling it hysteria. This Season tended to call everything about us hysterical. Our homeland didn’t know any better and had never tried to.
Like me, these captives had been relocated to the tower. However, we shared a history, having lived among one another for nearly ten years.
In fact, there used to be more of us. Several years before I went to Autumn, I had shared my old cell with Rune. The young man had been consumed with inventing spells to the point where he’d yank out his hair, frustrated by his failed attempts at sorcery.
Though that hadn’t been the only thing engrossing him, late at night while our tower mates were asleep. I’d been nineteen and yearning for an escape, a release from the misery of this place. At my invitation, Rune had used his body to give me that relief, fucking away my virginity with one swift jab of his cock. It became a routine with us, though the sex hadn’t yielded the sort of pleasure I’d heard about from other prisoners, and the aftereffects hadn’t lasted long enough to provide solace. Even now in my twenty-second year of life, I’d never known the bliss others spoke of, despite seeking it with my own hand after Rune had died from an infection.
Sweat dampened my flesh, the sensation pulling me from the memory. My billowy pants and camisole stuck to my body like film. Because I hadn’t changed clothes since my capture, muck stained the fabric, and the unwashed garments emitted a stale scent.
Not that it troubled me. I had plenty of other things to worry about like the hunger gnawing on my gut, the water bug scabs encrusted on my arms, and the venomous gleam in the guards’ eyes.
An uncommon silence enveloped the prison. I didn’t trust this sort of anticipatory quiet. The cell block seemed to hold its breath like the inside of a tomb.
Or maybe it was nothing. I’d been on edge from the moment the barred doors of my cage had swung closed. Every day since, I had expected the arrival of a certain villainous Royal.
Poet and Briar had no idea what had happened to me. I lacked parchment, a surface on which to scribble them a note, and a messenger butterfly. It would take a while before my friends suspected something, once my secret tidings stopped arriving. Until then, anything could happen.
He could happen.
I needed to escape before then. Seven days since my captivity, and my mind was still toiling for a way to break from here.
Commotion drifted from the stairway. Boots stomped along the corridor, the ruckus belonging to a large group heading in this direction, their torches flinging orange light across the cavity and illuminating the bars of a dozen cells. As they approached, their silhouettes reflected against the walls.
Rising on my elbow, I cocked my head to listen. I could tell the time based on how the darkness shifted with each hour. It was too early in the afternoon for water and gruel, much less for the guards to be in a baiting mood.
No. They were coming here for a different reason.
I lurched upright, alarm blazing a path across my flesh. The group’s arrival triggered mayhem through the block, an eruption of noise shattering the silence. Manacles scraped across the ground, and my tower mates cried out.
A fleshy arm—Pyre’s—popped through the shadows, his finger pointing at me. The word dropped from him like an anchor. “You.”
Me.
“You. Stand.”
My jaw locked. I curled my knuckles into fists.
“I ain’t saying it again,” Pyre warned. “Stand up or I’ll make you.”
Hellfire. I knew what that meant and had the proof of it across my back.
I spun toward him and crouched on all fours. If this son of a bitch wanted me to obey, he’d have to work for it, because he had evidence of me on his body too, including a few well-placed bites.
“Have it your way,” he grunted while unlocking the door.
This incited more chaos. Lorelei played the child today, clapping her hands in excitement. Dante narrated the scene to his ghost. Pearl scuttled to the corner of her cell like a crab while mumbling, “Get away, get away, get away, get away, get away.”
The bolt unlatched. The door groaned open.
Walking toward me, Pyre licked his chops, his teeth flashing like rotten fruit. Because these bastards were bored up here, they didn’t chain me like they did the others. They liked entertaining themselves by taking wagers on how long a match against me would last. They enjoyed my temper, and I relished the chance to pound into them. Though I would lose the brawl eventually, because the men were bigger than me. Because anyone was bigger than me.
Afterward, I’d be forced to wipe my blood off the floor. But at least it would distract the wardens from taking their stresses, depressions, and resentments out on my kin.
Despite the lack of windows, the distant roar of an ocean filtered through the tower. That faint but miraculous echo clutched my heart, stalling my attack.
Pyre seized the moment, lunging and grabbing me by the ear, then hauling me off the floor. Twisting my lobe, he launched me into the bars, where my cheekbone smacked into iron, pain exploding across the side of my face. Before I could turn around and kick or scratch, he pinned my arms. The clunky weight of manacles bound me to the railing, putting me on display like a prized tuna.
Wiping his hands, Pyre exited my cage, his key twisting inside the lock.
Elated with himself, he leaned toward me, his eel breath beating against my mouth. “There we go,” he taunted. “Nice and comfy. Thought you’d learn by now, but then you half-baked half-wits are too stupid for that.”
While he was too stupid to stay back. My wrists might be bound, but my fingers weren’t. Catching the back of his neck, I yanked the fucker forward, slamming his nose into the grille.
“Motherfuck!” Pyre howled and staggered back, calling me the usual names as he covered his snout with one hand. “Filthy fool bitch!”
With the opposite hand, he ripped out a mallet. Then he vaulted forward, raising the weapon toward where my fingers hooked around the bars.
Like a switchblade, a male hand flicked out of nowhere, the backs of his knuckles intercepting the guard. “What. Is. This?” a baritone voice murmured.
Although the words formed a question, it wasn’t one. It was a demand, a dispassionate thing polished into a threat.
Foreboding soaked into my pores. I glimpsed him in a reflection, in a puddle on the ground, from a leak in the ceiling. On the water’s surface, those crystal eyes sharpened on me.
The villain prince stared back, his inscrutable features peering down through the same puddle. Despite his stoic expression, those pupils glittered with long-suffering anticipation. Though unlike King Rhys, this prince didn’t verbally gloat.
My head swung from the puddle, my gaze colliding with his, our eyes fusing like something about to detonate. He may have found me, but that didn’t mean he’d caught me yet. To illustrate that point, a low growl skidded up my throat.
His orbs tapered, then scanned my appearance as well as the cage, appraising everything from my matted hair to the rusty chamber pot. The cold gratification he’d shown now vanished. With his hand still hovering to block the guard—a casually demeaning gesture—the prince angled his head in contemplation. Only then did he lower his fingers like a bluff, his words from moments ago lingering in the muggy air.
His inquiring silence got Pyre’s attention. The guard hastened to recover from my blow to his nose. He wasn’t bleeding or broken, but he was swelling up quickly. Because of that, it took a moment for him to respond.
Pyre batted his fingers my way. “As you see, Sire. It’s the mad fool you requested.”
“I’m aware of what it is,” the prince drew out while fixating on me.
I glowered. They’d reduced me to an object. To them, my kind didn’t warrant being referred to as human.
An entourage of knights formed a crescent behind the prince. The men and women carried crossbows, blades with diversely shaped edges, and baldrics loaded with throwing stars. A female knight stepped from the group, her white tresses bound and her complexion split like a half-moon, one side pale to match her hair and the other gray.
She did the rest of the talking for her sovereign. “His Highness demands to know why you’re disturbing it.”
“We were instructed by His Majesty to harness the prisoner for you,” Pyre sputtered. “The mute bitch wasn’t shackled yet.” But when the prince said nothing, my nemesis gulped. “That’s our duty. The mad are—”
Quicker than whiplash, the prince twisted and backhanded Pyre across the face. The guard’s massive bald head whipped to the side, a crimson geyser spurting from his mouth. The smack vibrated through the hall like a wet sail hitting wood, the noise stinging my ears.
Shocked, I leaped forward as far as the bars would allow, the better to see. The prince had struck so swiftly, so impassively, not a flinch to his features. Whereas I’d put my soul into trouncing Pyre, the numb Royal had dealt with him like an afterthought.
Except he wasn’t finished. With unflappable composure, the prince withdrew his knife and clicked the hilt. Instead of his scalpel, a razor flipped upright. In one smooth movement, his shadow swallowed Pyre whole. Squished against the wall, the guard howled as the prince calmly burrowed the weapon into the man’s knuckles, shearing through flesh until knobs of bone materialized.
Screeches flooded the cell block. My tower mates skittered into the depths of their cages while every soldier and warden witnessed the scene. The Summer guards gnashed their teeth but knew better than to insult a future king. Meanwhile, Winter’s soldiers observed Pyre’s humiliation without blinking.
Horrified, I took notice of the warden’s hand spurting blood. It was the same set of fingers he’d used to fling me against the grille.
Pyre hunched, gripping his shaky knuckles to staunch the flow. As much as I loathed the brute and had endured plenty of beatings courtesy of him, mercy struck my chest. I shook the bars to signal the prince, to stop the torture.
But it ended quickly. The unflappable Royal flicked his razor back into its handle slot. “You need a doctor.”
His implication was clear. The prince might be that doctor, but Pyre should rely on someone else to fix him. Around us, the Winter knights fought to withhold callous mirth.
The dismissive Royal trained his eyes back on me. Earlier, Pyre had said the prince had requested me. As I’d feared, this monster must have heard about my imprisonment.
With an index finger, the prince swept aside a gnarled lock of my hair, his eyes hooking onto the symbols painted around my throat. “And who is responsible for this?”
An offhand yet intentional question. I remembered the first words he’d ever launched my way. Who marked you?
It would be easy to tell him. I would enjoy ratting out the culprit, if that person hadn’t been punished enough. And if I believed they wouldn’t seek vengeance on me later.
The reason Summer tattooed prisoners with neck collars was hardly a secret. All the same, Pyre’s complexion purpled. His frantic eyes swerved to me, but when I kept my mouth shut, he pretended to misunderstand.
“The cunt deserves those markings,” he grumbled around a mouthful of crimson. “Got a feral madness about her. Go for this traveling wench, and she’ll chomp off your fucking thumb.” When the baffled Winter clan squinted at the term traveling wench , Pyre clutched his oozing knuckles and explained, “She’s a sand drifter.”
Seething, I rammed my chains into the bars. I hated hearing those words coming from his mouth. They belonged to my family and my kin, not to this oaf.
I’d never told Poet and Briar about my history, so they couldn’t have let the knowledge slip in front of the prince. Yet he regarded me without a shred of surprise.
“Indeed.” His mouth ticked sideways, for my eyes only. “I am unaware of that as well.”
Blood stewed my veins. Understanding dawned.
This fiend hadn’t simply found out about my capture. He’d plotted it. During this year of searching, the prince must have learned about my roots, because renowned Winter supposedly knew many things. From there, he’d figured out enough details to sniff me out, likely telling Summer where I could be found.
Damn him to hell for being right. Knowing how to conceal myself amid fellow sand drifters, why would I stash myself elsewhere? Blending in with their encampments came as second nature. I’d been sure it was the last place Summer would look, with me hiding in plain sight.
What I hadn’t counted on was the prince’s foresight. Winter’s arrival would have stirred a frenzy throughout Summer, and I’d have seen him coming. But because I wouldn’t have suspected my nomadic kin, Winter must have enlisted the Summer Crown to spread the word.
By now, everyone knew Winter had King Rhys and Queen Giselle in his pocket. At the prince’s bidding, my homeland had evidently incentivized sand drifters across the nation to be on the lookout for me. That fidgety couple in the peninsula had noticed my neck tattoo after all, then reported me.
My community had turned me in.
Although the prince still hadn’t gotten the right answer from Pyre about my tattoo, his attention strayed. Those vicious orbs skated from my neck to my hands gripping the bars. He paused on the sight, idling way too long for my fancy.
Disgust crept across his face. Curtly, he jerked his chin at one of his knights, then at me. From there, the Royal sauntered past my cage and headed toward my tower mates.
Terror curdled my stomach. Did he mean to claim them as well? Now that he had me, why wouldn’t Winter also trade for other born souls?
No. I wouldn’t go. I would not go with this monster. And I wouldn’t let him take them either. They’d done nothing to this man.
Provoke him, I thought. Get him closer, I thought.
Hurt him first. Hurt the prince.
I whisked up saliva and spat. Fluid shot from my mouth and splattered the toe of his boot, halting the Royal in his tracks.
A beat passed. Then he edged backward.
Abreast of the bars, the prince glanced sideways at me without a shred of astonishment. My fingernails and knuckles readied themselves, but then he turned fully. As he did, his hand slid my way in a stupefying brush of movement.
Tenderness?
He made contact. I paused, the skin beneath my jaw yielding to the pads of his fingers, which rested lightly against my pulse.
It was calm, regal, and almost kind when he began to squeeze. I hardly noticed until my throat shrank in his grip, snippets of air struggling to get through. I grunted and flailed, trying to wrench myself away, but he only tightened his fingers. All the while, his expression didn’t change, inspecting me with a deep tilt of his head.
I rewarded him with a ferocious glare, because prey had to use their best glares against predators, in or out of this tower, in the hot or the cold, in Summer or Winter. But he merely waited as if he had all day, a purposeful sort of evil creeping to the surface, to the ice of his eyes.
I saw it. He wanted me to kneel.
The monster held on, the press of him urging me down. I resisted until my traitorous legs buckled. At which point, his fingers snapped open, releasing me to the ground, one of my knees smacking the stone and the other bending. I was quaking, kneeling, dammit.
The Summer guards cackled. The Winter knights did nothing of the sort.
Pyre spat blood while cradling his mutilated knuckles. “Anyone else from this block, then?”
By some miracle, the prince shook his head. Losing this round had at least spared my neighbors from being chosen.
Winter concentrated only on me, the tip of his boot fitting through the irons and wiping my spit across the fabric of my pants. Nudging my leg as if I were merely an insect, the prince addressed his entourage, murmuring two words he’d been waiting twelve months to say.
“This one,” he confirmed before walking away.