Chapter 28
My rusty metal pan skids between the bars, food slopping over the sides until it comes to a rattling halt—all but empty—bits of gray meat and moldy bread scattered in its wake.
Tucked in the corner of my cell, I boast a broad smile. Far from genuine.
“Thanks!” I chirp to the masked male charging along the dark tunnel beyond the bars of my confinement.
Manners are important. Especially when charming the guards may be my only hope of getting free.
It doesn’t matter that I’d quite like to curse the fucker until blood boils from his orifices for all the gritty meals I’ve had to consume, if my happy little thank you gets me so much as a pause, a look, a breath in my direction … it’s a chance.
I watch him through the bars of my cell, the one next to me, the next, my hope waning as he disappears from view.
Damn.
I begin counting—one to fifty. Now just waiting to make sure he’s gone. Only when I’m certain do I lift the threadbare blanket gathered over my shoulders, revealing the little lark tipped on her side in the alcove created by my bundled limbs.
“I’ll try again next round,” I whisper. “But dammit, you need to dive faster next time you hear him coming. He almost saw you. That was the closest call yet.”
She wiggles her tail, as if to say well … he didn’t, sooo …
I sigh, scoop her into my palm, and bring her close to my face until her beak is almost kissing my nose. “If there’s ever danger, I need you to fly away as fast as you can. Do you understand?”
She doesn’t move. A silent protest that would impress me in other circumstances. But we’re talking about her well-being.
“I mean it.”
Not so much as a twitch.
“You’re too stubborn for your own good.”
Literally.
I bring her closer, frowning as I study her rip, her stains, the crinkles in her beak. “Is that how you ended up so battered and bloody? Stubbornness?”
She wiggles her wings.
At least she’s honest with herself.
She repeats the motion, much more flappy this time. I realize she wasn’t being honest with herself at all but simply asking to play.
“Okay, okay. But only because you asked so nicely,” I murmur, holding her high, pausing. “Actually, first you need a proper name.” I bring her close to my face again. “I can’t keep calling you little lark. You’re more than just a little lark. You’re—”
The next word gets clogged in the back of my throat.
I clear the thickness away, smiling at her tilted on her side in my palm.
“Special.”
She doesn’t move for so long I wonder if she’s going to respond. But then with a single bat of her wings, she flicks her body around and boasts the letters on the side of her pleated abdomen:
nee
“Is that who you are?” I spin my hand so she’s forced to face me again. “Would you like me to call you Nee?”
She flaps her wings, just once. Making her bob like a nod.
That thickness in my throat grows so tight it’s hard to swallow past. “Well, alright, then.” I clear my throat and lift her high. “Are you ready, Nee?”
Another jiggle.
I fill my lungs and blow on her with such might she sails off my hand and tumbles through the air. Finally fluttering her wings, she rights herself, churning in giddy circles that make my heart ache.
“You’re such a lovely little thing,” I whisper, watching her dance amongst the moons sketched on the ceiling—most in black coal only slightly darker than the stone itself.
But I can see them. Can make out the constellations of dragons long past.
Nee bumps against the drawing of Slátra, and all the ligaments in my chest pull so tight it feels like I might implode.
Closing my eyes, I bring my hand to my brow and touch the Aether Stone. “Hov ahka nuieljuak. Hov-at haquil. Nuieljuakui taf maruli.”
I love you. I’m here. You’re not alone.
“Fuirten looik-whíle hov.”
I will survive.
I look down at the food scattered across the ground, my stomach clamping painfully.
Guess it’s time, dammit.
“Oh, would you look at that!” I shuffle forward to inspect my gritty offerings blooming with a few extra patches of mold this dae.
“A freshly baked banquet! Where do I even start?” I pick up the hard lump of dough that could probably wound someone if I tossed it hard enough.
“Luith loaf? With”—I crack it open, revealing more green mold veined through—“bits of nui fruit baked in! What a treat. And some sugar-roast canit roots on the side?” I say, waving a stick of something that actually looks a little like a finger that’s been boiled almost beyond recognition. “My favorite.”
As always, Nee ignores me while I play this game of “trick myself into thinking I’m not about to eat something rancid.” I don’t blame her. Secondhand embarrassment can really weigh you down.
I’ve almost coaxed myself into salivation by the time I reach for a piece of floor meat—
I pause, gaze caught on the shard of bone poking free from the gray flesh.
A laugh bursts past my lips, though I’m swift to clap my hand over my mouth to smother the sound.
I should’ve thanked the fool who tossed my meal at me with much more gusto.
I snatch it off the ground and rip some of the meat free with my teeth, chewing through the gamey taste and forcing it down with a gut-churning swallow. Certain Pah would be mortified if he saw the way I’m consuming this, with all the decorum of a feral animal.
There was a time I would’ve quivered at the thought, but now? It spurs me with a ravenous punch.
If he does exercise his overcontrolling nature and somehow work out where I am—send an army in to rescue me—I take sour satisfaction in the thought that he might see me like this:
Messy. Beastly. Very un-princess-like.
A savage blight to the Vaegor name.
I clear the final scraps from the bone with long scrapes of my teeth while Nee flutters around my head like she’s etching the shape of a crown. “This is going to get us out of here, Nee.” I hold up my scavenged treasure—a touch longer than my thumb, a hole through the middle filled with marrow.
Perfect.
I pinch it between my lips and suck the insides free while sweeping stalks of straw aside, crawling across the ground, hunting for—
There.
I run my finger across the thin tag of stone I cut my foot on a while back, then set the bone atop it—parallel.
Nee dives, swoops onto her back, and floats to the ground with her belly bared as I bring my shackled leg forward. “Promise I’ll read you in just a moment,” I murmur, lifting my foot until the shackle is directly above the bit of bone. Then I bring it down.
Hard.
Nee bursts into a frantic flutter, like she just got the fright of her existence.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper-laugh as she nuzzles my neck, like she’s seeking comfort.
I pause to sweep her closer, listening for any footsteps. For any sign that someone heard and is now coming to inspect.
Nothing.
I release her, draw a steadying breath, and lift the shackle. Blow a sigh of relief at the sight of the bone now split right down the middle.
Two halves. Long.
Perfect.
I pick them up, hold them high … smile.
Now I just have to grind them down at the sides and ends until they’re honed enough to maneuver into the door and shackle locks. Then find my way free of this warren of misery.
I lift my pallet, placing one bone shard beneath me before I begin grinding the other against the ground, one gentle grate at a time. All the while, Nee flutters about me playfully.
Excitedly.
“Fuirten looik-whíle ou,” I murmur, over and over …
We will survive.