Chapter 48 Ahnna
Ahnna
It had been no easy thing getting all the supplies they needed ready, but with James bitterly complaining to Carlo about foul smells, he’d secured vinegar to clean his cell, which Ahnna had used to separate the fats from their soap into oil that would burn.
“The rope vine will serve as a wick,” she softly explained.
“And we’ll have what amounts to an oil lamp, though it won’t last as long as we might like. ”
Neither of them bothered mentioning that time was the one thing they were running out of. While pouring vinegar down on James, Carlo had gleefully told them that Aren had agreed to meet with Mother to discuss an alliance.
“I don’t know what he’s thinking,” Ahnna muttered, carefully setting her cup full of oil where it was out of sight from above, wrapping her shirt around it so there was no risk it would spill.
“Katarina has attacked us so many times over the years. How can Aren possibly believe that she’s negotiating in good faith? ”
“I doubt he does.” James sighed, the sound barely audible through the opening.
“He’s banking on the old enmity between Harendell and Amarid forcing Katarina to play fair.
This entire strategy hangs upon Harendell being the mutual enemy, and it sounds as though Alexandra is doing everything she can to convince Aren that Harendell is coming for blood. ”
“It seems so obvious that it’s a trick.”
He gave a soft snort. “Harendellians and Amaridians hate each other the same way Maridrinians and Valcottans do. Or used to, at any rate. The idea that the queens are allied won’t even cross anyone’s minds.”
The sun began to fade overhead, and Ahnna looked up, watching as dusk settled over Riomar. “You ready?” she asked as she heard the wardens doing their rounds.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Prisoner, approach!”
At the sound of the female warden, Ahnna scurried beneath the opening. “Help! We need help!”
The warden ignored her, and water rained down, soaking her.
Wiping it from her eyes, Ahnna shouted, “It’s James! He’s sick!”
The warden’s voice was amused as she said, “You aren’t the first to try this, prisoner. I’m sure you won’t be the last to fail.”
“It’s no trick!” Ahnna sobbed. “Someone came by last night and threw extra food into our cells. I told him not to eat it, but he was so hungry.”
“Waste!”
The thin lines of vine dropped down, but Ahnna didn’t fasten her bucket. “Please! He needs help.”
James groaned audibly from his cell, and knowing the warden could see her from above, Ahnna cast a panicked look in his direction. “I think he’s been poisoned.”
“Very convincing.” The warden dropped food on Ahnna’s head. “You missed your calling on the stage.”
“Please!” Ahnna shrieked. “You know she wants him alive!”
“And I know this is just a trick.”
The warden moved away, and Ahnna bit down on a curse and instead shouted, “What will Carlo do to you if you allow his glorious fucking nemesis to die in a hole while you do nothing?”
The retreating shadow stopped moving for a moment.
“If this decision is above your rank, send for Carlo,” Ahnna called up. “But if you do nothing, I would not put it past him to wall you into one of your own cells, you stupid bitch!”
The shadow moved on, and Ahnna let a string of curses loose before retrieving her food. James kept up the act, groaning and retching, but hours passed with no sound from above.
Four times, she heard the deafening racket of the cathedrals all ringing their bells on the hour, and doubt that this plan would work began to twist her stomach. Except then the faint sound of singing filled her ears.
A shadow appeared above. “I hear you are singing my name, Your Highness. You must be desperate indeed, for I am no friend of yours.”
“James is sick,” she pleaded. “I think it’s poison. He needs help.”
“This is a well-worn scheme in the Furnace,” the Beast replied. “Try again.”
“It’s no scheme, Carlo.” She stared up, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see her in the darkness. “What will Mother say if you let him die?”
“James is strong. He will endure. And Mother was clear that neither of you is to be let out.”
“Are you content with that?” she demanded. “Will you be satisfied if James dies in a hole in his own filth? Is that the end you envisioned for him?”
Silence.
Ahnna held her breath, watching Carlo’s shadow. Then he disappeared, his boots making soft thumps as he tracked over to the opening above James’s cell. “Nemesis,” he crooned. “I hear you are not well.”
“Fuck off, Carlo,” James groaned, and Ahnna winced at the filthy scene that he’d had to paint to make this realistic.
“Carlo!” she shouted. “Charcoal! If nothing else, get him charcoal. If he has been poisoned, it can help.”
The prince was no fool. She knew he was considering what scheme they might concoct with anything he gave them, but she also knew that he had dreamed of one last epic fight between him and James.
His mother had denied him that, but she might yet change her mind.
Except if James died, so too did the Beast’s fantasy.
Come on, she silently willed him, refusing to allow herself to dwell on what he’d said about Katarina meeting with Aren. Fall for it.
“Get the charcoal,” she heard him finally snap. “And I want patrols at night. All of Amarid wants James Ashford dead, so if someone has learned his identity, poison is not a stretch. Have every one of them searched while you are at it.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Ahnna paced back and forth through the tiny space, but then she heard the small thud of a package being dropped and Carlo said, “Eat a spoonful of that, nemesis. You cannot aim to rescue your lady love if you are shitting yourself to death.”
James didn’t respond, only groaned.
“Eat it!” Carlo shouted.
“James, you must eat it,” Ahnna sobbed. “It’s the only thing that might stop the poison.”
“Can’t. Find. It.” James muttered. “Can’t. See.”
Carlo made a noise of exasperation, and there was an argument above between him and the wardens, but then a torch dropped into James’s cell. She watched as James crawled and retrieved the packet of charcoal and ate some of it before slumping to the ground next to the flames.
The Beast’s voice filtered into Ahnna’s cell from above. “Call the warden if he grows worse.”
Her lips parted, but he swiftly said, “I’ve no interest in your thanks, woman.”
“And I have no interest in giving them,” she snapped back. “Don’t stray too far, Beast. When I get out of this place, I’m going to slit your throat.”
Carlo snickered, then disappeared, and as he did, James moved.
He took the cup Ahnna passed through the opening, lighting the vine wick and then handing it back to her.
Ahnna watched it burn down to the oil, holding her breath as it guttered, then steadied.
A tiny flame that she prayed to every higher power would last until they were ready.
They could not act that night. Not with the wardens pacing anxiously above, everyone terrified that James might succumb to poison and that the Beast would kill them all as punishment.
James moaned and groaned to keep up the pretense, and while he did, Ahnna took the rest of the charcoal and got to work, knowing full well that with her impure sources of ingredients, all this could be for naught.
Dawn came, and Ahnna made certain that everything was out of sight of the wardens as they began their morning rounds.
“Prisoner, approach!”
She stepped beneath the opening, looking up at the woman’s painted face, the warden looking like a terrifying doll from a toy shop of horrors.
“Is he alive?”
Ahnna gave a tight nod. “Yes. He’s better. Thank you.”
The warden’s response was to dump Ahnna’s water rations on her face. They moved on to James, who spoke words assuring that he was going to live.
The wardens circled the furnace grounds, endless snarls of Prisoner, approach! filling the air until they were finished.
“You ready?” James whispered. “It won’t be long now.”
“Yes.” She picked up her oil candle, her throat constricting because it had burned down to almost nothing, the flame a tiny glow. They had only minutes until it went out.
If that.
Come on!
The flame guttered and flickered, and Ahnna’s eyes stung with panic and tears.
Bong!
The first of the cathedral bells tolled, the others swiftly following suit. It was the sixth hour, which meant six bells.
Bong!
She had to hurry.
“Stay back,” she whispered to James. “This may not work. Or it might be bigger than I expected.”
Bong!
Holding the flame to the dried piece of vine that served as a fuse, Ahnna stepped back the moment it caught. Going to the far side of the cell, she crouched down, closed her eyes, and plugged her ears.
Bong!
Please work.
Bong!
It wasn’t going to work. The ingredients weren’t pure enough. She hadn’t gotten the mixture right.
Boom!
Her whole body twitched as the small explosion went off at the same time as the bells tolled, and she twisted in time to watch a small puff of smoke rise.
Stones clacked and clattered, then all fell silent, and Ahnna clenched her teeth, waiting for the guards to take notice even as her elation grew.
Because above the small pile of rubble was a much larger opening.
She waited and waited, but when no boots sounded overhead, she determined that the guards had not noticed the small bang over the noise of the bells.
Or if they had, they’d thought it something that had come from the city itself.
Ahnna dropped to her knees and looked through. To find James looking back at her.
“Think you’ll fit?”
She eyed the small opening. “For the first time in my life, I’m glad I wasn’t graced with memorable breasts.”
“I beg to differ,” he replied. “That sort of perfection isn’t easily forgotten.”
Her cheeks warmed, the thrum of fear mixing with the thrum of something else entirely.
“Tonight, we escape.” James reached through the opening to grip her hands. “For now, we need to cover the evidence.”
They swiftly moved to push the rubble into the gap, and Ahnna had tucked in the last piece of rock when the warden called out, “Water!”
The woman went to James first, and when she came to pour water down on Ahnna, she said, “I see he’s not dead.”
“Which means Carlo will let you live another day.”
Instead of water, the warden spat down on her but Ahnna only lifted her middle finger and smiled.
Yet her smile retreated as Katarina appeared above her. “I was gone for a matter of but days and yet so much excitement occurred. I knew that imprisoning you two together would prolong your usefulness, and it pleases me to have been proven right.”
Ahnna’s hands turned to ice, and it suddenly became so very hard to breathe.
“Your brother and his Maridrinian wife are a perfect match,” the queen of Amarid continued.
“It was truly a thing to behold watching them work together to extract more from me than I wanted to give. Three ships full of grain for every ship filled with wine, which means my profit will be slim indeed.”
She smiled down at Ahnna, teeth encased with gold and jewels.
“The seas are high but not so high as to trouble my captains, which means the ships will sail tonight. One with wine. And three with grain laced with a very special poison. It takes time to take effect once ingested, and then it slowly eats through the stomach.”
“You’re a fucking monster,” Ahnna hissed, but her voice shook with rising terror. “There is no hell deep enough for the likes of you.”
“History remembers the victors, Ahnna Kertell,” Katarina replied. “Which means that it won’t be long until Ithicana, and its people, are entirely forgotten.”