Chapter 49 James
James
James didn’t offend Ahnna with platitudes. The situation was dire, the time short, and the chances of success slim—to say otherwise would be an affront to both her intelligence and her fortitude.
Because despite being quite visibly sick with fear, Ahnna had not given up.
The moment the sun set, they scrambled to clear the rubble from the small opening she’d blasted.
“You need to be careful of your arm,” he warned. “This is going to be tight.”
“Fuck my arm and get pulling,” she snapped. “We need to get out tonight.”
The chances of that were slim to none, but James only reached through to take hold of her ankles. He pulled slowly, mindful of the rough rock beneath her, but stopped as her hips stuck. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You think hearing that my family and all my people are dead won’t hurt? If you can get my ass through, the rest will be easy.”
He tugged on her legs, carefully shifting her from side to side, but her hips were still stuck.
“James,” Ahnna hissed, “with the utmost respect, grow a pair of balls and pull.”
Gritting his teeth and grimacing, he tightened his grip and leaned back, using his far greater weight as leverage.
For a heartbeat, he thought it wouldn’t work.
That nothing short of breaking her pelvis—a line he would not cross—would get her through.
But then Ahnna’s hips started to edge through the small opening.
She was entirely silent, except he felt the muscles of her legs go rigid, betraying the pain she was suffering.
He pulled harder, knowing that his hands would leave bruises on her skin. Except there was no turning back now. No pushing her back through.
Come on! His toes dug into the grooves in the stone floor of his cell, and then he abruptly fell backward onto his ass as her hips slid through.
“Almost there.” It sounded like she was forcing the words between her teeth.
Scrambling to his feet, he eased her the rest of the way through the gap.
James lifted her upright, wishing he could see her face in the blackness.
Ahnna slipped her unbroken arm around his neck, and he pulled her tight against him, feeling the rapid thunder of her heart.
With one hand, he tentatively reached down to touch her left hip and felt the warm dampness of blood. “How bad?”
“Nothing a swim in the sea won’t cure. We need to get to work.”
Yet for all her words, she didn’t let go of his neck, her nails digging into his shoulder as she slowly steadied her breath. An irrational part of him wanted this moment to last forever, because she was back in his arms. Yet all too soon, Ahnna pushed away.
He heard her digging in the rubble for a sharp piece of rock, and then she whispered, “Lift me up.”
Mindful of her many injuries, James knelt on one knee and helped her climb onto his shoulders. Holding tight to her thighs, he carefully rose, noting that she was much lighter than the prior times he’d done this, this ordeal having taken its toll on her. “Can you reach?”
“No.” She pushed his hand off her thigh and lifted it so that she was kneeling on his shoulders. “I can reach it now.”
With the other inmates taking up their nighttime howling for mercy, freedom, and deliverance providing them cover, Ahnna set to chipping away at the mortar with her rock.
There were two arches in the cell’s ceiling, and it was the gap between the arches where stones were removed to put a prisoner in the cell.
And to take the corpses out.
The mortar there was fresh and weak, and both he and Ahnna had noted that the wardens were careful never to put their weight on the area around the small opening. The goal was to weaken it enough that Ahnna would be able to pull part of the roof down.
As to what would come after…there was no way to plan for it precisely, but James suspected it would come down to speed and violence.
Dust rained down on his head as she worked away and his shoulders began to ache. Ahnna’s body trembled from the effort of maintaining her balance while she worked, but she never paused in her labor other than for the quick sips of water he forced her to take.
“I’m going to try to pull it down.” She handed him her rock, and James felt her body elongate as she reached up with her left hand and slipped it through the opening. “Move.”
His heart hammering, James bent his knees and moved out from beneath her. He could very faintly see her shadow, hanging with only one arm from the tiny opening above.
“Grab onto me,” she whispered. “My weight isn’t enough.”
“I’ll pull you down.”
Ahnna snorted softly. “I’m stronger than you think.”
Shaking his head, James jumped and caught hold of her waist. Her whole body shook from the effort it took to hold both their weights with one arm; she could only last another few seconds. Then she hissed, “It’s giving. I can feel it giv—”
“Oh, nemesis!” Carlo’s singsong voice filled James’s ears. Ahnna gave a soft gasp and let go. His feet hit the ground, and he barely kept his balance as he caught her weight. Pushing Ahnna to the side of the cell, James looked up into the opening right as Carlo’s shadow looked down.
“Oh good, you are still alive.”
“What do you want?” They didn’t have time for this. Didn’t have time to sit and listen to Carlo sing all night while ships full of poisoned grain began their trek to Ithicana.
“Your glorious company.” Carlo paced in slow circles around the opening, and James felt tiny bits of crumbled mortar and dust fall against his cheeks. “I detest Riomar. It is full of painted fools. Weak men and women who weep at the smallest sliver, and are therefore no sport. Not like you.”
“So you’re here for conversation?”
Carlo made a noncommittal noise. “Mother’s scheme with the Ithicanians went as planned.”
“So I heard.”
“Poison is a woman’s weapon.”
“Dead is dead.”
Carlo sighed. “Is it, though? The taking of a life should have meaning, James. It should fill your veins with the same rush as a mouth around your cock, and how is such a thing possible if one is not even there to witness it? There is no resonance, no pleasure. Empty kills to achieve political ends.” The Beast spat, his disgust palpable.
“It’s no loss to you, Carlo,” James replied. “The high seas sit between Amarid and Ithicana, so none of those lives were ever at risk from you. At least your mother can get the job done.”
The Beast gave a soft laugh. “You are the only one who does not fear me.”
“Why should I fear you? I have your mother to keep me safe, because she is the only person you fear.”
Carlo was silent, but over the cries of the other prisoners, James could hear the scuff of his boots against stone as he circled the opening above.
Then the Beast said something entirely unexpected. “She gave the Ithicanians my Nina. A royal hostage as a sign of good faith.”
Carlo’s eldest daughter. James hesitated, then asked, “Does Nina know about the poison?”
“No.”
“Then your mother has signed your daughter’s death warrant. Even if she is lucky enough not to eat poisoned bread, once the Ithicanians realize what has been done, they are sure to execute her in retaliation.”
Ahnna shifted slightly in the shadows, but James reached out a hand, steadying her even as a plan formed in his head.
“Do you know how Ithicanians execute people, Carlo?” He watched the Beast’s shadow pass over the opening as he circled. “They dangle them waist-deep in the waves and then chum the waters.”
“She’s only a child. She had no role in this.”
James chuckled but there was no amusement to it. “One could say the same of every Ithicanian child who will soon eat poisoned bread. Do you think the survivors will see Nina as innocent when faced with burying their children? Or do you think it will be an eye for an eye?”
Carlo cursed, and there was no mistaking the fury in his tone. Which meant it was possible that Katarina had taken a step too far for her madman of a son, and James fully intended to exploit her mistake.
“Are you going to stand around and wait for your daughter to die, you fucking coward?” James demanded. “Sit here in Riomar with these painted fools while your mother sacrifices your Nina for the sake of unsatisfactory kills? You could still stop this. You could save her.”
Carlo barked out a laugh. “Sloppy, nemesis. I am angry, not stupid.”
“You are no nemesis of mine, Carlo. You’re afraid of a little old woman—it’s pathetic.”
The Beast stepped close to the opening. “Everyone fears her, and rightly so!”
Dust rained down on James’s face. “You disparage my brother, but you are no different than William. A patsy. A pawn. And just like William, you don’t even seem to know it!”
The faint light of the opening was blocked out as Carlo fell to his knees, and James heard the man’s nails scratch against stone as he gripped the opening.
“All you asked for was one thing,” James said, circling beneath and knowing the monster above was trying to pick him out of the shadows.
“To kill me in a glorious fight to the death. And she won’t even give you that.
She’ll take your daughter’s life but not even give you mine in exchange, because the truth is, Carlo, your mother is the biggest coward of all. ”
“Lies! She fears nothing.”
“She fears Alexandra. She fears Harendell. It is fear that controls you, Carlo, and how am I supposed to call you nemesis knowing that?”
Carlo snarled and shoved his arm into the hole, the shadow of his hand slashing through the air with a knife despite James being far out of reach.
And already moving.
Catching hold of Ahnna’s waist, he flung her up high—
Where she caught hold of the Beast’s arm. He snarled in protest even as James jumped, climbing Ahnna’s lean form to latch his own hand around Carlo’s arm.
The ground around the opening trembled and Carlo shrieked for help, but his voice was lost to the cries of all the prisoners. Seeming to understand this, Carlo whispered, “Well played.”
Then all three of them were falling into blackness.