Chapter 27
“ O kay, that’s the last,” Bhea says, smoothing an oil over my back—her hands soft and tender, rubbing all the tension from my now-healed flesh.
Battling the urge to groan with relief, I open my eyes, looking straight into a pair of intense cinder orbs, a line dug between the King’s thick brows.
“You okay?” he asks, tightening his hold on my clammy hands.
“I’m great,” I slur, tugging them from his grip.
Never better. So glad he tortured me back to health during my last living moments. What a way to go out. Fitting, but a bit shit.
I lean back so I can lift my hands up over the chair’s headrest without snagging my chain and take the towel slung over his shoulder. The one he’s been using to dab at my forehead whenever sweat beaded down into my lashes.
“I’ll get my fine-tipped prongs for the pin,” Bhea says while I stuff my face in the towel, scrubbing the tension from around my eyes, hearing the sound of her footsteps before she begins rummaging through something.
Her words finally sink past the fog currently clouding my head.
Prongs?
What do they need fine-tipped prongs fo—
Oh.
I pull the towel from my face, catching the King’s stare again. “You’re removing the pin?”
Makes sense. Wouldn’t want any hatchlings choking to death on it if I’m carted west and spat out in a Moltenmaw’s tinder nest.
“You wear iron cuffs,” he murmurs, his gaze dragging over every angle of my face—like he’s mapping out the shape of it—landing on my eyes again. “The pin is unnecessary.”
“Well, yeah. But I’m unnecessary, remember? Skin slabs … Rekk Zharos’s finger … I don’t think you appreciate quite how close you came to being hacked into bits, then tossed off the wall. But hey, thanks for mending me before I die, even though it makes no sense.”
The corner of his mouth kicks up. “Hacked into bits, you say?”
Obviously.
“You’re the biggest male I’ve ever seen.” I shrug, biting down on a wince because that pin absolutely hurts. It’s blatant now that my skin’s no longer slashed to ribbons. “There’s no way I could’ve dragged you to the edge after I slit your throat.”
“But you didn’t …”
I frown, wishing he wouldn’t stuff my indiscretions in my face like that.
He smelled good.
I fucked up.
Let’s not dwell on it.
“The prongs aren’t here,” Bhea says, and that small smile instantly falls off the King’s face as he pushes to a stand.
“I have some in my saddlepack, but it’ll take me a while to get there and back,” he announces, striding toward the window covered by a round of aged, half-rotten wood. “How are we on ti—”
“Give me a blade.” I wave my hand in the air, jingling my chains. “I’ll cut it out.”
The King abruptly stops, and both he and Bhea glare at me like I just asked them to pretty please bare their throats so I can slice them open.
I roll my eyes.
“I won’t stab you. White flag, remember? I won’t give it back, either, so don’t give me one you’re particularly attached to.”
The only thing worse than losing a good blade is losing all your good blades, dammit.
The tips of my fingers tingle with the urge to gouge them through Rekk Zharos’s throat and rip out his trachea with my bare hands. Now that I’m mended, the injustice is extra crippling. I’m more than well enough to hunt him if it weren’t for these fucking chains.
“I can put a salve on it,” Bhea suggests, turning her attention to the King—like I’m not even here.
“That’s a terrible idea,” I gripe, reinserting myself back into the conversation. “I have a pin in my shoulder.”
Now that we’re all talking about it, I’m growing more and more pissed that I’m going to die with this thing in me, and I think it’s only fair that I snatch my comforts wherever I can find them, thank you very much.
I lean back from the chair, spinning so I can see the King properly. “You have a blade, no doubt. Hand it to me,” I say, flopping my hand out for him to fill. “Any blade. I’m not picky. Let me root around for a bit. You can close your eyes if you’re squeamish.”
He clears his throat, not for one moment dropping his gaze to my naked breasts now on full display while he turns and grabs the wooden window covering. Sliding it sideways, he peers out, muttering a curse beneath his breath. “Does the salve have rindleroot in it?”
To numb pain?
Interesting.
He wants to ease my suffering as I’m hailed into death. And there I was ordering a handsaw to make disassembling him easier.
“It does,” Bhea responds, digging her hand into a large leather bag she has stretched open on the worktable. She pulls a jar free like it’s some sort of trophy, and I frown at the lumpy green paste inside. “And fermented eahl eggs.”
To disinfect. But most importantly—to make you smell like you’ve been shat on.
No, thank you.
“You know what?” I say, trying to wrangle my shirt back on. “Fuck it, I’m good. Doesn’t even hurt. Let the hatchlings choke.”
“Do it.” The King slides the window cover back into place, snipping off the extra spill of light. “We don’t have time to cut out the pin,” he says, nailing me with a stare that shoots straight through me and out the other side. “The aurora’s about to rise.”
My heart plummets so fast I almost vomit.
Damn …
Guess it’s almost time to die.
I side-eye Wrook’s empty cell as I rock from side to side, dragging my itchy back against the stone—an itch that threads bone-deep in places, making me want to rip apart all Bhea’s hard work just to satiate the uncomfortable sensation.
Guess the Incognito King made good on his promise while I was away. I hope Wrook’s satisfied with his Sabersythe tusk and that he wasn’t instead fed to whatever beast it previously belonged to.
I’m not stupid enough to believe this scratchy gift I’ve been given comes without caveats, too. Few folk help others in this world without expecting something in return.
There’s a reason I was coaxed to that room. I’m just yet to work out what it is.
Easing my tunic down, I reach back to finger the goo Bhea stuffed in the hole punched through my shoulder blade, frowning at the acrid stench.
Now I get to die smelling like fermented eahl eggs barely softened by a herbal twang.
Lovely.
At least it seemed to finally quench the King’s strange, almost compulsive desire to take my pain away.
I frown.
Perhaps it has to do with the one I remind him of? Perhaps healing me assuaged him somehow? Made him feel better about himself?
That must be it.
I breathe a sigh of relief, thankful I worked out the riddle. I did not want to take that question to my gnawing end.
A drop of mildew lands on my nose, dashing my relief. A splatting reminder that I’m in a cell. Waiting for death.
That these are my final moments.
Fuck.
Scanning my surroundings, I take in the resting forms of my cellmates, envying their deep, languid breaths …
Sleep would be nice right now. I could exist elsewhere for a little bit.
Anywhere but here.
But I can’t summon the urge to snuff myself into oblivion. I’m too wound up inside, like there’s a lightning storm caught in my chest, zapping me every time I even think about closing my eyes. For all I know, the guards might be charging down this very moment, ready to drag me to my fiery doom.
My insides knot.
I bat the thoughts away, but just like Nee used to, they keep bumping against me. Nuzzling me.
Loved that.
Hate this.
I pull my chest full of air and slowly blow it out, picking at the skin down the side of my nail.
Don’t think.
Don’t think.
Don’t think.
I close my eyes, tapping my foot to the quiet, calming tune lilting in the back of my mind, timing the beat to the splats of moisture falling from the ceiling.
Splat.
Splat.
Splat-splat.
The hairs on my arms lift—
My eyes pop open.
Through the bars, a waggle of distorted air draws my gaze—no taller than knee height. My eyes narrow as it peels away to reveal a crouching creature with a wild tangle of fur the color of snow, matching her brows and lashes though contrasting with the smooth, pale pink skin on her face, neck, legs, and arms.
Uno lets her cloak fall to the ground in a rumple of inky fabric sketched with luminous runes, flashing me a mischievous smile that’s all sharp teeth.
The organ in my chest squeezes so hard I fear it might crack down the middle.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper-hiss through clenched teeth, leaning forward, nipping a glance down the tunnel, my pulse powering so fast my head feels light and airy.
Her large, fluffy ears twitch as they strain for sound. “Sereme spoke to Master. Commanded I get you out.”
Icy rage rumbles in the pit of my belly.
Of course Sereme ordered this. Which means she intends to replace me with another. To feed The Crown with another . What’s worse, she put Uno in danger to retrieve me …
Ruse must be out of her mind with worry.
Uno pulls a pick from one of the many colorful patchwork pockets stitched into her woolen garb, stretches her body into a long line, grabs my lock, and slides the thin metal pin into the opening—
“ Stop .”
Her delicate hands still, pink eyes flicking to me, slit pupils narrowing. A line forms between her brows, the white, tufted tip of her long tail flitting back and forth.
“Get out of here, Uno. Please. You can’t risk being caught.”
Her lips peel back from pin-sharp teeth, buttony features contorting into something honed and horrific. “You are not Master.” The words slit my skin, leaving a stinging trail. “You do not command me.”
Stubborn miskunn.
I sigh, glancing down the tunnel again, then back into her fierce eyes. “They know I’m a threat. If I live, they will double down their hunt.” I pause before landing my kidney shot. “They will find Ruse .”
Uno snaps her teeth together and snarls, lips thinning. Her tail spears forward, brushing against my cheek.
Her eyes flash iridescent.
She goes statue still, her already pale complexion lightening so much her skin turns translucent in places where it’s most thin—her temples, the insides of her frail wrists, the lanky bend of her knobbly legs.
Silence stretches as she languishes in one of her rare foretellings, and I swallow, watching the prismatic flecks in her eyes churn. The pink bits congeal, rising to the surface, glimmering red in the warm light.
Her tail whips from my face so fast it’s like I’m made of fire, a shuddered breath sucking through her pin-tooth maw. She blinks, pulls her pick from the lock, and folds back down into a crouch, droplets of hope I didn’t even realize I possessed splatting against my ribs.
“You know I’m right …”
She tucks the pick into the little pink pocket on her woolen garb. “Master will die if you do not go to that coliseum. Sereme too. I have seen it now.”
My chest deflates, and I nod.
That’s settled, then.
“I’m not surprised,” I whisper, forcing a smile. “I pissed off the Guild of Nobles. Thoroughly. I imagine they’ll turn this city upside down to find me if I don’t make it to my execution.”
“They will,” she says with stoic certainty. “I will relay my seeings to Master. She can pass them to her master. Who can pass them to her master.”
My smile softens. “You do that, Uno.”
She reaches into her orange pocket, revealing a piece of coal. “Come,” she says, raising it for me to see.
I frown.
With another glance down the tunnel, I lift my metal pole so my chains won’t drag along the ground, and shuffle forward. Uno gestures for me to rest my head between two bars, the metal brisk upon the sides of my face.
Her bottom lip wobbles as she drags the piece of coal across my forehead.
I immediately know the shape she’s drawing, so thoroughly familiar with the moon I seek out in the sky whenever I’m looking toward The Shade.
“This is … right ,” she whispers, and I swallow the odd thickening in my throat.
“I know.”
She tilts back, knobbed knees up around her cheeks, studying me while I study her …
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask whether or not I get munched right from the stake or carted off to Bhoggith and fed to a clutch of hatchlings, despite knowing her visions are sporadic. That the outcomes can shift and sway. But I decide it’s better to drown myself in ignorance right until the bitter end.
I close my eyes, not wanting to say a goodbye that’ll taste like ash, hearing the near-silent pad of her scuffled steps fade into oblivion. Only when I’m certain she’s gone do I open my eyes again, looking into the empty space before me.
I clear my throat, shuffling back to the wall, rubbing my itchy back against the abrasive surface.
“Why a ball?” comes a rasped voice to my left.
I look sideways at the male I thought was asleep bunched beneath his filthy blanket, instead watching me through the bars. “It’s a moon.”
He frowns. “Then why a moon?”
I cast my gaze forward again, tap-tap-tapping my foot to the soothing tune in my head. “Because they fall.”
Even when we don’t want them to.