Chapter 26 Dimas
TWENTY-SIX
DIMAS
The dungeons reeked of sweat and blood.
The rest of the funeral had, thankfully, passed by uneventfully, although Dimas hadn’t missed the tense glances the nobles kept shooting his way as Brother Dunstan had carried out the proceedings.
The shadow of doubt the cultist had left over the church had made it impossible for Dimas to focus on saying goodbye to his father and Lady Sefwyn, and when it was over, he had wasted no time in heading straight for the dungeons.
The guards standing watch had hesitated slightly when he’d arrived, but one haughty glare later and Dimas found himself striding down a set of damp stone stairs that led to a handful of cells.
Ioseph walked silently at his side, the torch in his hands casting shadows along the old stone walls.
They hadn’t spoken about what had happened at the funeral.
Dimas had simply told him he was going to the dungeons, and Ioseph had followed, no questions asked.
They were close enough now that Dimas could smell the faint leather and soap scent of him.
Could feel the brush of his arm against his own with every step they took.
Dimas fought the urge to lean in to that touch.
To let Ioseph’s warmth chase away the constant chill in his bones.
Like the events of that morning, they hadn’t yet spoken about what had happened between them out in the Wilds.
About the line he’d almost crossed. It seemed Ioseph was content to ignore it for the time being, a fact that Dimas was silently grateful for.
They had more important things to worry about.
Ioseph slowed his pace and asked, “So what’s the plan?”
“I want answers,” Dimas replied. He knew the sorts of tactics the Fist used to get heretics to speak, and the thought of them made his stomach churn.
Hopefully he wouldn’t need to resort to calling on his cousin Milos; he still wasn’t ready to reveal what was happening with his and Lenora’s bond yet.
No, he needed to get to the bottom of this himself, and he needed to do it now.
“That woman seemed eager to talk at my father’s funeral, so it should be easy enough to coax what I need from her. ”
That was his hope, anyway. Perhaps it was naive. Perhaps it made him every inch the weak heir his father’s court claimed him to be. But he had to try.
The prisoner’s cell was at the farthest end of the dungeons, its heavy, wooden door almost invisible in the dark.
Ioseph unhooked the keys from his belt. “Ready?”
Dimas could hear the unspoken meaning behind that word.
You don’t have to do this.
“Open it.”
Ioseph obeyed, turning the key in the lock with an echoing click. Dimas stepped inside before Ioseph could insist on going first.
For a heartbeat, he thought the cell was empty.
Shadows pooled along the floor like mist, obscuring his vision.
A small, circular window had been cut into the far wall, too high to reach and obstructed by thick, iron bars.
But it let in enough light for Dimas to just make out the silhouette huddled in the corner, as still as the stone itself.
Ioseph came in behind him, and the light of the torch chased away enough of the shadows for Dimas to see the chains around the prisoner’s thin ankles. It seemed the guards had deemed her enough of a threat to restrain her, even inside a locked cell.
She didn’t look up as Dimas approached. Her eyes were open, but they were fixed on something Dimas could not see. His mother had gotten that look sometimes. As if her body was in the room with him, but her mind was somewhere else entirely. The sight sent a chill down his spine.
“Who are you?” Dimas began.
The woman didn’t speak, but her eyes drifted toward him, assessing him like a hawk might a mouse. Was this how Aldryn’s attacker had looked at him before they’d slit his throat? Like he was nothing more than prey for her and her cult to use their dark magics on?
“You came here for a reason, right?” Dimas asked, trying to keep control of the shadows now dancing before his eyes. “Well, I’m listening.”
She tilted her head. “If you were truly listening, prince, you’d know your fate is already sealed. The Haesta will be victorious.”
Dimas clenched his fists.
So it was true, then. The Haesta were back. Here was the proof before him, on the woman’s lips.
“Whatever your cult has in store, my Fateweaver and I will stop you.”
He was rising to the bait and he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself. Every word the prisoner said fed the demons in his mind, confirming their whispers to be true. The ones that said Naebya had forsaken him, and that under his rule, Wyrecia would finally fall.
The prisoner grinned, teeth flashing in the dark. “Your Fateweaver,” she said, “is already lost.”
“What are you doing to her?” Dimas asked. “What have you been doing to us?” His voice cracked on the last word.
The prisoner stared at him for a moment.
And then, without warning, she threw her head back, a sharp laugh emitting from her mouth.
“Poor, fragile emperor. It is no wonder the bond you and your Fateweaver share is so weak.” A knowing smirk pulled at the prisoner’s lips, one that had Dimas drawing his sword.
“I know your cult has been interfering with the bond!” he yelled. “You will tell me what you know!”
The heretic remained silent, watching him with that hawk-like focus. And then, in a low, ice-cold voice that made the hair on Dimas’s neck raise, she began to speak.
“You believe us to be gone because your ancestors have forced us to live in shadow,” she said, “but we are still here. And when the Furybringer rises again, it will be you who understands what it is to live in the dark.”
Dimas’s blood ran cold at the name. The shadows flared in his vision, threatening to consume him as he whirled back toward the prisoner, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword hard enough to hurt.
“The Furybringer has been dead for centuries,” Dimas said, hoping she couldn’t hear the doubt in his voice.
“Dead,” the prisoner said, smiling, “but not gone.”
The woman moved so fast she was barely a blur in the darkness. Dimas raised his sword at the same time Ioseph lunged in front of him, braced to defend.
But there was no need. The prisoner stood with her back against the wall, the chains around her ankles rattling like bones.
“Long live the Furybringer!” she yelled.
And plunged a hidden dagger into her heart.
There was a speck of blood on Dimas’s sleeve.
He was rubbing at it when the door to Lenora’s chambers opened. His Fateweaver took one look at him and folded her arms across her chest.
“I take it the funeral didn’t go well?”
Dimas dropped his arm, letting the fold of his cloak hide the crimson stain.
He schooled his expression into one of neutrality and tried to settle his frayed nerves.
He didn’t trust Lenora enough to tell her the whole truth of what had happened in the dungeons, even if doing so would make the burden easier to bear.
“There was an … incident,” he said. “May I come in?”
Lena stepped aside, striding toward the reception room and slumping into the chair by the fireplace.
A pile of books sat at her feet. Dimas’s heart gave a flutter of hope at the sight.
His empire may have been crumbling beneath his fingertips, but at least his Fateweaver seemed to be taking her studies seriously.
“Iska should be here soon,” she said when she noticed the direction of his gaze.
He gave a curt nod. “And how are your lessons going?”
Well, he hoped, considering what he was about to ask of her.
“Slow, but …” She hesitated, and he watched as she curled her fingers into her palms. “I think I’m making progress. The exercises Brother Dunstan taught me seem to be helping.”
He couldn’t tell if she was being genuine. All of the hostility he’d witnessed from her previously was gone, replaced by a steel-strong determination that he wasn’t sure what to make of. She seemed to have accepted her fate, but he wasn’t convinced she was happy to be here.
Still, he would take agreeably placid over the wild, furious girl he’d first seen through their bond.
“That’s good.” He sucked in a breath. “I want you to attend tonight’s mourning ball with me.”
Lenora’s brow furrowed, a strand of ash-brown hair falling into her eyes as she shifted in her chair. “I thought I wasn’t to face the court until your coronation.”
He ran a hand through his hair, pacing the length of the room.
He hadn’t visited the Fateweaver’s chambers much as a child, but his father had spent hours upon hours in these rooms, discussing war and politics with Lady Sefwyn.
She’d been his most trusted advisor, and the court would expect Lenora to be the same to him.
But how was he supposed to trust a heretic?
“We can’t afford to keep you hidden any longer.
Dignitaries from every kingdom who have pledged their allegiance to Wyrecia will be in attendance tonight, and some of them are beginning to doubt my ability to rule.
Without my Fateweaver at my side, they may even start to believe the rumors that I am … cursed.”
He didn’t say he imagined some of the dignitaries already believed it. Nor that a handful of members of his father’s cabinet likely did, too. Neither did he mention his suspicions about the Haesta being behind the shadow attacks in his head. They were all weaknesses he wasn’t ready to reveal.
Not yet.
“So you want to parade me in front of them as a show of strength.” Lenora’s voice was level, as if she were simply commenting on the weather.
He studied her, searching their bond for a flicker of her true feelings, but her emotions were drowned out by the storm of his own.
“Your presence there will reassure them Wyrecia is as strong as ever, yes, but … it will also show them that I am worthy of my title. If these rumors spread, Lenora, then war will come to our doorstep. And it won’t just be the people inside this city who suffer.
It will be all of Wyrecia. The Wilds included. ”
Her eyes darkened, and for a heartbeat he felt a flash of that ice-cold anger he’d first sensed inside of her. “The people in the Wilds already are suffering.”
Dimas didn’t have a response to that. He opened his mouth.
Closed it again. He should tell her that it was what Naebya wished.
That if the people of the Wilds—her people—agreed to worship Her, then they wouldn’t have to suffer.
It was what he should have said. It was what his father would have said.
But all Dimas could think of at that moment was his mother offering to pay for a poor villager’s boon.
Of the people in the Wilds, gaunt and malnourished, looking upon him with hatred in their eyes.
“You’re right,” he said, “and maybe I—maybe we—can change that. But not if we end up going to war.”
Lena was studying him, her brows lowered, and for once Dimas didn’t try to hide his feelings from her. For once, he let all of his guilt, his shame, his confusion rise to the surface.
For once, Dimas let himself be his mother’s son.
Lenora looked away from him, silence falling between them as she stared out of her window at the landscape beyond, and for a moment Dimas thought she was dismissing him. But then his Fateweaver let out a single, almost defeated sigh.
“Alright, then,” she said. “Let’s go prevent a war.”