Pull the Strings
My plate was empty because they’d never intended for me to eat. I wasn’t sure if the screaming I heard was coming from me or Noxie or the beast in my chest that was burning and fit to burst free from its cage and burn everything around me to the ground.
The king had killed my mother. She had been the leader of the rebels. And Varyn… I had trusted him and, against my better judgment, told him about my mother. I had given him my body, my heart.
He had been so very convincing. And I, so very stupid. This whole time, I had been chasing two ghosts—my mother, and Varyn’s love, which had never even existed. The sadness and anger were tinting my vision.
It wasn’t until I felt the guards’ hands on my shoulders that my senses came back to reality, and panic set in.
“Noxie, she’s dead.”
The guards lifted me out of my chair by my elbows. I flailed and screamed and kicked.
“They know who I am!”
I fought with all the savagery my shattered heart could muster to get free of the guards and of my certain death sentence if they took me to the dungeons.
“Find Nella and make her run! Get her out of Dolvenar!”
The king had taken everything from me but her. She was the last thing tethering me to my humanity, to life. She had to make it out of here.
“I’m coming for you!”
“Don’t you dare, Noxie, get to Nella!”
The guards dragged me to a door that undoubtedly led to the dungeons, bloodying my lip and elbowing me in the stomach as I fought against them.
It was difficult to hear anything over my own screams, both aloud and in my head, but the king’s laugh rang through my mind clear as day.
Louder still was the complete silence coming from Varyn.
Before the door closed behind me, I looked back at the traitorous prince.
Seeing him took the last of the fight out of me.
I had fallen in love with him, and I didn’t even know it until right now.
I had given him my entire heart, and he shattered it completely, irrevocably.
And he didn’t even have the decency to look at me as I was marched to my demise.
When the door closed, I felt like it was sealing me into a tomb, sealing my fate.
“Take care of her, Noxie.”
“Damn it, fight! I’ll come back for you as soon as I get Nella out.”
I had no more fight. Every part of me shut down.
The king’s footsteps followed behind us, marching me to my doom—to my mom’s final resting place where I would likely soon rest beside her.
The banshee had said she was here. I hated so much that it hadn’t been a lie, that I hadn’t seen it for what it was. She was here, but she was dead. The banshee put me on a path to find nothing but bones.
And I was stupid and na?ve enough to follow that path. I’d done this to myself. To Nella.
Neither the queen nor the prince had followed as we marched through the corridors to the cold, dark hallway I knew ended in a black door that would no longer be locked.
Poetic.
My head hung low as the guards pushed me forward, past cell after cell. Whether there was anyone in each, I either couldn’t see to my left or didn’t care to my right.
They pushed me into the last cell at the end of the dungeon and slammed the door of iron bars closed. I was only half aware of how cold and wet it was down here.
I collapsed in a heap right where the guards left me.
And then I cried.
And cried.
And didn’t stop for very long.
It was only when I felt I had no more tears left to cry that I looked up to find I was in a small alcove cut directly into the rough black stone, the entire front opening sealed top to bottom and left to right with metal bars. It had no bed, no chamber pot. Nothing.
A place not intended to keep a prisoner alive to serve their sentence, but a place where they left people to die. I’d been a fool for hoping my mother could be alive down here.
Across from me, I could see into the cell facing mine.
The single torch at the back of the dungeon gave off just enough light to see the skeleton propped up against the back wall.
A headless skeleton.
My mother.
The king hadn’t been lying.
This time, I really did lose the contents of my stomach. My head was spinning so fast I thought I might faint. The devastation threatened to devour me completely.
“Naci! Naci! I tried to stop it, but they got Nella. I tried, but I’m just a bird, there’s nothing I could do!”
“What? What do you mean they got Nella? Who?”
“The guards. They got to her at dinner before I could get there. I saw them drag her into that room to the tunnels, and I couldn’t follow.”
The rest of my world crashed around me. It didn’t make sense that the walls weren’t crumbling or that the floor wasn’t shaking. The utter destruction was confined only to my heart and mind, yet it felt world-consuming, world-ending.
“Naci, I’m sorry…”
They had Nella. They were bringing her here, to the dungeon. I couldn’t find it in me anywhere to be relieved that I would see her.
Because seeing her here meant I had failed as her protector. And she was likely to meet the same end I would.
I heard guards coming up the hallway toward the cells, and the unmistakable yells of fury and pain from Nella.
If I thought the sound of her struggle was enough to break me, seeing her being dragged into the cell next to my mother’s was the nail in the coffin for my heart.
They tossed her to the floor and slammed the door shut, locking it with a key, sealing her into the same tomb I was trapped in.
“Nella! Nella, look at me. Are you okay?”
She crawled to the bars of her cell, and I saw her already-bruising eye and a trickle of blood running down her forehead.
Pure rage boiled in my chest. Those guards were now top of my kill list, second only to the king.
“I’m so sorry, I tried to get away.”
“Don’t you dare apologize. This is my fault. I should have known dinner was a setup. I should never have gone.” Never should have trusted the prince.
The sound of heavy footsteps stopped our conversation. The king’s silhouette as he approached heightened my rage to an almost painful level.
“You! Why would you do this?”
“Poor Naci, kicking and screaming about how unfair life is. You know you really have Varyn to thank for all of this.”
I sneered at the pain and anger, which the king noticed with a smile.
“Oh, you thought the crown prince loved you? Thought the heir to Ashenholt would fall for a mortal, did you? Ha! He used you. Had his fun but did his duty to the crown.”
“You call doing your bidding ‘duty’? I’d call it cowardice, Majesty.”
The anger growing inside me didn’t care if I insulted the king. It relished in the momentary shock on his face at my audacity.
“Funny you should bring that up. You see, the reason I’m here is to discuss a proposition with you.”
“Why would I ever agree to do anything for you?”
“Because I have what we call leverage, Naci. You do my bidding, and I won’t kill your sister. Refuse? Well, she dies. Simple as that.”
My whole body was shaking. I didn’t know this level of hatred was even possible to hold in one’s body without exploding from it.
The king just laughed. “See, I knew you’d come around.”
“And what is it you’re expecting of me?” I could barely form the words through my shaking voice.
“You’ll dance when I say dance. You’ll jump when I say jump. And if one of my nobles fancies a mortal ornament at his table or in his bed?” His smile darkened, etched with pure evil. “Well, you’ll be a good whore and do as he commands.”
I could taste bile coming up the back of my throat.
“And what dancing and jumping will you have me do?”
“I’m so glad you asked, puppet. As the daughter of its previous leader, you’ll denounce the rebellion, publicly support the crown, and implore mortals and rebels to stand down.
Instead of a rally point for the remaining few, you’ll be the thing that unravels what’s left of them and this irksome, righteous cause. ”
“Why does it matter if you’re just going to purge all the mortals anyway?”
He seemed surprised that I knew this detail of his plans for Ashenholt.
“So small-minded. Typical of a mortal… Politics is a long game. I can’t simply purge the continent.
There would be uprisings from the more progressive continents, and I’d rather not split my armies to fight them all at once.
No, this is just the first act to ensure mortal conformity and shut down any remaining thoughts of rebellion.
And you’ll be the shining star of this act.
Perhaps you need time to think about it.
One of my guards has a thing for young girls.
He could take a turn with your sister. Guards! ”
Nella’s face lit up with fear.
“No! No, I’ll do it.”
“Naci, no! You can’t!”
I knew she was scared for me, but I had to do this, no matter the cost.
“You need me to be convincing, right? Guarantee Nella is safe from all harm. No one touches her. No one hurts her. Let her go back to the laundry room, and I’ll do your bidding. Guarantee this, and I’ll be convincing. But if anything happens to her, the deal’s off.”
The triumphant look on his face was beyond unsettling. “You have a deal. I give you my word as the reigning king.”
The word of the reigning king meant nothing to me, but I had no other choice.
“I’ll need proof that she’s safe and unharmed. I want to see her.”
He turned on his heel to leave the dungeon. As he walked away, he looked back at me over his shoulder. “Fine. Once a week. Five minutes. Remember, Naci, one slip on your part and her corpse will rot next to your mother’s, that I promise you. Guards! Take the girl back to her room. Unharmed.”
A wave of relief coursed through me as the guards released her from her cell. But the underlying unease of trusting the king’s need for me stayed firmly lodged in my stomach.
She reached for me as the guards marched her past my cell. I scrambled to the bars to reach for her fingers just before she was out of sight.
“Naci!”
“Nella! You’ll be okay. Be strong!”
And then she was gone. The sound of the door to the dungeon closing sounded like a death sentence.