Chapter 23 #2
The young man stopped muttering. His eyes sharpened.
“So…you’re mutilated if you guess wrong?
” His laugh began slow and broken. “Well, I’ll come clean then.
I look like a nobody, but being that way allowed me to see every troop movement, every supply route from the maps in the general’s war rooms. And believe me, I’d fucking do it again to watch Kraal bleed in those ambushes. ”
The thin, peasant man sobered his tears.
“You want the spy? I’m the spy. I lived among your people, eating your food, learning your language, bowing to your butcher king until I learned every weakness I could exploit.
You Kraalians are helpless pieces of shit.
You think you won the war, but you’re still fighting, aren’t you?
” His hands grasped the bars of his cell as he bared his teeth at them.
Everyone’s attention fell on the fourth prisoner.
As if summoned, the man eased himself upright, scratching at the blood-spotted bandage covering his head.
“I used my position to gather intelligence in the highest echelons. People tend to speak freely around Envorsen.”
Envorsen? Ksenia’s eyes widened. He looked several years older than her. His nails were clean, and his hair was ruffled but groomed. He had a wide-set, muscular build and a missing leg. His trousers had been folded and pinned up around his knee.
The more uncomfortable the competitors became, the more confident the prisoners were, chatting amongst themselves and throwing insults across the room.
“Easy, easy. Let them struggle with their choice. Any path they choose will bring them suffering. And I, for one, cannot wait to see which one of you loses a limb tomorrow.” He patted the stump of his own leg for effect.
The remaining hours were fruitless, as the prisoners stopped engaging with them and preferred to talk among themselves in Dren.
They could have been in a tavern together as they shared jokes and stories, passing the day and night pretending to be free men. The competitors, on the other hand, had become a withdrawn, sullen bunch, with no food, no sleep, and no water.
Ksenia twisted and writhed in her shackles, but her limbs were pins and needles, exhausted from being pulled in an upright position.
She had a hunch, but she didn’t want to be right.
This was a moral quandary she hadn’t prepared to face, and she could taste bile at the back of her throat.
And if she purposely chose incorrectly, she’d be imprisoned here for life.
However, there was a twenty-five percent chance of guessing the spy. And if Bohdan knew who the spy was, their fate was already sealed, and Ksenia would risk losing a limb to defend her honor.
She couldn’t afford to abandon her mission to save Danika, the children, and her own soul.
She ground her teeth together, eyes clenched tight. Bohdan was sick. Just as sick as his father. The entire kingdom was rotted from the top down.
The final minutes trickled away as the competitors could hear Bohdan’s smooth, languid footfalls echoing from the stairs toward them.
He and his men filtered back into the room and made space in the center.
Radegast’s signature resonance began to bounce, and her jaw set into stone. Her hands were clammy and numb to the bite of her fingernails digging into her palms, and her head pounded from the extended separation from Caromir.
Slow, soft footfalls joined the retinue last as Karsan entered, Radegast at his hip.
Bohdan’s smooth voice echoed. “The trial is coming to an end. I will come around to hear each of your answers, and then judgment will commence. Freedom is around the corner for at least one of you, I hope.”
He entered each cell, leaning his ear toward the competitor. Before long, Ksenia’s prison door swung open, and Bohdan padded in softly before leaning down to her. His breath ghosted over her ear, sending a tremor down her spine.
“Well?”
Ksenia’s throat bobbed as she swallowed, her mouth parched. Her whisper was thin and dry in his ear.
The pad of his finger traced her jawline as he stood upright.
Teasing.
She didn’t like the look in his eye as he did it.
Cold sweat pricked the back of her neck.
No. No.
He turned on his heel and nodded to the guard who shut her door.
He was supposed to let her out.
Her hands strained against the shackles.
Had she chosen the wrong prisoner?
A cold weight settled to the bottom of her stomach before she dry-heaved, and her pulse slowed as she faced her failure.
She’d walked back into her executioner’s hands willingly. Imprisoned herself in a competition of his design, walked into this cage, and she chose wrong.
She wasn’t outmaneuvered. She was wrong.
Danika. The children. The Bound Eye.
Lost vindication aside, she would truly become invisible in the most complete way imaginable.
Bohdan stood at the center once more.
“Senka and Tivan will advance to the final duel. Congratulations.”
Cries of anguish and joy erupted from the room.
What?
Her eyes widened, snapping to Bohdan’s. He shook out his shoulders, and for once, he was the first to look away.
Her chest tightened, her throat closing painfully. She had sentenced another man to death.
The jailed, former Envorsen gave her a small smile, the tremor at the corners almost imperceptible.
No one won by playing these sick games.
The guards opened the losing competitors’ cell doors, and Ksenia was forced to listen to their screams as Karsan entered each cell himself and hacked away at something unseen, but hefty.
Each slice, Ksenia felt in her bones. Each cut, the bloodlust in her mind grew stronger, fighting against her worn body in a primal mix of fight or flight.
Their screams were punctuated by blood splatter, screaming, pleading, and finally a loud thud.
Sweat dripped down her forehead.
Across the room, there was no jeering and laughter despite the prisoners’ claims. Everyone sobered up from the lose-lose situation they were dealt.
Finally, Ksenia and Tivan were unshackled. She slumped to the ground in a boneless heap.
Twenty-four hours of being strung up had left her powerless.
She crawled forward until she reached a low stone bench and clambered onto shaky legs.
Karsan had entered the spy’s cell. The spy looked the picture of ease, one arm leaning on his stump of a knee as he took a final drink from his flask.
“Radovan. Prince Radovan. It didn’t have to end like this. We were family,” Karsan scolded, like a disappointed elder.
“Ravenka deserved better than you. We always knew you were a snake, from the moment you took power—”
His diatribe was cut short, sputtering blood. Karsan slammed Radegast through his chest, and the man slumped onto the blade, blood bubbling from his mouth.
The familiarity of it made Ksenia’s chest cavity feel like a gnawing, achingly cold void.
But a different feeling was present as well: the unmistakable need to cause violence.
Her teeth gritted, and she wrenched herself out of the cell. Her hands spasmodically opened and closed like claws.
Karsan and Radegast were both within reach. She could take her revenge now, for everyone whom he had hurt, and prevent him from hurting anyone in the future.
But she was surrounded by two dozen Envorsen and Bohdan as well.
“Gods forbid we ever catch your bastard prince. We’ll show him proper hospitality, just like you served Princess Ravenka and Prince Radovan,” the young soldier growled, eyes daggering at Bohdan.
Time stretched, and a hazy sheen settled over her eyes as all she could see was Karsan, removing Radegast from Radovan’s chest. A blur of iridescence ran up its silvered length as his soul, too, left his body.
She started toward Karsan, but was met with an arm before her chest.
Bohdan’s composure was heavier. A subtle slump in the line of his strong shoulders and back. His eyes focused on hers with a profound weariness as he waited for her to make her choice.
She took stock of her situation. The dead prince. The bloodied stumps of her former competitors as they sobbed in their cells. The sickened look of glee and satisfaction on Karsan’s face as the kill transfixed him and his hellbound blade with more power.
She had to play Karsan’s game a little longer before she could trap him in her own.