Chapter 50
THE HOLLOWS
THE HOLLOWS, FELíNE LEARNED, LAY within the only public stone structure in Meress.
The prison didn’t look like much from the outside, its crude brick walls appearing to have been slapped together by accident rather than intention.
Inside, Felíne had expected barred cells with iron doors that could be locked to house prisoners.
Not so. There wasn’t a single interior wall in sight.
Instead, a line of circular metal grates had been set into the concrete floor.
Felíne was shoved toward one such grate. She blanched, knees locking. Lucien Cross might not have possessed Kalevar’s powerful physique, but he was still stronger than she was. The grate was hoisted up on screaming hinges to reveal a murky, dank hole in the ground—a hollow.
“No!” she shrieked, fear gripping her in its merciless fist.
Lucien crowded her to the edge. The toe of her boots touched one side of a ladder descending into the hole. “Climb down, madam, or I will push you in.”
Kal loosed a threatening snarl behind her.
Felíne’s manacles had been refastened so that her hands were in front before leaving the confines of the upstairs hall in which they’d been detained.
She couldn’t keep from shaking as she stepped one foot onto the first rung of the ladder.
Her panicked gaze found Kal. He stood before another hole, Rask forcing him similarly forward.
They hadn’t trusted him enough to reposition his shackles, so Kal’s hands remained bound behind his back.
Barbaric metal devices still caged both their heads and necks.
“Lay another hand on her, and you’ll learn the taste of your own entrails, Cross.” Kal’s bloody vow was laced with ire. Hard eyes turned to her. “Climb down, Kitty,” he said. “The Hollows are empty. Nothing will harm you.”
“You really shouldn’t offer such empty reassurances, Kaine,” Rask said with a wicked sneer. Then he pushed Kal with more force than was necessary. Kal pitched forward and disappeared into the gaping maw of his pit.
“Kal!”
Rask slammed the grate closed and bolted it.
“I’m fine, Kitty,” came Kal’s muffled, but no less pissed off, reply. “Get in the hollow.”
Felíne forced herself to ignore the screaming terror that stole her breath and rattled her limbs as she lowered herself rung by rung into the dark hole.
The scent of stale earth and mildew assaulted her, intensifying her claustrophobia.
The iron barbs of the headpiece shifted as she moved, poking into her neck uncomfortably.
When the top of her head reached below ground level, the grate above her shut with a bang. Rask Harless and Lucien Cross left without so much as a taunting goodbye. She heard their footfalls retreat, the slam of a door, and then silence engulfed her.
Felíne felt around the perimeter of the hole with trembling fingers.
It was perhaps no more than six feet in diameter with a dirt floor and brick walls.
The hollow was deep, but she hoisted herself back up the ladder and shoved at the grate.
It didn’t budge, and the bars were too narrow to see anything but the unadorned ceiling directly overhead. Fear choked her. “Kal?”
“I’m here.” His words sounded faraway, but she nearly cried in relief that he could still hear her. “Are you alright?”
“I can’t see anything. It’s too dark,” she croaked, descending the ladder until she reached the bottom once more.
Kal muttered something that sounded like, “I’ll kill him,” before he said more clearly, “We’ll be fine.”
Felíne tugged at the metal collar. “What did they put on our heads?”
“They call it a skullcage. A crude contraption used to keep shurii from shifting to second form. Not very sophisticated, but it’s effective.”
Felíne could see how. The skullcage was uncomfortable, to be sure. But any shurii attempting to shift into second form while wearing it would be impaled by the iron barbs inside the collar. “What will they do with us?”
Kal was quiet for a moment before replying.
“Lucien will try to force the Conclave’s decision regarding our punishment.
The ambitious worm. He’s wanted me removed for some time, but never had the balls or the backing to do anything more than complain.
” He paused. “With Saul taken ill and my recent interference in your trial, he’s got more justification than he’s ever had. ”
Felíne slowly lowered herself to the ground and leaned back against the ladder. “And now with Rask’s involvement, he’s also got the muscle to back his position?”
Kal growled. “Fucking idiot.”
Felíne took that as affirmative. She also gathered that it meant Rask and Kal’s friendship had reached its expiration. “Why does Lucien hate you?”
“Because he’s a flaccid prick.”
“Yes, but why really?”
She could almost visualize Kal shrugging.
“When I left Asteros and found Meress, Saul welcomed me. We worked closely together for years. I helped them institute many of the laws that govern their city, assisted in establishing trade that circumvented Asterosian detection, and personally trained their militia. Lucien didn’t like how involved I was.
Some runaway brat with a dubious pedigree shouldn’t have held so much sway. ”
“They don’t know who you are?” she asked, surprised.
“Everyone knows who Magnus and Meridia Albright were,” Kal said, guessing at the direction of her thoughts.
“But my mother didn’t publicly take the Kaine name, and my father’s family didn’t keep close records.
He was the Lord of Brightsea after my grandfather died, but otherwise, people knew him as the Aegis.
He was a private man. Besides, Kaine is not an uncommon surname.
” He fell quiet, and Felíne heard the sound of iron clinking before he continued.
“Saul knows. He knew the moment he caught me sneaking into the forge years ago to make silverskin. He’s helped keep my production of it a secret and set up a private foundry for me to work outside Meress. ”
Felíne released a breath, the trembling finally subsiding.
So, the long-lost heir of Brightsea Castle spent his days crafting rare pieces of armor deep within the rebel woods and then brokering trade deals to distribute his productions across the kingdom.
All under Asteros’s pert nose. She almost laughed.
Felíne had to hand it to him. Kal was nothing if not bold.
“Does Rask know? About the silverskin? About who you are?”
Silence. Then, “He knows who I am. He doesn’t know I’m the one making it. He thinks I’ve got contact with an artisan from Brightsea.”
Good. He wouldn’t be able to sell that information to Lucien, at least. Felíne shifted her weight onto her right butt cheek, her left having gone numb.
“So, Lucien Cross wants you gone, me punished, and Saul dead. Rask wants revenge. The Carrow brothers were bait. Lucien knew you’d kill them. We walked right into a damned trap.”
“Why would you think Lucien wants Saul dead?” Kal asked. She had to strain to hear him.
“Because,” Felíne said, remembering the dark phlegm produced by Saul’s horrid cough, his pallid features, and the hollow rings beneath his eyes. “He’s been poisoned.”
Kal took a moment to respond. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she replied. The signs Saul displayed were consistent with morticana ingestion.
It was a poor choice for a poison on account of its bitterness.
Any shurii with half an inkling would recognize the taste and avoid consumption.
But given in small doses over consecutive days?
The taste could be easily masked, and the morticana would linger in the system, compounding over time to mimic a mysterious illness. Felíne explained as much to Kal.
He swore colorfully. “If we accuse Lucien, he’ll deny it.”
Felíne scoffed. “He can try,” she said with an air of superiority. “I can prove it was him.”
“Please, Felíne, don’t make me ask,” Kal replied, exasperated.
She smiled despite Kal’s thinning patience.
Her name from his lips, even spoken with a note of irritation, warmed her.
“Morticana is notoriously difficult to handle in its raw form,” she explained.
“It’s terribly irritating to the skin, even while wearing gloves.
The oil it produces causes nasty blisters.
Mender Alcuin and I treated children who’d unwittingly stepped through a patch growing near a neighbor’s garden. The lesions took weeks to heal.”
“Lucien had blisters on his wrist.”
Felíne smiled wider. “Yes. He did.”
“I’ll be damned,” Kal said. She could hear the awe in his voice. “I could kiss you.”
“I’ll let you do more than that,” Felíne remarked, wrinkling her nose at the dank smell, “if you can get me out of this horrid hole.”
“My dear Kitty,” Kal teased, “are you playing the damsel?”
“Yes,” she complained. “I am.” And she harbored no remorse.
Kal chuckled, the warmth of his amusement easing some of her lingering anxiety. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I didn’t have Adder tailing us for nothing. He’ll be along shortly.”
Kal wasn’t wrong. Not five minutes later, Felíne heard the grinding of an old door swinging on rusted hinges. Her heart leapt.
“Oi!” Adder’s voice barked. “Mind the family jewels!”
Felíne heard the clanging of another grate followed by a string of choice expletives. Her soaring hopes plummeted like doves shot from the sky.
“Enjoy your stay at The Hollows, love,” drawled an unfamiliar female voice.
The stranger paused over Felíne’s grate, peering down and making a terse note of disappointment.
Felíne caught the outline of a slender figure limned in a ruby halo but couldn’t make out the woman’s features against the light.
She moved on but stopped again before leaving. “All this trouble for that?”
Surely she’s not referring to me?
“Shame, Kalevar. You should have stayed to play when I invited you. Perhaps your little misunderstanding with Rask might have been avoided.”
Kal offered no reply.
Felíne listened to the sound of her heart hammering against her sternum as she contemplated all possible scenarios in which this woman might have hoped for Kal’s company.
Eventually, Felíne’s internal clamor was replaced with the retreat of soft footfalls, the door opening and shutting once more, and then silence.
“Devereux Santaire,” Kal seethed. “Mind explaining what the fuck that was?”
“Fucking blood-headed siren,” Adder groaned. “I saw them bring you both in—Harless and the other scrawny bloke. I was moments from enacting a daring rescue when that wretched vixen ambushed me. Must have been watching the door.”
Kal swore again.
“She clapped a fucking skullcage on me, mate! When was the last time someone utilized such an antiquated contrivance?”
“Join the crew,” Kal muttered blackly. “Now it’s the three of us in The Hollows, Saul poisoned, and Rask supporting that fucking shit, Cross.”
“Saul’s been poisoned?” Adder asked.
Felíne didn’t have the energy to revisit the explanation. She was still trying to calm the hellcat inside her that howled for the red-headed woman’s blood. “Who else knows we’re here?”
“Beulah,” Kal answered. “But I don’t know if she’ll put the details together before Lucien pulls the trigger on whatever he’s planning.”
“What about Santhe?” Felíne asked, hopeful.
“Maybe,” Kal replied, though he didn’t sound convinced. “I need to think.”
Felíne sighed heavily. What a damned mess.
“Don’t worry, Kitty, love,” Adder called. “Kal here has a knack for thinking his way through unfavorable situations. He’ll come up with something. Wait and see.”
Ironic, Felíne thought. They had no other choice.