Chapter 6 #2
“Straight to the cells.” Dreth takes one of the two guards holding on to me with him, leaving me with one escort who tugs at my wrists.
I don’t move, moored in place. I’ve seen sketches of the Benevolent in the pamphlets.
In them he always looks younger, posed in some way that shows strength.
But in this painting, he is draped in purple, with medals and ribbons dangling from his chest like a meticulously decorated tree, like someone who should be cherished and celebrated instead of feared.
His bald head accentuates the harshness of his full face and sloped jawline.
He wears a tight smile and stares with hollow, depthless eyes the color of an angry sea.
Flowers have been woven around the frame, and piles of them lie in heaps on the floor beneath it, mixed with jewels, trinkets, and handwritten prayers.
We cross the Great Hall, and I feel the portrait’s stare on my skin. When the guard pulls me along this time, I stick to his heels.
Right, right, pass two, left.
Right, right, pass two.
Left again, three this time.
Each turn reveals another framed portrait of the Benevolent and more guards and servants. The palace is a maze, but no trickier than some of the places I’ve had to slip out of smuggling. The hardest part will be getting past all these people unnoticed and finding an exit.
We descend two floors and pass a swath of servants in shiny lavender dresses cleaning up some kind of mess.
I wiggle my ankle in my boot, loosening the spot where the blade is.
Smaller portraits of the Benevolent are down here with more offerings of gifts beneath them.
The deeper we go into the castle, the fewer turns there are, the fewer places to get lost out of sight.
I grow less sure I can get out of here without help.
“I didn’t do this,” I say.
The Mercyenforcer’s stride quickens.
“I tried to stop him from using another—”
“Smuggling is enough to bury you at the bottom of the sea.” He jerks on my bound hands, and despite my gloves, it hurts. My heart thuds harder, remembering Lucent’s words.
The prince.
He knows I’m a smuggler. He hasn’t turned me in. Would he believe I didn’t kill Lucent? Maybe he would help me.
I stumble forward, tripping over nothing.
The Mercyenforcer’s grip on my ties slips, and I use the moment of distraction to reach my boot, fishing out the blade and hiding it between my hands.
He grabs me again, pulling me along faster to the cell.
I work the blade around so the pointy end is between my wrists.
When we stop in a deathly silent corridor, I glare at the ground, keeping my head down.
In my periphery, he fumbles for keys at his waist. I rotate my wrists out of view, rubbing the sharp metal on the rope.
“Where did your friend go?” I ask, hoping to slow him down. Hoping to buy myself more time.
His brows furrow.
“He took my blade. I want it back.”
He sniggers before picking through the keys, and I rub the rope faster, holding as still as I can.
“Tell me his name at least.” The rope gives a little. “This means nothing to you. I saw you eyeing the stuff they confiscated.”
He freezes. A guess. But half of my customers are Mercyenforcers.
I take a chance and meet his eyes.
The knot at his throat bobs.
I whisper. “I could tell you where there are more Heartfillers. Completely untraceable.”
He finally selects the right key and swallows, hard. I work the blade against the ties aggressively until the rope frays more and the snug hold on my wrists loosens.
“What are you—” He jabs his stinger toward me too late.
I barrel against him, shoving him into the wall, pinning him with my blade at his throat.
He shoves me off him, stronger than I imagined, but I manage to snatch the stinging contraption from him in the scuffle and slam it into his ribs.
He convulses, then stills with his mouth frozen, mid-shout.
The stinger’s bite only lasts so long. I shove two sedative Heartfillers into his chest for good measure, and in seconds his body sags to the floor.
Once I have him inside the cell he was going to put me in, I put my boot blade into my bun, toss the stinger aside, strip off his jacket, and dash down the corridor.
The disguise gets me through the busy underground halls of the palace, but once I make it to the ground level, the world is silent.
I trace my steps back, searching for some sign of servant quarters, kitchens, anywhere there would be another way out of this place.
I skirt a servant bent over a bucket, soaking a rag before rubbing it back and forth across the floor.
“Careful,” he says as I hurry over the wet floor.
But the end of the corridor is more of the same, dark walls, no clear direction.
I grit my teeth and march back to the boy cleaning the floor.
The grieving servant girl seemed to believe me.
Maybe he will too? I blow out a sharp breath, fish a few gold pieces from my sock, and let them tumble to the ground beside his bucket.
“You dropped—” He looks up at me with eyes the color of winter at sea.
And I’m not ready for it. I forget how to breathe, words escaping me.
I hesitate, stepping back instinctually, putting more than three feet between us.
But I can’t look away. His eyes are cold but not empty.
Like stormwater caught in stillness with flecks of soft blue like tiny sunbursts.
The world narrows. Sound dulls. My pulse flutters.
His eyes track my tiniest movements. I shouldn’t be looking at him like this.
I shouldn’t be looking at him at all. He’s a servant, but he is still highborn.
But he stares right back at me as if he doesn’t care about the rule.
He blinks, and it brings me to my senses.
“I, uhm.” My throat is dry. “Where’s the nearest exit?”
He stands, towering over me, unnaturally tall, toned, and strong.
He dries his hands on his pants. White hair cascades down his broad shoulders, shimmering like spun silver down his back.
His tunic is made well but ripped at the shoulder, torn like his fitted pants.
His shoes are fine leather boots with gold laces tied in an odd pattern.
But it is his stare, glinting with scrutiny, that holds my attention.
“And why should I help you?” He messes with the hem of his tunic, staring at me intensely.
“I will pay you.”
He eyes my gloved hands, then my mouth, before crossing his arms. “How much do you have?”
“Those two coins and two dozen more.” Almost all I have. “But you have to escort me to an exit.”
“Show me.”
I remove the gold from my socks and the bottoms of my shoes until my cupped hands are full of all I salvaged from being arrested.
There’s a drawn-out silence before he says, “That’s a lot of gold for Saltblood.”
“How’d you know?”
“I smell it on you.”
“I take that as a compliment.”
Amusement curves his pink lips. “I hoped you would.”
“Do we have a deal?”
He braids a small section of his very long hair, reclined against the wall. He eyes the gold before his gaze falls to the silver ornament at one end of the chastity chain across my mouth. A soft divot forms between his brows. “Does that hurt?”
“No.” As if I would tell him if it did.
He stares at it a beat longer before pinning his crystal eyes on me. This time, I notice flecks of green in them, catching the warm light.