Chapter 7
Iglare at the tall fellow in servant’s clothes standing over me, demanding an answer to his question.
The Benevolent’s son. The prince. Scrubbing the floors?
His clothes wouldn’t make sense either if I hadn’t seen the other servants. He is in a simple shirt and fitted pants, without fraying hems. His appear meticulously sewn by hand. His shoes are supple leather, and the ring on his finger gleams like real silver.
I stagger backward, putting distance between the prince and myself.
Caelus Altair, the Son of Tragedy. They say his grandfather died mysteriously before he was born.
Several years later his mother, the Beloved, died too.
The books are full of stories about it. The Benevolent’s only son, who will take his father’s place, keeping the lowborn starving while the Skyborn sit in their steel fortress, well fed.
My fingers find the pointy metal in the back of my hair.
“What happened to Lucent?” His stare pins me in place. He’s dropped the act he had when I stumbled upon him. He steps forward, I step back, feeling for purchase on the tiny blade. I rip the knife from my hair, fisting it, pointing it straight at him.
“Let me out of here.”
He doesn’t move, eyeing my weapon.
“Where is my cousin?”
I am not dying for a crime I didn’t commit.
I jab the sharp metal in his direction, and he dodges, jumping backward.
I dart away from him, circling a giant wooden table in the kitchen.
He watches me with growing irritation. When he comes toward me, I dash toward the servants’ exit.
But as I’m inches from shoving it open, escaping this prison, Caelus’s grip tightens around my wrist.
His touch is a weight of iron through my gloves.
“Let me go!”
He twists my arm backward, firm but gentle, ripping the blade from my hand and throwing it on the ground.
“Axira Merreri,” he whispers in my ear, and my blood goes cold. “Orphanage Nine in Dockers Row. Above Ferdin’s fish counter.”
He’s known who I am this entire time. I try to pull myself free.
“My cousin. Where is he?”
I can’t move. The angle of my arm folded behind me makes it impossible. “He overdosed on fillers. He’s—” I can’t say it. I squeeze my eyes shut. He tried to help me get away.
But Caelus releases me, blinking with a parted mouth somewhere between sadness and shock. He swallows, smoothing his hand on his pants. Then he picks up my blade and hands it to me.
“You believe me.”
He stares at nothing, speechless, his shoulders sagging.
“I know my cousin.” A storm brews in his tortured gaze.
There are tears there. Real tears that he doesn’t hide.
Serafina would be hanged for these kinds of tears.
My father was. I swallow and look away, unsure what to do.
It feels nice to be believed. I glare at the door.
Once I’m outside, would I run to the Citadel walls and try to climb them?
Is there a way to the sewers that way? Caelus is still rocked with emotion, steadying himself on a wall, and I’m suddenly haunted by the memory of my parents.
“How does it feel?” I ask.
“What?”
“How does it feel to hurt for him?” And not hide it.
His gaze dips to my chest, where a Heartfiller would disappear. I’m not allowed to show the feelings he’s having. I’m expected to live as if I can’t feel them. The Heartfillers made it easy. Now…after weeks without one…I’m not sure anything’s easy anymore.
He shakes his head, scraping for words, like he doesn’t know how to answer that.
“They arrested me for murdering Lucent,” I admit.
Caelus shakes off the grief in an instant, like he’s shut it in a vault. “They’ll want you at the bottom of the sea for this.” He pulls himself off the wall.
“I was told I’d get to ask your father for mercy.”
“A formality. He never honors those requests.” Footsteps echo down the hall. “Do you have more Heartfillers?” He glances in the direction of the noise, speaking hurriedly.
“That was my entire supply,” I say.
The footsteps get louder.
“Can you get more?”
“I’d need time.”
Someone joins us in the hall.
Caelus grabs me around the waist and pulls us into a nearby closet, barricading the door shut with his body. The room is so dark I can’t see my hand in front of my face. But I can feel his hold on me. My skin crawls, but the commotion outside the broom closet makes me too nervous to move.
“Be still,” he whispers, and his breath warms my ear, sending a shudder deep into my bones. The longer we stay here, the harder my heart pounds.
“It’s clear,” he says when the voices outside the door are quiet.
I pull away from him, shoving his arms, his body, his scent, all of him away. It’s suffocating. I grope for the handle of the door and ease it open. When we spill out into the corridor, I can breathe again. He stares at me insistently, repeating his question.
“I don’t want any more trouble than I’m already in,” I say.
“Lucent told me to trust him to handle the logistics. I did. I see it was a mistake.” His jaw hardens.
So they were planning something together. “Logistics for what, exactly?” I ask.
“Where do you steal the Heartfillers from?”
I fold my arms. The Heartfillers are my only leverage to get out of here. Without that, I am useless to him.
“You have no idea how much danger you’re in,” Caelus continues. “You should want to cooperate. Outside those servant doors is the second-most secured gate to the Citadel. You would have walked into a dozen Mercyenforcers who are probably looking for you right now.”
“You were about to let me.”
“You can’t be sure what I was about to do, Axira Merreri.”
I move farther away from him.
“You don’t know anything about me,” he says. “All you know is what you see from outside these walls. Pretending like you can handle yourself on your own in the Citadel will get you killed.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s advice.”
He isn’t what I expected.
I glare at him, but he doesn’t flinch, looking at me as if he’s drinking in my gaze like I’m drinking in his. As if this novelty of shared glances between a prince and a Saltblood is making his heart pound harder too.
“I need to look into what you’ve said about my cousin,” he finally says. “Then I’ll decide what I’m going to do with you. For now, you’re coming with me.”
“You’re going to take me to a safe exit like we agreed!” I say.
“No, I never was. But now I’m considering it.”
There is no hint of question in his eyes. He is not asking. I boil with frustration and spot a short blade on his hip. I dash for it, quicker than he can blink, snatching it off his waist and laying it at his throat.
He might be stronger, but I’m faster.
He doesn’t flinch. I glance at the servants’ doors, considering running for it. But he is the only real help I have inside this fortress. He may be my best chance to see Serafina and Miss Omon again and make this mess right.
I press the blade firmer to his neck. “I’ll go with you. But don’t ever think I am your prisoner.” I drop his blade.
He catches it, mirth glinting in his eyes. It threatens to drown me.
Walking beside the prince through the Citadel a little while later, now disguised as a highborn servant, I feel like a piece in some great game I didn’t ask to play.
I changed in the broom closet into a simple highborn dress tied by purple ribbon, which Caelus provided, before grabbing some cleaning supplies.
Then Caelus made me follow him, saying only that, for a time, I’ll need to be “locked away.” My mouth chain is firmly in my hand so I can put it back on the second I get to my cell.
My tongue keeps roving along the inside of my mouth where the chain is missing.
I keep three feet away from him even though he doesn’t insist on it. I have more regard for his father’s rules than he does. I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.
When he starts up the stairs instead of down, I freeze. “But the cells are underground,” I say.
“Mercyenforcers would execute you before sunrise. I need to hide you.”
My pulse picks up. “So where are you taking me?”
“No more talking. Not out here.”
I rope the bucket he gave me more securely onto my arm and keep my head down.
“Highborn don’t keep their eyes down, even the servants,” he whispers after a servant stops to show her respect.
I force myself to look up at her. We reach double doors, and I realize he has taken me to his bedroom.
I widen the distance between us. But he pushes the door open, stepping aside to allow me in first. A nutty smell hits me.
I hesitate, tipping forward on my toes to peek first. There is a small bed in the corner and very few furnishings. The single window, however, has a breathtaking view of the sea. It makes my heart ache thinking of home. Serafina is probably so worried. I need to get word to them that I’m okay.
“Go on.” Caelus watches both directions in the corridor.
I step inside, padding lightly, terrified this could be another prison. Or that trusting him could be a prison of another kind. When I spin to face Caelus to demand to know when he’ll be back, the door shuts in my face. Then, it locks.
I set the bucket down, trying to slow my thudding pulse.
I’m dressed like a servant. Mercyenforcers are hunting for me.
I should be in a cell; I should be shoved off a cliff.
I touch the scratchy bedsheet on Caelus’s bed, searching for meaning with my bare fingers.
I’ve slept on softer linen. When I imagined life in the Citadel, this isn’t what I pictured.
The sky outside has dimmed, only a faint glow of daylight left.
And Caelus still hasn’t returned. Curiosity bites at me, wondering what he was plotting with Lucent.
I search every corner of the room, pull open each of the few pieces of furniture, look under every surface, including flipping the mattress.
I even shake out the single blanket folded on a chair.
There isn’t one personal effect in this room.
There aren’t any clothes or shoes. No regalia.
This can’t be where he actually lives.
There is a mirror on the wall. It’s slightly crooked. Suspiciously crooked. I push the mirror slightly, carefully. It shifts. I push again, harder. It drags along the wall, sliding aside, making too much noise. There is something behind it.
But the lock on the door clicks, and I restraighten the mirror quickly as Caelus strides in, glancing behind him warily.
“Why do you live like this?” I ask.
But Caelus crosses the room without looking at me, his posture sagging. He is deflated, a shell of what he was like earlier. He must have seen Lucent’s body.
“It is unfortunate what happened to your cousin,” I say.
“I don’t need sympathy.” He notices the crooked mirror and straightens it, chin sliding over his shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to be short. I…I just meant, we don’t need to talk about that.
He’s gone.” He can grieve. He doesn’t want to.
But he is right. The only thing he needs from me are Heartfillers.
And the only thing I need from him is a way out of this place.
Still, I burn with a need to understand. He is risking a lot.
“What are you after?” I ask.
“We don’t have much time. My father knows about the Mercyenforcer you hurt.”
“Why are you helping me?” I lower my voice. “Why are you betraying your father?”
“He is the ruler of Ethyria,” he says, adjusting the ring on his finger. “Only someone careless would think of betraying the Benevolent.”
“Or someone who thinks the benefit outweighs the risk.”
“Axira, what I am doing is none of your concern.”
“So you are doing something?” I ask, and he drifts across the room to the mirror instead of answering right away. Then, he says, “Look, I think I can get you out of here if you can deliver a barrel of Heartfillers to me in three days.”
“What happens in three days?” I ask, then I realize. “The tournament.”
“We had a plan.” He looks beyond me.
“To disrupt the tournament?”
“To prevent it from happening at all.”
“Why do you care about the tournament?” I find the entire thing disgusting.
It’s downright embarrassing that people beg to prove they’re worthy of citizenship just so they can experience true love at the feet of the man who could feed our entire district and heal all our sick with the snap of his fingers.
But that’s just me. How does taking the tournament away hurt anyone other than the lowborn who could have won?
“Now that it’s happening whether we like it or not, I just need a way to get…” His eyes narrow. “You are persistent. My cousin was right. No more about the tournament. I also need to know how the Heartfillers affect Skyborn.”
Skyborn…
Using Heartfillers…
He touches his chest. “My cousin wouldn’t let me see him when he was using.” He is pacing his room now. “Axira?”
“Get what? What in the world are you planning?”
He sighs, exasperated. “Can you get a hundred or so Heartfillers in three days or not? I need an answer now.”
“Then you need to tell me everything. This is my life. You’re the Prince of Ethyria; the risks for us are not the same.
” I’ve slipped the Mercyenforcers once; my luck won’t last forever.
If I’m going to get medicine back home for Serafina and eventually put us on a ship to get off this island, I can’t tempt fate.
There is more desperation in his eyes than frustration, but I don’t have the privilege to care.
He staggers his stance, folding his arms across his broad chest. He wants something from the tournament.
It’s something his father either possesses or doesn’t want him to have.
And he wants it badly enough to hide me here and defy his father.
“I can’t tell you any more,” he says. “I’ve already said too much. Will you do it? Yes or no?” There is an iciness to him that wasn’t there before he locked me in this room.
I can feel my hold on this chance slipping.
I’d have to steal from several storehouses guarded with Mercyenforcers in my district.
Three days is not a lot of time. “I need more of a guarantee. You have to get me medicine before I leave to collect them. And you must promise to get me out of Skyhaven and onto a ship safely after I’ve delivered them. ”
“Medicine? Are you ill?”
“It’s not for me.”
“I can’t guarantee you anything but gold.”
“Then take your gold and shove it up your ass.” I’ll find my way out of this prison and off this forsaken island myself. I storm past him and push the door open—to where Dreth, the head Mercyenforcer, is standing.
“There she is,” he says.
My heart stops.
“I found her in here, searching my room,” Caelus says.
Liar! I reach for my blade too late. Dreth grabs me, binding my wrists. The last thing I see is Caelus subtly shaking his head at me.