Chapter 8
It’s dark when Dreth leads me to a courtyard where a servant waits.
“You’re filthy,” he says as I’m stripped bare—starting with my gloves.
Dreth yanks at the ties of my dress roughly until they give.
The stiff fabric clings to my body, so he slips his bare hands inside, fingers cold on my shoulder, and wrenches me free of it.
The dress collapses around my ankles. The Heartfillers I stowed in my bust fall to the ground and are kicked away.
It feels like a blow. Dreth doesn’t stop.
He peels away my underdress next, dragging me out of it, limb by naked limb.
Each layer feels like being flayed, as if pieces inside me are being ripped away.
Every touch feels like a scrub brush being dragged across my skin.
Like he’s determined to scrape off the armor that’s held me together for eighteen years.
Like he’s not undressing me, but unmaking me, preparing me for something worse than punishment.
I shiver beneath the gazes, tempted to cover every part of me their eyes drink in. I refuse them any satisfaction and stand taller. The last thing he takes is the chain in my fist, ripping it from my fingers.
The rest of his guards watch as the maid hoses me down, right there, in front of everyone.
I spit on him.
One of Dreth’s orderlies steps forward. The back of his hand cracks across my cheek, fast. My head snaps sideways. For a second, everything goes quiet inside me. Then, it stings like fire licking across my face and busted lip.
This is what happens when you fight back.
“Finish getting her ready,” Dreth says as one of his men hangs a number around my neck. Eight.
“Ready,” I say between swelling lips. “Ready for what?”
They ignore me. The washmaiden scrubs me with a rough brush until my skin is red. She pulls down my long hair and takes scissors to it, slashing it just below my shoulders. “Gets caught in the rope,” she says.
“What rope?”
She rinses me with sudsy water once more, and it feels like my skin is on fire.
Then, she dresses me in linen before handing me back to Dreth, who takes me from the courtyard to an open-air cell that is not underground, but outside.
A hard, thin mattress is on the cold ground.
Mercyenforcers are stationed all around.
“When do I get to plead to the Benevolent for mercy?” I ask.
“You’ve been prepared for sentencing.” Dreth’s finger bounces off the number tag slung around my neck. “Eighth in line.” Then he turns to go.
“Come back!” I shout. “Please.”
He leaves, taking every dreg of hope I have with him.
I pace in the small prison. Serafina’s medicine, Miss Omon, the ship.
We were supposed to be sailing away by nightfall.
They are worried sick, I know. Serafina probably can’t sleep.
Nichol will be scared. He is brave, but he needs reminders.
He forgets. Then there’s Miss Omon, whose worst fear is about to come true—they’re going to execute me.
They’re going to end me. No more questions.
No more wondering. Eighteen is all the years this Saltblood gets.
A tear drips onto my bare hand. I rub the moisture between my fingers, feeling the strangeness of it. It makes me think of my mother. What would she say to me now? My mother who warned me, endlessly, of going against the tide.
I sit, hugging my knees, trying to imagine a way this ends differently.
But there is no way out of here. Caelus turned me over to them, acting like I’d snuck into his room.
But I don’t believe he is tricking me. He has been too honest. His grief over Lucent is too real.
And he has no other way to get Heartfillers.
He needs me alive. If he doesn’t come for me, I’ll need all my strength.
I force myself to lie down. Maybe I can still outsmart them. Eyes closed, I beg sleep to come. But the groaning cries from prisoners one through seven keep me up until sunrise.
Caelus is the first face I see in the morning, and my shoulders slump, the tightness trying to leave my body. He is escorted by two Mercyenforcers, neither of them Dreth. His hair is pulled behind him in a braid; wavy, wispy tendrils frame his face.
“She’s not in proper court attire, sir,” one guard says. “Are you sure—”
“Bring her, now,” he says. “Straight to the Benevolent.”
“Caelus.” My voice is scratchy.
He shakes his head, subtly again, like he did yesterday. His eyes are a different shade of blue today, darker. The creases around them make him look very tired. He shakes his head again, this time more noticeably, and I realize it is a message.
Comply.
Go along with whatever this plan is.
“Hands?” The Mercyenforcers wait for my wrists to bind them. One of their weapons is in my reach. I could try to steal it and run. Get as far as I can and hide until I can figure out a way out of this maze. Or I can trust the prince.
I stretch my bare arms out to the guard, feeling so exposed. “My gloves, I need my gloves. And my chain.”
Caelus’s eyes don’t leave me, specifically my swollen lip. He gestures at someone. A maiden hands me a fresh pair of touching gloves. I slip them on, and the knot in my chest unravels some.
The walk through the Citadel is meandering and feels too short.
When we arrive in the grand room with its granite pillars and stone statues, my heart knocks into my ribs.
I feel small. Insignificant. The throne encrusted in crystals is empty.
The Benevolent is not here. There is a smaller golden seat with lush cushions beside the throne that wasn’t there before.
“I’ll take her,” Caelus tells the Mercyenforcers, grabbing the restraints tied to my wrists. The guards disperse themselves around the room.
“I’ve gotten your chance to ask my father for mercy to be reinstated,” he says. “Follow my lead.”
A million questions race through my mind. But the only one that comes out is “Why?”
“My cousin convinced me that a smuggler on Dockers Row was more ruthless and determined than anyone. He died for that belief. I’m not willing to throw you away just yet.”
Caelus leads me to the center of the throne room where a small audience has formed.
Mercyenforcers keep their stingers in hand instead of at their waist. There are guards on either side of the room by the side exits and several at the rear exit.
There are no Mercyenforcers on the dais—where the two thrones are still empty.
But there is a door behind the largest one.
About forty steps away.
Thirty, if I run…
Caelus unties me. “Gaze down for your Benevolent,” he says, loud enough for everyone to hear.
I cross my hands meekly and glare at the floor until the doors open. The Benevolent enters, and everyone rises. His heels clack on the polished stone. I keep my head down.
“Axira Merreri of the Saltblood district.” His voice is oddly warm and soothing. “You may look at me, Axira.”
He is much smaller than his portrait suggests.
His uniform is decorated with medals and very tidy.
But his eyes are just as hollow as they are in the painting above him.
The strangest thing about him is his slight smile.
His lips bow up just enough to make his mouth look permanently fixed in a slight grin, his cheeks pulled back.
It doesn’t dim or brighten. It stays just like that, on the edge of a mocking smirk.
“Who damaged her face?” the Benevolent asks.
No one moves.
“Should I ask again?”
“I—I did, sir.” A Mercyenforcer steps forward. “She, uh, spit on Commander Dreth.”
The Benevolent studies me. “And if you were locked in a cage away from everything that mattered to you, about to be led to your death, wouldn’t you want to spit on someone too?”
He shuffles on his feet. “I suppose so, sir.”
“She was only responding as she naturally could: with anger and desperation.” The ambitious gleam in the Benevolent’s eyes sends a shiver up my spine. “Caelus.”
The prince gestures at a Mercyenforcer in the back of the room, who then marches forward to stand beside the man who hurt me.
The Mercyenforcer lays his palm on his chest, across his heart, rigidly still.
A beat passes.
The room is silent.
I tense at what’s coming.
Then, the random guard pummels the man who hurt me across the face.
He falls to his knees, lips bloody. The pounding doesn’t stop. I watch him fold into a beaten pulp on the ground, unable to look away. Dreth watches, unmoved.
“Does it feel good to see that?” the Benevolent asks me.
“I don’t feel much of anything,” I say.
His smile flickers. “You were off to sentencing, but my son says you can be of use to the Citadel. Before we get into that, I know you did not kill my nephew. His weakness did. Lucent was always a tortured boy, scared of what he could be under my guidance. You have to surrender to fate, Axira. Not fight it. I’ve issued an edict.
No charges will be held against you. At least not for that. ”
My heart stops. “Then why am I being sentenced?”
“The Mercyenforcer who you left to rot in your cell nearly died of the Heartfiller double dose. Murder of a Citadel servant is a serious offense, Axira Merreri. And as I have just demonstrated, I am a just ruler.”
There is nothing just about letting people in the districts die when you could save them.
“What was that?”
Did I say that out loud? “Nothing. I said nothing.”
“You are a bad liar,” he says. “That is a good quality in a candidate for mercy. Son?”
“She can work off her sentence as a servant, here,” Caelus says, avoiding looking in my direction at all. “That would hone any talents she does have into something we can use. She’s skilled. Killing her is a waste.” He was icy earlier. Now he is unrecognizable, pure steel.
“She’s a thief,” the Benevolent says. “She’s stolen thousands of Heartfillers if my reports are correct.”
Caelus doesn’t flinch. “Yes, but an honest one. Her pride won’t let her lie.”
“Her pride. Ah, yes, pride is useful. There is no greater patriot than a prideful one. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
” The Benevolent leans forward, eyeing me like I’m something he could devour in a single bite, but he prefers to play with his food instead.
“So you want to be a servant here?” The question is addressed to me.
Caelus watches me closely, and I can feel him willing me to agree.
“I don’t,” I say, unwilling to lie. I can’t be trapped here. If that’s Caelus’s plan to get me out of this, no thanks. I will find another way. “Like Caelus said, I’m prideful.”
The room explodes into chatter. Caelus pales.
Agreeing to a sentence of servitude won’t get me off this island, but twisting the leverage I have over the prince will.
He wants something from the tournament. He made that clear.
I can get inside the tournament and smuggle out whatever it is that Caelus wants. Then, he will have to give me a ship.
“I want to enter the Tournament of Hearts,” I call over the din. “Let me prove I’m worthy of being here freely. If I don’t win, then sentence me for my crime. You have nothing to lose.”
“Ha!” The Benevolent beams, slapping the arms of his chair. “A true patriot. It is done.” He signals for the horns to blow. Revelry rings out from the halls, trumpets sounding in celebration. “Ready her for the early festivities that kick off tomorrow. And fix her face.”
I’ve just signed my life away. Now, I just have to convince Caelus to take my deal.