Chapter 12
The room is unnervingly still once Jonas is gone, and I rest for a moment on the too-soft bed.
I’m so used to the constant noises of the slums: the hustle and bustle, the cries of children continuing well into the night, the drunken bellows of those lucky enough to afford drink to lose themselves in, and the quiet murmurs of prayers from those who are desperate to believe that this will not be their fate.
Here, there’s nothing, and I miss the reassurance of Kay’s steady presence beside me, even if she does snore.
I can hear muted footsteps below me, Rettlings talking softly and moving around.
But there are no screams or cries. With nothing to break the quiet, it reminds me of a mausoleum. The thought isn’t a reassuring one.
I heave myself off the bed and turn to my bags.
With Jonas having emptied the wardrobe, there’s more than enough room for me to place my own belongings inside, and given the quality of the robes Dinah gifted me, it only seems right to hang them up.
As my fingers run over the silks and furs, I think again of Kay. Has Artur fetched her yet?
If not Artur, then Ruben will surely have her, I reassure myself, trying to push the anxiety down.
Once the clothes are hanging, I need to work out what to do with the satchel and the rest of the items. There’s a drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe, but there’s no key for the lock. What I need is somewhere secure. Somewhere hidden.
I turn on the spot, taking in the brick walls and wooden floorboards.
Everyone has things they want to hide, and I suspect the guard who usually bunks here isn’t any different.
I start to tap my foot along the floor, hoping to hear the hollow sound of a hidden compartment, even moving the bed to check beneath it.
When I’ve no luck with the floor, I move on to the wall, tapping the bricks and dragging the only chair around with me so I can try the highest corners.
I feel myself growing more and more despondent with each fruitless knock, and I’m just about to give up when I remember the bathroom.
As though led by a guiding hand, I move straight to the sink and tap the tiles below it.
My ears are met with a crisp echo, and a minute later I’ve prized off the white tile and found a decently sized gap behind it.
It’s not quite big enough for the entire satchel, but it’s large enough to slide in several bags of the rarer seeds Dinah gave me, not to mention the two smaller daggers I found while going through the rest of the bag.
For the copper-hilted one, I take one of the straps from the bag, wrap it around my thigh, and sheath the dagger into place.
I’m sure the other Rettlings will have properly crafted holsters for their weapons, but this works perfectly well, and the incident with Zara has taught me not to go anywhere unprotected.
With my limited belongings away and secure, I drop onto the bed, only for my stomach to growl.
Loudly. Korvane’s balls never used to begin until the sun had set, and I don’t expect this one will be any different, which means it will likely be hours and hours until I get to eat unless I go find something for myself.
Though before I leave, there’s one other thing I want to do …
I head into the bathroom, strip off, and start the shower. The steam billows off the water and I step beneath the spray with a happy sigh, which quickly dissipates as the hot water hits the burned skin on my thigh. I wince but persevere.
After, as I dress in a pair of clean trousers and a plain brown top – standard colour choices for the slums as they hide the dirt – I note just how gaunt my face is and how pale my complexion. The sooner I put some more weight on, the better. And hopefully, that’s going to start now.
Grateful that I don’t have to go back past all the other doors, I take my rickety metal staircase down to where it meets the sturdier stone steps beneath it and continue descending.
The staircase opens at the far end of the hall I saw earlier, which is still empty of both staff and Rettlings.
I assume the kitchen workers have been summoned to the king’s quarters to prepare for tonight’s feast and that I’ll be able to sneak in and grab something to eat without being seen, but as I take the first steps towards the kitchen, a sound stops me.
There are people talking. Or, more specifically, laughing.
My heart drums a fraction faster as I listen in, trying to recognise the voices – not that it’s likely I will, unless it’s Jonas’s, of course – but I quickly realise that isn’t the case.
My stomach growls again, and I reach down and feel the dagger on my thigh.
I was a damn good fighter fourteen years ago – for a nine-year-old – but one blade and rusty skills aren’t going to cut it against the full magic and strength of several well-trained Rettlings.
Deciding it’s probably best to avoid any kind of confrontation for now, I turn on my heel.
After all, it’ll hardly be the first time I’ve gone hungry.
A rich male voice rises from behind me, stopping me again. From his accent, I’m fairly sure he hails from the Eastern Isles. ‘You don’t need to go. We’re not a threat. I promise.’
‘And there are pastries,’ a woman adds, her accent also from the Eastern Isles. ‘Good pastries.’
I remain where I am, still undecided about what I’m going to do.
Zara made it very clear that I shouldn’t go into this thinking I can trust people, but Jonas’s comment about alliances is still fixed in my mind.
He implied he was willing to work with me, but implied doesn’t mean agreed.
And even if we do work together, it’s still just the two of us.
As impressive as his power is, it’s not going to inflict damage the way a flame-wielder could.
Which is why, despite the hammering in my chest, I turn back and take the last few steps towards the kitchen, where a group of five – four men and one woman – are sitting around a table.
Just like they said, there is a platter of pastries between them, and my eyes feel as though they’re bugging from my head at the sight of the glazed delicacies.
The sugar is so thick it’s practically sparkling, and I’m not even sure what all the fruits on top are.
They don’t make things like this in the slums.
‘Come and join us,’ the woman says as she pushes the platter towards me. ‘Don’t worry. You won’t find any fans of Zara and the Rowell crew in here.’
‘She killed one of us yesterday.’ The one who speaks looks like the youngest. I know he has to be at least eighteen to even be here, but he looks younger than Kay.
His sandy-blond hair is tousled, his olive cheeks pale, and his eyes torn with grief.
‘Suan. Zara decided she was another runt.’ His voice is bitter, and I don’t blame him.
An enemy of my enemy though … I approach the group with a little less trepidation. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I take a seat at the end of the bench, a short way away from the only female of the group. ‘May Mortidem hold her gifts with grace.’
‘Thank you. We appreciate that.’ The one who speaks this time isn’t the biggest; that position is held by the boulder of a man at the end of the table who hasn’t so much as glanced at me as he’s too busy shovelling food into his mouth, but he has an air of distinction about him.
His skin is dark, his curly black hair cropped close to his head, and he sits with an impressively straight posture as he stretches out a hand to me. ‘Benny.’
‘Rose,’ I respond, taking his hand briefly.
‘Llinos.’ The brunette woman introduces herself next, pronouncing the first sound of her name with a liquid noise somewhere between a ‘c’ and an ‘l.’
‘Sorry, did you say Clinos?’ Better to ask now than still be pronouncing it wrong in a week’s time.
‘Llinos,’ she repeats with that same c-l combination. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.’ She winks at me, freckles scattering across olive skin as her hazel eyes gleam with mischief.
‘Coulter,’ the youngest one names himself.
The fourth man at the table is much older than the others, with grey hair and skin a remarkably similar colour, but as he merely nods at me and mumbles inaudibly, I’m none the wiser as to his name.
As for the boulder man, who looks a good decade older than the rest of them, he doesn’t even bother acknowledging me. A friendly sort, then.
‘It was definitely an unwelcome start to this thing,’ Llinos says, presumably talking about what happened with Suan. ‘I was hoping I could get through this entire Retterheld without having to kill anybody. But I guess that was wishful thinking.’
‘There was one Retterheld five hundred years ago, where everyone made it through to the start of the Ofur – the final challenge. They all just worked together.’
‘I heard about that one too,’ I add. ‘I was kind of hoping it would be like that this time, but that was wishful thinking. If I didn’t have a target on my back before, I definitely have one now.’
‘It’s safe to say you made quite an impression.
’ Benny’s response isn’t exactly comforting, though his smile is soft and genuine.
‘Nice trick, by the way. What was that you threw to start the fire? Looked like some kind of glass orb. Magic-infused, I take it?’ His question is casual, but a ripple of fear fills me.
I was hoping to fool the others into thinking I had at least some magic for at least the first trial.
‘Who said I threw anything?’ I try to appear relaxed despite the prickling down the back of my neck.
‘Benny’s gift is sight-related,’ Llinos explains. ‘He can slow down what he sees and take in all the details. You won’t get anything past him. Super annoying when we played hide-and-seek as kids.’
‘Wow, I’ve never heard of anything like that before.’