And it helps. For a minute. Maybe.
I follow the usual schedule, the one I’ve developed over the last month of captivity. Wake up. Immediately regret it. Receive breakfast. Lose appetite. Have food taken away. Immediately regret it. Throw water. Immediately regret it. Strip bed linens. Maybe rip up the sheets, sometimes while shouting. Immediately regret it. Attempt to read a book. Stare out window. Stare out window. Stare out window. Receive lunch. Repeat.
I’m a very busy girl.
Or I guess I should say woman.
Eighteen is the arbitrary divide between child and adult. And I turned eighteen weeks ago. November 17. Not that anyone knew or noticed. I doubt the Arvens care that their charge is another year older. Only one person in this prison palace would. And he did not visit, to my relief. It’s the single blessing to my captivity. While I am held here, surrounded by the worst people I’ll ever know, I don’t have to suffer his presence.
Until today.
The utter silence around me shatters, not with an explosion, but with a click. The familiar turn of the door lock. Off schedule, without warrant. My head snaps to the sound, as do the Arvens’, their concentration breaking in surprise. Adrenaline bleeds into my veins, driven by my suddenly thrumming heart. In the split second, I dare to hope again. I dream of who could be on the other side of the door.
My brothers. Farley. Kilorn.
Cal.
I want it to be Cal. I want his fire to consume this place and all these people whole.
But the man standing on the other side is no one I recognize. Only his clothes are familiar—black uniform, silver detailing. A Security officer, nameless and unimportant. He steps into my prison, holding the door open with his back. More of his like gather outside the doorway, darkening the antechamber with their presence.
The Arvens jump to their feet, just as surprised as I am.
“What are you doing?” Trio sneers. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard his voice.
Kitten does as she is trained to do, stepping between me and the officer. Another burst of silence knocks into me, fed by her fear and confusion. It crashes like a wave, eating at the little bits of strength I still have left. I stay rooted in my chair, loath to fall down in front of other people.
The Security officer says nothing, staring at the floor. Waiting.
She enters in reply, in a gown made of needles. Her silver hair has been combed and braided with gems in the fashion of the crown she hungers to wear. I shudder at the sight of her, perfect and cold and sharp, a queen in bearing if not yet title. Because she’s still not a queen. I can tell.
“Evangeline,” I murmur, trying to hide the tremors in my voice, both from fear and disuse. Her black eyes pass over me with all the tenderness of a cracking whip. Head to toe and back again, noting every imperfection, every weakness. I know there are many. Finally her gaze lands on my collar, taking in the pointed metal edges. Her lip curls in disgust, and also hunger. How easy it would be for her to squeeze, to drive the points of the collar into my throat and bleed me bone-dry.
“Lady Samos, you are not permitted to be here,” Kitten says, still standing between us. I’m surprised by her boldness.
Evangeline’s eyes flicker to my guard, her sneer spreading. “You think I would disobey the king, my betrothed?” She forces a cold laugh. “I am here on his orders. He commands the presence of the prisoner at court. Now.”
Each word stings. A month of imprisonment suddenly seems far too short. Part of me wants to grab on to the table and force Evangeline to drag me out of my cage. But even isolation has not broken my pride. Not yet.
Not ever, I remind myself. So I stand on weak limbs, joints aching, hands quivering. A month ago I attacked Evangeline’s brother with little more than my teeth. I try to summon as much of that fire as I can, if only to stand up straight.
Kitten keeps her ground, unmoving. Her head tips to Trio, locking eyes with her cousin. “We had no word. This is not protocol.”
Again Evangeline laughs, showing white, gleaming teeth. Her smile is beautiful and violent as a blade. “Are you refusing me, Guard Arven?” As she speaks, her hands wander to her dress, running perfect white skin through the forest of needles. Bits of it stick to her like a magnet, and she comes away with a handful of spikes. She palms the clinging slivers of metal, patient, waiting, one eyebrow raised. The Arvens know better than to extend their crushing silence to a Samos daughter, let alone the future queen.
The pair of them exchange wordless glances, clearly coming down on either side of Evangeline’s question. Trio furrows his brow, glaring, and finally Kitten sighs aloud. She steps away. She backs down.
“A choice I’ll not forget,” Evangeline murmurs.
I feel exposed before her, alone in front of her piercing eyes despite the other guards and officers looking on. Evangeline knows me, knows what I am, what I can do. I almost killed her in the Bowl of Bones, but she ran, afraid of me and my lightning. She is certainly not afraid now.
Deliberate, I take a step forward. Toward her. Toward the blissful emptiness that surrounds her, allowing her ability. Another step. Into the free air, into electricity. Will I feel it immediately? Will it come rushing back? It must. It has to.
But her sneer bleeds into a smile. She matches my pace, moving back, and I almost snarl. “Not so fast, Barrow.”
It’s the first time she’s ever said my real name.
She snaps her fingers, pointing at Kitten. “Bring her along.”
They drag me like they did the first day I arrived, chained at the collar, my leash tightly grasped in Kitten’s fist. Her silence and Trio’s continue, beating like a drum in my skull. The long walk through Whitefire feels like sprinting miles, though we move at an easy pace. As before, I am not blindfolded. They don’t bother to try to confuse me.
I recognize more and more as we get closer to our destination, cutting down passages and galleries I explored freely a lifetime ago. Back then I didn’t feel the need to sort them. Now I do my best to map the palace in my head. I’ll certainly need to know its layout if I ever plan to get out of here alive. My bedchamber faces east, and it is on the fifth floor; that much I know from counting windows. I remember Whitefire is shaped like interlocking squares, with each wing surrounding a courtyard like the one my room looks out on. The view out the tall, arched windows changes with every new passageway. A courtyard garden, Caesar’s Square, the long stretches of the training yard where Cal drilled with his soldiers, the distant walls and the rebuilt Bridge of Archeon beyond. Thankfully we never pass through the residences where I found Julian’s journal, where I watched Cal rage and Maven quietly scheme. I’m surprised by how many memories the rest of the palace holds, despite my short time here.
We pass a block of windows on a landing, looking west across the barracks to the Capital River and the other half of the city beyond it. The Bowl of Bones nestles among the buildings, its hulking form too familiar. I know this view. I stood in front of these windows with Cal. I lied to him, knowing an attack would come that night. But I didn’t know what it would do to either of us. Cal whispered then that he wished things were different. I share the lament.