31
I’ve heard people say that if you lose one of your senses, then the others become sharper but as I stand with my eyes closed, it feels as if my hearing has gone too. Everyone’s words flow into each other until I can barely distinguish between their voices. Somehow, it doesn’t seem to matter as I feel the blade removed from my neck and I am half-dragged, half-carried away. Through everything, I keep my eyes clamped shut. I try to ignore the pain in my shoulder and my arms until the sensation becomes almost pleasant. It’s hard to describe but it’s like my body is focusing so much on the stinging in my shoulder that the rest of me has been freed from feeling anything. Someone hits me low in my back but I don’t even flinch and I certainly don’t open my eyes. Someone, perhaps the same person, pinches the back of my neck but all I recognise is the material of their gloves; I don’t make a sound and I don’t open my eyes.
The voices from before quickly disappear with the clang of what I assume is the hall’s main door and then everything comes rushing back. Suddenly I can hear every echoing footstep, each sound of a sword blade brushing against borodron. The rhythmic nature is almost soothing as I breathe in to smell my own coppery blood. Somehow even that doesn’t faze me. It is as if my body parts have switched off but, at the same time, I am utterly aware of what is happening to me.
Stomp, stomp, stomp. Rattle, rattle, rattle. The sound of a scanner, the swish of a door. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Rattle, rattle, rattle. The sound of a scanner, the clang of a door.
Then the slow pulse of water dripping somewhere close to me.
I open my eyes gradually, allowing them to adjust to the dim singular shaft of overhead light and the overall darkness. As I squint and stare around, the distant corners are too dark, so instead I focus on the space immediately close to me.
Despite the strange mix of old and new that I have grown up in, I’m not sure if I have ever been in a place more ancient than where I am now. The ground is hard stone, with small piles of straw dumped haphazardly around the enclosure I am in. If I were to lie on the floor, the space is perhaps my height and a half wide. On two sides there is a thick stone wall which feels damp to touch and leaves a sticky wet residue on my hand. At the bottom there are small crusted patches where pieces of straw have clung to the water and formed a sort of paste that has dried out and become wet over and over. On the other two sides are thick bars of heavy metal that stretch from the floor to the ceiling and are tightly packed so I can barely reach one of my skeletal arms through.
I can see other cells adjacent and opposite mine. There are perhaps seven or eight in total, with a row of stone steps in the centre that lead to a sliding door, where I can see the faint outline of a borodron scanner that seems utterly out of place compared to the rest of the room.
If Imrin’s map was still of any concern, then I would at least now be able to add the dungeon to it.
‘Hello?’
A voice resonates around the stone walls but it is much more of a croak than his usual voice.
‘Hart?’
‘Silver?’
‘Yes, it’s me. Are you all right?’
In the cell at the far end from me, I can see the faint shape of someone pressed up against the bars. There are at least two cells in between us but I mirror his pose, hoping he can see me.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.
I tell him about the tunnels, the map and Imrin. He sounds stunned by the passageways and says that as far as he knows, nobody discovered the boys’ one when he was living there. There is the very real possibility, of course, that the secret exits have been found many times over the years, simply that no one has known what to do with that adjoining corridor and so they have stayed quiet.
‘Why did he go to the Minister Prime?’ Hart asks, sounding tired.
‘I suppose he thought it was the best thing he could do.’
Hart is angry on my behalf. ‘For himself. Look at what he’s done to everyone else.’
I stay silent as the feeling slowly begins to return to my shoulder, which causes the knock-on effect of the rest of my body starting to feel the aches and bumps from the way the Kingsmen hurt me.
‘You know they’re going to kill us, don’t you?’ Hart says.
‘Surely we’ve known that since we found out what being an Offering actually meant?’
‘Yes, but they’ll do it in front of the others. They’ll have us fight each other, force one of us to kill the other just to watch us agonise over it, and then kill the other anyway. I’ve seen it before.’
I feel a calm I’m not sure I should. In many ways, the way he has described it sounds almost a relief – this will finally be over.
‘Your advice about being plain and blending in was perfect,’ I say. ‘But it was never going to work for me in the end. Imrin told me to be the tortoise but I’ve always been that hare, racing into things.’
Hart doesn’t reply. I know the reference is lost on him but it feels nice to admit to myself.
‘It’s no way to live, though, is it?’ he eventually says. ‘I told you what to do despite hating myself for it. Each day you set out to be as unspectacular as you possibly can. You call men you despise “Sir”, you do what you’re told without question, you turn a blind eye and tell yourself that what you see happening around you isn’t what it is. At least you had a go …’
Drip, drip, drip.
‘You had a go too,’ I remind him. ‘You told me what was on the Minister Prime’s thinkpad and then took the blame for me.’
Hart starts to speak but it turns into a ferocious deep cough that he can’t control. I ask if he is okay but I don’t think he even hears me. It is minutes before he manages to calm himself again.
‘Not much use now, is it?’ he finally says.
‘Your mum and dad would be proud that you put yourself in the firing line to try to help everyone else.’
Drip, drip, drip.
I wonder if Hart has fallen asleep; his last words sounded tired. As I am trying to bundle the straw together in an attempt to make something faintly approaching a bed, he finally replies.
‘What do you think will happen to them?’
It’s a question that has no easy answer. What should I say? That Kingsmen could already be on their way now to capture and torture Hart’s parents until he tells the truth about what he was doing in the Minister Prime’s office?
‘I think they’ll be just fine.’
It sounds like the right thing to say but I have no idea if he believes that any more than I believe my mother and Colt will be okay. I remember Opie’s final promise to me that he would look after them.
‘Do you want to hear a story?’
Hart’s voice cuts through the rapidly decreasing temperature. I can hear the shiver in his tone, the same one I am feeling through my body. I bundle more straw together in an attempt to make myself warm, stretching into the adjoining cell and pulling through any extra material that I can reach. In the aftermath of everything that has happened, his offer seems beautifully surreal.
‘I’d love to.’
‘What would you like to hear about?’
‘Tell me about home.’
I bury myself in the straw, ignoring the stench of everyone else who has lain in this place before. The thought that Lumin may have been here crosses my mind and perhaps I was hoping he might still be around. Instead, it is just me and Hart.
‘I know we were never really friends, but I’ve known your mum my whole life,’ Hart says, as the mere mention of her brings a lump to my throat that surpasses any pain I am feeling in my shoulder. ‘When I was a kid, I was forever getting into scraps and scrapes and damaging my clothes. My mum would shout at me and then call yours over to help. They would sit together, chatting away while my trousers and shirts got stitched back together.’
The straw makes me feel surprisingly cosy and within moments of closing my eyes, I am in Hart’s living room in front of the fire listening to our parents gossiping.
‘What do they talk about?’
Hart laughs, but that leads into another cough before he continues. ‘Mainly about us! Your mum would say how she couldn’t keep track of you because you were always off making a nuisance of yourself. She’d ask if I knew anything but we didn’t hang around with the same people.’
My back and ribs hurt but I can’t stop myself from laughing. ‘How old would I have been?’
‘Maybe nine or ten? I remember this one time at the end of summer and she came knocking on our door. She asked if any of us had seen you because you’d been out all day. We hadn’t but she was looking a little upset, so me and my dad went out to help look for you. We were calling your name but there was no response and then it started raining. It wasn’t those little showers we get, but huge thick dollops of the stuff. I remember my dad’s face because he looked at me as if to say we were mad being out in this weather. Neither of us wanted to leave your mum though. She was still knocking on doors and then … you were just there. You were wandering down the main street soaked to the skin with a huge grin on your face. That white piece of hair of yours was stuck in front of one of your eyes and I remember there was this smudge of dirt on your cheek. Your mum started running …’
‘I remember …’
‘And she just grabbed you.’
‘She was shouting at me for being late. I’d been in the woods messing around and lost track of time. It got dark really late and it was only then I realised …’
‘… how late it was. I know. But you were so bemused at why she was there. She was hugging you and shouting and I just remember you looking over at me as if to say, “What’s going on?”’
‘That’s pretty much what I was thinking.’
‘But that’s how I’ll always remember you; that drowned girl with the silver streak of hair stuck to her face being simultaneously hugged and shouted at. When I first saw you being shown around the castle, I couldn’t quite remember the name but as soon as you told me, I was back on the street that day.’
I try to say thank you but cannot get the words out. The lump in my throat has grown but my tears are now of love and happiness, rather than pain.
‘Silver …’
I swallow hard and force back any more tears. ‘Yes?’
‘If we are made to hurt each other tomorrow, do what you have to. I’m not going to fight back.’
‘It won’t come to that.’
Drip, drip, drip.
‘It might.’
The cold bites across my face, gnawing at my skin as a breeze skims through from somewhere I don’t know. I tug at the straw until it is covering every part of me except for my mouth, although my lips are beginning to freeze.
‘Trust me,’ I say. ‘Tomorrow is going to be a bit different to what you think.’