Wren jerked to her feet in an instant, looking down at the water that was filling her cell. It rose with the tide every day, but this was the highest it had been. Even now, as she watched it, the water climbed farther and farther inside, until after a minute, it was around her calves. Her mind flashed back to the man-eating fish. She needed to get out of the water now.
“What do we do?” she called to the bard.
“Climb, climb, climb!”
She glanced in his direction. It was almost completely impossible to see him in the darkness of deep night, but she tracked the sound of his movements and realized he was higher up than her.
“High, up high, as if it were the sky,” the boy sang at her, his shadow clinging to the metal grate of the cell walls. “Fish do not fly, do they? That would be a sight to see!”
Wren did not need to hear the riddle twice. Without another thought, she scrambled up the bars on her left, climbing up and up until she was out of the water. But it wasn’t high enough; in five minutes the water reached her toes, so she climbed even higher.
“Do they mean for us to die?” she fired at the boy. “What is this madness?”
“I’d make a good corpse if I am dead,” was all the boy said, in lieu of a real answer.
He had been through this before and he was still alive. But not completely sane. Had night after night like this driven him into madness?
She could believe it.
Already, her muscles were beginning to ache with the effort of clinging to the bars. There was nowhere for her to lean her weight against, so the only thing that was keeping her out of the water was pure strength. Which wasn’t great, considering the terrible, insubstantial meals the guards had been feeding her, and the previous injuries she had sustained in battle.
Yet, clinging onto the bars was all Wren could do. If she fell into the water, she would be dead.
“How long does it last?” she barked. Silence. “How long does this last?” she demanded louder. Silence answered her once more. The little rascal chose now to be quiet?
Wren glared in his direction, listening to the silence. Well, not complete silence. Her eyes rounded. The blasted boy was snoring. She couldn’t believe it. How the devil was he sleeping?
“You’re mad,” she grumbled.
After what felt like forever but could, in fact, have been mere minutes—time passed as slow as a glacier—Wren’s eyes began to grow heavy, and she jolted herself awake several times. Panic and sheer adrenaline were the only things stopping her from falling to her doom. But it was getting harder and harder to keep herself up, and, with every passing minute, she felt her fingers and her toes and her knees trying to give way. The metal bit into her fingers and toes, cutting off the blood circulation.
You’re going to fall.
It was inevitable.
Wren hung on for as long as she could. Her fingers cramped as her foot slipped. She crashed, spraying water everywhere. Water covered her face and she jerked upward, breaking the surface. She screamed as the water lapped at her neck with her sitting there. Wren scrambled to her feet, the canal water at her midthigh. Her muscles quivered as she tried and failed to climb the bloody cell wall again.
Panic swirled in her gut. How long did she have until the fish attacked?
She glanced at the canal as a spine broke through the surface of the water.
What the devil was that?
That is no small fish.
Wren clung to the bars when yellow, catlike eyes gleamed at her from beneath the small waves that her fall into the water had created. Her jaw dropped.
Is that…?
Wren could scarcely comprehend it. In a dungeon, in Verlanti? It seemed impossible.
But it wasn’t.
Swimming in front of Wren was a water dragon.
16
Arrik
His father was up to something.
The Verlantian navy had suffered heavy casualties during the battle near the Lorne capital. The king was a prideful man who took any mishap to be a personal affront to him. It was never his fault, but he always found someone to blame and punish. That was usually Arrik.
Or it had been, until he’d stopped making mistakes the king could trace back to him.
They’d lost too many ships for Arrik to sweep under the rug and his father hadn’t said a bloody thing about the losses. Something wasn’t right and it made him uneasy. His father was a mercurial creature but he had a pattern of behavior that Arrik had figured out years prior. The fact that it was changing now unsettled him.
“Brother!”
Arrik scowled in the dark and slowly turned around. It was better he faced his second eldest brother Cathal than try to outrun him, lest he find a knife in his face. In all truth, Arrik was older than Cathal and Ares, but the king had his birth date changed. No one knew Arrik was really the first born and if he wanted to keep living, it would stay that way.
Cathal sauntered up to him, a woman clinging to each of his arms. He smiled maliciously, flashing crooked teeth. Arrik rested his left hand on the pommel of his sword and braced himself. Dealing with his brother was like trying to dance with a viper. Dumb and extremely hazardous for one’s health.
“Brother,” he greeted, barely keeping the sarcasm from his voice. His half-brothers had never acted like true family. Cathal had sent a minimum of five assassins after Arrik throughout the years. He’d learned a few tricks. His brothers liked to rile him and cause mischief, so he did the exact opposite. He’d learned to master his control and never attacked outright. Arrik learned how to pull the strings from the shadows.
“I heard you visited your mother’s grave today,” his brother commented.
“I did.” He knew where this was going. The rat.
“Did you know,” Cathal continued conversationally, glancing at each of the women hanging on him, “That our precious Arrik’s mother killed herself on this day five years ago?” The woman with sable skin and black hair glanced at Arrik in sympathy but stayed silent when Cathal chuckled. “She lived life in luxury with everything a person could want. My father even buried her in the family tombs despite her disgrace.”
Arrik kept his temper in check even though he wanted to punch the drunken smirk off his older brother’s face. The fool didn’t know what he was talking about. Arrik’s mother had been a duchess and had refused the king’s advances as she was a married woman. Plus, his mum hated Soren. They’d grown up around each other as children and he’d proved himself to be a bully with a god complex that enjoyed hurting others. She managed to rebuff him as a young woman, but he hadn’t taken kindly to it the second time. The king had her husband killed, seized their lands, and then made Arrik’s mum one of his many wives. Soren found special pleasure in tormenting her. One such time led to the creation of Arrik. She used to say he was the only good thing to come out of the cursed palace.
“Why would anyone want to leave this place?” the other woman slurred, her green eyes glassy.
“Why indeed?” Cathal said with a smirk. “The tarte had everything.”
Arrik tensed and a strong hand gripped his left shoulder. He glanced at Shane, not surprised at all that his friend had snuck up on him. He moved like a wraith.
“My prince,” Shane murmured with a bow. “I believe the rest of your company eagerly awaits your arrival in your chambers.”
“Perfect!” Cathal grinned and plowed forward.
Arrik and Shane stepped aside as the prince and his entourage weaved past them with a fit of giggles and whispers. He stared after his brother and spat on the ground once he’d disappeared into the building. The lanterns wavered in the light breeze, their shadows dancing on the cobbles of the path.
“You need to get that under control,” Shane said softly.
He tipped his head back and peered through the trees to a small patch of visible sky. Stars glimmered above. “He spoke of my mother.”
Shane sucked in a sharp breath. “That sod.”
“I could have killed him.”
“Arrik,” his friend growled. “Control your words. The walls have ears.”
Shane was right. One misstep and everything they’d built in the last few years would be ruined. He needed to do better.
For his mum.
For those abused by the royals.
17
Wren