“You can’t expect me to believe you were going to—what—murder the queen and then run off through the snow, hoping for the best?” Valen sneers.
“I’m glad you don’t think that, though Bran certainly did,” Oak says, keeping his gaze off the corpse on the floor. “I never wanted to hurt Wren, no less murder her.”
Straun frowns at the familiar form of address—Wren, rather than Queen Suren or the Winter Queen or whatever fanciful title he thinks best suits her.
Can Straun truly believe he has a chance with her? There does not seem to be much guile in him. She may like that, even if Oak thinks he’s dull as a toad.
Valen studies the prince’s face, perhaps seeing the jealousy in it. “And you didn’t intend to run, either?”
Oak isn’t certain how to answer that. He’s not sure he can explain his intentions, even to himself. “I was considering it. Prison isn’t very nice, and I like nice things.”
Valen’s mouth turns down in disgust. This is what he expects a prince of Elfhame to be—vain and fussy and unused to suffering of any kind. The more Oak leans into that role, the more he will be able to hide himself.
“Although,” Oak says, “freezing isn’t particularly nice, either.”
“So you drugged Straun and broke out of the prisons,” Valen says slowly, incredulously, “with no plan at all?”
Oak cannot shrug, as tied down as he is, but he makes a gesture to indicate his nonchalance. “Some of my best ideas come to me in the moment. And I did get a bath.”
“He must know something,” Straun says, worried that they are risking all this for nothing. Worried, no doubt, about the corpse that will be hard to dispose of without anyone noticing.
Valen turns toward Oak, pressing a finger into his cheek. “The prince knows his sister.”
Oak sighs dramatically. “Jude has an army. She has assassins. She has control of the Courts of other rulers who are sworn to her. She holds all the cards and could deploy any of them. You want me to tell you that in a duel, she turns her front foot inward while lunging, giving you an opening? I don’t think you’ll ever get close enough to find that information useful.”
Straun’s eyes narrow in calculation. “She turns her front foot?”
Oak smiles up at him. “Never.”
Valen lifts an iron knife from the cabinet and presses the point of it to the hollow of Oak’s throat. It sizzles against his skin.
The prince bites back a cry as his whole body jerks with pain.
Straun flinches despite his previous eagerness. Then he sets his jaw and makes himself watch as the prince’s skin blisters.
“Ouch,” Oak says, enunciating the word slowly and deliberately in a whiny sort of voice, despite how much the hot iron against his throat burns.
Straun is startled into a snort of laughter. Valen pulls the knife back, furious.
It’s easy to make someone look foolish if you’re willing to play the fool.
“Leave,” shouts Valen, waving at Straun. “Guard from the other side of the door. Alert me if someone is coming.”
“But—” Straun begins.
“Better do as he says,” Oak tells him, breathing hard because despite his performance, the press of the iron is agony. “Don’t want to end up like Bran.”
Straun’s gaze flicks guiltily to the floor, then back to Valen. He goes out.
Oak watches him with mixed feelings. The prince has few moves, and none of them are good. He can keep at getting under Valen’s skin, but it’s likely to cost him his own. Now that Straun is out of the room, though, he could try a different tack. “Maybe I could give you something better than impressing Hyacinthe, but I’d need something in return.”
Valen smiles, letting his knife hover over Oak’s face. “Bogdana told me that you inherited your mother’s twisting tongue.”
It takes all the prince’s concentration not to look at the blade directly. He forces himself to stare up into the falcon’s eyes. “Bogdana doesn’t like me. I doubt she likes you much, either. But you want Hyacinthe’s position, and I know a great deal about him . . . his vulnerabilities, the ways he is likely to fail.”
“Tell me this,” Valen says, looming over him. “Where did you get the poison you used on Straun?”
Well, crap. That’s a very good question. Oak thinks of the jeweled snake. Imagines how he will look if he tries to explain.
“I thought I didn’t need to torture you to get you to tell me whatever I wanted to know?” Valen turns the knife so that the point hovers over Oak’s eye. He glances at it and sees the edge of one of the straps of the bridle reflected in the blade. A reminder that Wren didn’t sanction this interrogation, that she doesn’t know about it. She wouldn’t need to torture him to find out any of this. All she’d have to do, with the bridle on him, was ask. He could no more deny her than he could stop his own heart from beating.
Of course, whether she’d care if Valen hurt him was another matter. He liked to think that she would, at least for her pride. After all, ten lashes from an ice whip wouldn’t seem like much of a punishment if someone else had already gouged out one of his eyes.
He’d rather not lose the eye, though. Still, all he has going for him is his charm, and that’s a double-edged sword. “You asked me about my sister—and you’re right. I do know her. I know she’s likely to send someone to negotiate for my return. Whatever you think of me, I am valuable to Elfhame.”
“She’d pay a ransom?” Valen licks his lips. Oak can see his desire, a hunger for glory and gold and all the things that were denied him.
“Oh yes,” Oak agrees. “But it hardly matters if Wren won’t agree to give me up. Whatever my sister offers now could have always been Wren’s, along with the Citadel, as a reward for removing Lady Nore.”
Valen’s mouth twists into a harsh smile. “But you seem to have made Queen Suren angry enough to prefer your being brought low to her own rise.”
That stung, being uncomfortably true. “You could make your own bargain with the High Queen.”
The tip of the iron knife presses against Oak’s cheek. It burns like a lit match against his skin. He jerks again, a puppet on a string.
“How about you answer the question about the poison, and then we can discuss what deals I am going to make.”
Panic Roods Oak. He’s going to refuse to talk. And he’s going to be tortured until he gives in and talks anyway. Once Hyacinthe learns about the snake, he will tell Wren, and she’ll believe Oak is her enemy, no matter what he says in his defense. And whatever his sister’s plan is, it’s sure to become exponentially more lethal.
But with enough pain and enough time, anyone will say almost anything.
Perhaps, Oak thinks, perhaps he can get himself hurt so badly the questioning can’t continue. It’s a terrible plan, but no other idea presents itself. He can hardly smile at Valen as he did at Fernwaif and have that be enough to persuade him to let Oak leave the dungeon.
Unless . . .
It’s been a long time since he used his twisting tongue, as Bogdana put it. His true gancanagh power. Let his mouth speak for him, let the words come without his will. Say all the right things in the right way at the right time.
It’s terrifying, like letting go in a sword fight and allowing pure instinct to take over, not being entirely sure whose blood will wind up on his hands.
But whatever Valen is going to do next is more terrifying. If Oak can escape this room in one piece and without putting anyone he cares about in danger, he can figure out the rest from there.