Bravery was for someone other than me.
I’d do what was necessary to protect my friends from this fate.
12
Time passed. My food and drink were gone. My strength had improved from careful rationing, at least enough that my legs didn’t tremble when I stood, but if I didn’t get more food soon, it would be over. I’d accept dying of many things, but dying of starvation felt too personal, too much like giving up, too much like acceptance of what the king could do to his subjects.
Ironically, I cared more about the ideals of rebellion now than ever before. If I could go back to Harvest Zone Seven with this knowledge, my input would be much different. All-consuming.
Should have, could have, would have.
This was the trap my mind went to in the dank fetidness of my cell.
The uneven ground poked at my tender feet as I paced. I’d learned which areas of the dark stone were the sharpest and avoided them.
I hadn’t seen or heard from anyone down here after that single time when the man in the cell next to me spoke, and after a while I couldn’t be sure the voice wasn’t a desperate attempt of my mind to alleviate my isolation.
My stomach gave a loud rumble, and I wrapped both arms around my middle over the filthy tunic that displayed the recent events of my life in splatters and splotches and stains. My hair was stiff and matted, and my smell bothered me—not the lavender soap scent I smelled like before.
How I’d run through the freshly overturned dirt of the Harvest Zones beside Arnik, avoiding new crops, and laughing as farmers shouted after us.
How I’d made jokes of my future to Mother while gazing at the clear blue sky, bird song floating down from the roof to where we sat in the garden.
My chest tightened . . . I had to survive.
“I need food,” I said as loudly as I dared.
When no one answered, I raised my voice. “I need food.”
With increasing volume, I yelled my need for water, but only silence met my pleas. Perhaps this was a different type of torture meant to break me. Perhaps I’d been left here to die, useless and wasted. The king thought I possessed information crucial to taking the rebellion down, and he’d confessed I was a pawn in his power play against the Drae. I had no idea what the king saw in Lord Irrik to be convinced the Drae favored me, but I knew the king was irrevocably wrong.
The Drae was the bane of my existence.
I rested my head on the bars, closing my eyes. A trickle of scent wafted past. Something less offensive than the rest of the air down here, and fear and hope warred within.
Necessary. Water was necessary. “Who’s there?” My voice cracked. “I need food and water.”
A cell open, followed by a muffled thump. A man cried out, his wail like a wounded animal, and the clank of a door closing with the click of a lock ricocheted through the low underground space.
Someone was here, and that someone could give me water.
“Water,” I whispered. Only half the word came out.
I sank to my knees by the bars when no one answered.
That was when I felt his presence. Lord Irrik stood outside my cell, staring down at me, anger pulsing from him in waves. I lifted my tired eyes and silently told him how much I hated him. I didn’t bother moving. If he wanted me, nothing I could do would stop him. Scrambling away was unnecessary.
I was so busy directing my hate at the Drae I didn’t see Jotun until he announced his presence by reaching through the bars with his torture gloves on and grabbing the front of my tunic. The guard yanked me forward, smashing my face into the bars, repeatedly, and bursts of white exploded across my vision.
The two of them took turns in their abuse. I gasped as searing agony pierced my arm and climbed up to my shoulder. Nausea hit me in a crashing wave, and I gagged, falling onto my hands on the uneven stone.
“No more,” I pleaded.
Mercifully, my vision returned, and I saw the hall was empty of Lord Irrik and Jotun. They were done with me for now.
“Drak,” a man said, his voice hoarse and low. “What did you do to piss off the king?”
His words registered slowly, my mind trying to push past the fog of desperation and pain to make sense of his question. I just needed . . . “Water.”
“Water? What did you do to the wat—Oh! Drak, sorry,” he said. Something crashed against the stone. “Hang on, lad.”
Great, and now I was apparently a guy. Way to kick a girl when she was down.
Something scraped against the stone.
“That’s as far as I can reach. But if you put your arm out, you should be able to reach around the lip of stone and grab it. It’s not water, but it’s the closest thing I’ve got.”
He had water? Or something like it, and he was sharing? I was far too desperate to care if this was a trap. I hauled myself over and stuck my arm through the bars and around the rock wall protruding into the hall. The structure ensured prisoners couldn’t see into the next cell.
My fingers grazed something, a sharp piece of ceramic, and I stretched to hook the edge. I pulled the container back and blinked back tears when I saw a curved shard of a flagon filled with several measures of clear liquid. The broken flagon was just small enough to fit through the bars.
I lapped the sweet liquid up like an animal, afraid to lift the makeshift bowl for fear of spilling any of the treasured contents. The fluid coated my tongue and then slid down my throat. The nectar seemed to absorb into my system before ever reaching my stomach, replenishing me immediately. Queasiness roiled through me but settled quickly as a wave of relief claimed me.
“What’s your name?” the man asked. His age was hard to place, his voice odd, like a series of blades chopped up his words. He spoke with the inflections of someone from the Harvest Zones, however.
I was too tired to explain, but I didn’t want to be rude, either. Not after he shared his drink with me. As I drifted back into the land of dreams, I simply said, “Ryn.”
He said something, but whatever it was fell unnoticed out in the hall between our cells.
“So you’re from Zone Seven?” he asked in a parched voice.
The question was just the latest during our on-and-off conversation of the last indiscriminate period of time in the shadows. These shadows weren’t my friends. But this man might prove to be.
“Born and raised,” I said. This wasn’t strictly true. I was more at ease talking to the man, Ty, now and more certain of the kind of person he was, but who knew what he’d repeat under Jotun’s thumb. Better not to impart anything that could be shared. He was probably doing the same.
First rule of torture club, don’t talk about torture club.