I gulped a breath, pressing the back of one hand to my flushed cheek.
I wanted more of the strange flutterings inside me when his deep voice addressed me as though we weren’t strangers. I liked that familiarity. I wanted more of it. I shook my head, harder this time. I needed to remember he would be leaving tomorrow, and I did not intend to be left reeling in the sudden quiet of his absence.
His voice broke through the unquiet of my mind. “Why are you so angry?”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Is it because I figured out you’re blind?”
If it were only that. I hefted the tub of dirty water.
He rose, his chair scraping back on the stone. The air stirred as he stretched a hand toward me. “Let me help—”
I stepped back quickly. “I can do this. I’ve been doing it for years.” And I’d be doing it after he left.
Turning, I walked across the room, presenting him with my back, unwilling to reveal to him the confusing tumult of emotions twisting inside me.
Fear. Want. An ache for something more that went bone deep. I wanted. I needed. I had felt a fraction of this yearning when I sat beside my window, hugging my knees to my chest as I breathed in the outside world, thinking that maybe someday I would find a life beyond the tower. Only a fraction though. Because before him my need was amorphous. It had no distraction. No face. Unlike now. With a grunt, I hauled the wooden bucket up to the stone edge of the window. These feelings had become more intense, more pressing since he arrived here, and when he left, he would not be taking them with him. The feelings would stay long after he departed. They would be with me always.
EIGHT
Fowler
I PUSHED THROUGH the other prisoners to stare out between the bars, gripping the cold steel until my knuckles went white. None dared stop me. Perhaps they read something of the desperation in my face—or they were too weak, too broken from years of imprisonment to care.
The outer gate closed shut with a vibrating clang, and I spotted her in the fading purple of night. She passed over the drawbridge for the first time in her life. A deep throb pumped through my chest as I realized it would be the last time.
I had envisioned her crossing it with me. That had been the plan. Eventually. We’d talked of it countless times. But now it was too late.
Today she would die.
Sitting in the back of the rattling cart, her knees tucked close to her chest, she looked so small. So defenseless. Her head turned, scanning the battlements, and I knew the truth deep in my bones. She searched for me and I wasn’t there. Did she think I betrayed her? That was salt in the wound.
Torches flickered, illuminating the numerous faces, all pale smudges with coal-dark eyes looking down at her. Her mother was there among the spectators. Her little brother, too. As stoic and silent as everyone else. As helpless as I was to save her.
I wasn’t there. I was stuck in here, failing her.
The wagon rolled to a stop and the guards hopped down. They reached up and helped her descend. With cold efficiency, they led her to the waiting pole. Even across the distance, I could see the rusty stains of blood soaked into the wood. The deep gashes and rips embedded in thick oak. Those details told the story of what was to come.
I flexed my hands around the bars, palms slick with sweat.
She didn’t resist as they backed her to the pole. The solid length hit her square along the spine. I wanted her to fight, to run, even though if she broke free there was nowhere to go. An intense gray fog hugged low to the ground. The flat expanse of land that surrounded the walls of the keep was long eradicated of trees. In the far distance, the land gave way to shrubs and then trees so thick and dense it was impossible to determine what lurked within. She peered in that direction, gazing into the fleeting glow of midlight.
With every passing moment my throat felt like it was tightening from an invisible noose. The dark would soon return to swallow everything.
The guards made quick work of the rope, pinning her to the pole tightly, tying off the ends into knots she could never hope to loosen. They stepped back and returned to the wagon.
The creak of wheels and the jingle of harnesses filled the air as they circled back around, the horses’ hooves kicking up earth. The drawbridge lowered with a rattle of chains, hitting the ground with a thud I felt vibrate through my bones. The wagon hastened into the shelter of the keep, rattling over the wooden drawbridge.
The gate descended with a clang, closing behind them. Everything inside me wilted as the drawbridge cranked back up and slid home with a jarring clank, shutting her out. Snuffing out that tiny flame of hope inside me.
Silence fell, an eerie quiet after all the noise. She looked around, her head the only thing mobile. The immense, stone-walled keep gazed back at her solemnly. I shivered, feeling the cold in the cell.