"What are you even doing here?" he asked, apparently deciding not to push the point. "How did you find out about the pits?"
I shook from head to toe. From shock? Perhaps it was simply a release from all the excitement, the near sc.r.a.pe with being dweller food. "Please. I just want to go back to my chamber now. I am quite weary."
His hands flexed on my arms, fingers splayed wide as though holding me together was holding him together, too. "Of course, of course. I understand. I"ll escort you."
"No. You don"t have to. Someone else can do that." I tried shrugging out of his grasp. I didn"t want him near me. He might have jumped in the pit to help me, but he was a part of this. He was the one who went out and hunted dwellers and brought them back here for these sick demonstrations-for the t.i.tillation of haughty and overprivileged men. He designed these sick games where people lost their lives.
"Chasan! Come here!" the king called down from his perch. He did not sound happy. I wasn"t sure if it was because I was here, because I had almost died, or because Chasan had risked himself to save me.
Chasan sighed heavily. His hands slipped from me, but he stepped closer, his breath fanning my cheek as he whispered, "We"re not finished with this."
I shook my head swiftly, silently disputing that point. Yes, we were. We were finished. I was finished. With this. With him. This place.
A shrill scream shattered the air. If not for the floodgate of sobs that followed, I would have thought it belonged to another dweller.
Chasan cursed savagely.
"What? What is it?"
"Riana," he snapped. "Apparently she was the one who pushed you."
I swung my gaze toward where his father sat with others, listening to the sounds of Riana being dragged forward. Over her loud wails and pleas, another man"s voice rose in supplication. "Please, Your Majesty! She"s just a girl."
"An a.s.sault on the princess of Relhok is an a.s.sault on Lagonia," the king boomed over Riana"s sobs, his hand slamming down on the arm of his chair. "I should have expected better from your daughter. You are both from Relhok. You failed to breed any loyalty into your daughter for your home country or Lagonia, which has served as a home to you these many years."
I jerked and grabbed Chasan"s arm. "What will he do to her?"
A small tremor shook Chasan"s body. It was gone as soon as I felt it, and for a moment I wondered if it had happened at all. Ignoring me, he peeled my hand from his arm and turned to address a guard who appeared at my side. "See her to her chamber. And send for a maid to attend to her. The physician, too, if need be-"
"No, wait! I"m not hurt," I interjected. My body ached from my fall, and I had no doubt tomorrow I would feel the effects of it all the more strongly, but I was fine. "You didn"t answer me!"
He shoved me at the waiting guards, but I wouldn"t relent. I s.n.a.t.c.hed hold of his hand. "What"s happening?" I demanded.
"Does it matter?" he snapped. "She tried to kill you. My father won"t forgive that." Even as he said it, frustration shook his voice. He didn"t relish this.
"It matters," I whispered, my heart sinking.
"You know what has to happen," he replied just as I heard the hiss of steel on air. I knew that sound.
"No." I mouthed more than spoke the word.
"Get her out of here," Chasan growled at the guard.
"Yes, Your Highness." The guard started pulling me away just as Riana"s sobs reached a fever pitch. Her own father was screaming now.
It was getting hard to breathe. A part of me wanted to flee, but another part of me, a larger part, had to stay.
"Now," the king commanded, the only calm and steady voice.
A sword whistled on the air. Thunk. I jumped with a gasp. The sound reverberated in the enclosed s.p.a.ce. Something struck the ground with a thud and then rolled over the stone floor. It covered several feet in the sudden silence.
"Oh." I choked, bile rising in my throat, turning away as if I could see it all. The head severed from her body. The blood, the gore. The satisfied look on the king"s face. None of this could I see, and yet I did in my mind.
The guard took my elbow again to escort me back to my chamber. This time I let him lead me. Shaking like the last brittle leaf clinging to a branch, I let him guide me away from the blood and death. Away from Chasan. Away from the pit. Away was all that mattered.
NINETEEN.
Fowler
I LURCHED UPRIGHT in bed, a strangled cry lodged in my throat. I was a chronic light sleeper. My years on the Outside ensured that I never slept too deeply.
Something woke me.
Sweat soaked me and I kicked off my covers. I stretched out my arm, ignoring the dull ache, instinctively reaching for the bow that wasn"t beside me anymore. My hand groped air. Finding nothing, my fingers curled into fists.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, scanning the darkened bedchamber for my weapon, confirming that I was alone. Nothing lurked in the shadows.
And yet something had pulled me from sleep. That wasn"t imaginary. My instincts weren"t dead. I hadn"t forgotten what it was like to be on the Outside. I hadn"t dropped my guard. In fact, in here I felt more on edge-an animal caged.
My ears weren"t as keen as Luna"s, but they were sharp enough. At the thought of Luna, I expelled a breath. It felt like forever since I had last seen her. Maris told me she was busy. I knew she must be. Everyone would want a piece of her. They knew who she was now, and they must be filling her hours with all manner of court life. The king would want her to spend as much time as possible with his son. My hands clenched tighter, the joints cold and aching. They"d never let her go.
I heard it then-the sound that had woken me. A cry cut short almost as suddenly as it started. I knew the sound of a human in distress. A vibration of shock echoed in the sound. I knew about that, too. I"d heard it often enough before I arrived here, but it was different closed up inside these stone walls, where the air was stale and thin.
I moved to the door, determined to investigate. There was no sleep for me now. If someone was being hurt inside this castle, I had to find out what was happening.
The latch turned just as my hand landed on it. I pulled back, bracing myself. Dwellers didn"t turn latches, but then that wasn"t the only threat.
Lantern light spilled into the room as the door swung open. A flaxen head eased inside. "Fowler," a familiar voice whispered.
"Maris?" I lowered my arm, realizing at that moment that I had c.o.c.ked my arm back, ready to strike.
She grinned at me, looking from my knotted fist to my face. "Did I startle you?"
"You could say that."
"Oh." She shrugged, clearly unbothered. The girl didn"t understand danger. "I just wanted to see you and say h.e.l.lo. h.e.l.lo." She greeted me as though she wasn"t standing in her nightgown in my chamber in the middle of the night, her hair loose and flowing all around her.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded. "You should be in bed."
She looked me up and down, not missing my rigidity. Those wide eyes of her blinked. "Would you really have struck me?"
I ignored the question. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" I clarified as though that would help get me an explanation. It wasn"t seemly. We"d never been alone. She shouldn"t be coming to my chamber without a chaperone.
"Were you already awake or did I wake you?" she asked, breathless, her gaze moving from my face and down, lingering on my bare chest. "I was hoping to wake you . . . surprise you, actually."
I eyed her nightgown with its frills and flounces, wondering precisely what kind of surprise she had planned. Shaking my head, I told myself it didn"t matter. She could be naked in front of me and it wouldn"t matter. Her virtue was safe from me.
I looked over her shoulder, searching the shadows of the corridor behind her. "Did you hear anything? A sound?"
She dragged her bright blue eyes from my chest back to my face. "I"m sure it was nothing. It"s an old castle. The stone makes sounds sometimes. Or perhaps it was the wind."
"It wasn"t stone settling or the wind. It sounded far away, but it was in the castle. Here in these walls."
She shook her head slightly, an emotion edging into her eyes that was at odds with her usual exuberance. "It was probably Cook butchering a hog."
I studied her, watching her smooth throat work to swallow. She was lying. "It wasn"t a hog."
She shifted on her feet and glanced over her shoulder, looking uneasy. "Sometimes others stay up late carousing in private chambers. We all need our amus.e.m.e.nts."
I stepped closer, not above using my nearness to manipulate her. She had used every opportunity to touch me. I usually edged away, but this time I gave her what she wanted.
Life at court could be as tricky and dangerous as life on the Outside, and manipulation wasn"t an unfamiliar practice. Pandering favor often determined fates. I knew that from being a part of my father"s household. It would be no different here. For me, it was probably worse. At any time, for any reason, I could lose favor with the king, if I truly even had it. I might be betrothed to Princess Maris, but that would not keep me from getting my throat cut if Tebald so chose.
I brushed a silky blond lock of hair off her shoulder. She released a tiny gasp, leaning into my touch. "Why are you lying to me, Maris?" I whispered. "Clever girl like you, you know everything that goes on in this castle."
Her lips worked before speech found her. "There are all kinds of things you hear at night in this castle. Best to ignore them."
"Tell me, Maris."
"Don"t go snooping around, Fowler." For the first time she didn"t look so much like a little girl. She looked nervous. I dropped my hand, suddenly feeling wrong about touching her and using her feelings.
She leaned forward like she wanted to chase that hand. "Go back to bed, Maris," I ordered. "You shouldn"t be here."
"And why shouldn"t I?" She took a step forward, until our bodies practically touched. "We"re to be married. What"s wrong with us being together now?"
By that logic, nothing. Nothing was wrong with it.
Except we wouldn"t marry.
Very soon, she would wake up and I would be gone. Contrary to what I told Tebald, I wasn"t about to live out my father"s plans and wed Maris.
She pressed a fingertip above my heart and trailed it down my chest. Emotion burned in her eyes as she gazed at me. I couldn"t take what she was offering me. I wouldn"t be that big of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Life was hard, full of disappointment and loss. She hadn"t experienced much yet, but she would. I"d rather not be the one to deliver her that education.
I set my hands on her shoulders and moved her back from me, setting her very deliberately outside my bedchamber door. "Go to your chamber, Maris."
Something sparkled in her eyes that should have warned me. Defiance? Determination. She stood on her tiptoes and circled one hand around my neck. Leaning forward, she clumsily pressed her lips to mine.
I placed my hands on her arms and gently tried to push her away from me. She clung, her hand tightening on my neck and her lips mashing harder to mine with a mewl of determination. My eyes were still open as I struggled to break the kiss in the most sensitive way possible. I didn"t need to overly wound her ego. The last thing I wanted to do was to send her crying to her father about me. Tebald already didn"t trust me. One look in his eyes and I knew that, but I needed him to think I was agreeable to this marriage. I needed Maris on my side. At least until I was gone . . . and then I wouldn"t care.
From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of movement. With a little more urgency, I gave a final push and set Maris away from me to look down the corridor. Luna and a guard stood a few yards away.
The guard chuckled, looking us up and down with a lecherous grin. "Getting a head start on the wedding night, eh?"
Maris gasped and released a small breathy giggle. "Mind your tongue, guard," she reprimanded without any real heat.
The guard"s smile vanished from his face. "My apologies, Your Highness," he said, his tone at once circ.u.mspect.
Luna made a small strangled sound. Myriad emotions crossed her face. "Fowler?"
I stepped forward, extending a hand as though to touch her. "Luna . . ." My voice faded at the sight of her taking a sudden step back. She angled her head, staring at me in that uncanny way of hers. As if she could in fact see me.
The betrayal was there, written all over her face. Of course she"d heard that kiss. Luna heard everything. Of course she misread the situation. She thought it was mutual.
"Luna." I tried again for speech and then stopped short, glancing uneasily at Maris and the guard. I couldn"t very well reveal that I had been a victim of Maris"s advances. If I upset her, she would run to her father, and I didn"t need to alert him to the fact that I wasn"t receptive to marrying his daughter. He could figure that out the day he woke to find me gone.
Maris returned my stare, pressing her fingertips to her lips, looking up at me beneath her eyelashes with a very coquettish expression.
"It"s good to have you up on your feet again, Fowler," Luna said, her voice that of a stranger.
"Isn"t it?" Maris chimed in, smoothing a hand against my chest possessively, intimately.
I looked back and forth between the guard and Luna, noting she wasn"t dressed properly. Were those tears in the white fabric of her nightgown? I took a step closer. "Luna, is anything amiss? Why are you up from bed?"
"Nothing to fret over. Just a little squabble with a dweller."
"What?" Immediately tense, I looked around as if one of the creatures might suddenly jump out at us.
"Yes. It appears that"s what they do for entertainment around here. Throw victims into a pit for dwellers to eat."
My gaze shot to Maris. "Is this true?"
"I-I . . . it has nothing to do with me. Father and the other men enjoy it . . . for sport, you know."
"No. I don"t know," I growled, thinking of the risk involved with bringing dwellers into the castle. It was stupid and unnecessary. Luna could have died. And who were the chosen victims anyway? What did they do to deserve such a fate?
Maris must have read some of the emotions on my face. She added a second hand to my chest, her voice softly cajoling, "It doesn"t have to remain that way. When you and I are wed, we can change things. Make them better here. However you like."
Nothing appealed to me less than staying here and fighting for change in this place where I didn"t want to be. Not to mention Maris was a little nave if she thought I would ever be given any power. Even if her father was no longer a consideration, Chasan was. He would be king next. He wouldn"t roll over for his sister or me. No one would be making changes without Chasan"s consent.
Recalling what Luna had said, I demanded, "Wait. You said you had a squabble with a dweller?"
"Um. I happened to fall in."
"You fell in?" I looked her up and down, searching for injuries. She turned her face away and I knew there was more to the story than that. "Are you hurt?"
"I"m fine. Just a few bruises. Nothing like the poor man those dwellers butchered, and nothing you should worry about." This last she said with pointed antagonism. Her message was clear. I shouldn"t care about her. My jaw locked hard. It was too late for that. She wasn"t going to get her way in this. We"d come too far, I was in too deep to give up on her.