Chapter 32
Kye's hand stayed clasped with mine long after we'd fallen silent. It was much more than an intimate touch. It was reassurance, a lifeline in a dark world where the marked, and those who helped us, died lonely, painful deaths. The clasped hands meant we weren't alone, meant there was someone out there who cared if we lived or died.
I felt myself sagging against the bar, listening as the mice ran back and forth along the back of my cell.
“Quick, quick,” the mice called out. In such a hurry, these creatures.
My hand must have started going limp in Kye's because he squeezed my fingers gently.
“Sleep,” he whispered.
I shook my head. “I'm afraid to,” I admitted.
He squeezed my hand again. “Sleep.”
It was almost as if my body were waiting for his permission. One moment, I was clasping Kye's hand, the next there was darkness. Sweet darkness.
But in darkness, there are nightmares. In my dreams I saw Aigneis again, first smiling and then screaming as fire overtook her. Ash. Fire. Aigneis. And then I saw the king, his feral grin watching as more fires were built, more people I knew led to slaughter.
“No,” I mumbled.
There was a cry in the darkness. It was a male cry. It was Kye, and it woke me. The cells were dark, the torches extinguished. My hand was no longer in Kye's and there was a figure outside the bars; a broad, hooded figure, eerie eyes staring at me from the dark.
“Are you ready to die, little boy?” the figure asked.
I squinted. Kye pounded on the bars.
“We're to be hung together,” Kye protested.
The figure stood. “Are you so eager to die, prince?”
The sleep fog had worn off, and the voice sounded familiar. Phantom cold fingers caressed my skin. This voice I would know anywhere.
“You're stooping low, Neill, if a man of your position must amuse yourself in the dungeons,” Kye said.
The captain laughed. If he meant the darkness and hooded cloak to be intimidating, he'd succeeded.
“No lower than a prince who will hang in front of his people. First, the boy.”
I pulled myself up on the bars even as Kye pounded again.
“Together, Neill. We hang together.”
Neill paused.
“I'm increasingly intrigued by your interest in this boy,” the captain said. “What is it about him, prince, that has you so defensive?”
Instead of answering him, Kye spit through the bars, the spittle disappearing inside the cloak's hood. The captain lifted his hand.
“You will pay for that,” he growled.
Kye was calm when his next words came.
“Then make me pay.”
Captain Neill shouted and several guards came running down the corridor, torches raised high. It illuminated the cloak Neill worn, and he pulled back the hood slowly.
“This prisoner here,” Neill gestured at Kye's cell, “take him. Forty lashings. Make him bleed, gentlemen, and then hang him to die beside the young one.”
Kye's cell door creaked as it was opened, and I gripped the bars hard. No!
“Hide the wounds when you are finished,” Captain Neill ordered.
Kye was thrown onto the prison corridor beyond before one of the guards gripped him by the neck, dragging him upward. Kye's surcoat had been stripped off of him and replaced with a coarse, grey wool tunic and black leather pants. He wore no shoes.
Captain Neill leaned in close, his eyes staring directly into Kye's.
“You're going to get your wish. You'll hang alongside the boy and others as well.”
Spit hit Kye in the face, but he didn't flinch. I pounded on my bars.
“Please!” I begged. “He meant no harm!”
The captain looked over his shoulder, a slow grin spreading across his face.
“There's something about you, boy. I'm not sure what, but I'm going to enjoy watching it choked out of you.”
With that, he turned and marched away, two words floating on the air behind his back, “Flog him!”
My eyes met Kye's only briefly. There was no fear in his gaze, only resignation. I was hysterical now, and when the guards began pulling him away, I screamed.
“No!”
One of the guards kicked Kye, and he went down on his knees.
“Keep making noise, little boy, and we'll make it worse on him!” the guard called.
I stuffed my fist into my mouth, crying around my hand as the torchlight moved away. At the end of the corridor, they stopped. I could tell by the way firelight danced on the stone in the distance that Kye was to be an example, not only to himself and to me, but to the rest of the prisoners incarcerated. There was the sound of chains, and I heard Kye cry out. I couldn't see what they did, but I knew they were chaining him to the wall. I was biting my fist now, tears coursing down my cheeks.
No! I couldn't stand by helplessly anymore while someone else I knew, someone I was beginning to grow fond of was tortured or killed.
I pounded on the bars.
“Please,” I begged. “Punish me instead.”
There was a laugh from beyond.
“For that, boy, the first lashing will be for you.”
A whip sounded, followed by a scream. It was an ungodly scream full of pain. I jerked on the bars, my nose and eyes dripping. I couldn't cry hard enough for the agony I was feeling.
For me! People were always being punished for me! Another lash. Another scream.
I began kicking at my cell.
“Silveet!” I cried. “Forest, please!”
Another lash and another. The scream that followed was no less loud, but it was weaker.
I swallowed convulsively, going to my knees on the stone, my hand against the rock.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please help me.”
I didn't know who I called to. I didn't care. All I cared about were the lashings at the end of the corridor. All I cared about was trying to stop them from murdering the prince.
I pounded on the stone.
“Quick, quick!” I heard, and I turned abruptly, my tears cold on my face.
Behind me on the floor, hundreds of piercing eyes stared at me. Mice and something smaller . . . roaches maybe?
I stared at them.
Another lash. Another scream.
“Attack,” I said, my voice cold and even, calm. “Attack.”
I closed my eyes as the rodents ran past me.
“Quick, quick. Attack, attack!” they muttered.
Another lash. Another scream.
And then, “Bloody hell!”
“By the gods!”
And then there was screeching, screams, and shouts. This time it wasn't Kye. I pulled on the bars again.
“I need out!” I cried.
Scurrying feet moved along the prison corridor, the sound of metal rubbing against stone. Two mice appeared, dragging the large ring of keys the guard had used to lock me within the cell. They dropped them at my feet and scurried away.
I blocked out the horrified, painful shrieks from beyond as I leaned down and swept the keys into my hand, desperately going through them as I fitted each one into the lock.
“Below!” I heard a man yell from above, and I knew the guards' screams had garnered attention. My hands flew through the keys, my heart pounding. When the wonderful click finally came, I almost sagged with relief. There was no time.
I jerked the cell door open, my feet pounding against the stone. At the end of the corridor, I stopped, my heart plummeting. There was Kye, shirtless, his back covered in criss cross gashes. Blood dripped from the wounds, winding its way to the waistline of his pants and beyond. They were deep gashes, and he wasn't moving.
There was more blood and silent guards lying along the stone. I didn't look at them. I didn't want to see what I'd done. The mice and bugs were gone, although I could hear the faint, “Quick, quick” as they scrambled away.
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I moved to Kye, slipping once in the guards' blood before finally gripping Kye's leg.
“Kye!” I sobbed.
He turned his head, his weak eyes opening as he looked down at me. I pulled on him, but the chains were strong.
“Move it!” I heard someone shout, and I knew I didn't have long.
I looked frantically around the corridor, my eyes catching on the glinting metal of a nearby sword. I grabbed it, raising it high before bringing it down on the chains above. Sparks flew.
“Again, Stone,” Kye said, his voice faint. “This metal is weak.”
He pulled on his arms as I hit it again. More sparks.
“Is there a key?” I asked.
Kye shook his head. “No. Try again.”
It was all he could say, and I put everything I had into hitting the chains. One broke loose. I cried out but didn't give myself time to celebrate more. I moved to the next.
There was the sound of boots against stone when the final chains fell, and Kye collapsed. I caught him against me, his blood on my hands.
Instead of pulling away, I hugged him, placing my palms firmly against the wounds on his back. Kye gasped. My hands burned instantly. I could feel the flesh beneath my palms closing, and I gagged against the feeling.
Kye's breath was against my ear. “We won't make it,” he said.
I could hear the boots directly behind us now.
“No,” I answered him. “But you won't be hung in blood now.”
And with that, I swept the scar on his temple with my lips just as I was grabbed roughly from behind. Kye fell to the floor.
“By the gods,” one of the men holding me exclaimed.
I held my head high, my heart bleeding inside my chest. I'd saved Kye, but I'd killed men in the process, men with families.
“What are you?” a guard asked.
I didn't answer him, my stare straight ahead as soldiers bent to look at the men on the floor. Kye was in custody now, a shirt forced over his head as they held him securely by the arms. One of the soldiers on the floor looked up.
“He was a friend,” the man growled. “His wife just had a baby.”
The tears I hadn't wanted to shed burned the back of my eyes. My gaze met Kye's. His eyes were full of understanding and something more, something deeper. Hair swept his forehead, the stubble on his cheeks stark against pale skin. He'd lost a lot of blood. Even my healing couldn't replenish that.
“Go!” the guard on the floor yelled. “Take them and hang them!”
The guard next to me stuttered, “B-but sir, shouldn't we—”
“Take them!” the man ordered again. “Captain Neill's orders. Do it! And hang the others, too.”
With that, I was dragged backwards, my feet against the stone. My head hung.