Reign Of Shadows: Rise Of Fire Part 21

I chuckled. "That right? Because we've been such good friends."

"Just say the word at any time. I'll see it's done. I don't enjoy torturing people. This world is ugly enough."

Silence fell between us, crackling with tension. This world was ugly, but it wasn't hopeless. I wasn't giving up yet. People clung to the belief that the eclipse would end because according to legend it had happened before. It had ended before. Mankind had survived it and would again. Why couldn't those survivors be Luna and me?

"You really want to do me a favor?" I asked. "You could let me out of this cell. Let me take Luna and go."

It was his turn to laugh. I watched him through the bars as he shook his head. "I can't do that."

"Right." I clenched my teeth. "Your favors only extend so far. What about Luna? How are you going to help her?" I knew he wanted to. I just had to persuade him that he could.

Chasan looked away, staring at some point in the darkness. "I can't go against my father."

"Your feelings for her were real," I continued. "They are real. You can't fool me. You liked her. You still do. You thought the two of you could have been good together. Maybe even happy? You believed that." I shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe that could have happened someday . . . but your father killed that possibility. Didn't he?"

Maybe, years from now, she would forget me. Or at least look back on me, on us, as something that existed in a dream. A whim of youth when we came together and helped keep each other going. As bitter as that was to swallow, it was better than envisioning her with Tebald. I could see her with Chasan, standing in sunlight, surrounded by children.

I could face the pit. I could die with that image burning in my mind and be content.

Chasan shook his head. "I don't know-"

"You'll let your father have her? He'll break her." My voice grew thick as I envisioned this. "Bit by bit, he will destroy all that she is until there's nothing left of her." Chasan sighed, and I took that sound as encouragement to keep talking. I let go of my knee and leaned forward. "If you don't want to free me, then just let her go. She can survive on her own out there." I gestured. "You just have to make it so that she can slip out of the castle."

Chasan's gaze shot back to mine. "It's not that simple."

"It is. It is that simple. Give her a chance. You know you want to."

Chasan let go of the bars and stepped back as if needing distance from me and all that I was asking him to do. "Offer still stands. Let me know if you want me to spare you." Turning, he walked away stiffly, disappearing into the darkness, leaving me to my cold cell.

I sat there alone, stewing in my thoughts, wondering at what point any of this could have been avoided. It all seemed so inevitable. I had come full circle.

Years ago, I had sat in a cell, helpless as my father took Bethan's life. It felt like I was living through the same nightmare again. Only this time it wasn't Bethan. It was Luna.

The pain, the fear . . . it was different. Worse.

A pair of guards came by. Unlocking my cell door, they entered the dank s.p.a.ce and tossed in a bucket of soupy slop. It tipped over, the swill spilling onto the floor.

"Eat up, prince. You'll need your strength when it comes time for your turn in the pit." The guard laughed and kicked me savagely, for the sheer pleasure of it. Grabbing the bucket, I flung it at him, spraying soup through the air. The bucket knocked him in the face, sending him cras.h.i.+ng to the ground with a cry.

I sprang to my feet and launched myself at the other guard, beyond rage. I couldn't help Luna. Maybe I couldn't even help myself. Perhaps this was really it-the end-with me rotting in this dungeon, emerging only when it was time to fight dwellers for the amus.e.m.e.nt of Tebald and his n.o.bles.

But I could do this. In this moment, I could inflict pain.

I pummeled at him, swinging my fists, bone striking bone, skin breaking, warm blood flowing. Mine. His. It didn't matter. It was release.

I hit and hit, roaring until two guards pulled me off. They turned on me then, beating me with hot, spit-flying curses. Boots. Fists. I took it all, curling into a ball on the moldy stone floor. I took every blow they dealt, absorbing the pain, welcoming it because it paled beside the agony of losing Luna, leaving her with Tebald. I grunted, jerking from the volley of fists and boots until my world faded to nothing.

THIRTY.

Luna

I WAS LEFT alone in my chamber. It seemed forever that I paced, my pulse racing at my throat as I thought about Fowler stuck in that dungeon and my impending wedding to Tebald.

A maid came, as always, to help ready me for bed. I sent her away and went through the motions myself. I didn't want the company. Lying in the center of the ma.s.sive bed, I surrendered to the tears I'd held back in front of Tebald. Once they ran out, the numbness crept in.

I wiped my cheeks dry, sniffing loudly in the cavernous silence of my chamber. Tears were weakness. I was alive. And because of my agreement with Tebald, Fowler would live, too.

I inhaled a shuddery breath. I could do this. I could live this life. It wasn't the one I'd planned for myself, but it could be worse. People were dying without hope, without friends or loved ones, without having ever known love. I could have been one of them, and yet I wasn't. I'd always have that.

Any time things became too unbearable I only had to think of Fowler alive and well somewhere out there. Maybe in Allu. A wobbly smile shook my lips. That would be enough to get me through.

I stilled at the sound of soft voices murmuring outside my door. I knew Tebald had stationed two guards at my door, but they had been silent for the last several hours since he'd left me.

My heart seized in my chest as the door creaked open, and I remembered Fowler's ominous words to me, how Tebald could claim me now even without the formality of the wedding.

I swallowed back a whimper and clutched the bedcovers at my throat. Propping myself up on my elbows, I turned my face in the direction of the door and the individual standing there. I felt his gaze on me across the length of the room.

I stretched my senses, trying to detect his ident.i.ty, his intent. I knew it wasn't Fowler. Even if he wasn't in the dungeon, even if I hadn't lost him, I would know him. I would recognize his presence.

The door clicked shut and steps sounded toward me, each one making my heart plunge deeper into my twisting stomach. I sat up, covers pooling around my waist. It was definitely a he, and he was coming for me. The bed dipped slightly with the weight of one knee.

I scurried backward, my pulse a wild beat at my neck, threatening to burst from my skin as I pressed myself into the ornate headboard. I opened my mouth to scream. A hand slammed over my mouth, forcing my head back, silencing me. I kicked and punched but it was useless.

His weight pinned me, filling me with impotent rage. I freed one arm and sent my fist rocking into his jaw.

A familiar voice cursed and the hand over my mouth loosened.

"Chasan? What are you doing here?"

"Apparently getting my jaw broken."

I shoved at him, scrambling out from under him. "It's what you deserve."

"Even if I'm here to help you?"

I stilled, my heart stalling for a moment. "You'll help me? What about Fowler?"

He sighed, s.h.i.+fting his weight. "I suppose I can't help you without helping him, too. You've made that fairly clear."

"You'll help us," I repeated as if I needed that agreement from him written in blood.

"That's right. Get yourself dressed and we'll go get him. Unless you want to stick around and marry my father."

"No," I gasped, springing from the bed. I started toward the armoire, but stopped, turned back around, and launched myself at Chasan. I hugged him tightly. "Thank you. I knew you were different."

"Yeah. My father has been complaining about that all my life," he grumbled, his breath lost in my hair.

I pulled back and touched his face, brus.h.i.+ng my fingers along his cheek. "That's a good thing. Never be like him, Chasan. Someday you'll rule this country. Lagonia needs you."

"Yes. I only wish you needed me, too." His breath fanned my face warmly and he covered my hand where it pressed against his cheek. "But you don't. You, Luna, queen of Relhok, don't need me, or anyone for that matter."

"That's true, but I want Fowler." I turned my hand over and squeezed his hand lightly, feeling a strange camaraderie swell between us.

"I know." He sighed. "I know." He rose from the bed and gave me a gentle push toward the armoire. "So let's go get him."

THIRTY-ONE.

Fowler

THE SOUND OF my cell door clanging open woke me from troubled sleep. My entire body ached from the beating the guards had given me, in addition to the injuries from my fight with Chasan. I wasn't in the best condition. I inhaled, wiping the blood from my nose and lip with the back of my hand as I struggled to rise.

I blinked past the fog obscuring my vision to the slight figure hovering in the threshold of my cell.

"Fowler?" a soft voice asked, so at odds with everything inside this sordid, wretched place. The gentle sound of my name stood out starkly against the hardness of everything around me.

"Luna?" I blinked again, shaking to clear my head. "Am I imagining you?"

She stepped deeper into the cell, emerging from the shadows and revealing her familiar pale features, the delicate lines and hollows cast in sharp relief. A smile played at the corners of her lips. My heart constricted. I shook my head, the too-long strands of my hair falling in my face. I shoved them back. "What are you doing here?"

"We've come to get you out of here."

"We?"

She motioned behind her.

I looked up to find Prince Chasan standing there. He entered my cell, hands on his hips. "No time for reunions. You can kiss later. I've got a few girls distracting the guards, but that will only grant us so much time. They'll return to their posts eventually. Right now it's time to leave."

We followed the prince through the sleeping castle, below the dungeon and down into the bowels of the castle, until I was certain we could go no farther without reaching the very core of the earth; a bleak thought, as I imagined the center of the earth was overrun with dwellers.

"I thought there wasn't any other way in and out of the castle," I said as we turned a corner into a narrow corridor that forced us to walk single file.

"You mean other than the not-so-secret tunnel in the kitchens? Everyone knows about that, you know. My father let everyone know about it. He calls it his decoy tunnel so that if there was ever a ma.s.s exodus from the castle, that one would be overrun. This one is truly secret. Only the royal family knows of its existence." The prince grimaced. "The castle has never been breached by dwellers, but as a precaution, at the beginning of the eclipse, Father had a team of engineers build this tunnel that leads out of the castle. Then he killed each and every one of them so they could never speak of it."

Luna gasped.

Chasan continued, "He claimed you could never be too safe. Never know when we might need to run. In that event, he didn't want to compete with a stampede of people trying to get out."

"How awful," Luna muttered.

I gave her hand a squeeze, ignoring the ache and sting in my bruised knuckles.

"We're almost there now." Chasan's pace picked up slightly. "I've left two horses with supplies waiting on the other side. Weapons, too. Fowler, your bow, of course. I know your penchant for it. a.s.suming they haven't made too much noise and lured dwellers, the horses will still be there."

We reached an iron door set in the damp stone wall. The prince unbolted it. He pushed open the thick metal door, its well-oiled hinges silent. Chasan stuck his head out to peer into the darkness before pa.s.sing through. Unlike the last tunnel, this one did not go on and on. I followed. It was only a few feet until I emerged Outside. I paused, looking around in the pulsing darkness as Luna stepped out beside me.

The horses were twin shapes etched against the chronic night. They nickered softly in greeting. I hurried forward, helping Luna up onto her mount. Turning around, I faced the prince. He stood framed on the threshold of the secret door.

Clearing my throat, I extended my hand for him to take. "Thank you. I was wrong about you." It was hard to admit, but it was the truth. It wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world for Luna to have ended up with him.

"Ride hard. Get as far down the mountain as you can. He'll come for you the moment he realizes you're gone."

"What about you?"

Chasan grinned, his teeth a flash of light in the darkness. Always a c.o.c.ky b.a.s.t.a.r.d. "I'm his son. What can he do to me?"

I thought he could do a great deal. I wouldn't put anything past the man. "Don't underestimate him," I warned because I felt as though I had to. After the favor he did us, I couldn't just toss him to the wolves.

The prince's gaze flicked up to Luna sitting atop her horse. "Believe me. I won't make that mistake again." I knew he was thinking about how he'd thought he would be the one to marry Luna.

"You can come with us," Luna offered.

I surprised myself by agreeing. "Yes. Come with us." I still didn't like him. He didn't disguise his interest in Luna and I would always have to keep one eye on him.

He smirked at me as though doubting the sincerity of my offer. "My place is here. Lagonia needs me, especially considering who my father is. Someday he'll be gone. Someday this eclipse will end, as before. I'll be here to pick up the pieces and rebuild when that happens."

Nodding, I swung up onto my horse, holding the reins loosely in my hands. I had never held out much hope for the end of the eclipse. This world was darkness. I wasn't waiting for light to return to start living. I wanted Luna by my side in this life, come good or bad. "Good luck. And thank you."

"Now go. Don't get recaptured and let my efforts go to waste." Chasan swung his gaze to Luna, and I knew he was speaking mostly to her as he added, "Take care of yourself." There was a wealth of meaning in those words. She meant something to him. Even now, saying farewell and leaving him behind, this p.r.i.c.kled at me.

Chasan sent me a hard glance and slapped my horse on the rump. I lurched forward. He called out as we started moving away, "Try not to die."

My horse slid into a trot. Luna followed. I glanced behind me, watching as she turned in her saddle to wave back at the prince. She called a farewell, but he was already slipping through the door back into the castle, as though he could no longer stand the sight of us.

The heavy metal door thudded shut behind him, sealing himself in and us out.