Eight Will Fall, page 4
A few prisoners from the surrounding cells applauded and jeered, but their mockery was half-hearted. Larkin looked over to Dancer, who had stopped dancing and was peering at her again through the bars. She chewed her bottom lip and waited, as if expecting Larkin to offer her spiritual philosophies.
Larkin took the bait. “Don’t tell me you’re a believer.”
Dancer studied her pointed foot as she trailed it across the floor. “If she’s watching me, I’m sure she’s not all too happy. My troupe’s been telling tales of Kyran’s revenge for years now.”
“You’re from a traveling troupe?” Larkin sat up, intrigued. That explained the dancing and the theatrics. She didn’t know Empaths were allowed to be in a troupe. She thought they weren’t allowed to do anything other than farm or mine.
Dancer nodded eagerly. “How do you think I landed here? Got wrangled into it, if I do say so myself. Mum was transferred to the farm all on her own when she was pregnant with me. Died a few years ago. When you’re on your own like that, you start listening to your friends, you know?”
Friends. Larkin wanted to laugh. Once she and Garran finished up at the mines, they were expected at home. Her family members were her friends. Anyone else, like Adina and her brothers, were nothing more than a wish—a cruel reminder of friends she could have if there were more time in the day.
“Wouldn’t have done it on my own, but all that space and land gets Empaths dreaming up big ideas.” Dancer released a theatrical sigh. “I couldn’t exactly say no. There were five of us who got caught sneaking out of the farm one too many times, and the rest is history.” She dragged her toe across the dirty floor, pensive. “I think about it a lot. All that space. I dance to make this cell seem bigger than it is. If it were any smaller … hells, I’d go mad, I guess.”
So the girl wasn’t mad yet, just on the brink. In the short span of time, Dancer had already grown on her. Which was good considering how long they might be living across from each other.
“You’ll have to tell me one of your tales sometime,” Larkin said.
Dancer brightened, opening her mouth.
“Please, Ilona, not again,” someone groaned from the cell next to Dancer.
Dancer’s mouth snapped shut. She frowned sullenly.
Garran hissed Larkin’s name, distracting her.
Larkin crawled back to the edge of her cell. “I’m here.”
“There’s a farmer in the cell on the other side of me. We got to talking. Remember the people disappearing in the hills? The farmer said they’re disappearing into holes.”
“Disappearing into holes?”
“Holes in the ground. Out in the harvesting fields.”
“Sinkholes? That doesn’t make any sense, Garran.”
“His daughter…” Garran’s inhale rattled in his throat. “He heard his daughter screaming in the field and ran toward her. She was clutching onto the edge, and he had almost made it to her when she couldn’t hold on anymore.”
Holes in the earth—could that be where all the missing harvesters had gone? Had they been swallowed? Larkin had wondered if the farms had been destroyed by magic. But magic didn’t come from the ground. It came from Empaths like her.
Who could be powerful enough? Unless the magic is coming from below. From the—
No.
She batted the Reach and Otheil Kyran from her mind. They were corpses now. He was a corpse.
Garran interrupted her thoughts. “Can you imagine watching someone you love just slip away like that forever?”
“Mum and Dad and Vania are safe in the city,” she reminded him.
“They could be transferred to the farms any day. You know that.”
Garran’s hand slid beyond the bars, and Larkin reached out from her cell and took it again. She shut her eyes, picturing her mother and father near the hearth. Garran helping Vania wash up for supper. The candle on the table in her bedroom that cast shadows on her hands as she conjured the ribbon. The scent of her sister’s hair, her giggle.
Garran squeezed her hand. She knew he could sense her emotions.
Larkin had no hope to give Garran, but she could give him love. Her memories were all she had left. She dwelled within them for what must have been hours, until sleep claimed her.
* * *
Larkin jerked awake as a raw jolt ignited her spine. Shock flowed from the opposite end of the prison. She sat up, murmurings spreading like a slowly burning fire. The stone floor vibrated as prisoners surged toward the fronts of their cells.
Larkin pressed herself against the bars and caught Dancer’s wide, bleary eyes as the girl woke. “What’s going on?”
Dancer crawled toward her. “Something exciting.”
Down the corridor, a cell door creaked open.
“Please, my queen,” a woman sobbed. “I’m getting married!”
My queen? Surely Melay wouldn’t be in the prison. She had guards for her dirty work. Larkin peered through the bars in an attempt to see their newest cellmate, but it was too dark.
Gradually, the sounds of scuffling and the occasional quiet sob grew closer. People were being dragged from their cells.
“Larkin?” Garran called her name quietly.
“It’s all right, Garran.” She couldn’t remember the last time her brother had sounded so small. So terrified. “I’m here.” Maybe if she kept talking, he’d feel better, but she couldn’t think of what to say. “I’m here,” Larkin repeated. “I’m here, I’m here.”
“This block is too full.” A commanding female voice resonated from the front of the hall. “There are more than twenty prisoners waiting to be assigned.”
“The other blocks are at capacity, my—”
“When has that stopped you from making room before, Hathius?”
A cell door creaked open. Larkin strained to see between the bars and glimpsed moving shadows down the hall.
Crushing terror nearly floored her. A wet, viscous noise was followed by a thud, and panic and whimpers rushed through the cellblock. Garran cried her name again, but Larkin couldn’t coax forth a soothing remark.
Another cell door opened. She winced with the expectation of sensing another death, but only heard a struggle.
“Devon,” the woman boomed.
“You’ll burn in Kyran’s hell for this,” growled a male voice.
Larkin made out the noise of restraint. Devon was being taken, not killed.
The remainder of the cellblock visitors neared, and Larkin caught sight of a white gown skirting the soiled floor. Her eyes followed it upward to a jewel-embroidered bodice.
Please, my queen.
It was a face she’d seen only from a distance—sharp and stoic, with flawless citrine skin and eyes of ice.
Larkin gripped the bars, her pulse thrumming in her fingers.
Melay.
She felt her bones lock up. She had never thought she’d be so close. The man named Devon had cursed Melay to Kyran’s hell. After what Melay had done to her family, Larkin knew she should want to do the same. Her surprise held her back.
Larkin was certain this wasn’t a chance for an audience with the queen. Melay wouldn’t have come all the way down here just to help move Empaths to different cellblocks or order killings, especially not when the very capital was crumbling.
Something was terribly wrong.
The lieutenant Hathius walked beside Melay, a fleet of guards close behind. The queen’s frown was hard, her eyebrows arched. The moment she halted in front of Larkin’s cell, her guards followed suit.
The queen craned her neck to peer at Dancer. “Elfina.”
Dancer stumbled backward, all grace and poise gone. Melay’s lieutenant unlocked her door. The girl’s eyes found Larkin and waited, like she wanted Larkin to say something—a whispered warning or encouragement.
Larkin’s lips parted, but she had nothing to offer. She’d known Dancer—Elfina—for a handful of hours at most, the girl’s brightness bordering on annoying, but she’d been friendly. Now Larkin didn’t know what was going to happen to her.
Elfina hesitated before gliding forward. As soon as she was within reach, the lieutenant grasped her wrists and cuffed them behind her back. He secured a collar with the telltale flash of luminite around her neck before a guard swept her away.
Melay continued onward, not bothering to as much as glance at Larkin. She stopped again, this time in front of Garran’s cell.
No.
“Garran.” His name rolled off Melay’s tongue with familiarity, and hatred awoke inside Larkin.
The queen lifted her hand, her fingers curling inward like spider legs, beckoning Garran forward. A ring gleamed on her finger, the large gem a vivid, unsettling blue.
Larkin knew that color. Hauyne. Beautiful and brittle as all hells.
Do something, you idiot.
Garran’s terror erupted inside her. Larkin quickly siphoned his emotion. The hauyne in Melay’s ring shattered with a crack, bright flecks tinkling against the floor.
Larkin’s heart thudded as Melay slowly lifted her hand, examining the empty ring setting with detached curiosity.
Hathius drew his sword and started for Larkin, but Melay stopped him.
“His sister…,” began the lieutenant.
“I know who she is.”
Melay’s eyes narrowed, and Larkin wondered if the queen understood that Larkin had actually used magic in a room full of luminite. Her stony face gave no indication.
“Very well.” Melay rapped on the bars of Larkin’s cell, and the lieutenant stepped forward, sliding his key into the lock of her cell.
Her plan had worked.
Larkin stepped out of her cell, and the lieutenant yanked her arms behind her back. She didn’t know what the queen had in store for her. It didn’t matter. She’d be the one to face the terrifying unknown, not Garran.
Her brother slammed his hands against the bars. “Larkin!”
She wanted to tell him to be brave, but the words remained lodged in her throat. All that mattered was that he knew how much she loved him.
Her heart swelled until she was certain he could sense her. More than anything.
Hathius fitted her with a luminite collar, the bone-deep sensation of Garran’s grief snuffing out.
SIX
Larkin stumbled between two guards as they shoved her forward, leaving Melay and the lieutenant Hathius behind. At the last set of cells before the exit, a man was slumped over, a river of blood curling into the hall.
Larkin’s legs weakened at the sight, her guards hauling her upright. She comforted herself with the idea that if they wanted to kill her, they would have already done so.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, knowing they wouldn’t answer. With the damned luminite collar around her neck, she couldn’t even get a clear sense of their emotions.
The collar would normally be overkill for an Empath, but not her. Melay now knew that too. What if Melay assumed that Garran was also resistant? Surely she wouldn’t allow him to stay in a place where he could siphon.
The consequences of Larkin’s actions leached into her like acid as the guards hauled her up a spiral staircase at the tunnel’s end.
You just chose not to think, Garran had said.
But her hasty action in the cell had meant that Garran was alive, and that was all that mattered. She couldn’t get ahead of herself.
The stairs leveled to a platform. One guard opened a wooden door and pushed her into a hallway, and Larkin inhaled clean, thin air. They must have climbed all the way to the top of the peak.
Larkin was uncuffed and shoved into the nearest room with such force that she fell to the ground. The door slammed shut behind her.
The room was barren save for an excessively large tub and a wide, open window bordered with limestone. She stood, stunned by the sharp-sweet air and warm rays of afternoon sun. She’d been in the prison for over a day.
She didn’t notice the three women in servantry garb at the far edge of the room until her eyes adjusted. They ushered her forward and wasted no time, stripping her and pushing her into the hot water.
Larkin hissed as a servant scrubbed her skin and scalp raw with buttery soap. A bath was a luxury she’d never experienced before, but it wasn’t as enjoyable as she’d imagined.
“Do you know why I’m here?” she tried asking. The servants continued without response, as if they were washing a tub of dirty laundry.
Larkin calmed herself. Executions didn’t require cleanliness. If she were to be killed, someone would have stuck a sword in her already. The bath had to mean that she was staying alive. For now.
They toweled her off, one of the servants combing through her hair and shearing away the rough ends. Another took Larkin’s measurements, wrapping twine around her limbs and torso. She left the room and returned with an ensemble for Larkin to change into.
When the servants swept out of the room, Larkin clutched the towel to her body, too stunned to move.
It’s a trap, she thought.
But with no way to escape, Larkin coaxed herself to pick up the clothing, tugging on undergarments, a tunic, and trousers that were plainly woven but finer than anything she’d ever owned.
As soon as she finished tying the laces of her new boots, the door creaked open behind her.
Larkin shot to her feet when she saw a young soldier standing at the entrance. The woman stepped into the room, her hand on the hilt of her sword. Larkin’s mind leapt to a stealthy execution, imagining the soldier lunging forward to grab her hair, yanking her head back and slitting her throat. Larkin’s hand shot to her neck.
The soldier arched a slim eyebrow. “I’m not here to take your collar off.”
Larkin’s hand slid down, finding her collar, and held on to it as she waited for the soldier to state her business. The soldier studied Larkin, her black, pin-straight hair swaying back and forth from where it was secured at the crown of her head. She was dressed in leather battle armor, metal plates embedded in the cuirass to protect the vital places of her body, light enough and leaving much of her tawny skin uncovered. The armor was designed for agility and war—movement—not just for shielding, like the clunky armor the city guards wore.
As the soldier made to move back toward the hall, luminite glinted from beneath her cuirass. A collar.
Larkin dropped her hand in shock. “You’re an Empath.” That wasn’t possible—it was illegal for Empaths to join Melay’s army or the city guard. “Who are you?”
She took a hesitant step back. The soldier couldn’t possibly be working for Melay, yet Larkin wasn’t sure that she was here to help her either.
“You’re not really in a place to be asking questions, are you?” The soldier gripped the pommel at her hip, sliding the top of her sword gently from its sheath and gesturing to the hall. A threat.
That settles it, thought Larkin. She was one of Melay’s.
Still, soldiers killed Empaths. How could this woman be both? Larkin wanted to refuse to follow, but she didn’t even know how to throw a decent punch, let alone fight against a sword unarmed.
With no choice, she followed the soldier out of the room.
A boy with a slight frame waited for them in the hallway, dressed in the periwinkle robe of a scholar. He was pale, though not pallid like the miners, and lacked a collar. Healthy, and not an Empath, thought Larkin. He had a round, nervous face and was surrounded by his own entourage of guards.
“Larkin, my name is Tamsyn Arkwright.” The boy gestured to the soldier. “This is Jacque, and we’re—”
Jacque cut him off. “Late. The queen is waiting.”
Larkin faltered as Jacque marched down the hall, Tamsyn hurrying after her. Melay was waiting for them? A scholar, an Empath soldier, and Larkin? She wiped the sweat running down the back of her neck and followed the soldier and the scholar at a distance, the boots of the guards behind her heavy on the stone floor.
Larkin couldn’t let her own bewilderment distract her. She owed Garran nothing less than constant vigilance. She couldn’t afford to miss a clue or a hint at how she might free him or, at the very least, keep him safe for as long as possible.
She’d told him she would fix this. It was a promise she’d die by.
Tamsyn and Jacque led her through a labyrinth of torchlit hallways, the surrounding ornamentation growing more opulent the farther they walked. Gems and minerals were embedded in the ceiling in swirling patterns, sparkling in the light.
Larkin pulled her eyes away, repulsed at the queen’s hoard, and caught Tamsyn sneaking curious glances at her before Jacque grabbed his shoulder and pushed him ahead.
The hall opened to a massive chamber.
Guards were stationed along the rich tapestries at the edges of the room. A bronze table atop the polished marble floor stretched from one end of the room to the other, vacant except for a handful of occupants at the very end. Perched in the head seat was Queen Melay.
Jacque straightened and Tamsyn smoothed down the front of his robe as they approached the queen, but Larkin’s feet felt like they were soldered to the ground. Every muscle in her body was rigid with fury, but more than angry, Larkin was terrified. Terrified that none of this made sense. Terrified that Melay was staring at her. Larkin could sense nothing, but the queen looked pleased. And that was the most frightening thing of all.
Tamsyn glanced back at her and jerked his head forward, motioning for Larkin to follow. She complied.
When Larkin was close enough, she spotted the queen’s bony hand on the table, the gold band of her ring winking in the light. The empty setting should have felt like a trophy, but it was only a reminder that the queen knew of her luminite resistance.
A few collar-bound Empaths dressed like Larkin occupied the seats on the side of the table opposite her. She immediately recognized Elfina. The dancer wasn’t beaming or staring wide-eyed as she had done in the cells, but something was still bright about her. Not like the sun Larkin had seen from the limestone window, but subtle, like a torch.
The corner of Elfina’s mouth perked up in a smile when she saw Larkin, and Larkin clung to the familiar sight, smiling back.
Larkin took the bait. “Don’t tell me you’re a believer.”
Dancer studied her pointed foot as she trailed it across the floor. “If she’s watching me, I’m sure she’s not all too happy. My troupe’s been telling tales of Kyran’s revenge for years now.”
“You’re from a traveling troupe?” Larkin sat up, intrigued. That explained the dancing and the theatrics. She didn’t know Empaths were allowed to be in a troupe. She thought they weren’t allowed to do anything other than farm or mine.
Dancer nodded eagerly. “How do you think I landed here? Got wrangled into it, if I do say so myself. Mum was transferred to the farm all on her own when she was pregnant with me. Died a few years ago. When you’re on your own like that, you start listening to your friends, you know?”
Friends. Larkin wanted to laugh. Once she and Garran finished up at the mines, they were expected at home. Her family members were her friends. Anyone else, like Adina and her brothers, were nothing more than a wish—a cruel reminder of friends she could have if there were more time in the day.
“Wouldn’t have done it on my own, but all that space and land gets Empaths dreaming up big ideas.” Dancer released a theatrical sigh. “I couldn’t exactly say no. There were five of us who got caught sneaking out of the farm one too many times, and the rest is history.” She dragged her toe across the dirty floor, pensive. “I think about it a lot. All that space. I dance to make this cell seem bigger than it is. If it were any smaller … hells, I’d go mad, I guess.”
So the girl wasn’t mad yet, just on the brink. In the short span of time, Dancer had already grown on her. Which was good considering how long they might be living across from each other.
“You’ll have to tell me one of your tales sometime,” Larkin said.
Dancer brightened, opening her mouth.
“Please, Ilona, not again,” someone groaned from the cell next to Dancer.
Dancer’s mouth snapped shut. She frowned sullenly.
Garran hissed Larkin’s name, distracting her.
Larkin crawled back to the edge of her cell. “I’m here.”
“There’s a farmer in the cell on the other side of me. We got to talking. Remember the people disappearing in the hills? The farmer said they’re disappearing into holes.”
“Disappearing into holes?”
“Holes in the ground. Out in the harvesting fields.”
“Sinkholes? That doesn’t make any sense, Garran.”
“His daughter…” Garran’s inhale rattled in his throat. “He heard his daughter screaming in the field and ran toward her. She was clutching onto the edge, and he had almost made it to her when she couldn’t hold on anymore.”
Holes in the earth—could that be where all the missing harvesters had gone? Had they been swallowed? Larkin had wondered if the farms had been destroyed by magic. But magic didn’t come from the ground. It came from Empaths like her.
Who could be powerful enough? Unless the magic is coming from below. From the—
No.
She batted the Reach and Otheil Kyran from her mind. They were corpses now. He was a corpse.
Garran interrupted her thoughts. “Can you imagine watching someone you love just slip away like that forever?”
“Mum and Dad and Vania are safe in the city,” she reminded him.
“They could be transferred to the farms any day. You know that.”
Garran’s hand slid beyond the bars, and Larkin reached out from her cell and took it again. She shut her eyes, picturing her mother and father near the hearth. Garran helping Vania wash up for supper. The candle on the table in her bedroom that cast shadows on her hands as she conjured the ribbon. The scent of her sister’s hair, her giggle.
Garran squeezed her hand. She knew he could sense her emotions.
Larkin had no hope to give Garran, but she could give him love. Her memories were all she had left. She dwelled within them for what must have been hours, until sleep claimed her.
* * *
Larkin jerked awake as a raw jolt ignited her spine. Shock flowed from the opposite end of the prison. She sat up, murmurings spreading like a slowly burning fire. The stone floor vibrated as prisoners surged toward the fronts of their cells.
Larkin pressed herself against the bars and caught Dancer’s wide, bleary eyes as the girl woke. “What’s going on?”
Dancer crawled toward her. “Something exciting.”
Down the corridor, a cell door creaked open.
“Please, my queen,” a woman sobbed. “I’m getting married!”
My queen? Surely Melay wouldn’t be in the prison. She had guards for her dirty work. Larkin peered through the bars in an attempt to see their newest cellmate, but it was too dark.
Gradually, the sounds of scuffling and the occasional quiet sob grew closer. People were being dragged from their cells.
“Larkin?” Garran called her name quietly.
“It’s all right, Garran.” She couldn’t remember the last time her brother had sounded so small. So terrified. “I’m here.” Maybe if she kept talking, he’d feel better, but she couldn’t think of what to say. “I’m here,” Larkin repeated. “I’m here, I’m here.”
“This block is too full.” A commanding female voice resonated from the front of the hall. “There are more than twenty prisoners waiting to be assigned.”
“The other blocks are at capacity, my—”
“When has that stopped you from making room before, Hathius?”
A cell door creaked open. Larkin strained to see between the bars and glimpsed moving shadows down the hall.
Crushing terror nearly floored her. A wet, viscous noise was followed by a thud, and panic and whimpers rushed through the cellblock. Garran cried her name again, but Larkin couldn’t coax forth a soothing remark.
Another cell door opened. She winced with the expectation of sensing another death, but only heard a struggle.
“Devon,” the woman boomed.
“You’ll burn in Kyran’s hell for this,” growled a male voice.
Larkin made out the noise of restraint. Devon was being taken, not killed.
The remainder of the cellblock visitors neared, and Larkin caught sight of a white gown skirting the soiled floor. Her eyes followed it upward to a jewel-embroidered bodice.
Please, my queen.
It was a face she’d seen only from a distance—sharp and stoic, with flawless citrine skin and eyes of ice.
Larkin gripped the bars, her pulse thrumming in her fingers.
Melay.
She felt her bones lock up. She had never thought she’d be so close. The man named Devon had cursed Melay to Kyran’s hell. After what Melay had done to her family, Larkin knew she should want to do the same. Her surprise held her back.
Larkin was certain this wasn’t a chance for an audience with the queen. Melay wouldn’t have come all the way down here just to help move Empaths to different cellblocks or order killings, especially not when the very capital was crumbling.
Something was terribly wrong.
The lieutenant Hathius walked beside Melay, a fleet of guards close behind. The queen’s frown was hard, her eyebrows arched. The moment she halted in front of Larkin’s cell, her guards followed suit.
The queen craned her neck to peer at Dancer. “Elfina.”
Dancer stumbled backward, all grace and poise gone. Melay’s lieutenant unlocked her door. The girl’s eyes found Larkin and waited, like she wanted Larkin to say something—a whispered warning or encouragement.
Larkin’s lips parted, but she had nothing to offer. She’d known Dancer—Elfina—for a handful of hours at most, the girl’s brightness bordering on annoying, but she’d been friendly. Now Larkin didn’t know what was going to happen to her.
Elfina hesitated before gliding forward. As soon as she was within reach, the lieutenant grasped her wrists and cuffed them behind her back. He secured a collar with the telltale flash of luminite around her neck before a guard swept her away.
Melay continued onward, not bothering to as much as glance at Larkin. She stopped again, this time in front of Garran’s cell.
No.
“Garran.” His name rolled off Melay’s tongue with familiarity, and hatred awoke inside Larkin.
The queen lifted her hand, her fingers curling inward like spider legs, beckoning Garran forward. A ring gleamed on her finger, the large gem a vivid, unsettling blue.
Larkin knew that color. Hauyne. Beautiful and brittle as all hells.
Do something, you idiot.
Garran’s terror erupted inside her. Larkin quickly siphoned his emotion. The hauyne in Melay’s ring shattered with a crack, bright flecks tinkling against the floor.
Larkin’s heart thudded as Melay slowly lifted her hand, examining the empty ring setting with detached curiosity.
Hathius drew his sword and started for Larkin, but Melay stopped him.
“His sister…,” began the lieutenant.
“I know who she is.”
Melay’s eyes narrowed, and Larkin wondered if the queen understood that Larkin had actually used magic in a room full of luminite. Her stony face gave no indication.
“Very well.” Melay rapped on the bars of Larkin’s cell, and the lieutenant stepped forward, sliding his key into the lock of her cell.
Her plan had worked.
Larkin stepped out of her cell, and the lieutenant yanked her arms behind her back. She didn’t know what the queen had in store for her. It didn’t matter. She’d be the one to face the terrifying unknown, not Garran.
Her brother slammed his hands against the bars. “Larkin!”
She wanted to tell him to be brave, but the words remained lodged in her throat. All that mattered was that he knew how much she loved him.
Her heart swelled until she was certain he could sense her. More than anything.
Hathius fitted her with a luminite collar, the bone-deep sensation of Garran’s grief snuffing out.
SIX
Larkin stumbled between two guards as they shoved her forward, leaving Melay and the lieutenant Hathius behind. At the last set of cells before the exit, a man was slumped over, a river of blood curling into the hall.
Larkin’s legs weakened at the sight, her guards hauling her upright. She comforted herself with the idea that if they wanted to kill her, they would have already done so.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, knowing they wouldn’t answer. With the damned luminite collar around her neck, she couldn’t even get a clear sense of their emotions.
The collar would normally be overkill for an Empath, but not her. Melay now knew that too. What if Melay assumed that Garran was also resistant? Surely she wouldn’t allow him to stay in a place where he could siphon.
The consequences of Larkin’s actions leached into her like acid as the guards hauled her up a spiral staircase at the tunnel’s end.
You just chose not to think, Garran had said.
But her hasty action in the cell had meant that Garran was alive, and that was all that mattered. She couldn’t get ahead of herself.
The stairs leveled to a platform. One guard opened a wooden door and pushed her into a hallway, and Larkin inhaled clean, thin air. They must have climbed all the way to the top of the peak.
Larkin was uncuffed and shoved into the nearest room with such force that she fell to the ground. The door slammed shut behind her.
The room was barren save for an excessively large tub and a wide, open window bordered with limestone. She stood, stunned by the sharp-sweet air and warm rays of afternoon sun. She’d been in the prison for over a day.
She didn’t notice the three women in servantry garb at the far edge of the room until her eyes adjusted. They ushered her forward and wasted no time, stripping her and pushing her into the hot water.
Larkin hissed as a servant scrubbed her skin and scalp raw with buttery soap. A bath was a luxury she’d never experienced before, but it wasn’t as enjoyable as she’d imagined.
“Do you know why I’m here?” she tried asking. The servants continued without response, as if they were washing a tub of dirty laundry.
Larkin calmed herself. Executions didn’t require cleanliness. If she were to be killed, someone would have stuck a sword in her already. The bath had to mean that she was staying alive. For now.
They toweled her off, one of the servants combing through her hair and shearing away the rough ends. Another took Larkin’s measurements, wrapping twine around her limbs and torso. She left the room and returned with an ensemble for Larkin to change into.
When the servants swept out of the room, Larkin clutched the towel to her body, too stunned to move.
It’s a trap, she thought.
But with no way to escape, Larkin coaxed herself to pick up the clothing, tugging on undergarments, a tunic, and trousers that were plainly woven but finer than anything she’d ever owned.
As soon as she finished tying the laces of her new boots, the door creaked open behind her.
Larkin shot to her feet when she saw a young soldier standing at the entrance. The woman stepped into the room, her hand on the hilt of her sword. Larkin’s mind leapt to a stealthy execution, imagining the soldier lunging forward to grab her hair, yanking her head back and slitting her throat. Larkin’s hand shot to her neck.
The soldier arched a slim eyebrow. “I’m not here to take your collar off.”
Larkin’s hand slid down, finding her collar, and held on to it as she waited for the soldier to state her business. The soldier studied Larkin, her black, pin-straight hair swaying back and forth from where it was secured at the crown of her head. She was dressed in leather battle armor, metal plates embedded in the cuirass to protect the vital places of her body, light enough and leaving much of her tawny skin uncovered. The armor was designed for agility and war—movement—not just for shielding, like the clunky armor the city guards wore.
As the soldier made to move back toward the hall, luminite glinted from beneath her cuirass. A collar.
Larkin dropped her hand in shock. “You’re an Empath.” That wasn’t possible—it was illegal for Empaths to join Melay’s army or the city guard. “Who are you?”
She took a hesitant step back. The soldier couldn’t possibly be working for Melay, yet Larkin wasn’t sure that she was here to help her either.
“You’re not really in a place to be asking questions, are you?” The soldier gripped the pommel at her hip, sliding the top of her sword gently from its sheath and gesturing to the hall. A threat.
That settles it, thought Larkin. She was one of Melay’s.
Still, soldiers killed Empaths. How could this woman be both? Larkin wanted to refuse to follow, but she didn’t even know how to throw a decent punch, let alone fight against a sword unarmed.
With no choice, she followed the soldier out of the room.
A boy with a slight frame waited for them in the hallway, dressed in the periwinkle robe of a scholar. He was pale, though not pallid like the miners, and lacked a collar. Healthy, and not an Empath, thought Larkin. He had a round, nervous face and was surrounded by his own entourage of guards.
“Larkin, my name is Tamsyn Arkwright.” The boy gestured to the soldier. “This is Jacque, and we’re—”
Jacque cut him off. “Late. The queen is waiting.”
Larkin faltered as Jacque marched down the hall, Tamsyn hurrying after her. Melay was waiting for them? A scholar, an Empath soldier, and Larkin? She wiped the sweat running down the back of her neck and followed the soldier and the scholar at a distance, the boots of the guards behind her heavy on the stone floor.
Larkin couldn’t let her own bewilderment distract her. She owed Garran nothing less than constant vigilance. She couldn’t afford to miss a clue or a hint at how she might free him or, at the very least, keep him safe for as long as possible.
She’d told him she would fix this. It was a promise she’d die by.
Tamsyn and Jacque led her through a labyrinth of torchlit hallways, the surrounding ornamentation growing more opulent the farther they walked. Gems and minerals were embedded in the ceiling in swirling patterns, sparkling in the light.
Larkin pulled her eyes away, repulsed at the queen’s hoard, and caught Tamsyn sneaking curious glances at her before Jacque grabbed his shoulder and pushed him ahead.
The hall opened to a massive chamber.
Guards were stationed along the rich tapestries at the edges of the room. A bronze table atop the polished marble floor stretched from one end of the room to the other, vacant except for a handful of occupants at the very end. Perched in the head seat was Queen Melay.
Jacque straightened and Tamsyn smoothed down the front of his robe as they approached the queen, but Larkin’s feet felt like they were soldered to the ground. Every muscle in her body was rigid with fury, but more than angry, Larkin was terrified. Terrified that none of this made sense. Terrified that Melay was staring at her. Larkin could sense nothing, but the queen looked pleased. And that was the most frightening thing of all.
Tamsyn glanced back at her and jerked his head forward, motioning for Larkin to follow. She complied.
When Larkin was close enough, she spotted the queen’s bony hand on the table, the gold band of her ring winking in the light. The empty setting should have felt like a trophy, but it was only a reminder that the queen knew of her luminite resistance.
A few collar-bound Empaths dressed like Larkin occupied the seats on the side of the table opposite her. She immediately recognized Elfina. The dancer wasn’t beaming or staring wide-eyed as she had done in the cells, but something was still bright about her. Not like the sun Larkin had seen from the limestone window, but subtle, like a torch.
The corner of Elfina’s mouth perked up in a smile when she saw Larkin, and Larkin clung to the familiar sight, smiling back.
