Rise of Fire

  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 cocked 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 hello. Hello.” 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 amusements.”

  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 bastard. 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 circumspect.

  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. Ju
st 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 naïve 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.

  Chin lifted at a haughty angle, Luna turned to the guard. “I’m weary. Let us go.”

  They continued, moving away from me. I watched, helpless to pursue her with Maris watching, her hands still locked on me like she would never let go.

  TWENTY

  Luna

  I WAS ALMOST to my bedchamber door when steps sounded behind us. I turned, my heart racing, treacherous hope stirring inside me that it was Fowler, that he had turned away from his princess and come after me. Pathetic, especially knowing he was clearly invested in a relationship with Princess Maris, but I couldn’t force my heart to feel any differently.

  “Leave us,” Prince Chasan’s voice bit out to the guard beside me.

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  I opened my mouth to protest as the guard left me, but warm fingers circled my wrist and tugged me inside my chamber.

  “Prince Chasan,” I gasped. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be here. This isn’t seemly.”

  The door clicked shut behind us, sealing us in, and a bolt of alarm slithered down my spine. “What were you doing at the pits?”

  “I heard the screams.”

  “And you followed the sound? How could you have thought that a good idea?”

  I inhaled sharply. “You know we’re avoiding the more important matter.”

  “And what is that?” he challenged, still holding my arm. I gave it several yanks and he finally released me.

  “Why?” I demanded, rubbing my arm where he had gripped me. “How can you stand there and cheer and place bets as a person is torn to pieces in front of you? And then you just let your father execute that girl—Riana! What’s wrong with you? With all of you?” I knew bad people and horribleness existed on the Outside, but in here it should have been different. It was that belief that had started breaking me down and convincing me that I could do this. Stay here. Be a wife to someone I didn’t know. Forget Fowler . . . as he had apparently forgotten me.

  Chasan didn’t reply. I heard nothing beyond the hard rhythm of his breath.

  Emotion welled up in my throat as I thought about the man who had died tonight, the sound of his cries, the noise his bones made as the dwellers tore him apart. And the thud of Riana’s head. Her father’s scream.

  “Say nothing.” I nodded fiercely. “There is not an excuse, not a defense you can offer.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I can’t marry such a person.”

  “No?” he quickly retorted, his voice ruthless as a whip. “And who might you marry, Luna?” His voice twisted into something hard and mean. “Your precious Fowler? I just passed him in the hall with my sister. I’m sure you saw them, too. Quite the cozy pair.”

  He knew exactly where I was the most tender and bruised and he struck me there with a well-aimed blow. “I needn’t marry anyone,” I flung out.

  “If you think that, then you really are a fool. You think you can go against my father? He will never let you leave this place, and if you don’t do what he asks you’ll be spending the rest of your days as a guest in our dungeon. Or worse.”

  His words bubbled like toxin in my veins. I cranked back my arm and struck him in the chest with my balled-up fist. “Is that why you hunt dwellers? Because your father demands it? Is that why you capture them and bring them back here? You do it because he tells you to? What else do you do that he demands? Oh, that’s right! You marry lost princesses.”

  “Luna, stop.”

  “Tell me, Chasan, who are those people that have to die for your amusements? What have they done to deserve that?”

  “They’ve made an enemy of my father . . . of Lagonia.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to be here. I’m not a part of this world where you butcher people. You’re a coward.” I turned away, but he grabbed me and hauled me back to face him.

  He gave me a small shake, snapping my head back to focus on him. “You are a part of it. No matter what you want. You’re going to be a part of it and you’ll say nothing to the contrary unless you want to bring the wrath of my father down on you, and trust me, that’s not something you want. Understand?”

  My breath fell in hard pants.

  “Say you understand me, Luna.” There was an edge of panic that I had never heard before in his liquid-smooth voice. “Say it,” he insisted, chasing the words with another shake. “I won’t have you hurt. I can’t.”

  His words, as much unsaid as said, deflated my anger. “You’re afraid of him,” I whispered.

  “He’s a monster,” he admitted, dropping his hands from my arms, and for the first time I considered that. I considered him. I thought about what it must be like to be brought up by such a man . . . how trapped you must feel when your own father was a nightmare you had to face each and every day. Not that different from Fowler.

  We stood in silence for a long moment, only our breaths between us. He closed the space, his bigger body radiating heat and vitality as it crept toward me. “We don’t have to live in fear forever. We just need to hold on, Luna.” His forehead dropped to mine, fingers flexing on my arms. “We just have to wait it out.”

  Wait for Tebald to die. That was what he was saying. We had to wait until he was no longer in power and we could take over.

  “You have a good heart, Luna,” he continued, his voice insinuating into my spinning thoughts. “Better than my own. Better than anyone I’ve ever met before. You want to do the right thing even if it hurts you. Only I don’t want you to be hurt.” His lips ghosted over mine. I gasped at the brush of contact.

  I didn’t have time to pull away from his almost-kiss. It was over as quickly as it had begun, but I still felt a tight clench low in my stomach. Regret whispered through me. I could have kicked myself for the weak thought. Why should I feel loyalty to Fowler when he had already forgotten about me?

  “I want to try to be more like you, Luna. Together, with you, I think I can. We could be good together. We could be good for Lagonia and Relhok.”

  His words wove through me, a seductive spell sinking deep. Could he mean that
? I weighed the possibility. Relhok and Lagonia united, without Cullan or Tebald at the helm. The black eclipse and its dwellers would still exist, but things wouldn’t have to be so hopeless.

  Marriage to Chasan meant not living for myself, but it also meant making a difference in the lives of others. I could make this world a better place. Wasn’t that what Sivo and Perla had groomed me to do? They had believed that was my fate. They taught me to believe it, too.

  “I can see you’re thinking about it, Luna.” His hands fell to his sides with a whisper. I nodded once, relieved at the distance between us so that I could think without his hands touching me. “Good. Consider it. You have time. A little time,” he amended. However much time his father would give us.

  He moved away toward the door, his steps soft and steady in the great expanse of my room. “We’ll talk again soon.”

  Then I was alone in the pulsing silence of my bedchamber with only my clamoring thoughts for company.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Fowler

  IT TOOK A little longer than I’d hoped to disengage myself from Maris and send her on her way to her own bedchamber. She was tenacious. I would give her that. She had been waiting all her life for me. Not me specifically, but the prince she had been promised. There was a distinction. She didn’t know me. She didn’t care to know me, and she certainly didn’t love me. I was merely the prize that had been dangled before her nose all these years. Now that I was here she did not know the meaning of self-control.

  I eased out from my chamber, headfirst, relieved to see that there was no guard at my door and no one in the corridor. I crept along, heading in the direction I had last seen Luna and her escort take. I listened at doors, hoping for any indication of which room might be hers.

  A door creaked open somewhere ahead of me and I ducked to the side, flattening against the other side of a beam that jutted out from the wall. Peering around the post, I watched as Chasan stepped out of a room and into the corridor. He turned back to look inside the bedchamber before closing the door. In that moment I glimpsed Luna standing a few feet from the threshold, staring in his general direction as he left her.