Fowler reached for my arm again, squeezing for me to hold my tongue. He should know me better by now.
“Is that so, little one?” Prince Chasan took a step in my direction, and I instantly had second thoughts about calling his attention back to me.
Fowler slid a step closer to me, as though he would shield me—he who could hardly stand on his own two feet.
“I’m not mistaken, Your Highness,” Breslen offered resolutely.
“Interesting.” Mint breath was on my face again. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, and I resented that. Unpleasant people shouldn’t smell nice. “I cannot decide whether I trust your judgment, Breslen. Especially since you are so glaringly wrong about the boy here.”
I jerked at this reference to me. I was standing right in front of him. I felt his stare on my face, and yet he spoke about me as if I were some inferior species.
“What do you mean, Your Highness?” Breslen asked, indignation thrumming in his tones, robbing him of his usual reverence despite his formal address.
The prince did not seem to note it. Or he simply let it slide. “This boy is not a boy at all. He’s a girl. Trust me. I’m an authority on the subject of girls.” Dry humor spiked his voice, which did nothing to lessen my burst of panic. He knew. He took one look at me and knew.
Breslen sputtered as Prince Chasan continued, “You failed to notice this most obvious truth, but I’m to believe you’re perceptive enough to remember and recognize the prince of Relhok?”
My mouth worked to say something. How? How did he know? What had I done to give myself away to him so quickly and not the others? For three days I had traveled among them, my true gender undetected.
“You’re wrong,” Fowler offered beside me, clinging to the lie, unwilling to give up. He forced out a cracking laugh as if it were an absurd suggestion and only worthy of mirth. I swallowed miserably, knowing it was a lost cause even if Fowler wasn’t willing to admit that yet.
“Indeed. Am I?” Prince Chasan asked in a mild manner, his elegant tones as slick as glass—as if he were remarking upon the taste of his soup and not something significant. Not something that could spell death for me. “Because it would be an easy enough matter to prove.” There was a beat of silence as this sank in. My stomach dipped and then heaved back up. “Shall I?” he asked, testing us.
He snapped his fingers, and suddenly two soldiers grabbed me by the arms and hauled me away from Fowler’s side. I struggled, but they were bigger and stronger.
They held me in front of Prince Chasan, arms stretched wide at my sides like some sacrifice. And that’s how I felt. Exposed and open for whatever awful thing he wanted to do.
Fingers slid down the skin of my throat, warm to the touch, but that didn’t stop my shudder. I yanked my head to the side, trying to escape the brush of the prince’s fingers. The hard hands holding me only tightened their grip, bruising me through my garments. The pads of his fingers were surprisingly callused, rasping my dirty skin as they roamed, stopping to rest at my hammering pulse. An egg-sized lump lodged itself in my throat.
Shivering, I tried to wiggle away from the contact, but I was pinned to the spot, held up for inspection—for anything and everything the prince wanted to do to me. It was a hard bite of reality. I could do nothing save wait for him to make his next move. My utter sense of helplessness was perhaps the worst thing I had endured so far.
His liquid voice was close, sliding on the air and sinking through me like falling rocks. “It’s hard to tell beneath all the mud and filth, but I would hazard to say she’s a fetching thing.”
I forced my chin up, not cowering, swallowing back a whimper as his fingers dipped lower, stopping at the center of my throat, in that tiny hollow between my collarbones. “The softest skin,” he mused. “How could you think her a boy, Breslen?”
There was a violent surge of movement to my left. “Take your hands off—” Fowler’s voice stopped abruptly, almost saying it. Almost confirming I was the girl.
My heart hiccuped painfully as I turned my face in Fowler’s direction. I felt his gaze and tried to communicate with him, tried to convey that maybe we should just confess the truth and be done with it. Anything to get Chasan’s hands and attention off me.
“Her?” Prince Chasan finished for him, sounding so smug and satisfied that I wanted to claw his face. “You’d like me to get my hands off her?”
Fowler didn’t answer. He sucked in an angry breath, but said nothing.
“Fowler,” I croaked.
“Still won’t admit it, then?” The prince tsked and paused, giving me and Fowler time to volunteer the truth that was fast becoming unavoidable.
I waited, dread pooling in my stomach, my voice lost deep inside me as I listened to the rasp of Fowler’s breath, wondering at his next move. Prince Chasan sighed as though greatly aggrieved. “Very well.”
His fingers curled into the throat of my shirt and yanked down hard. The sound of fabric ripping was violent and obscene on the loam-soaked air.
Crying out, I surged and writhed, unable to break free. I just hung there between the soldiers, my tunic ripped down the center, my torso bare except for the binding covering my chest. My naked stomach quivered as cool air washed over me.
For a moment, there was only silence in the hum of darkness.
Everyone’s attention focused solely on me. Their gazes felt like hot coals raking over me, blistering my flesh. Bile surged in the back of my throat.
The air shifted, crackling with a dangerous energy that hadn’t been there before. My nostrils flared, smelling it, the foul intent of their thoughts coiling around me.
Fowler broke the stillness, lunging forward. He swung an arm, smashing his fist into one soldier’s face with a crack of knuckles on bone. He’d been violent before, when desperate, but not like this. Before he was always controlled and precise, but this was wild and savage and brutal. Fowler launched at the other soldier holding me, and he went down like a heavy slab of stone, unmoving. I was suddenly free. “Run!” he shouted.
I lunged only one step before the prince caught me up in his arms. I struggled against the lock of his embrace, assailed with his scent—mint and leather and wind and that hot pulse of adrenaline that coated the back of my throat. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he breathed near my ear.
There was a flurry of movement. Boots shuffled over gasps and cries. Bones crunched. Fowler grunted and I knew they were striking him.
“Stop! Let him go. He’s sick and your men are hurting him!” I struggled, the flaps of my torn tunic flapping open, but I didn’t care in that moment. I could have been stark naked and I would only care about Fowler—helping him, reaching him. Saving him.
“Now that all depends. Are we going to be honest with each other from now on? Are we going to admit who we are? These are dangerous times, and I can’t surround myself with deceivers. I can’t bring anyone into the palace who isn’t who they claim to be.” His hand drifted back over me, his fingers brushing my bare belly and making my skin revolt with goose bumps.
“Rot in hell,” Fowler snarled.
Prince Chasan tsked. His fingers curled at the edges of the binding wrapping my chest, getting a good grip on the fabric. I shuddered at the scrape of his blunt-tipped nails in the valley between my mashed breasts. The steel tip of a knife pricked my skin. I ceased to breathe, not daring to lift my chest even a scant inch for fear that the blade would pierce me.
“What do we have here?” he asked. The binding dipped with the slightest pressure beneath the prince’s knife. “Now why would a boy be wearing something like this? Are you trying to hide something?”
He tugged on the tight fabric concealing my breasts, pressing the knife deeper against the edge of the fabric. I gave a small yelp as some of the threads popped loose. The binding was on the verge of giving way.
“Stop! Let her go!” Fowler spat, lunging toward us.
“There you go! Was honesty so very difficult? She’s a girl . . . and you’re the prin
ce of Relhok. Isn’t it better now without any lies between us?” Prince Chasan’s fingers slipped from my chest binding, leaving it intact. He still kept one hand lightly on my shoulder, though, not completely letting me go.
Fowler staggered to his feet. I felt his presence in front of us. Heat and fury radiated off him. “Touch her, and I will kill you.”
I trembled at the hard bite of resolve in his voice. I didn’t doubt him, and that didn’t bode well. We were in Lagonia. The entire country—or at least what was left of it—would come after us if he so much as ruffled one hair on the prince’s head.
Swords hissed on air and I knew they were drawing on Fowler. His threat would not go unanswered. They couldn’t ignore it. They didn’t care if Fowler was the prince of Relhok or not. They were in Lagonia and these were Lagonians.
“Easy,” Prince Chasan chided, but I wasn’t certain if he was talking to Fowler or his men. His men, I supposed. I heard them lower their swords, and some of the tension ebbed away.
I sidled away from the prince. This time he didn’t stop me. My heart hammered a wild beat in my chest as I took my place at Fowler’s side. I inhaled, smelling the sourness of his feverish skin. He wasn’t doing well. He’d used up whatever strength he had. I didn’t know how he was still standing and talking and fighting, but I didn’t think he could for much longer.
“I understand,” the prince said. “She’s yours. And you have to protect what’s yours. I would do the same.”
I didn’t bother correcting him and telling him that I didn’t belong to anyone. I shivered anew, sensing his scrutiny on me. I tugged the flaps of my shredded shirt back together as best I could, grasping what modesty available, however flimsy.
“Smart of you to disguise her,” Prince Chasan continued. “It couldn’t have been easy for you traveling through Relhok. Not with the bounty on young females. A shame, that. Not sure what your father could be thinking to come up with such a decree. Such a travesty . . . the murder of so many girls.” He clucked his tongue.
Fowler suddenly buckled beside me. I made a grab for him, slipping an arm around his waist. “Are we going to stand here all day, then?” I snapped.
Fowler choked out my name near my ear. “Luna . . . “
I ignored the warning in his voice. His weight sank deeper against me, and I had to wrap both arms around him to keep him from falling. He was still much heavier than I was, and I staggered under the bulk of his body.
“I would like to get him to the physician that was promised to us.” Exerted pants punctuated my words. “Unless that has changed and you want to stand idly by as the prince of Relhok dies?”
I arched an eyebrow and pulled back my shoulders, awaiting their verdict and trying to feel as though I wasn’t begging. As though I weren’t completely at their mercy.
“Breslen promised. And a promise is a promise.” The prince snapped his fingers and soldiers moved forward, quickly relieving Fowler’s weight from my arms.
“Your Highness?” that older, scratchy-rough voice asked. “What of our hunt? Shall we continue on and let the others take them back to the city?”
“No, we shall escort them ourselves. We can catch dwellers another time.”
Catch dwellers? Before I had time to inquire what he meant by that, the prince himself was pulling me along toward one of the horses. “Come along. Luna, was it? You can ride with me.”
I looked over my shoulder as though I could see Fowler. “What about—”
“He’ll be fine,” he assured me.
“Fowler?” I called out as I was hauled up in the saddle in front of the prince.
“He’s lost consciousness.”
The explanation left me feeling hollow inside. I was truly alone with this arrogant prince who cut my tunic away as if it were a small matter and not anything that might shame or terrify me.
He turned his mount around and we traveled for several minutes in silence. The terrain grew craggy and it was a rough ride. I tried to sit as high in the saddle as possible but the jarring motion forced me back against him.
A swarm of bats flew overhead, their loud flapping wings and cacophony of chirps deafening, making me jerk a little in the prince’s arms. I’d heard plenty of bats before but never such a large flock and never so close to our heads. I couldn’t help ducking slightly.
“We have lots of bats around here. They thrive in this area with all the mountain caves. They never bother with us, though. You’ll get accustomed to them.”
I bit my lip to stop from saying that no, I wouldn’t be getting accustomed to them because I wouldn’t be staying.
“How did you come to meet Fowler?” he asked, his voice close to my ear.
I shrugged, gasping when the hard band of his arms circled my waist and pulled me back against him.
“Come now. Don’t pout simply because I uncovered your secret.”
“I’m not pouting,” I retorted, almost tempted to fling at him that he wasn’t as perceptive as he claimed. He hadn’t figured out that I was blind yet.
“Then don’t be reticent. It’s a few hours to reach the palace. Must we journey in silence? That would be needlessly dull. Regale me with your adventures with the prince of Relhok.”
“I’m not here for your entertainment.”
“Interesting. Most people are, you know.”
I leaned away from his mouth. “I’m certain that’s not true.”
“It is. Most people exist for my amusement.”
I snorted. “You’re serious. Is that a requirement of princehood? Spoiled arrogance? I’m glad Fowler is nothing like you.”
I wondered if I would be like this, too, had my parents lived. If the eclipse hadn’t happened.
“Indeed he’s not.” His voice turned to flint at my insult. Apparently I’d hit a nerve. “For starters, he’s lucky if he will live out the day. We might be bringing him to the physician too late. You should consider that, girl . . . consider where that will leave you once your precious prince is dead.”
I knew exactly where that would leave me. It would leave me at the mercy of him.
He understood that well enough, too. His voice felt like a cold winter wind near my cheek. “It would not hurt you to make a friend of me.”
Apparently no longer interested in talking to me, Prince Chasan dug in his heels, and the horse broke into a run under us. I buried my hands in the coarse mane, and held on.
It was all I could do.
EIGHT
Fowler
I FADED IN and out. I knew it was happening, but that didn’t make fighting the thick press of unconsciousness any easier. The pain pushed me into it with a hard, two-handed shove. I tumbled in, the pull of numbing darkness too strong. It continually dragged me back under into nightmares with dwellers chasing me—and worse, chasing Luna, capturing her, grabbing her up in their clawed hands and tearing her apart. Her screams rang in my ears and I wasn’t sure what was real or a nightmare.
I did know that every time I emerged into consciousness, my arm burned with a deep, unholy fire. All movement jarred me and sent agony shooting to every nerve in my body.
At one point, I opened my eyes and it was midlight. I blinked at the milky air as I swayed in the saddle, the soldier behind me the only thing keeping me from falling. A great castle of rock rose up before us, the pale-milk stone etched against the feeble light like something from a dream. A ghost of yesterday when this world was once prosperous and made up of towns and villages and castles that looked out over countryside of fertile fields.
The stench greeted me with all the force of a fist to the face. The reek of urine and cooking meat, unwashed bodies and livestock, mingled into one great maelstrom of stink. In short, it smelled of life.
Our party stood before the gate, waiting as a great drawbridge lowered with a groan. Archers wearing tunics emblazoned with the Lagonian hawks stood along the top of the parapets, smudged shapes staring down through slits in their helmets, their arrows at the ready. The drawbridge
struck the ground with a reverberating thud that I felt to my very bones. If possible, the vibration made my head ache harder.
I’d never been to Ainswind before but I knew I was staring at it now, passing through the shadow of the barbican, the horses’ hooves clattering over the bridge that led through the gatehouse and opened into a vast courtyard bustling with people and soldiers. A slapdash assortment of buildings dotted the wide space, some squat and single storied, but most were several levels high. Stalls with vendors hawking wares and pens of animals lined narrow lanes. It was almost normal. A normal that I scarcely remembered.
And there at the far end of the courtyard a castle jutted out of the craggy limestone mountainside, home to Tebald and his offspring.
I’d heard that the city was built right out of the side of a mountain, impenetrable to dwellers, but thought such tales exaggerations. It was impossible to identify where the mountain ended and the castle began. It looked like one enormous white-skinned fortress as big as the sky, stretching so high into the air that my neck had to drop back to take it all in.
My father had cursed Lagonia often enough, jealous and bemoaning that it was better equipped to survive the eclipse than Relhok City. Unfair, he insisted, that they should withstand the dwellers better than the rest of the world.
“Fowler.” I turned at the sound of my name and found Luna, mud-encrusted, her hair sticking out all round her head in stiff clumps, sitting before the prince, her hands anxiously worrying the horse’s mane of hair. For a moment she blurred and I was staring at three of her. Blinking several times, I brought her back into focus. She looked so small, slender as a reed in front of the prince’s larger frame. All these people crowded into one space. The intense smells and sounds. For a girl who spent the majority of her life isolated in the tower, this had to be sensory overload.
Chasan was attired in a royal-blue tunic without a speck of dirt or mud on it. I doubted he’d ever been dirty. He’d probably never felt the pains of hunger in his belly either.
I knew that because that had been my life. Others had gone without food, but not me. I knew what it was like to exist levels above everyone else so desperately fighting for survival. I knew what it felt like to have your life valued more than others, your stomach full each day, every precaution taken to ensure your safety and comfort and to hell with everyone else. As far as my father was concerned, everyone else was dweller bait.