I started to tell the Dawoud bolti it was mistaken—my name was Sylvia, probably—but the water rushed into my mouth, choking me. I kicked up, reaching for the waning, shimmering surface of the water. Almost there. If I could just reach the sunlight…
With a gasp, I bolted upright. A shout rose and died in my throat. Pressing a hand to my racing heart, I struggled to calm myself as my eyes adjusted to the dimness of my new setting.
The room of relics had vanished. This room was smaller, containing only a mirror, a rocking chair, and the cot beneath me. No war cabinets or weapons. Thick, mossy vines weaved over the dirt floor, explaining the scent of damp decay. The walls had been erected directly around the floor of the woods. I sniffed, searching for a note of manure or rotten eggs to determine my distance from Hirun, and instantly regretted it. An overwhelmingly foul odor gagged me. If this was death, my soul hadn’t wound up anywhere good.
On the off chance I was still among the living, I pressed my hand over my nose, sipping the air in tiny, careful pulls. From the size of the vines winding over the ground, this room had been built a long time ago. Perhaps he enjoyed killing me so much that he moved me somewhere new to do it again.
I reached to scratch my shoulder and flinched. My wrists. The Commander had snapped the right one and crushed the other, and I distinctly recalled my cuffs grinding the bones of both to dust. Bewildered, I rotated them. Nothing—no pain. Baira’s blessed hair, had I finally gone mad?
My torn clothes had been replaced by a simple linen gown. The thought of one of the Nizahl guardsmen stripping my clothes while I slept made me grit my teeth. I cast an assessing glance over the room once more, searching for anything I could use as a weapon.
Because your last endeavor to kill the Heir was so exceedingly successful, Hanim bit out.
Who said anything about trying to kill him again? My intentions began and ended with getting out of this room. I turned on the cot, setting my feet on the ground. They settled over a bulbous, springy surface. I frowned. Odd, why would the vines be—
I looked down and screamed. My legs violently recoiled, knocking my knees against my chin.
Stretched on the ground beside my bed was the soldier I killed.
A bone of his snapped neck protruded from the waxen glaze of his skin. Insects skittered in the open gash under his belly. My stomach turned as his lips pulsed, parting briefly as a roach escaped onto his cheek.
I had seen many corpses, but never quite this far into death. Yuck. He must have been a nightmare for the guards to carry. I stretched my leg to hop over him when something much more unsettling caught my eye.
On the soldier’s chest lay a wrapped sesame-seed candy.
The door opened. Jeru and Vaun entered, moving to opposite sides of the frame. They stood at attention.
Arin strode past them. With his hair swept tidily from his face and his vest meticulously laced beneath his coat, it was hard to imagine someone with such self-possession had nearly strangled me to death.
His attention found my face and settled, eradicating the small hope I had indulged that perhaps the soldier’s body had been in this room before I arrived. Arin wanted a reaction.
I had a split second to decide which one I should give. I could give him innocence, feign shock and horror at the mutilated corpse and maybe break into tears. I could offer the Heir subdued distress and ask him what happened. Every option I considered fell flat, because they all inevitably led to the same consequence: my death. He had declared as much in the war room.
I bent down and plucked the candy from the soldier’s chest. I studied it between two fingers, bringing it to my nose for a sniff. Filth and sugar.
“I think you misplaced this,” I said, casual.
No response. I may as well have spoken to a stone. He wanted a reaction? Well, that made two of us. I flicked the candy. It fell against his boot. “I do not care much for sweets, myself.”
Vaun stepped forward, a hand on the hilt of his sword. Jeru grasped his elbow.
“Out.” Arin did not raise his voice or move his eyes from mine. A sour-faced Vaun wrenched his elbow away and stormed out. Jeru followed, closing the door behind him.
We were alone.
I bit my lip. The urge to break the silence battered me, an unfortunate relic from my time with Hanim. Silence was danger. The more still he was, the more unsettled I became. I forced myself to hold his gaze. The blackness was gone, replaced with his placid blue. Not a suggestion of the savagery I had witnessed remained in his frosty disposition. One question pushed and pushed, forcing itself into creation.
“Is Fairel—” I cleared my throat. “Is Fairel alive?”