Beneath the shade of a fig tree, Niyar flipped the pages of his book. Palia stood on the palace steps, watching him with her hands on her hips.
The scenes were alive. As though I could reach out to pet the rabbit or pluck a ripe fig from the dangling branches.
The mirage wavered almost imperceptibly. Niyar’s thumb halted on the page; the children’s arms blinked from existence. A flicker of time, and the scene began again. A perfect moment looped for infinity.
“These tunnels were discovered a year before the siege. We believe they were commissioned as a school for talented Jasadis during Niyar and Palia’s reign,” Jeru said. “For those whose magic made them promising candidates for the Jasad army.”
Palia’s chin lifted at something—a breeze, a bird’s song, the children’s laughter—and the permanent furrows in her brow smoothed for a brief instant. My heart squeezed. I never thought I would see my grandmother again.
A soft mat replaced loose soil, absorbing our tread. I allowed myself another lingering glance at the specter of my grandfather. His royal ring caught the sunlight, the golden kitmer glinting on his finger. I struggled not to turn around when we exited to the hall.
“This room is yours,” Wes said, gesturing at a door indistinguishable from the dozen others lining the hall. “The kitchen is around the corner, three doors past the lavatory. You will report to the training center after first light. There is only one exit, and it is monitored. Questions?”
Several, but I started with, “How do you suppose I shall see first light from a windowless underground room?”
Wes glanced at Jeru. His mouth pinched. “Your… kind. Have an attunement to nature.”
I nodded, somber. “Of course. Most mornings, the sun—I call her Beatrice, actually—taps my shoulder and invites me to tea with her and the mountains. She’s quite the gossip. Tragically, however, I don’t know how well my ‘attunement’ will hold against several layers of dirt and stone.”
The cough Jeru stifled in his fist skirted suspiciously close to a laugh. If Wes soured any more, they could squeeze him over a broth.
“Someone will come to fetch you,” he said.
“Excellent.” I shouldered the heavy door open, coughing at the resulting billow of dust. The room was bland, perfunctory: crumbling walls and bare floors carrying a constant chill, and a circular table near the wardrobe with two sturdy wooden chairs. My back ached simply looking at the narrow bed in the center of the room.
Jeru and Wes lingered outside the threshold.
“We were instructed not to enter your quarters under any circumstance,” Jeru explained. “For your comfort.”
My comfort, which roughly translated to “no guards in the room so Vaun can’t smother you in your sleep.”
“What if I’m dying?”
“Why would you be dying?”
“Perhaps an insect crawled into my throat. I’m choking, frothing at the mouth. Will you watch from the threshold?”
“Yes,” Wes said. “Try not to swallow any insects.”
I sniffed the sheets, relieved when I couldn’t detect the cloying scent of mold. How would I wash these? How would I bathe? Unless the soldiers intended to transport basins for my daily use. I imagined Vaun sloshing my bath water over his uniform and felt momentarily cheered.
The guards left, closing the door behind them. I collapsed onto the lumpy bed, jaw aching from hiding my tension from these Nizahlan snakes. I’d memorized our movements as we walked through the complex, but I had no idea how I would climb out once I reached the exit. The drop had been close to eight feet. Even if I managed to pull myself out, where would I go? I lacked the faintest clue as to where in Essam they had taken me. Nizahl maintained its surveillance of the kingdoms by keeping hundreds of secret locations sprinkled throughout Essam. Most were unoccupied, but without knowing for certain where the locations were and which were active, the kingdoms were compelled to behave. I could run directly into a busy Nizahlan stronghold as soon as I fled.
A part of me wondered if it wouldn’t be more prudent to remain in the complex until a more reasonable means of escape presented itself. Immediately, I brushed the prospect aside. The Nizahl Heir claimed he needed me to compete in the Alcalah to capture these mysterious Jasadi groups, but I very much doubted he would tolerate me to live the six weeks between now and the Champions’ opening banquet. As soon as Arin found a solution that did not require my continued existence, he would dispose of me with the same efficient brusqueness of a captain decapitating a lamed warhorse. And if he discovered I was once Essiya of Jasad… I shuddered.