The guard goes down. Oak kicks the second into the iron bars and, in a moment of hesitation from the third, grabs for the first guard’s fallen sword.
Before he can get it, a club hits him in the stomach, knocking the air out of him.
He was faster, before the iron. Before his muscles got stiff. Before getting hit in the head several times by Valen. A few weeks ago, he would have had the sword.
They’re crowded in the entrance of his cell; that’s his main advantage. Only one can really come at him at a time, but all three have weapons drawn and Oak has only his hands and hooves. Even the bowl is lying on the ground, cracked in half.
But he refuses to be dragged back to the interrogation chamber. Panic fills him at the thought of Valen starting the torture over. At the strike of an ice whip. At Bogdana’s nails peeling off his skin.
The second guard, the one who hit the bars, lunges at him with the sword. It’s a small space, though, too small to get a real swing in, and the guard is slow as a consequence. Oak ducks and barrels into the first guard, who has managed to get onto his feet. The prince slams into him, and they both sprawl onto the cold stone tiles of the prison hall. Oak attempts to scramble up, only to be hit between the shoulder blades with the club by the third guard. He is knocked down again, falling heavily onto the second guard. He goes for a knife strapped to that one’s belt. Drawing it, he rolls onto his back, ready to throw.
As he does, he feels a familiar shift in his mind. The shuttering of all other thoughts, the casting off of himself. There is a relief in letting go, allowing the future and past to drop away, to become someone without a hope or fear beyond this moment. Someone for whom there was only ever this fight and there will only ever be this fight.
It worries him, too, though, because every time it happens, he feels less and less in control of what he does when he’s outside himself. How many times now has he found himself standing over a body with blood on his clothes, blood on his face and his sword and his hands—and no memory of what happened?
It makes him think of the gancanagh power, of all the warnings he doesn’t seem able to heed anymore.
“Oak!” Hyacinthe shouts.
The prince lets his arm with the dagger in it sag. Somehow being yelled at by Hyacinthe brings him back to himself. Maybe it is just the familiarity of his scorn.
When he isn’t hit again, he lets himself lie there, breathing hard. The other guard stands.
“She wants you to sit down to supper with her,” Hyacinthe says. “I’m supposed to get you cleaned up.”
“Wren?” Oak’s sense of time is still very unclear. “I thought she was going to have me punished.”
Hyacinthe raises both his eyebrows. “Yes, Wren. Who else?”
The prince looks at the guards, who glare at him resentfully. If he’d been thinking more clearly, he would have realized he had no cause to try to murder them. They weren’t necessarily working for Valen or Bogdana, weren’t necessarily leading him to his doom. He probably would have figured that out sooner had his head not hurt so much. Had Bogdana not come and threatened him.
“No one mentioned supper,” Oak complains.
One of the guards, the one with the club, snorts. The other two wear scowls that remain unaltered.
Hyacinthe turns to all of them. “Find something else to do. I will escort the prince.”
The guards depart, one spitting on the stone floor as he leaves.
“I warn you,” Oak says. “If you are also planning on hitting me, it will have to be quite a blow to have any effect on the swelling and bruises already coming in.”
“You might consider occasionally bowing to wisdom and keeping your tongue between your teeth,” Hyacinthe says, reaching out a hand to pull Oak to his feet.
For a moment, the prince is certain he’s going to open his mouth and say something Hyacinthe will not think is at all funny. Something that probably won’t be at all funny.
“Unlikely, but we can both live in hope,” Oak manages as he lets himself be levered up. He staggers a little and realizes that if he tries to catch himself, he will have to burn his hand on the iron bars. Dizziness washes over him. “If you intend to gloat, have at it.”
Hyacinthe’s mouth twists into a smile. “You’re being paid, Prince of Elfhame. In exactly the coin you once demanded.”
To that, Oak can make no refutation. He is staying upright by sheer force of will, taking deep breaths until he is sure he is going to stay that way.
“Well, come on,” says Hyacinthe. “Unless you want me to carry you.”