Page 4

“Grayson. Your meal is going cold in the kitchens. I thought you might be starved to death by now.”

“Aye, but who will–”

“I’ll take my supper here while you are gone. I could use the quiet.”

Grayson sighs in obvious relief. “Aye. My thanks, Captain. I’ll not be too long.” He takes a set of bronze keys from his belt as he speaks, thrusting them into her waiting palm.

“Take your time,” Ruby mutters, and waits for the guard to pass. Once Grayson’s clamour on the stairwell no longer echoes, she scowls. Sometimes, she wonders if they are too easily persuaded. Perhaps she did not train them as well as she thinks.

Ruby opens the gate with care, balancing the tray and keys both. Inside, the keep is separated into several cells and only one is occupied.

Dawsyn Sabar sleeps in the corner of her confines, her neck bent at a painful angle. She still wears the garb she returned to the palace in a week before, only now it is a patchwork of stains. Her hair covers her face in knotted, black ropes. Opened knuckles. Fingernails missing. Each day, Ruby comes to find the girl has worsened. Each day, the captain feels sicker for it.

A Sabar, they say. ArealSabar. Ruby cannot help but look for assurances that it could be true. Her bone structure, brown eyes, black hair. She supposes they resemble that of the Sabar portraits that still adorn the palace walls. Ruby has stared at them a thousand times.

It is a miracle. The bloodline survives, and its survivor sits in a cell of her own palace, fading into something small.

Ruby finds it… uncomfortable. Each night, when she returns to her barracks knowing that a Sabar lives as a prisoner below ground, her mattress becomes one of thorns. Whatever skerrick of peace might be possible is thwarted by the resounding calls that echo through the alleys and laneways of the Mecca. News of Dawsyn Sabar’s escape from the Ledge has been passed from ear to ear, and the people are rallying, desperate for the palace to confirm it. She hears them celebrating in the streets, swamping the palace gates, and calling for her to be brought forth. It turns Ruby’s stomach to think of what they might do, should they learn the truth.

Sleep evades her. She wonders what will become of the girl – a girl who lived and grew as an offering to Glacians in her place, and in the place of every other Terrsaw citizen who was not born to such an unfortunate providence. How will she reconcile with herself should the Queens grow tired of keeping her? Queens who seem so ready to cast aside a miracle as unlikely as a true living Sabar. Ruby grew up with parents who prayed to the fallen king and his lost daughter each night; they would be ashamed of her now, to know she could only offer the last living Sabar a meal and no more.

“Miss Sabar,” Ruby calls, letting the tray clatter on the iron rungs of the gate.

The woman jolts upward, her stricken face finding Ruby’s immediately, her feet already beneath her again, ready. An animal stirred by threat.

Impressive.

Ruby clears her throat. “Supper.”

Dawsyn sags again. Her body rocking back to the floor.

Ruby slides the tray through the trap door and locks it shut again. The sound makes her cringe, but she shrugs it away and nods to the side. “There is a dead rat in the corner.”

Dawsyn’s expression remains unchanged. “It was being impolite.”

The captain grimaces. Hesitates. “I could smell it from the stairwell.”

“I assure you it smells only half as bad as me.” Dawsyn gives herself a dispassionate glance.

She is a strange woman. Alien. Even removed from the garb and setting of a prisoner, Ruby imagines she would still note the differences between them. She is a contrast of sharpness and serration. Brutally defined in her movements. There is a clarity to her, even dulled as she is here. But even caged and reduced, Ruby suspects that an entire spectrum of instinct lurks beneath her surface. She is dangerous – it is immediately obvious to anyone with sense. Ruby suspects that surviving the Ledge would have required much more than mere aggression. She would need ruthless resolve, strategy, near-constant vigilance. Ruby can see all the facets of her savagery, and all that it took to hone it.

Dawsyn eyes the tray warily. “Do the Queen’s prisoners usually receive two hot meals a day? If so, do not tell the people of Terrsaw. I suspect some would take desperate measures to acquire such privilege. No labour, and more food than one might ever see.” Even her words are serrated. Calculated. Precise cuts to draw measured blood.

Ruby grimaces. She grew up on the fringe of the Mecca. She knows missed meals like the back of her sword. “Perhaps I find you intriguing.”

“I’d try not to, Captain,” Dawsyn says dully. “The last person I intrigued was dead soon after.”

An image of the hybrid upon the throne room floor invades Ruby’s mind. She still cannot fathom it, how this fierce woman – a Sabar, a prisoner of the Ledge – came to accompany a Glacian.

“Eat,” Ruby mutters.

Dawsyn moves on her hands and knees to the tray and settles before it. Whatever pride she once used to straighten her spine before the Queens is now gone. She sits at Ruby’s feet on the other side of the grid, eating potatoes from her fingers.

“Why do you come, Captain?” Dawsyn asks. “Will your conscience rest easy if I’m well fed before they kill me?”

Ruby tarries again. The girl has a propensity for bluntness, and it makes her stumble. If she’s honest with herself, Ruby can admit the woman intimidates her. It does nothing to quicken her wits.

Ruby wants to think that Queen Alvira will come to her senses, but she must concede the unlikeliness of it. Those terrible things the Queen had said in the throne room still ring in her ears. Still keep her from sleep.