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“Come now, girl. You are old enough to know that deadly games earn deadly prizes, and the games you…participatedin with that half-breed were as ill-advised as trying to murder a Queen.”

“Stop.”

“Did you think you would find love with him, dear? Safety? Did the two of you plot to take this palace from me? I did you a favour, Dawsyn. That accursed boy would have killed you eventually. You should be thankful I killed him firs–”

“All right! Stop, please.” Dawsyn rises to her feet. Legs unwilling, she approaches the cell door, her hands up.

Queen Alvira smiles at her captive’s slumped posture.It is not so difficult, she thinks,to break a person.

Dawsyn stops before her on the other side of the grid where the stack of clothes lies. She exhales, and with it, the rest of her resolve seems to leak away. The grime on her face reminds Alvira of the street urchins in the Mecca.How quickly pride fades when you cage it.

Dawsyn finally looks up at her, but instead of having the decency to look ashamed, she smiles and tilts her head. “I am embarrassed for you. Did you really think I’d break if you poked me?” She laughs then, low and tired. “Could you think of no more creative means of persuasion? People like you always resort to baiting.”

The Queen’s cheeks turn hot.People like me?she thinks. She blinks in polite confusion, though the back of her throat feels scorched, aflame with ire. “Thereareno people like me, dear. I am the Queen of Terrsaw.”

Dawsyn grins. “You are athief. Wearing a crown you stole won’t make you more than that.”

“I’ve given my life to this kingdom, you insidious girl!”

“No, you have given other people’s lives – an entirevillage. And then you demanded that those who remained kneel to you.”

“I am the reasonanyonestill remains!” Queen Alvira’s voice echoes off the walls and back to her; she hears how shrill her voice has become, raking her throat as it bellows out. Her hands grip the iron bars before her, the rust biting into her palms. She does not remember placing them there.

And Dawsyn smiles still. “Look at that,” she says. “Perhaps thereissome merit to baiting.”

The Queen fights to slow her breath, her skin aflame. “I do not have time for children’s games, Dawsyn. And neither do you.”

“By all means, you can see yourself out.”

“Your execution has been set for tomorrow,” the Queen continues, savouring the pleasure of watching the girl’s jaw tighten.There,she thinks.That’s better.“You will be hung before the people of Terrsaw, Dawsyn Sabar, for attempting to assassinate your Queen.”

Dawsyn raises an eyebrow. “Is that why you have brought me these fine threads? Do you prefer to hang only the presentable?”

“You’ll hang naked if you must, Dawsyn. It is no concern of mine how you die.” There, the truth between them. Alvira lets it linger, lets her see how very small she is in her world. But not so small in the minds of others, unfortunately. “What I’ve brought you, however, is an alternative. I could give you a life within these walls the likes of which you’ve never imagined. Clothes, banquets, your own quarters, guards, companions–”

“The very same thing you’ve offered me each day for a week.”

“And is it not better than a snapped neck?”

Dawsyn considers the pile of clothes. “Tell me, Your Majesty, when did the people of Terrsaw learn of it?”

The Queen stills. “Learn of what?”

“That the last living descendant of the Sabars is a prisoner in your dungeon.”

A silence stretches between the two women – one waiting, one calculating.

The girl knows far more than the Queen can allow, but who has informed her?

“You do not need to behead your guards, Alvira,” Dawsyn intones, reading and interrupting her thoughts. “No one has betrayed you. The chanting on the streets echoes into my cell. It grows louder each day. It is why you’ve kept me alive, is it not? People are growing mutinous, or so it sounds. They’re demanding to see me, to know how I escaped the Ledge. Stop me if I’m wrong.” Her voice lilts at the end.

Denial is useless, the Queen decides. “They do not know you are a prisoner, Dawsyn. Only a guest. But, yes. They are… eager to see you.” Eager is a vague substitution for the rallying feelings stirring in the Mecca. Restless was a better term. Disquieted, perhaps.

Dawsyn waits, those unsettling eyes tunnelling into the Queen, as though she were the one standing in rags and covered in blood.

“Do you see the unrest you cause, simply by being here?” the Queen continues, testing a different route, another way around the wretched girl. “And you are just one person. Imagine the upheaval if every soul on the Ledge were brought down the mountain.”

“And what would you have me tell them, Your Majesty?” Dawsyn asks. “I’m curious.”