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Her stomach dropped. Children were to be protected. Just how bad was this den of depravity?

“I am told she would have been welcomed.”

The king smacked his lips and Wren broke.

They could make fun ofherall they wanted. King Soren could even pretend to care that she lost her family. But he would not talk about Wren’s sister like that—like she would have been some toy for the Verlantian Court to play with and dispose of at their whim.

“You sick cretin!” Wren exploded, in a voice louder than any she had used since the night she had lost everything. She launched herself forward, too fast for the guards behind her to react, and revealed the nail she’d taken from the ship. Wren raised it above her head, ready to jump at the king—his eyes widened with genuine surprise—before a black blur tackled her to the floor in one fell swoop.

His huge arms wrapped around her, and she knew she couldn’t break from his arms, but she did not stop screaming obscenities at Soren. The king had quickly taken up laughing at her flailing, useless words, his previous surprise completely overwritten on his face by mirth. The rest of the court, which had been stunned into silence by Wren’s sudden, violent outburst, now joined his laughter, until it was all Wren could hear.

“It seems our prisoner princess needs to be taught some lessons,” Soren said, extending his hands out to the entire court as if welcoming their opinions. Everyone yelled in agreement.

King Soren’s eyes grew as cold as beads of glass. “I do hope you enjoy some of Verlanti’s hospitality.”

Wren knew she would not like what this ‘hospitality’ was.

15

Wren

“Ah!” Wren cried, though the sound of her voice was drowned out by the splash of water that followed her as she was tossed into a cell, landing on her hands and knees. The icy water licked at her skin and she spat out salty water.

Seawater?

She frowned as she righted herself and tried to take in her dimly lit surroundings. The guards who’d led Wren into the dungeon slammed the cell door shut and turned their backs on her without a word. One glanced over his shoulder and even through the darkness she spied the smirk of satisfaction on his face before he walked away.

“You would not be smiling if you faced me on the battlefront like real men, you cowards!” she roared after them. But her threat—and its resultant booming echoes—fell on deaf ears. The guards were gone, and Wren was once more alone.

Now that Wren was fired up from her altercation with King Soren, she reasoned there was little point in wasting time crying. She leaned back on her heels, the seawater lapping at her thighs. Wren was no stranger to water and underground tunnels; if she could make sense of this prison, perhaps she could find a way out that the Verlantians would not anticipate.

She staggered to her feet and almost slipped on the mossy cobblestones beneath her soles. Squinting, Wren glanced around. Behind her was a stone wall with a heavy iron grille door set within it—the exit through which the guards had left. On Wren’s right and left, heavy metal grilles separated her from the adjacent cells. She thought she could spy another prisoner a couple of cells down, but in the dim light she could not be sure. It could just as easily have been a sack or a pile of mud.

What was right in front of her intrigued Wren most, for the front of her cell was open, as was the front ofeverycell she could see. Instead of a wall, or an iron grille, a canal ran along the far edge of her prison a mere six feet from where she stood. The dark, murky water caused goosebumps to raise along her arms. Something about the canal set her on edge.

Wren set it aside and tiptoed over to the edge when the stone floor abruptly stopped and met water. She could hold her breath for five minutes. If she were careful, maybe she could escape that way. Her lips pursed, and a shiver of foreboding worked through her. The water was nothing like the clear ocean that surrounded the isles. Wren could see nothing through the murky liquid. What lurked beneath the surface? It couldn’t be anything good. Wren was quite sure she didn’t want to find out what that was. She had no doubt that she’d find out soon enough.

You have no one to blame but yourself.

Wren kicked at the water and sighed heavily. The plan was to remain calm and collected but there was something about the depraved lord and the rest of his court that got to her. He oozed corruption. There was nothing she could do about it now.

She crouched down to get a closer look at the water. She held a hand just above its glassy surface, toying with the idea of tracing a line along the very top of it. But, just as she was about to, she withdrew her hand, deciding that it was better not to risk such folly. Whatever was hiding in the water wasn’t something to be trifled with.

A clap in the darkness startled her so badly, she nearly fell into the water. Instead, she fell backward onto her hands and feet and crawled until her back was against the stone wall of the prison cell, the water lapping on her toes.

“A wise choice,” a singsong voice called, seemingly to float upon the air. “Beasts and demons lurk in those waters. Demons and beasts. But which one is which?”

Deciding that the voice had come from her left, Wren clambered back to her feet and approached the bars on that side of her cell and peered into the darkness. The lump she’d thought could just as easily be a sack as a person was indeed a man. Or, rather, as Wren’s eyes adjusted to the light, he was a boy. He seemed a little younger than she was.

He turned his grubby face toward her. She gave him a once-over in the dim light. He wore a tunic over a loose shirt and leggings, with a feather cap resolutely sitting upon his head. The feather was all but destroyed, but clearly the boy had found some importance in wearing it even in this deepest of dungeons.

A bard, perhaps?

What had he done to be tossed into the dungeon? A small smile curled her lips as she entertained the idea that he’d been imprisoned for creating the song about the High King’s many ill-begotten sons. Then she sobered; locking someone up for such a thing seemed more than cruel. It was barbaric.

“What is your name?” she asked the boy, curious despite herself. Her voice echoed around her like a mighty chorus, and she cringed.

The boy’s tilted eyes flashed in the darkness. “Oh, this and that,” he replied quite easily. “Sometimes I am one thing, and sometimes I am another. Why do you have but one name? How silly!”