Page 17 of Four Ruined Realms (The Broken Blades #2)

Tiyung

Idle Prison, Yusan

It’s hard to tell if it’s day or night, but I lean back against the stone wall and cross my arms to go to sleep. I rest a lot to maintain my strength and to pass the time. I sleep sitting up, of course—the straw bed is laden with vermin.

Sometimes, when I’m very lucky, I get to dream of Sora. Her laugh. Her smile. Her voice. I get to be in her presence again. I imagine dining with her at that table in Aseyo. Her gorgeous face and her brave spirit that would stand up to the God of War himself.

The next thing I know, we’re back in her room in the Fountain Inn in Tamneki. I know it’s a dream because I can freely kiss her, make love to her, and I can’t do that in reality—not when her body is likely poison. Still, we were able to satisfy each other that one beautiful night, to be more intimate than just tumbling into bed.

In this version, she smiles and asks me to stay with her. I do, even though somewhere in my mind I know it’s the morning we are supposed to kill the king.

A sound pulls me back to reality, back to the dungeon floor. I shake my head. No. I’m not getting woken from this for some stale bread. Not this dream.

Then I realize it’s not the sound of a meal tray. It’s the door opening again.

I come to and slowly open my eyes as Hana walks in.

“That’ll be all,” she says to the guard who opened the door. Her tone says she significantly outranks him.

The guard nods and closes the door.

Zahara, she called herself. She gave herself a new name along with a new life.

She has another lantern in her hand, and raindrops cling to her cloak. I think it’s rain. I can’t imagine it’s lake water, so the monsoons must’ve started.

Hana observes me for a moment, then sighs and tosses down a cloth sack. It falls open on the ground in front of me. Food! Inside, there’s cured meat and cheese bursting from paper wrappings. It’s enough calories that I won’t starve for days, maybe a week.

She is keeping me alive.

I would think that she was trying to poison me, but she wouldn’t need this much food to do it. She could put tabernacle in my water, and I would be dead in seconds. I want to scramble to the sack, but I hold myself in place. I’m certain this gift comes with strings. What does she want in return? My stomach groans, my hunger not caring about the conditions, but I won’t do a thing that will hurt Sora.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “Why are you being kind?”

A cold stare greets me. “Because I’m not like your bloodline.”

She doesn’t demand information or anything else. She just watches me.

“I… Thank you,” I say.

I tear into the paper, unwrapping the rest of a sausage and hard cheese. My body is so eager for sustenance that my hands shake.

I gnaw bites right off. The food plays like a symphony on my tongue, and I go back for more. All the amazing meals I took for granted in my life were not as good as this one. I know if I eat too fast, I’ll get sick, but I can’t seem to slow down. I suppose this is why Euyn eats the way he does. He was starved once in here as well. Deprivation clings to you while excess gives up the moment it stops.

Hana eyes me. “You know, I find it odd…”

I wait for her to continue, but she casually strolls around the cell. I can’t tell if she’s giving me a chance to eat or letting silence sink in. Either way, I rip off a chunk of bread. It will help cut the richness of the food.

“What do you find odd?” I finally ask.

She comes to a stop. “That you haven’t mentioned saving my brother.”

I choke on the bread and have to take a moment to drink some water.

How does she know? Nayo was the first indenture I bought. Hana’s death was fresh on my mind, and her brother was the last child sold by my father and therefore the easiest to locate. I’d worried that Nayo had been purchased by my uncle’s pleasure houses. It would’ve been much more difficult and expensive to buy his freedom from a place like that, but he was sold as a private pleasure boy to a nobleman in Leep. Nayo was there for around a month before I finally negotiated a price for him.

The boy was never told I bought his freedom. I was specific about that. I never wanted the sale traced back to me.

How does she know?

Hana rolls her eyes and sighs. “How many people do you think have the means to free a pleasure indenture? And it certainly wasn’t out of the goodness of his owner’s heart.”

She curls her lip, and I’m quite certain that the noble who bought him is now dead. I try to find sympathy for the murdered man, but there’s only one kind of person who would be the highest bidder for an indenture sold by my father—no one worthy of pity.

“Nayo was given a gold bar worth a thousand mun and put in a carriage to Tamneki,” Hana says. “Why?”

She sharply focuses on me, her hands behind her back.

I’d worked through an intermediary to maintain anonymity, paying with my generous annual allowance. My instructions had been to give Nayo enough money to start a life somewhere far from the southern region. I didn’t want to risk my father finding him. I thought he’d naturally flee to Khitan, but after he was freed, I didn’t inquire. For the first time, I felt good about something I’d done, so I moved on to finding the next indenture.

Not long after I bought out the second contract, my mother discovered what I was doing. She is the one who helped me hide it from Seok and locate three others—the last being when I was in Rahway. She said if I was going to do something so foolish, I should at least not be foolish about it. But I could tell that she was proud.

Hana waits for an answer.

“To free him,” I say.

Her eyes scan from side to side. “For what purpose?”

I shrug. “That was the purpose.”

Her expression hardens. “What was the real reason?”

She thinks I’m trying to deceive her because I am Seok’s son, and therefore I must have another motive. There is no goodness in my bloodline in her mind.

She’s not terribly wrong. We have been rich and powerful for centuries, and no family stays that way without dirtying their souls.

“What is the play? What do you want?” She steps closer. “What is Seok planning?”

“Hana, Seok doesn’t know,” I say. “The point was to free Nayo and give him some money to start over again. I couldn’t ever replace what was taken from him, but I believed that his sister was dead and that he would needlessly suffer in Leep. I wanted to help because I could.”

Hana exhales, hard eyes narrowing on me. She swoops down and picks up the rest of the food. I want to tackle her and rip the sack from her hand, but I hold myself back. Barely.

“When you’re ready to be honest, we can try again,” she says.

Panic floods me. I need that food. But also, I need answers.

“Where is Sora?” I ask.

Hana whips around, anger transforming her beautiful face into something truly frightening. But she contains herself at the last moment. She stands straight. “Khitan. And you might want to cooperate if you care about her at all.”

“What?” I ask. “Why do you say that? Is she in danger?”

A million thoughts race through my mind. What is she doing in Khitan? She wouldn’t have run with Daysum being held by my father. So she must have been sent there.

“She’s been in danger since she was nine years old,” Hana says. “And now she has to steal the Golden Ring of the Dragon Lord or she will die.”

She has to take the Golden Ring of Khitan?

“Why?”

I barely get the word out before pain knocks the air from my chest and my stomach revolts. I groan, dropping my last piece of cured meat.

Hana smiles as I grip my sides. “You of all people should know what men are willing to do for power.”

Pain like I’ve never felt before courses through my body. Poison.

I collapse onto the floor, sweating and shaking, rolling onto my side. I moan like the iku, unable to stop myself.

Hana takes the lantern, steps over me, and leaves.

I wait for death.