Page 26 of Four Ruined Realms (The Broken Blades #2)

Tiyung

Idle Prison, Yusan

I am alive.

Hana didn’t poison me. My stomach just rebelled from having too much rich food at once. After eating nothing but bread and water for so long, I couldn’t process meat and cheese. I was in pain for nearly a day, but the discomfort went away, leaving me alive and still a prisoner in Idle.

Once I survived, I found myself waiting by the meal slot, hoping to see Hana. I pray she’ll share more information about Sora. About the others. Not that all the information will be something I want to hear. I wasn’t thrilled that Hana knew I’d freed her brother, and it’s even worse to know that Sora is in Khitan in order to steal the Golden Ring. I assume she’s with the others, but I don’t know.

Although I keep constant watch, I don’t see Hana. I fall asleep, then wake and wait again, but no one comes, aside from the guards bringing my trays of water and stale bread. The disappointment stings like a salted wound.

Every time I rise, I hope to see her, but then I fall asleep without any sign. The cycles of hope and depression continue until slowly, I realize that she might not return. Maybe she said everything she needed to. Maybe I don’t have the information she is looking for and thus she has no use for me. Or maybe I just imagined her completely. Maybe I was so desperate that it was all an elaborate hallucination.

I clutch the letter in my pocket. No, I still have this. I let the paper dig into my palm until it hurts and I’m certain it is real. Hana was here—she gave this to me, and Sora wrote it.

When Hana still doesn’t appear at the next mealtime, despair gets the best of me. Despite how I try to imagine a future with Sora, I can’t seem to keep heart.

I slump on the ground and pass on the next round of bread. I’m hungry, but what is the point? Why keep going?

Keys jangle in the door, and the lock turns. At first, I figure I’m hearing things, but then the door opens and I have to scramble out of the way. My heart speeds up. Hana is back.

Or someone is coming to kill me.

I’ve learned to close my eyes once they open the door, and it at least helps with adjusting to the light.

I stare at the ground, and guard boots come into view. I take a deep breath, trying to brace myself, but then there are dress boots and a cape. Hana appears with a small lantern. She dismisses the guards.

“I’m surprised to see you,” I say, my voice scratchy from lack of use.

I keep my tone cool, trying to hide how eager I am to talk to her. I’m not sure how long it’s been since she was here last. Maybe she’ll tell me.

“You’ve been gone for days,” I add. I search her face. She doesn’t deny it, so it has been days. I did retain some sense of time.

“I wasn’t going to come back,” Hana says. “And then I realized something.”

“And that was?”

“You’re not smart enough to lie.”

She means it as an insult, but she is calling me honest, which I am, so I shrug.

That wasn’t the reaction she was expecting. Hana tilts her head and then tosses down another cloth sack.

Food.

I dive onto the ground to open it, more of a wild animal than a nobleman at this point. She wrinkles her nose in disgust. Sora had once looked at me that way, her expression filled with contempt. That was before we left for Tamneki, before I finally convinced her that I care. That I am not like my father.

The thought of her makes me pause. It’s only Sora that could be more important than a meal right now.

“Is Sora all right?” I ask, glancing up.

Hana nods.

I start eating, making myself chew. The meat is so delicious that it will be worth the pain, but taking smaller bites will help my stomach.

“She is alive at any rate,” Hana says. “Your father is also in Khitan, though.”

That’s odd. My father traveled extensively when he was a young man, seeing the far corners of the world, but he doesn’t leave Gain nearly as much now.

I rip off a chunk of cheese and shove it in my mouth. “Why?”

She sighs. “You aren’t going to be of any use, are you?”

She sounds both disappointed and unsurprised.

“Seok shares only what he wants,” I remind her. “What he thinks I need to know. You know that.”

“Was he the owner of the warehouse in Oosant?” she asks.

I pause, surprised she knows about the warehouse, though I shouldn’t be if she’s a spy. I’ve wondered the same thing about Oosant. There are only four men with enough money and power to have a million gold mun in illegal laoli, and my father is one of them.

“I’d never heard anything about Oosant until I was there. It isn’t on his books, but it is possible. The drugs had the royal insignia on them, though, which means they were brought in from Gaya. There would be obstacles to that amount of smuggling, but it’s not out of the question.”

“Unless it was for the crown.” Hana refocuses on me. “I tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. You tell me everything you know from before you left Gain until now, and I will bring you food to eat, light to see, and even paper to write on so you won’t lose your sanity. You give me all you can about Seok and his businesses, and I will buy you time.”

“Buy me time?” I make myself slow down on the fatty, dried sausage and soft cheese. She even brought me a custard bun, but I am saving that for last. “What does that mean?”

“You are supposed to die in here. I don’t know when that will be. But soon.”

I freeze, my heart pounding before my mind can catch up. The brie lodges in my throat. Hana said it so casually, it took me a second to fully absorb her words. “The king ordered my death?”

She nods. “I heard the order today. General Salosa said to make it look like an accident or a sickness, not an execution. I will delay the prison guards for as long as I can…but I don’t think I’ll be able to buy a full month.”

Bile rises in my throat, and I want to vomit all the good food I just ate. If she can’t get me a month, that means I will die before Sora gets back to Yusan. No matter what happens, I’ll never see her again. Tears flood my eyes, and I sniff them back. It was all I wanted—just a chance at a life with her. Not even certainty, just an opportunity. And now it can never be.

I close my eyes and take a moment to mourn the loss. All I did, all I was prepared to do, and it amounts to nothing because of time. Sobs rack my chest, but I don’t let them out. I suppose time makes a fool’s game of all men’s efforts.

“Sora,” I whisper. Then I open my eyes.

Hana flinches but doesn’t attack me. Instead, she studies me. Her eyes are sharp until her full mouth opens.

“Oh gods, you fell for her,” she says.

I don’t bother denying it—what difference would it make?

“From when I first saw her,” I say. “We were only children, and she tried to hide Daysum behind her skirts.”

Hana takes a step closer. I brace myself, thinking she’ll strike me, but instead she leans down. “You can help me save her. The more I know, the more I can assist them. And they need all the help they can get now. This mission was never supposed to succeed. Someone is betraying them.”

My heart races in my chest, but I pause. It could all be a lie, a scheme from a clever spy, but it’s Hana. I know she loves Sora—that much is true. I decide to start from the beginning and pray that it will help her somehow.

Before I can speak, the moaning song of the iku shakes the cell. Hana’s eyes shift toward the walls. She must not be down here much for the sound to surprise her. I’m so accustomed to it that I just wait for the echoes to fade.

“Sora’s father refused to sell her, no matter what price my father offered,” I begin. “Determined to take the girls, my father threatened to slay his whole family unless Chul sold Sora.”

Hana puts the lantern down.