Page 10

“In the beginning it was every hour, but now it’s once a day.” Phoebe sniffed and then wiped her nose with the backside of her pale wrist. “They bring a tray of food every morning. We’re rationing.”

Briony nodded. She stretched out her legs and brought herself up to standing. She was still in her flowing dress from the day of the battle, though it was covered in grime. Every eye in the room locked onto her movements.

“Has everyone tried their magic?”

The room of women looked around, nodding yes.

Briony ran through the possibilities. The Bomardi weren’t going to kill them if they were feeding them. If there was to be an auction, there was only so much time until they were separated—until their strength in numbers was gone.

“Is anyone combat-trained? Hand-to-hand?” Briony asked the room.

Larissa laughed deep in her throat, and Briony glared at her.

“You want to kick and shove your way out of here?” Larissa said. “In these chains? You’re absolutely mad.”

“Why are you here?” Briony snapped. “To spy on us?”

Larissa rolled her eyes. “You’re not important enough to spy on. Not anymore.”

“So, you’re a traitor then?” Cordelia said, joining Briony in standing. “I don’t buy that.”

“Believe what you want.” Larissa dismissed them, glancing down at her nails again.

A woman stood up in the far corner of the room.

She was tall and broad-shouldered with deep-bronze skin.

She reminded Briony of Anna in the way she stood at attention.

“Miss Rosewood, I’m Velicity Punt. I’ve served in the Eversun militia for the past seven years,” she said.

“Most of my training was with defensive and offensive magic, but I will gladly serve you as I served your brother and father before that.”

Briony swallowed. She’d never received sworn allegiance from anyone but Anna. All allegiance was given to the king and his male heir in Evermore. Before she could tell Velicity it wasn’t necessary, another woman stood.

“I only have one year with the militia, but if we’re doing hand-to-hand, I want in.” She had a black eye already and long raven hair that she kept in a braid.

Briony began weighing the options, wondering how many guards there were outside the cell.

“I’m really fast,” said a young voice. It was the sixteen-year-old girl who Katrina was comforting. She had curly hair and a gap between her teeth. “Like, really fast. My brothers can never catch me.”

Briony opened her mouth to tell her she needn’t worry, that they wouldn’t force her to fight.

Bang!

The room jumped and the women clung to one another. They faced the door where bolts were unlocking with a groan. When it opened, two men in blue coats stepped inside.

Lag Reighven was tall and thin, with thick black eyebrows and a twisted nose.

He was at least fifteen years her elder, and every altercation she’d had with the man had given her nightmares.

He had ties to the magical black market and was known to be in the business of buying and selling heartsprings—human familiars.

The old Seat of Bomard used to regulate him, but Veronika Mallow gave him permission to do as he pleased as long as he served her.

The use of humans as heartsprings in Bomard had exploded over the last four years, and it was well known that Reighven had both led the charge and profited handsomely from it.

The other man was Hap Gains, fourth in line to the Seat and the man who’d captured her on the day Rory died. Not to mention, he was also Larissa’s father. Briony glanced at Larissa and found her looking down at the floor.

“Medical examinations today.” Gains’s voice was thick and low. He had a pink scar over one blond eyebrow that hadn’t been there before.

Reighven was staring directly at Briony with a leering grin. “Look who’s awake.”

Briony raised her chin in response.

“You five,” Gains said with a lazy point to a group that included Phoebe and Cordelia. “Come.”

No one moved.

“I’ll drag you if I need to.”

Phoebe stepped forward slowly, volunteering to be first. Cordelia and the other three got into line, the chains between their hands clicking. There was a heavy thudding in Briony’s heart as Cordelia glanced over her shoulder to Briony just before the door closed on them.

It was quiet in the room afterward.

“This is good,” said Velicity. “They can tell us what to expect out there. And it will be two of them against two of us.” She nodded at the black-haired woman.

“Three of us,” the young curly-haired girl said, reminding them she was willing to fight. “I’m Eden.” She introduced herself, trying to mimic the way Velicity had stood at attention in her greeting.

Briony didn’t know how to pick and choose who would risk their lives today. She turned to Larissa.

“Larissa, can you help us at all? Do you know where we are?”

She was quiet, her eyes unfocused. Finally, she looked up at Briony. “I think it’s the Trow estate. They have a dungeon.”

Briony’s heart thudded. “Can you tell us anything about this place? Is there a way out that you know of?”

Larissa sneered. “Oh, so you can skip out the door leaving me behind? No thank you.”

“Who said I’d leave you behind?” Briony stared her down until Larissa looked away.

“I think …” Larissa cleared her throat. “I think we’re five floors down. I think the main exit will be up four staircases.”

Hope leached out of Briony a little. That was too many floors. “Thank you,” she said. She glanced to the other women, all waiting with bated breath for Briony to tell them what to do.

“Is Rory really dead?”

Her head snapped to the left. A voice had come out of the mass of bodies. She couldn’t tell who, but someone had spoken the question in her heart.

She swallowed. “I don’t—”

“He is.” Velicity looked at her and then away. “He is.”

“But how?” a woman asked. “What about the prophecy?”

Briony wondered the same. Six hundred years ago, at the outbreak of the civil war, one of the seers had delivered a prophecy: When the sun shines at night, he who will bring an end to war on this land shall be victorious. He shall be an heir, twice over, and a rightful sovereign over the continent.

But one hundred years later, when Briony’s ancestor sat down with the first Seat of Bomard to accept the secession of Bomard from Evermore and sign the Spring Treaty, no “heir twice over” brokered its terms or played any role at all in its making.

The prophecy had been forgotten, as most unfulfilled prophecies would be.

Until this mess with Mallow. Until Rory.

As her father’s only male child, Rory had been the heir to Evermore. Ten years ago, their father had quelled a dispute on the largest of the three southern islands, winning the self-governed island’s allegiance. Rory became the heir presumptive to the island as well.

This made him an heir, twice over, just as the prophecy had stated.

“It was an old prophecy,” Briony said softly to the women. “It wasn’t accurate the first time the Moreland continent went to war, either.”

It tasted like ash in her mouth, like betrayal. How many times had she told Rory he was the one. How many times had she promised her people that the war would stop on the day of the eclipse and that Rory would bring them together in peace?

She reached for him on that vein in her chest, aching to feel his magic respond. But nothing. Briony took a deep breath and locked Rory away in her heart.

The air was thick as they waited for the first group to come back. Only the sound of one woman sobbing cut through their silence.

When the bang of the door unlocking came again, everyone jumped and turned their eyes on the entrance.

Cordelia, Phoebe, and the others returned freshly bathed, looking no worse for wear.

Gains and Reighven took five more women and left them alone.

Once the door was locked again and the footsteps receded, Phoebe turned her attention to the dusty floor and began drawing a map from memory with her shoe.

“Showers first,” Cordelia said, pointing as the map took shape.

“Then medics. Showers are two floors up. You’ll have to strip down while they watch.

” Her voice broke, but she continued. “They keep the chains on you the whole time. Medics on the same floor. They tested us for pregnancies first, which was … unexpected.”

Briony swallowed thickly. Phoebe dropped to her knees and reached for the grapes and berries to mark where the guards were.

“And Reighven confirmed it,” Cordelia said. “There’s to be an auction for heartsprings. They’re going to use us.” Her voice wobbled for the first time. “They’re going to take our magic and use it for themselves.”

Cordelia glanced at Briony with a sniff, then at Larissa—the only person who hadn’t moved to watch the map be drawn.

“Is there nothing you can say to your father?” Cordelia snapped, her patience clearly worn thin.

Larissa glared back at her. “Is there anything you can say to yours?”

The room gasped collectively. Cordelia’s father had been murdered a year earlier. The primary suspect was Hap Gains.

Cordelia stepped forward with a snarl on her face, but Phoebe jumped up and pushed a hand against her shoulder and said to the room, “Here’s what we know.”

Briony moved closer, standing at Phoebe’s side. Velicity and the woman with the black eye joined her.

“There is a window on this floor and on the floor with the showers. I have no idea about the floor between—we didn’t see it from the staircase.”

“A window?” Briony turned to Larissa. “I thought we were five floors down in the dungeons?”

“The Trow property was built into the other side of the Tampet Mountains, just like the Bomardi school. We are in the dungeon, but every floor still has a view.”

“How high is the property? How far up from the base of the mountain are we?” Briony asked.

Larissa pressed her lips together. “Hundreds of yards.”

A muttering passed through the women. Hope was swirling down a drain. How could anyone get down a mountainside with their hands chained?