Page 148 of The Cradle of Ice

Mikaen withstood this beratement. The mention of his son, Othan, poured steel down his spine. He intended to be a far better father to his son than the king had ever been. He added this oath to the many he had made concerning his children’s welfare. Knowing this, he easily withstood the fury in Toranth’s face.

Still, Mikaen breathed heavily. Thoryn kept a steady hand on his shoulder, but there was no need for such support. Mikaen refused to debase himself any further after exposing himself so starkly. He reached up and shifted the mask more firmly into place.

Movement past the king’s shoulder drew his eye.

Wryth shifted and whispered in Toranth’s ear. His father leaned closer, ever bending to the Shrive’s counsel. Toranth gave a small nod, sagging away some of his anger, clearly appeased by his words.

All the while, the Shrive’s gaze never left Mikaen. Only now those eyes were shrouded, impossible to read. Wryth was hiding something.

But what?

Finally, his father straightened and waved Mikaen off. “Begone. Leave it to the rest of us to discuss how to amend your mistake. Before it brings down the kingdom.”

Mikaen gave a curt bow, though it strained the steel that had hardened his back. He turned on a heel and strode brusquely away with Thoryn in tow.

Behind him, he heard the king ask Reddak, “Is there any way of discerning Kanthe’s plot? If his actions were indeed in service to the kingdom—as Emperor Makar believes—is there some way we can support him?”

Mikaen took a deep breath and continued through the door. He would be goaded no longer. He didn’t care what Kanthe was plotting.

Only that I be the one that ends it.

59

KANTHE SWEATED AND burned at the bottom of a glass well. He stared up at the midday sun as it hung in the open sky above. He had read about the prison of Qazen, but he had never thought he’d experience its cruel design firsthand.

“Stay out of the sun,” Pratik warned. The Chaaen demonstrated this by flattening his body along the only section of the well still in shadows.

Frell helped Mead shift his injured brother to the same spot. Jester’s leg and the side of his head were bandaged. After being ambushed out in Malgard, healers had attended to the man’s arrow wounds. Apparently, their captors wanted their deaths to be harsher and slower.

But thankfully it’s only the five of us.

Back at the entrance to the fissure, Rami had been separated from them. The Klashean prince had promised that he would do his best to get his father to understand—about the circumstances of the abductions and about the danger of moonfall. Afterward, the five of them had been hauled aboard the imperial barge and swept to Qazen, where they were thrown into this honeycomb of a strange prison.

It was designed not only to hold prisoners, but to punish and torture them, too.

Kanthe joined the others in the small curve of shadows. The circular pit—like all the cells here—climbed three stories to the open sky, tantalizing prisoners with the freedom so close. But the walls and floor were sheer black glass, fused from the surrounding sand by alchymies lost to time.

There would be no scaling these walls to escape.

And that was not the worst of it.

Though the sun of the Crown never set, over the course of the year it would make a slow circle in the sky, marking the passage of time. The ancient builders of this spread of pits angled each well in such a precise manner that the circling passage of the sun was mimicked below. The face of the Father Above would wax and wane, heating the pits to searing temperatures, then backing away and letting shadows slightly cool the space. It meant prisoners had to shift with those shadows or risk burning atop the glass floor.

At midwinter, like now, that edge of shadows was razor thin, requiring them to perch on its edge, pressed against the wall. With the five of them in this one cell, there was barely enough room.

Kanthe stood on the tips of his toes to keep them from the sunlight. The glare off the walls seared through his closed lids. Directly across from them, bars squeezed off the tiny door into the pit. A pair of imperial guards watched their struggles to keep from burning with clear amusement.

“Maybe they’d like to cool off,” one said—a Klashean with the tiny black eyes of a sand snake. “We can always crank open the sea valve and give them all a nice bath. If nothing else, it would wash the stink off of ’em.”

The other, who looked more like a lizard with a bulbous nose, laughed.

Kanthe was not amused at the reminder of the other fail-safe for this prison. The entire complex of pits was interconnected by underground tunnels. Pipes led out to the neighboring sea. When their valves were opened, the entire prison could be swamped and drowned. It led to an especially cruel death, leaving prisoners swimming in circles until exhaustion drowned them.

“Serve ’em right,” said the Lizard. “Trying to abduct the emperor’s son and daughter.”

“Too bad we couldn’t nab the lot of ’em,” Snake Eyes groaned.

“Still, thank the merciful gods that Rami and Aalia were safely recovered.”