Page 3 of The Sun God’s Prize (Child of Scale and Fire #3)

I have so many questions once I force myself to abandon the need to fall into despair. Or maybe I’m using those queries to shield my mind from just that eventuality. There is no doubt in me that doing so will result in an ending I simply can’t abide.

Better to look headlong into the darkness, then.

Of all people to draw on, it has to be Vivenne in that moment, though. Her training, her steady strength that I used to rely on so deeply. I will take from her what I need to carry on and discard the rest, by the fire, because even she will not break me again.

Very well then, Remalla of Heald. Where are you? Why are you here?

And where are you going?

There are endless questions surrounding each of those pillars of what the fuck is my life right now , but it helps to focus, detachment possible when the large expanse of my present circumstance takes over.

So, where am I? On a ship, I’ve answered that. Success is a tiny seed of thought I’ll claim as often as possible. Make it grow, now, with more details. Water it with knowledge.

Yes, more observance, then. I’m on some kind of small vessel, from what I can tell when I look around, head hanging heavy, but my mind clear, at least. I will take the victory of that, too.

I can touch the curved wall of the belly of this ship with my hand if I reach for it, the other side two bodies’ length away.

Which means it’s far smaller than the one ship I’m familiar with.

It’s painful to think of the massive Sea Blade . Memories of it mean a lure to despair.

I pinch myself as hard as I have strength for to return to my task and win yet another match against the overwhelm. This time, when I compare the two, I’m able to do so in detachment and cold curiosity.

Sea Blade’s interior is two levels and felt vast when I was on board, when I looked back at it from the steps leading up to Dragonhome.

Again, I ward off shifting emotion and breathe through my mouth to release it before it takes me hostage.

While this ship is a small cousin in comparison.

But like that massive vessel, this one’s insides are stuffed with casks, crates and other things.

The section I’m in appears to be reserved for the crushed souls of humanity, hopeless and filthy as we are.

No, not hopeless. Not anymore.

Does my examination of this space answer my second question?

I think it does, acutely conscious of my fellow captives and their reactions to me, of the chains that bind them, of the ones that I now realize hold me down by my right ankle.

The skin there is split and bleeding, stinging when I move my foot.

A ring of dirt marks the rusty bangle’s grip.

Does it also mark the time? How long have I—

No new questions. Not yet.

Very well. Why am I here? I’m a captive, like my fellow hostages. And I’m well enough versed in the act of war to know that we’re not prisoners for imprisonment’s sake.

Slaves, then. The flutter of rage that wakes in my stomach isn’t helping.

I close my eyes to soothe it into quiet before opening them again.

It’s easier to peel the lids apart this time.

I stare at the cluster of fearful ones who hunker into a narrow space, crowding together as far from me as they can reach, and understand.

I’ve done things in my lost time that have driven them to terror of me.

Vague recall of being touched answered with motion and pain has to be real.

What I’ve done, I doubt I’ll ever know, though I can guess.

Weak as I am, instinct would be a powerful weapon no matter what, my training leading to violence when perceived threats arose.

Were they trying to help and I struck out with no conscious thought?

I have to accept that’s probably the truth. My unconscious reaction has been sufficient to burn that expression of horror into them, and though I don’t move or try to speak to them again, their fear doesn’t retreat just yet.

Hopefully, I didn’t kill anyone. They’re suffering right along with me, and I would regret such harm if they were only trying to help.

I sigh without my consent. There’s nothing to be done for it, is there?

The drug that my aunt used to lay me low, to control and silence me, its influence is gone, at last. There’s a pull, though, a yearning I’ve never felt before, and I clench around a sob that tries to escape.

Without answers or the means to do anything about this craving I feel, I can only carry on with my questions.

My body demands more of what I’ve only now been able to free myself from.

Also not surprising, considering. More than enough soldiers have fallen victim to the use of pain medicines to soothe their battle wounds, and I’ve personally known a few who haven’t survived their addiction.

I’m lucky I was taken from Vivenne and her wretched plan.

I have no illusions about how close I’d come to dying from whatever Fethest gave me in excess.

Or, at the very least, how near I came to being lost to it forever.

I smother the craving with a firm, heated fist and raise my chin a little. I am my mother’s daughter, and I will not accept anything less than my best. If I succeed at nothing else in this life I have left, I will remain free of the call of what they gave me.

A shiver passes through me, gooseflesh rising on my arms, but the shouting desire settles, a sullen and unsatisfied thing that growls at me even as I ignore it.

Why am I here? That question rises to fill the hole open in my mind, waiting for me to fall into it. I cling the lip instead, and the words.

I’m a different kind of slave, not to the medicine anymore—not ever again. No, but I am still a captive, if to a slightly lesser evil.

Strangers hold me in their control. We’ll see how long that lasts now that I’m myself again.

Where am I going? The final question in my first round of distractions I can’t answer, or even deduce, though I do have a guess.

There are no portholes in this place, no view of the water or land—if there even is land to be seen where we sail—and though it’s clearly day in the world above from the sparks of light that make it through the cracks in the ceiling overhead, barely three feet above me, without access to the deck, I’m left to surmise.

Slavery isn’t common in the Overkingdom, though not unheard of.

There are different kinds of slaves, of course, from forced concubines to peasants eking out their livings under the thumb of nobles.

The slave trade, on the other hand, is far more prevalent in the southern kingdom, at least from what my mother told me.

Her father’s people came from the south, my grandfather’s early death in battle a tragedy she rarely spoke of.

Or Vivenne’s father, for that matter, Queen Thera’s second husband, who perished in the same manner shortly after my aunt was born.

That’s why, I think, I believed so readily that my own father had died when I was a baby.

Death runs a deep, masculine fissure through the heart of my family.

Or does it? I inhale some of the nasty, heated air, but refuse to cough when it burns my throat and lungs, swallowing it instead. Is everything Mother told me a lie?

I can’t answer that question, so I instead return to the ones at the top of mind.

If we are heading south, that explains my memories of not understanding the language of the men who attacked us.

And could explain the humidity I’m now realizing makes me sticky and increases my difficulty drawing air.

I don’t know how much time I’ve lost, but it was early fall when I rode for Winderose, barely weeks later when I escaped the cells beneath the Citadel.

The heat that smothers my inhalations feels far too much like summer for the Overkingdom.

Unless… has a year passed? No, I won’t accept that. South, then. Which meant Vivenne had sailed us far from the Overkingdom herself before we were intercepted.

But who was she meeting and why?

Again, there’s no information, not yet, and wondering increases my tension instead of easing it.

I take a moment, count heads. There are about a dozen others, only one pale-skinned through his filth, typical of many of the northernmost countries, which means he’s also from the Overkingdom or shares that heritage, at least. The rest, however, are dark-eyed with matching hair, features similar to my own, high brows and cheekbones, narrow noses and deep-set gazes familiar to me, if only from my reflection.

I’ve always resembled my mother more than my aunt, the bloodline of my grandfather dominant, many of the armies of Heald darker-skinned from our comingling with the people of the southern kingdom.

While Sarn lies closer to the border than our land does, it’s rare any of their people choose the same.

Another reason Mother always despised Sarnians, and their arrogant judgment of those not of the same kingdom.

Whatever the case, this is just another piece of the puzzle that I’ve assembled to suggest we are indeed heading where I think we are.

“I won’t hurt you,” I say. It’s a rumbling growl, but I do think I’m decipherable. “I’m sorry if I did before. I was unwell.”

None of them respond, though their fear seems to ease a little, some exchanging looks. The light-skinned man shakes his head at me and says something in that same language I don’t know.

Not from the Overkingdom, then. Whether that confirms my guess or not, I can’t say, and I’m about to speak again when I think better of it.

It’s just too much effort to try, and I need to save my strength.

Sleep comes despite my need to protect myself, if only because I firmly remind my instincts that I’ve already spent far too long down here completely out of my mind, and I’m still alive. When I wake again, I’m feeling better, stronger, at least relatively so. I’m a far throw from swinging a sword.