Page 39 of The Sun God’s Prize (Child of Scale and Fire #3)

Escape is impossible.

I spend the rest of that sleepless night testing the boundaries of my guards, their alertness, their willingness to allow me leniency.

I even wait and watch to find out when they trade off for fresh watchers, noting that they do so in stages, one at a time, and that even a single step into the garden is met with immediately drawn bows.

One thing is sure, they didn’t hear Hallick’s talk, his low tone enough to disguise what he said to me from them, if not from Sheelan and the order warrior.

As for my door, two flank it, when I manage to pick the lock with a broken sliver of metal I shimmy from a decorative vase, and four more stand across from the opening, all armed and armored and acutely uncomfortable when I peek out at them.

I’m admitting defeat far too often these days, but what else can I do? But pace and fume and test, again and again, the men and women who stand watch over me.

While I wait for someone to come and kill me anyway.

So, what does it matter if I push the boundaries of my captivity?

Acceptance settles, peace with impending death.

One of these times, the guards might loose an arrow and apologize for it later.

Or a cadre of the black-clad assassins may appear and cut me down.

Whatever the truth, I’m surrounded by death.

I finally concede defeat and collapse back in the heap of pillows, though there’s no sleeping there, not when Sheelan’s scent clings to the cushions.

I retreat to the clothing room, dragging a pair of stuffed pillows from the seating area, and hug those instead, managing bare naps between attempts to meditate myself into rest.

The sunrise brings no surcease, and I’m tense and angry when the young woman who delivers my breakfast enters. She keeps her head down, trembling in my presence, an ordinary guard keeping watch over her. Which only reminds me of my mother and how she made the young and vulnerable feel.

I step back and give her space to do what she’s come to do, because it’s all I’m able to do. My temper is not retreating anytime soon, and nor do I wish it to. If I’m going to be trapped here, awaiting death, the burning inside me might be the only sustainable support I receive for a long time.

Then again, I know better than to let my anger dominate me. Surely, not even the aunt I remember and love would be calm and composed in this situation? I debate with my beloved mentor in my mind, that wall between her and the terrible truth of who she was and who she’s become firm and thick.

The girl retreats, bowing her way out. I’m not hungry, but I partake of the fruit and cooked grain, loading it with dark brown sugar and cream, devouring it with single-minded focus, barely tasting it or the hot, steaming javasse that Sunnish folk adore, the energy it gives me as much a boon as it is a curse.

Like I need more stimulation.

Which is why I finally storm out into the garden to the startled and openly frightened soldiers, scowling, but doing my best not to be threatening.

“I need to train,” I say. “Where can I do that?” Not can I, oh, no.

The black armored warrior has returned, stepping out to face me, hand rising. The collective guards lower their bows to their sides, arrows still on their strings.

“You may use this place,” she says, reminding me she can speak with her gruff voice. The fact that she’s here and I am, too, means she’s made some choice about Hallick’s reveal the night before. What that is, I’m not privy to just yet.

But I’m alive still, so whatever it is she’s chosen, Sheelan has to be part of it. At least, I want to think so. And since there’s no antagonism in the woman’s eyes, only that steely resolve I’m used to by now, I will meet her where she stands.

“While one false move means you feather me with arrows,” I snap back, shaking my head. “A proper arena, with sand. Like the one where I trounced your Sun God’s child yesterday.” I’m in a mood and I’m not hiding it.

She speaks again, no heat in her voice, though her eyes tighten. “I have orders—”

“I don’t care,” I say. “I was told I am a guest here, not a prisoner.” Sheelan, so innocent, but I’ll lean into it if I can. “Is that true? Or do I have a reason to kill you all where you stand?”

Of course, I’m a prisoner, and they all know it. But they don’t seem to know how to treat me. Not even this warrior woman who stood guard while I deflowered her princess, or conspired with the Chancellor, even against my will.

I’ll press that to the furthest advantage I can.

“I will inquire,” she says at last.

“Highness,” I snap.

She’s already begun to turn away and stops, looking back at me, dark eyes flat. “What?”

“The proper honorific,” I say, “to address a princess of Heald. You may call me your highness.”

She drops a single nod. “Highness,” she says, hesitates a single moment, and then strides away. But when I think she’s left a gap in her wake, guards parting to let her go, they instantly reform around the archway she strode through, and I’m back to things the way they were before.

Maybe. If I can convince them to take me out into the temple, perhaps escape isn’t so impossible after all.

My armor is still here, the fancy stuff, at least. They’ve left me that much, even if the garotte is now gone.

I clean it carefully and dress in it again.

Without a sword or dagger, I’m down to my bare hands and sandaled feet, all formidable.

Though if I’m in an open fight, it will be easy enough to acquire what I need.

The threat of the archers remains. As does the question of how to disable those who will take me out the moment I step out of the carefully constructed box that’s been drawn around me.

I will watch and wait and be patient after all. An opportunity will present itself. Perhaps if Sheelan returns, I can use her to—

The sizzle of the kinspark has me gasping and retreating from that idea.

Not that I meant it, but using her for anything against her will is going to be just as impossible as escape.

It’s an interesting detail, something to focus on.

Acting against her best interests, even to forward my own, has now been eliminated.

Does that apply to Atlas and Zenthris as well?

It must, though I never really pushed that boundary, so this is the first time I’m noticing it.

I find, regardless, that I’m not comfortable with the idea of harming Sheelan in any way, so as desperate as things might get, I have a feeling I’ll be throwing myself in front of her to protect her before I’d ever use her as a shield.

How inconvenient.

I’m still thinking about her when the black-armored warrior appears at the garden opening, eyes tense and unhappy. For a moment, I worry that Sheelan spoke against me after all, forgetting about my request.

“Follow me,” the order warrior says, turning and retreating again. I do as I’m told, noting that the other guards fall in behind me as she leads me across the garden and out the archway she used to exit earlier, realizing only then where I’m going.

Sheelan hasn’t turned me in, then. Perhaps the kinspark keeps her from doing so, too. I can only hope that’s the case, though it doesn’t seem to be in her makeup anyway. On the other hand, it is her family that Hallick tasked me to murder. And her.

We don’t have far to go, my exploration cut short when I’m guided to a corner at the middle of the corridor and then to the left, stopping at the end of it in a small courtyard.

It’s an arena, small but serviceable, most likely for the guards to use.

I note the racks of weapons at the far end, but when I do, my warrior guide shakes her head, eyes grim and cold.

“No swords,” she says.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, and point at a metal staff propped up against the rack. “Is that all right?”

She stares at me without moving or speaking for several heartbeats, debating, I suppose. Her gaze falls to my right hand, and I find my own doing the same. Only then do I realize she wears the same band on her finger, and the significance of Brem’s gift brings tears to my eyes.

The warrior notes my reaction when our gazes rise at the same moment and lock.

When she nods, it’s slow, some decision about me made.

Because of Brem? Or despite her? “Fine, but stay on the sand,” she says.

“If you step off with that in your hand, I will kill you.” Not we, not the archers.

Her, personally. She pauses, dark eyes meeting mine.

“Highness.” She adds the title without sarcasm, level, and compliant to my request.

Well, I suppose I’m here. I might as well follow through with what I said I wanted.

It does help to swing the staff, to limber up and loosen my muscles, to burn off some of the nervous energy that’s been plaguing me since Sheelan fled.

I step into a series of strikes, the perfectly balanced length of steel wrapped in two places, my hands molding to leather.

Someone else has chosen this weapon more than once, the settling in the thick strapping fitting my hands, the surface worn smooth, but the grip sure.

I don’t often get to work with a staff, my preference for edged weapons always my choice, so it’s fun, despite everything, to swing the length around me in faster and faster circuits, to parry and leap and balance over it as I flip, to go through the motions of war and an imaginary opponent falling with every stroke.

When I kneel in my last form, driving the end deep into the sand that is a man’s forehead in my mind’s eye, I hold for a moment, breathing deeply, sweat dripping from me, exultant and spent. I needed this, more than ever before, and when I stand again, I look up at last.