Page 21 of The Heart Trials

He touches his chest. “My cousin wouldn’t let me see him when he was using.” He is pacing his room now. “Axira?”

“Get what? What in the world are you planning?”

He sighs, exasperated. “Can you get a hundred or so Heartfillers in three days or not? I need an answer now.”

“Then you need to tell me everything. This is my life. You’re the Prince of Ethyria; the risks for us are not the same.” I’ve slipped the Mercyenforcers once; my luck won’t last forever. If I’m going to get medicine back home for Serafina and eventually put us on a ship to get off this island, I can’t tempt fate.

There is more desperation in his eyes than frustration, but I don’t have the privilege to care. He staggers his stance, folding his arms across his broad chest. He wants something from the tournament. It’s something his father either possesses or doesn’t want him to have. And he wants it badly enough to hide me here and defy his father.

“I can’t tell you any more,” he says. “I’ve already said too much. Will you do it? Yes or no?” There is an iciness to him that wasn’t there before he locked me in this room.

I can feel my hold on this chance slipping. I’d have to steal from several storehouses guarded with Mercyenforcers in my district. Three days is not a lot of time. “I need more of a guarantee. You have to get me medicine before I leave to collect them. And you must promise to get me out of Skyhaven and onto a ship safely after I’ve delivered them.”

“Medicine? Are you ill?”

“It’s not for me.”

“I can’t guarantee you anything but gold.”

“Then take your gold and shove it up your ass.” I’ll find my way out of this prison and off this forsaken island myself. I storm past him and push the door open—to where Dreth, the head Mercyenforcer, is standing.

“There she is,” he says.

My heart stops.

“I found her in here, searching my room,” Caelus says.

Liar! I reach for my blade too late. Dreth grabs me, binding my wrists. The last thing I see is Caelus subtly shaking his head at me.

8

It’s dark when Dreth leads me to a courtyard where a servant waits.

“You’re filthy,” he says as I’m stripped bare—starting with my gloves. Dreth yanks at the ties of my dress roughly until they give. The stiff fabric clings to my body, so he slips his bare hands inside, fingers cold on my shoulder, and wrenches me free of it. The dress collapses around my ankles. The Heartfillers I stowed in my bust fall to the ground and are kicked away. It feels like a blow. Dreth doesn’t stop. He peels away my underdress next, dragging me out of it, limb by naked limb. Each layer feels like being flayed, as if pieces inside me are being ripped away. Every touch feels like a scrub brush being dragged across my skin. Like he’s determined to scrape off the armor that’s held me together for eighteen years. Like he’s not undressing me, but unmaking me, preparing me for something worse than punishment.

I shiver beneath the gazes, tempted to cover every part of me their eyes drink in. I refuse them any satisfaction and stand taller. The last thing he takes is the chain in my fist, ripping it from my fingers.

The rest of his guards watch as the maid hoses me down, right there, in front of everyone.

I spit on him.

One of Dreth’s orderlies steps forward. The back of his hand cracks across my cheek, fast. My head snaps sideways. For a second, everything goes quiet inside me. Then, it stings like fire licking across my face and busted lip.

This is what happens when you fight back.

“Finish getting her ready,” Dreth says as one of his men hangs a number around my neck. Eight.

“Ready,” I say between swelling lips. “Ready for what?”

They ignore me. The washmaiden scrubs me with a rough brush until my skin is red. She pulls down my long hair and takes scissors to it, slashing it just below my shoulders. “Gets caught in the rope,” she says.

“What rope?”

She rinses me with sudsy water once more, and it feels like my skin is on fire. Then, she dresses me in linen before handing me back to Dreth, who takes me from the courtyard to an open-air cell that is not underground, but outside. A hard, thin mattress is on the cold ground. Mercyenforcers are stationed all around.

“When do I get to plead to the Benevolent for mercy?” I ask.

“You’ve been prepared for sentencing.” Dreth’s finger bounces off the number tag slung around my neck. “Eighth in line.” Then he turns to go.