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Examining the walls, I traced a finger over the rough-hewn stone.
I curled my body into the wall, as if I was sleeping. Raising my chained hands, I pressed the larger bone to the abrasive surface. Gently, carefully, I scraped the bone against the wall.
Footsteps sounded, and I hid the bone up the sleeve of my tunic, closing my eyes. The footsteps slowed, then sped up once more.
It was painstaking work, each scrape of bone against stone echoing in the dank cell. Sweat broke out across my neck each time a guard walked past. My muscles screamed in protest at my position, my wrists burning in the heavy chains.
But each pass of the bone along the stone meant I was one moment closer to vengeance.
So I lay still. And I scraped.
* * *
A few days after the first note, I was almost unsurprised when the queen’s messenger found me once more, despite the fact that I’d chosen a new inn, painstakingly covering my tracks.
How was she doing this?
Handing the messenger a coin, I plucked the note from his hand, not bothering to ask him how he’d found me. Unless he was an idiot, he would be far more afraid of the queen than he was of me.
It was a good choice to trust me. Now take that pride of yours and bury it long enough to trust me again. The sixth has been taken. Her life-span grows shorter each day. Find her near poison’s homeland.
The sixth.
What did she—
The only sixth she could be talking about was her sixth lady. Prisca had taken that spot.
My entire body seized.
If Prisca had truly been taken…
Lorian must be dead or dying. He wouldn’t have allowed her to be taken otherwise. The fae was like a rabid wolf when it came to her.
Poison’s homeland.
I stared at the note some more.
Poison’s homeland.
The reference escaped me.
I could almost hear the bitch queen in my head, tutting at my stupidity.
Clearly, she thought it was somewhere I would recognize.
My hands shook, and I gripped the note tighter, careful not to tear the parchment.
Perhaps Kaliera had used her first message to ensure we would trust her. So we would descend on poison’s homeland and die directly after.
Prisca was annoyingly idealistic, overprotective of her family and friends to the point that she was clearly battling some inner demon. Not to mention, she was stupidly self-sacrificing. The chances of her making it through this war alive were low, while the chances of her making it through undamaged were much, much lower.
But…
She’d saved my life in that castle.
In a choice I’d never have been able to take back, I’d attempted to set myself on fire. Remembering that moment now, I found it difficult to understand what I’d been thinking. I hadn’t been thinking. But I’d seen no way out. And if I was going to burn, it would be by my own hand.
Still, when I’d asked Prisca to leave the camp—and oh, how the fact that I’d needed to ask had chafed—she hadn’t hesitated.
