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He didn’t know they’d heal him afterward any more than I did, and he was afraid to return to the world with a mangled face.
I’m not sure I can blame him for that. In a way, he has grounds to say it was partly my fault—because I never told him about how that trial went for me. If I had, he’d have known in advance it was only a temporary sacrifice.
For pointing his finger at me to save his own skin—I can assign plenty of blame just for that.
A wave of anger sears through my nausea, choking me. I gave up my entire life, the small bits of security I counted on, and the anonymity that protected me for so long to help this prick continue his mission. And the first time things got really hard, he decided I’d make a better sacrifice than any part of him.
I was good enough to sweet talk and kiss, but nothing he couldn’t toss aside the second he needed to save his skin.
Fuck him and his semi-royal airs.
My voice hardens. “I was right then. You knew you couldn’t hold your own, so you watched for someone to take the fall for you. Why wouldanyonewant to count on an asshole like that?”
I turn my back on him, not that he can tell anyway, and sink onto the rough floor with my arm cushioning my head.
I’m not interested in hearing anything else Benedikt has to say. Maybe I can steal a little sleep while we’re stuck in here for however long it takes the scourge sorcerers to deliberate.
Whatever comes next, I’ll be able to face it better the sharper my mind is.
As I close my eyes, it occurs to me that the conspirators never searched us for weapons. My knife is still hidden in my boot.
I might be able to land a killing blow in the darkness, just judging by Benedikt’s voice.
The idea makes me feel sick all over again. It feels so cowardly.
And that’s how it’d look to our captors too, isn’t it? Like I didn’t think I could stand up to him in a fair trial.
No. I need to triumph over him on their terms to have any hope of keeping their trust.
Their terms… and maybe the gods’?
I think hard in my head the way I’ve prayed silently to Kosmel before.Guardian of tricksters, I could use a little luck down here right now. If you want me to survive to keep playing this awful game, you’d better have my back.
No one answers. But a soft pressure comes to rest on my shoulder, like someone setting a reassuring hand there. Like a confirmation that I’m not alone.
Like my father’s touch when I was lying in bed sick or shaken by a bad day. Back when he still cared to try to comfort me.
Unwelcome tears prick at the backs of my eyes. I squeeze the lids tighter closed and tuck my free arm across my chest.
And somehow, with the simultaneously unnerving and comforting impression of a god watching over me, my mind drifts off.
I wake at the scrape of footsteps over the uneven floor. My head jerks up as I blink to clear my bleary eyes.
A thin stream of light is seeping down the passage from the narrow cave opening. Day has arrived.
Hurrah.
As I push myself into a sitting position and swipe at the grit that’s stuck to my face, I don’t bother to glance Benedikt’s way.
I don’t want the shrouded figure approaching us to see any reaction I wouldn’t be able to control, looking at the man who tossed me to the wolves.
In the faint daylight, the black shroud looks even more unsettling than at night. It’s like a loose, hooded robe that falls all the way to the wearer’s feet. I can now see there are slits for sight cut in the black cloth that falls from the top of the hood, but the face beyond them is too shadowed for me to make out even the glint of its eyes.
“Come and let the gods judge who should earn our trust,” the man says in the voice that might be Torstem’s.
Even though the strategy was my suggestion, an ominous hollow forms in the pit of my stomach.
I hold myself stoically still while one of the other shrouded figures unlocks the manacle from my ankle, but Benedikt can’t restrain his restlessness. “What’s the trial?”
