He needed to know. And he needed to avoid making things worse. “Give me the razor,” he ordered. He’d shave, and he’d dress, and he’d play whatever games his mother wanted. But he wouldn’t stay in his rooms, ignoring the larger world. He couldn’t hide. Not from this.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As soon as he was clean, Finnvid returned to the entry hall where the Sacrati had been attacked. At least, he tried to, but he found himself frozen on the threshold. He thought of Theos, and Andros, and for the first time remembered that Andros had broken away from the other Sacrati as they’d entered the valley. Andros was still alive. And Finnvid would find him, one day, and Andros would want answers. Finnvid needed to have them.
So he swallowed hard, once and then again, and forced himself into the room. There were servants cleaning up, but the bodies were all gone. So were the soldiers, Elkati and Torian alike, who’d witnessed the massacre. Were the Torians already headed back to Windthorn? What message would they bear? How would Theos’s mother react to the news? Would she be resigned to her son finally finding the violent death she believed he’d been seeking? But, no, she hadn’t said “violent”; she’d said “heroic.” And there was nothing heroic about what had happened in that hall.
“Where’s my brother?” Finnvid demanded of the nearest servant. The woman blinked up at him, her hands stained red from the blood she was scrubbing at, and he recoiled as if she’d been a viper. “The king,” he managed. “Or the queen mother. Or— Were there any men taken from this room? Anylivingmen?”
She stared at him wordlessly, and for a moment he wondered if she was strange in her head. Or maybe she was just as stunned by it all, just as horrified and torn apart and bewildered as he was. Then he remembered that he was in Elkat. Servants here might not be slaves, technically, but they were treated as barely human. This woman, confronted with an angry prince, was almost certainly expecting a blow. She wasn’t ready to give him any helpful information.
He crouched down, trying to ignore the blood on the floor, trying not to think if it belonged to someone he knew. “Did they take anyone away for medicine?” he asked in a gentler voice.
This time the woman nodded.
“Where did they go?”
She pointed her eyes in the direction of the Great Hall, and he stood quickly. “Thank you,” he said, then caught himself. Elkati princes did not thank servants.
That was what he was worried about, the propriety of it all? He’d been back in Elkat for such a short time, and already was falling into old patterns of thought. He nodded at her, then headed toward the Great Hall.
As he approached the ornately carved double doors, a scream rang from inside the room, and he stumbled to a halt. He reassured himself that the voice hadn’t been familiar, as far as he could tell by a scream. But shouldn’t he behopingto recognize a voice? Even agony was preferably to death.
Finnvid made himself enter the room, and his nightmare changed from a frightening abstraction to something far too concrete and real. There were bodies everywhere, most of them close together and being ignored, but a few spaced out far enough that people could crouch by their sides and tend to them. The many dead, and the few living.
This was too close to home, with the bodies laid out in the room he usually saw decorated for dances and feasts. And Finnvid wasn’t a soldier; he’d seen death, but not often. His mind was torn between the need to know and abject terror: it was all too much, and he sagged back against the doorjamb, trying to control himself before he ran from the room.
“Finn.” His brother’s voice wasn’t gentle, exactly, but it wasn’t cruel either. “Mother spoke to me.”
And Finnvid’s rage gave him strength. “You made a horrible mistake.” He spun and glared at his brother. “The Sacrati are not the enemy. And Theos—one of the Sacrati—his mother is the reeve of Windthorn: the civilian leader. She was working with the reeves of Cragview and Greenbrook to ensure their support for peace. If you’ve killed her only son . . .”
Alrik shook his head. “We knew about her. It was in the letter the warlord sent. He said the reeves exaggerate their own importance, while the warlords are the ones who run the armies. Finnvid, we aren’t worried about the Torianwomen.”
“You should be,” Finnvid snarled. But this wasn’t what he needed to talk about. “Where are the Sacrati?” He made his voice calmer. “Did any survive?”
“Mother was right. She said you were more concerned about the enemy than about your own citizens.”
“My own citizens aren’t the ones I led into a trap,” Finnvid said through gritted teeth. “And I know you’ll take good care of them. So I’m worried about the Sacrati, yes.”
Alrik looked around, then leaned in a little closer and lowered his voice. “The warlord told us what they did to you. The Sacrati. He said the Sacrati who—the one who—who thought heownedyou—the one who abused you—the warlord arranged for him to be sent on this trip. Is that right?”
Finnvid stared. “No one— Do you meanrape? When you say ‘abused,’ is that what you mean? No one did that!”
“Of course,” Alrik said hurriedly. “Of course not. But the one whotried. Is he here?”
“If a Sacrati had tried to rape me, I’d have been raped. But none of them tried.”
“Finnvid, we know you were enslaved. Not just from the warlord; we’ve started questioning the men who were with you, and they’re confirming the story. I understand why you’d want to deny it, and once we’re done with this you need never speak of it again. But weknow. And we will take revenge if we haven’t already.”
Finnvid wanted to scream. “I wasn’t raped. Ask the men what they actuallysaw. I was claimed from a chain of others, and those others . . .” Finnvid didn’t really want to think about the fate of the others. “Theywereintended for slavery, I assume of that sort. But Theos only claimed me as a way torescueme. He never told me to do more than wash his clothes and train.”
“Train?”
“As a warrior. That’s how Sacrati measure manhood, so he was trying to help me become worth something. If he’d been planning to hurt me, he wouldn’t have spent his time training me to defend myself!” And with that, Finnvid was out of patience. He pulled himself up straighter and said, “Did any Sacrati survive the attack?”
Alrik looked undecided, but finally nodded. “Yes. One.”
Finnvid’s entire body was tight, but he managed to make his voice sound almost normal. “Where is he?”
