Confusion fills me for a beat, andI hand the carafe back. “You go fill it. We’re supposed to stand here until we’re dismissed,” I inform her, and her brown eyes shift quickly to the back set of doors before flicking back to me. An awareness tickles up my spine, and I look past the house slave at first to Tilleo and then the Scorpions to see if this is their doing. Neither of them have taken any notice of me or the girl in front of me.
“No. I was told we could use you if we were too busy,” the waif of a girl hesitantly argues. “I’m too busy refilling glasses out here to go get more wine. We’ll run out soon, soyouwill do it,” she orders me, once again trying hard to sound strong and authoritative while pushing the carafe back toward me.
I take it and look over to the doors at the back. There’s no one there, but I have my suspicions about who gave this house slave her information. “Fine, where am I going?”
She visibly relaxes, making me even more on edge. “Out the doors to the right, then it’s the first alcove on the left. The cellar is at the bottom of the stairs, and the wine is already set out on the table. You’ll see it when you get down there,” she instructs, and before I can ask any other questions, she glides away from me. I watch her as she moves to the sidebar and plucks a full carafe of white petal wine and starts moving around the tables.
I take a second to scan the room again, but no one’s eyes are on me as I move away from my assigned place and stride to the doors at the back. Blood rushes my ears, carrying with it the heavy beat of my pulse as I push through the doors and follow the house slave’s directions. I hurry to calm my breathing and settle my body’s reaction to the newfound adrenaline now pumping through me.
I’m being hunted.
The problem is I’m not confident I know exactly who’s doing the hunting. Is this Tilleo setting me up to kill an Order member? Or the Scorpions getting back at me for my earlier disrespect? My instincts throw Crit into the mix, but it could be some unknown I haven’t factored in yet as well. I open up my senses as I find the alcove on the left that encases a flight of dark, shadow-soaked stairs that lead down. I tighten my hold on the empty carafe, careful not to break it in my white-knuckled grip.
With a quick sigh, I start down the steps. I don’t know what it says about me that there are so many options for who could lay this trap. I suppose I’m about to find out. It’s fine though, they’re about to discover that I’m done playing around.
ChapterNine
Imove silently down the winding stone staircase. If there is anyone waiting for me down below, there’s no way they’re breathing. I hear nothing, not even the crackle of fairy light in the sconces barely lighting my way. I move fluidly, aware that the threat could be sneaking up behind me just as easily as lying in wait. The end of my descent comes into view, revealing an arched entryway into the wine cellar itself.
I scan quickly for feet or a flicker of shadow or anything that might give my hunter away, but either they’re good enough not to be standing right by the entrance ready to pounce or there’s no one down here. I suppose it’s possible that the house slave’s orders were innocent and she really did just need someone to get more wine, but for some reason, I doubt it.
Suddenly, I leap off the bottom stair, and with a burst of speed, I sprint through the cellar entrance. I’m hoping my unexpected efforts will take any lurkers by surprise. I skid to a stop just before a long wine-stained table and spin, prepared for an attack that could be coming from any direction.
Nothing happens.
Silently. Motionlessly. I wait. I listen. Every muscle in my body is ready, but as one second bleeds into another, nothing happens.
I set the empty glass bottle down on the long table, which is exactly where the house slave said it would be. There are several open bottles of wine, but I don’t start checking which one I should be refilling. Instead, I scan the rows of bottles and barrels of alcohol being stored in the dark, cool room, but nothing moves and my senses and instincts aren’t picking up any unexpected presence down here either.
I move past the table to an especially dark corner. I glance around quickly one more time, and then I do something that no one knows I’m capable of. I step into the blackness created by a burnt-out sconce and a tall rack of liquor, and become one with the shadows.
The murk enfolds me, everything growing cooler as I settle into the gloomy protection of the darkness. I discovered that I could do this only a couple of years ago when I almost got caught one night trying to break into the hashery. I was being punished—I can’t remember for what—but I hadn’t eaten or been given water in almost two days. The food I could go longer without, but I knew if I didn’t drink something soon, I wasn’t going to make it. I had been forced to train again at midday when the sun was at its most punishing peak, and each step I took felt one step closer to the end unless I found some spare drops in a canteen or a glass of anything.
I don’t know why I thought trying to break into the hashery was the safest option; I was probably half delusional with hunger and dehydration. It didn’t take long for me to regret that decision when I heard the familiar cadence of night patrol heading my way. I panicked. I couldn’t run without getting caught, so I backed as far as I could into the shadows, begging any deity that would listen for them to swallow me up. There was no way in my state that I could survive a whipping or any other kind of punishment, and each step the guard took closer to me felt like a death knell.
I don’t know what happened or how, but all at once a strange, cold sensation took over. The next thing I knew, I was no longer standing outside of the locked hashery doors. I was inside, bathed in the dark of a corner in the back of the kitchens. I couldn’t move. Whatever I had just done felt like it drained every ounce of energy from my body, but as I slid to the ground and sat there in shock, I knew this: whatever it was would change everything for me.
I brush the memories away and wait, cloaked in the dark. My breaths even out. My heart slows until it’s steady. Patiently, I scan the cellar, focusing on the sole way in and out of this dank room. The scent of rotten fruit and stale barley tickles my nose as I debate how long to stay hidden down here. All at once, something in the air shifts. I don’t hear anything, but I sense a change as though somehow, unexplainably, there’s another presence down here with me. I scan the cellar again, studying the packed tall shelves and stacks of barrels. I can’t spot a change in anything down here, and yet my eyes settle on a dark patch of wall near the entrance.
I’d noticed that shrouded area and the surrounding unlit sconces when I first came down here. I only dismissed it as a good hiding place because anyone with a brain would expect an attack right when they first walked through the entrance. Where I am hiding now is a better option for a surprise attack, but I can’t fight the inkling that there’s someone watching from those shadows like I’m watching from mine. Keeping to my dark corner, I peer into the inky depths as though I can push aside the curtain of black and force it to reveal whatever it’s hiding. That’s when a scuff of a boot on stone catches my ear.
My eyes snap from the pool of shadows against the wall to the arched entrance. Someone is coming down the stairs. I go completely still. Holding my breath, I listen hard for any other noises that will give the new intruder away, but I don’t have to listen for long. In less than another heartbeat, a dark figure slinks from the bottom of the steps through the entryway. His hands are on the buckle of his belt as he unfastens it and goes to pull it from his hips. Crit’s skeevy eyes land on the long wood table where he expects me to be standing with my back to him as I fill the carafe of wine as ordered.
Dolt.
Crit’s knuckles go white against the brown leather of his belt as he looks around the room. His feet are planted in front of the only exit and entrance into the cellar, and his brow is furrowed with confusion. Fiendish eyes hungrily survey the rows of shelves, and a menacing smile spreads across his thin lips as he concludes that I must be hiding among them.
“Little gash,” he calls out in a taunting song as he steps deeper into the cellar. “There’s no use hiding from me.” He peers around and under the table, wrapping the ends of the belt around both of his hands like some oversized garrote.
Silently, I reach behind me and pluck the knife I stole from its sheath. My gaze once again flashes to the shadowed wall by the entrance, but I still don’t see anything there. I focus back on Crit as he prowls closer, checking every nook and cranny as he stalks in search of his prey. I study him, taking note of his size, the way he moves, the weapons he carries. I know he’s skilled; he wouldn’t be one of Tilleo’s guards if he weren’t. However, I can’t decide if his confidence is alarming or laughable. He knows what a blade slave is, knows what we’re molded to become from the moment we’re dropped in the sand pits, and yet, he’s down here without an ounce of fear or doubt in his voice as he mocks and threatens me. He thinks I won’t fight back? He’s about to find out just how wrong that is.
Crit strides into the racks of spirits, peering into their depths as he hunts. An excited snicker bounces off the walls of the cellar as he moves deeper into the musty room where he thinks he has me trapped. I begin to question how often he does this. From the ease in his gait and the excitement tightening his muscles, it’s more often than I realized. How many of my fellow blade slaves have tried and failed to escape his wrath?
Crit makes a small whistling noise and pats his leather clad thigh as though he’s calling a pet to heel. Anger spills like acid down my throat, burning a path into my lungs. I want to make him hurt. I want his screams to be the song that I recall as I fall asleep tonight. I want the warmth that comes from staring deep into his pitiful eyes as he realizes he’snotthe hunter,he’sthe hunted. But I know I won’t get any of that. I’ll get a kill, but not a satisfying one. As much as I wish I could, I can’t go back up to Tilleo’s dinner covered in blood and satisfaction. No one can know what I’m about to do down here. I have to be quick and careful and always a step ahead.
I visualize all the places I can insert my blade to give me a clean kill. It’s more than he deserves, but dead is dead in the end. I’ll have to find gratification in that alone. Calculating the force I’ll need to end this walking shit stain, Ifeelmore than hear him moving closer. He rounds the end of the rack to my left, casually strolling toward me, his eyes scanning every possible hiding spot. His smirk is gone, replaced by a furrowed brow and a concerned glint in his searching gaze.
My condemning stare is fixed on his face, and my heart beats steadfast, as though the muscle is dutifully counting down each second that passes as he steps closer. Each thump of my heart in my chest rings like a death bell, and I fight the urge to tighten my grip on the stolen blade clutched in my palm. Anticipation pools in my mouth, and I hold my breath as Crit’s brown eyes rove over the shadows draped protectively all around me. They spark with dismissal and disappointment, and he turns to retrace his steps back down the aisle.
