For what?his doubt whispered.They’ve built the cell around you.
His scowl deepened, but then he picked up the sound of rapid breathing. Too rapid. “Ahnna?”
She didn’t answer. James dropped to his knees, looking into the hole. Ahnna was sitting, broken arm resting on her lap. “Ahnna, just breathe.”
“They walled us in here. We’re trapped.”
She wasn’t wrong.
His lips parted to tell her not to panic, but James thought better of it. “Katarina needs us alive. If we are alive, there is hope.”
“Why is it so hot?” She gasped out the words, struggling to breathe. Then she pressed her hand to the ground. “James, why is the ground so hot? Are they…” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “The Furnace. That’s the reason for the name, isn’t it?”
“They heat the ground beneath us.” There was no point in lying. “There’s water in the pitcher next to you.”
She snatched it up, taking several big gulps before stopping to stare at it. “When do we get more?”
Likely not soon, and seeming to recognize that, Ahnna set the pitcher aside. “She’s going to murder my family. My people. And I can’t do anything about it.”
“Nothing will happen quickly.” He hunted for something to say that would keep her calm. “Katarina said the storms have been bad.No one can do anything to Ithicana if the typhoons are battering the Tempest Seas. We have time.”
“Time to do what?” Her voice was breathy, like she wasn’t getting enough air into her lungs. “There is no way out!”
“Come here.” She didn’t move, so he repeated, “Ahnna, please.”
Slowly, she moved closer to the wall and lowered her face to look through. It was nothing but shadows, but James swore his nose picked up the scent of the sea.
“It’s hard to see,” she whispered. “Part of me wonders if it isn’t even you. If I’ve already lost my mind.”
James retreated to the center of the cell, the beam of light illuminating his face. Almost instantly, her breathing steadied, and he returned to the wall. “Never lose sight of the fact that they need us alive. Need us sane enough to be useful. I’m sure that’s why they left this opening between us.”
Ahnna moved, and then her hand was reaching into the opening. James slipped his own arm in, closing his hand around hers. Feeling the familiar texture of her skin, callused from toil and war. And she whispered, soft as a breath, “That was her first mistake.”
40
Keris
“I need to get anothermessage to Aren and Lara.” Keris paced the floor of his suite in the Sky Palace, barely noticing the expansive view out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Extreme heights had lost a great deal of their appeal to him. “If for no other reason than to get the news about Taryn to Bronwyn so that my sister doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Saam sprawled across a sofa, disappearing into a pile of decorative pillows. “If the Amaridians actually have Taryn, then Bronwyn might already know.” He dug himself out, then rolled on his elbow to regard Keris like a courtesan in a brothel. “I’m not sending another member of your guard to deliver messages. You have to wait for Adrius to return from delivering your first message.”
“One more guard isn’t going to make a difference to my safety.” And Keris had no intention of committing any of this to writing given that everything he sent would be read by Alexandra’s spies.
Saam made a face. “It’s not aboutyoursafety, jackass. It’s that I want proof the Harendellians didn’t slit Adrius’s throat the moment he was out of our sight.”
It was a valid concern. Alexandra was well aware whose side Keris was on, and all the smiles and easy words about him serving as anintermediary could be lip service. The Tempest Seas were notoriously dangerous, so it would be easy for them to offer up thoughts and prayers for endless missing envoys.
“Daria should be well on her way to Pyrinat by now, if not there already.” Saam gave him a long look. “What are you going to do if she brings back a message from Zarrah asking you to leave the Sky Palace and come home?”
“Zarrah won’t do that.” At least, not if his wife thought his presence was accomplishing something. Unfortunately, Keris was feeling decidedly ineffectual. Since arriving in Verwyrd and learning that Katarina’s spies had stolen Taryn from the Harendellians by force, all he’d done was serve as William’s favored drinking companion. The king of Harendell seemed to have half forgotten he was on the verge of war, dragging Keris to endless horse races and then out to winehouses and brothels to drink until the wee hours, after which the king would sleep late, only to begin anew. The idiot courtiers William surrounded himself with knew nothing and seemed not to care a wit about what might be happening in the south. All that mattered was entertainment, women, and spending endless,endlessamounts of coin.
It was not lost on Keris that with her son focused on carousing, Alexandra was able to exercise almost total control over the nation. “I need to get an audience with Alexandra.”
“You have a horse race to go to with Will and his chums.”
Spending any more time with William would accomplish nothing. “Get a message to his servants telling him that I’m nursing a hangover and still abed, but will join them later. When they go, I’ll find his mother.”
Saam shrugged, then extracted himself from the cushions. “All right. Stay put.”
