Page 25 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

I’m not ready to die yet. There’s a muffled sound I can’t quite place. Near but not right at my door. Maybe the next cell over? A small voice rises in the damp air. “Is it time?”

Hinges creak, a door inching wider. Boots shuffle in the dirt, and the small voice sucks in a quick breath, cries, “Wait!”

But bone cracks, and I hear a soft weight slump to the ground. I can just make out the heavy rasp of rough breathing, then the sound of something dragging across dirt. The uneven gait of boots under a heavy load echoes in the dim light.

It’s coming closer, closer…

The lock on my cell door clicks, and candlelight slivers through the thin crack as it opens.

I cover my eyes against the light and scramble, racing to put solid stone at my back. Panic coats my mouth, my tongue. My senses strain, and I peer out from around my hand.

A crimson-and-black uniform fills the sliver in the door of my cell. A copper-haired figure with broad shoulders stands silhouetted in the faint glow from the empty hall beyond, a girl’s body slung under one arm.

Long, dark hair brushes the dirt, the body’s neck hanging at a gruesome angle. Without a word, the guard lays her down gently on the cold earth of my cell, exposing a streak of blondhair against the dark brown. She reminds me of a broken bird, lying there. Hunger’s marks are clear on her, pulling her skin tight against the bones. I don’t move.

Slowly, the guard’s gaze rises to me. Vaguely, I remember a flash of copper hair in the doorframe back home when the gardai took me. How this same guard had been the one who spoke and made my sister pause.

If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect the guard is sizing me up. But gardai aren’t afraid of peasants from Quayside. There’s no reason for them to be. They can cut us down and leave our bodies in the mud and get nothing but the High King’s thanks.

“Get up,” the guard orders.

I lift my chin, fear racing in my veins. “No.”

If this guard wants to kill me, I won’t make any part of this easy.

With a low curse, the guard strides forward and clenches a fist around my wrist. I rip my hand back but can’t break free. Strong hands jerk me up, pulling me out of the cell and slamming the cell door shut behind us.

Hot shame burns my cheeks. I try to fight, but I was always shit at hand-to-hand, and this guard is twice my size. Heavy with muscle, and solid. Breaking free is impossible.

I know I should be stoic, that I should be brave. I knew what I was risking when I went to the Whisperers.

But I’m not brave now.

Terror seizes me.

Deep down, I admit there was a part of me that dreamed I might be different from all the others who tried to buy magic. That I might be the one who finally survived.

Old Ones, I was so fuckingstupid.

Twice, I fall, knees slamming into the hard dirt. The guard forces me right back up.

Every corner brings us farther down a corridor that looks exactly the same as the last. Cells, there are so many cells. Some have wooden doors like mine; others have little more than iron bars that let the condemned stretch their hands out feebly in our wake. One houses an older woman, with heaps of matted, sandy hair and sharp eyes as pale as the sky. Others appear empty at first, but that’s only because there are no sounds coming from them.

The occupants inside are no more than bones still shackled to crumbling walls.

In one, ratty velvet hangs off small, flaking bones, and empty eye sockets stare out at us. He can’t be—couldn’t havebeen—more than eight or nine years old, and my heart aches. What could a little boy have done to deserve this?

I swallow the rising taste of bile.

The guard keeps moving, then finally reaches for a lock at the edge of an iron gate where the corridor narrows, fishing out a set of keys. The metal barely clamors as the key slips into the hole, and for a moment, my heart leaps. If it doesn’t fit, if I have more time to escape…

But the rattling lock clicks and the gate swings open.

We move faster now. The guard’s jaw tightens, eyes darting over every corner.

Here the floors are stone instead of dirt, and I sense that we’re rising up out of a dank darkness and into the halls of Castle Mount.

Fresh, clean air fills my nose—then a cloying, floral sweetness.