Blood Oath (The Darkest Drae Book 1)(35)

The bag was like the burlap kind Mum would take when she went to trade at the Market Circuit, and it was stuffed full of cured meat, cheese, seeded bread, brak, and dried fruit. Stuffed full. A feast.

Next time, I would demand Tyr tell me why he was helping me. I mean, Madeline had helped me when I first came, but what Tyr was doing was a whole new level of danger and self-sacrifice. The king killed Madeline for trying to trick him. What would he do to Tyr?

What if Tyr was a part of the rebellion? I hadn’t considered this before. . .

What if he had contact with Dyter and Arnik? Despite my best endeavors not to let it, hope took root within me.

I was a moron to even have the thought. Would they fight their way past hundreds of guards and then kill the king’s Drae? Would I invite the same people into the castle that I’d been trying to keep out?

At least Irrik hadn’t been back. There was one blessing in all of this—because I’d been seriously planning on kicking him in his Drae face. He was probably lucky he hadn’t been back.

—Beaten Girl Turns the Tables on Jerk—

—Drae Bursts into Tears After a Punch to the Throat—

—Ryn Throws Seeds in Drae’s Eyes to Win Fight—

“Ty?” I called again. There was something wrong with me to be laughing at my own jokes in the king’s dungeon after the worst experiences of my life. Especially as Ty could be lying there half dead for all I knew.

Ty’s words came back to me about keeping my food safe, and I searched for a spot to hide a portion of my feast treasure.

I nibbled on brak—Dyter’s specialty, a forlorn part of me reminisced—and studied my small cell. All stone, and the only place I could find to hide anything was by my bed and under my blankets. I sat on my bed, munching on bread and brushing the specs of grain off my lap and onto the stone. I regretted wasting the seeds, as small a food source as they were. A quick feel told me the grains were lost to the cracks in the stone floor. And actually, on second thought, my blood was still splattered all over the cell from Jotun’s belt whipping.

The soap queen had not fallen that far.

I grimaced, scanning every stony brick of the cell. Even a toddler would know by simply looking at my room that anything of value would be stashed by my bed, which made it a terrible hiding place. The only other object in my entire cell was the straw and the chamber pot. I’d long since moved the pot to the front of my cell so I could dump the contents out into the hall instead of having to deal with it in my room. It had been the only option when the receptacle was full several days ago. The smell was atrocious, but by the next morning, the hall had been rinsed clean.

Tyr’s handsome smile flashed in my mind, and I seriously hoped he hadn’t been the one to clean up the mess.

I was desperate to keep my food bounty, but the only idea I’d had, besides hiding it by my bed, was repulsive. Maybe repulsive was good. I thought of the oiled cloth from the first time someone had left me food, and fingering the material under my bed, I hoped the cloth would be enough of a barrier.

I scattered the smelly straw around the chamber pot and took the wrapped package of food and the flagon of nectar and put them in the darkest corner of the room, the space I’d initially used as a bathroom. The pot was several paces away, but the very idea made me cringe.

Hopefully my hiding place would make anyone planning to take my food cringe, too.

The victory was small.

But for the first time, I felt like I might be starting to play the game.





15





Ty didn’t return that day.

I couldn’t tell if it was Tuesday or not, but Jotun didn’t return for me either. I’d overheard Lord Irrik say I’d been here three weeks. Did that mean I’d been here a month now?

A month since my mother died. Moons, but I missed her. Ty filled the hole somewhat, but no one could ever replace my mother.

Somewhere in the middle of wondering why Jotun opted to have Tuesday off out of all seven days, I must have drifted off again in a sleep that wasn’t sleep at all. I tossed and turned, imagining Lord Irrik in my cell, and the king, and then both of them laughing at me. Dyter appeared, and even Mum, her face in anguish as she tried to comfort me. The knife was pushed into her chest. Then the king’s Drae pulled it out and handed it to me.

When I awoke, someone was brushing my arm in a cool caress.

“Tyr,” I mumbled.

Keeping my eyes closed, I relished the gentle contact, but my arm was stiff from being flung up over my head. My aching muscles screamed to move, and I withdrew my arm from his attention. As I moved, the brush of his fingers tickled, and I giggled, opening my eyes.

My lips parted, and it took me a while to understand I was still in my cell.

A dark circle, almost as big as my face, hovered right above me, and there were pale petals of yellow surrounding it. I blinked, and the anemic sunflower came into focus. The giant flower had fallen over and hovered directly over my head.

Inhaling through my nose, I almost choked on the smell of fresh vegetation.

In. My. Dungeon. Cell.

I pushed the sunflower away and sat up.

I’d finally broken. It was the only explanation.

Surrounding me was a tiny garden. Barley grass, wheat, and a small stalk of corn had sprouted from the meager dirt layer between the stones. Other plants I didn’t recognize had begun a doomed life cycle, wilting in the darkness of the cell. Not believing my eyes, I ran my hand over the spikes of the barley, and the thin plants tilted and fell, their roots in the stone of the dungeon cell inadequate to sustain them. I picked up a shoot and bent the tender stalk.