Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(14)

“Good. I’ll inform Sarannai, your new supervisor.” He strode away, too busy to keep taunting me. The rest of the hall was quiet with prisoners taking their turn in the bath. The other guard was gone for now, too, and a tense sense of waiting fell over the cellblock.

“Shouldn’t have done that.” Gerel had a low, melodic voice, not at all what I’d expected from a former warrior. She stood by her door, feeling at the top for something. Then, she lifted herself off the ground.

There wasn’t much room to grab up there, at least from what I could tell on my door. Which meant she was pulling with just her fingertips.

“Why?” I added another item to my benefits-of-working list: I wouldn’t have to spend every day watching Gerel exercise.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” She grunted faintly with effort. My fingers would have fallen off already. “Well,” she said, letting go of the door. She hopped back and brushed her hands over her trousers. “It’s not as though there’s anything better to do here.”

I frowned.

“None of the rest of us have been given the opportunity to work. Why do you think that is?”

How was I supposed to know? Maybe because they’d committed actual crimes?

“Altan wants something from you,” she said. “Remember that.”

A shudder ran through me. One of the jobs he’d suggested—

Gerel tilted her head. “No, not that. That, at least, is one thing you don’t have to worry about here. Warriors won’t take an unwilling partner. Khulan won’t allow it. That offense would put a black mark on their honor for the rest of eternity and they wouldn’t be permitted to fight in Khulan’s Final Battle.”

“I’m supposed to have faith in their unwillingness to besmirch their honor?”

She eyed me askance. “I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but here, warriors take their vows seriously. Other people may not be watching, but Khulan is. Always.” There was a pause, like she was thinking about her own dishonor. Her sentence to this prison. “Anyway, that’s not something you have to worry about.”

Thank Damina for that small measure of safety. There were plenty of other things the warriors could do to me here, but at least that wasn’t one of them. Mother reminded me frequently about the importance of my virtue, and how I should protect it.

“But Altan wants something,” Gerel said. “He was never a prison guard before. You must be important.”

There was an implied question in that statement, but she didn’t ask, and I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer the information. “What do you think he wants?”

She shrugged. “How should I know? I can’t read minds.”

Well, neither could I.

“At any rate,” Gerel said, “be careful. Sarannai is not an easy woman to please. Would-be warriors train under her when they come to the Heart.” She stretched one arm across her chest, clenching and unclenching her fingers. “And she supervises Pit prisoners, when she’s feeling testy.”

I hadn’t realized that warriors spent part of their training here, but it made sense, didn’t it? I’d seen the statues and chapels. This was their temple.

“I came to the Heart for training when I was fifteen. Before that, I’d spent ten years preparing. Running. Fighting. Learning to use every weapon available. I was at the top of my class. None could best me.”

Thank Damina humility wasn’t one of the attributes of a good warrior.

“Then we came to the Heart. We’d heard about it all our lives, of course. No warrior completes training without time here.” She rolled her shoulders as she spoke. “Our first night in the trainee barracks, everyone in the class ahead of us came rushing in, banging batons against the frames of our beds. It went on until the last one in our class—a boy who died a few days later—finished dressing and reported for cleaning duty. Under Sarannai.”

A boy had died? Maybe he’d taken ill and the doctors hadn’t been able to treat him.

“Sarannai said there were buckets with soap and rags stashed around the outer ward. Fourteen buckets. Fifteen of us. Everyone who got a bucket needed to have the outer ward spotless by dawn. If Sarannai found even a smudge of dirt, we’d all suffer.”

I swallowed hard. “What about the trainee who didn’t get a bucket?”

Her face went blank, completely free of emotion. “He’s the one who died later. I don’t think you’d like to hear how that happened.”

Probably not. “Tell me.”

Down the hall, a door slammed. She motioned for me to wait as footfalls hit the stone floor and four cell doors shuddered open. Prisoners put back in. Prisoners taken out. Lucky prisoners who got to take their baths right now.

Then it was quiet again, and Gerel continued with her story. “I didn’t see all of it, because I got the first bucket. I was already scrubbing by the time it happened.”

Of course. Top of her class. None could best her, or touch her bucket.

“Most of this is what I heard later.” Her voice deepened, as though she was trying to hide some sort of emotion. Pain? Pride? “There was a fight for the final bucket. Sarannai had said that whoever didn’t get one wouldn’t be allowed to continue training, so everyone was inspired to do whatever they needed to ensure their stay. No one wants to leave as a dishonored trainee. Not even the most loving family would accept them back.”