A Dawn of Onyx (The Sacred Stones, #1)(14)

We reached the massive wooden doors of the keep, and my teeth clenched as I steeled myself. Broad Man tugged me once again, and my wrists lit with agony pulling a strange whine from my lips.

Bert eyed me with a twisted, delighted gleam.

“Come, girl, you can stay with me tonight.”

Horror blurred my vision.

I couldn’t think of anything to say to save myself.

“Lieutenant, I think Commander Griffin wished to see us upon our return. I can throw the girl in the dungeons for now?” Broad Man offered.

Bert considered his soldier, then, annoyed, gave a gruff nod.

I heaved a small sigh of relief. I didn’t know if the Broad Man was trying to help me or if it had just been dumb luck, but I was more grateful than I had been all day when Bert stalked off toward the castle. Broad Man pulled me away from the doors, and we filed past more guards and through a gate that led down a spiral of cobbled stone stairs.

Dread awoke inside my chest anew and my mouth went bone dry.

“No, no…” I begged, pulling away from the shadowed cellar, but the Broad Man didn’t seem to hear me.

Or to care.

Inside, the dungeon was dark and stale and reeked of brackish water and human filth. The incessant, slow drip of liquid echoed through the stairwell. Torches lit up a hallway filled with iron cells below us, and my heart jumped into my throat.

“No, wait,” I pleaded again. “I can’t go in there.”

Broad Man gave me a curious look. “I’m not going to harm you. It’s just a place to lay your head until the lieutenant decides what to do with you.”

I tried to get my breathing under control.

“I just can’t be locked in. Please. Where do the healers stay?”

Broad Man huffed and pushed me down through the dizzying stairwell. My lungs were collapsing in on themselves and by the time we reached the bottom, I could hardly breathe.

He pulled me behind him and along the maze of cells. The hoots and hollers of foul-mouthed prisoners, paired with my heartbeat thundering in my eardrums, became a vulgar symphony. I tried again in vain to cover myself.

Broad Man opened a cell door wide and shoved me in, tearing off my bindings. I stumbled, catching my palms on the rough, dirty stone beneath me. It was even smaller inside than it looked. I spun, racing back toward the iron bars.

“Wait!” I yelled, but he was halfway down the hall and the cell was locked.

I heaved out a sob and backed into the corner, sinking down and bringing my knees to my chest. My head was swimming, my breath coming in irregular, uneven gasps. I tried to remember what Mother had taught me all those years ago when I panicked, but my mind was in shambles.

Maybe now was the aforementioned time to fall apart.

How did this all happen? I tried to replay the evening’s events back in my head and it only hurt more. I finally gave in to the tears I had been holding in all night. They burst out of me and trickled in streams down my cheeks, splattering onto the floor. My wails were loud and choked, like a child’s.

I wished I was more like Ryder. I hadn’t seen him cry more than twice in our whole lives. Once, when he was fifteen, when he fell off our roof and broke his kneecap. Again when his father Powell died, seven years ago.

My stepfather died of a stroke, and when Mother told us, Ryder sobbed for days. His father was his best friend in many ways, and Powell worshipped his only son. Powell and I never had that kind of relationship, though. I wasn’t sure if his hatred for me was born out of knowing I wasn’t his, or because I wasn’t strong like Ryder, but either way, he carried a rampant disdain for me that I was shocked nobody else could see.

Unlike Ryder, I cried all the time. I cried when Leigh made me laugh too hard. I cried when I saw my mother in pain. I cried at the end of a great book, or when I heard a beautiful harmony. I cried when I lost a patient at the infirmary. I cried when I felt overwhelmed. It was the least brave quality—to be sensitive and fearful and full of tears.

But I let them flow freely now.

I sobbed for my family that I’d never be with again. For my stupid, rash decision to trade my life for theirs. I didn’t regret it, but I hated that it had to happen. That I hadn’t been able to come up with anything smarter. I cried for my future here, which I knew would be painful at best. Short at worst. I tried to steel myself against a number of torments, which only made my mind run wild. What if they simply never let me leave this cell and I was trapped for eternity?

The unmistakable cry of a man in desperate pain clanged through the dungeon walls. I scanned the cells I had been dragged past. But almost all the other prisoners were sleeping.

The cry for help—for anybody, please—rang out again. There must have been another annex nearby for torture.

I pressed my palms to my ears tightly, but couldn’t drown out his sobs and pleas. It sounded as though he was being ripped in half.

I gulped and choked on air, panic back in full force.

I was suffocating.

Maybe I was dying. My mind was a clash of crawling dread and frantic energy, thoughts flitting from one to the next with no time to catch them. I was dizzy and panting, bracing myself against the stale floor beneath me.

Definitely dying.

I had to get out of here. Right now.

What had my mother told me to do? Why couldn’t I remember? Was it—

Three Things.

That’s what she had called it. Find and focus on three things you can name—I could do that.