Page 14 of These Divided Shores
Lu knew Port Camden, the steep gables of the buildings that created knife-sharp silhouettes against the sky. The clopping of horses on the cobblestone roads. The tanneries on the northwest side of the city that coated the port in the stench of sour death when the wind blew the wrong way. She, Ben, and Gunnar could get out of this prison, and she could get them somewhere safe—through mildew-slick alleys like the one where she had first killed someone in self-defense. As Tom had taught her.
Her heart all but ruptured as she tried not to remember that night. But it led to other memories centered around Port Camden: the end of the revolution. The safe house two hours of travel into the jungle. The lace-edged quilt that hung over the bed where she and Annalisa had hiddenas defensors stormed the building. Her nightmare, Milo standing over her. Hours,hours, of Lazonade and Awacia—
“Elazar isn’t drugging the other prisoners.” Lu tripped over her own words. “The prison itself drugs its inhabitants. There is magic, somewhere.”
Ben braced his hands on his temples. “To have a prison on Grace Loray use Emerdian building techniques is one thing, but did they put plants in the construction materials? Do the guards pump toxic air in?Where?And more—”
Ben turned, the instinctual flip of someone seeking the counsel of another—Gunnar. But when he saw Gunnar’s state, bloodied and half-conscious, Ben cried out.
“We’ll escape,” Lu promised them. Promised herself. She held up the metal tongs. “I can pick our locks. We’ll get out.”
Ben glanced back at her, tears streaking clean lines through the grime on his russet face. “How? He won’t make it far.”
“Go,” came a gruff bark. Gunnar looked through his blood-matted hair. “Get out.”
Leave mewere his unsaid words.
Ben shot to his feet. “This”—he waved at the prison, the island beyond, the whole of the conflict—“has happened because I spent the past six years saving only myself. Don’t tell me that I should leave you here. I owe you your life. I owe Argrid and Grace Loray so much more. We’re not leaving without you. If it costs me my own life, I don’t care.”
He gagged on the weight of his admission, head dropping to his chest.
Ben didn’t understand what he was saying. Lu needed to escape before she shattered over these cold prison stones, pieces of a girl abandoned by her father, pieces of a murderer, pieces ofnothing.
She needed to get out, to find her mother. To do anything,anythingnecessary to get Argrid off this island.
As if her desperation read on her face, Ben looked away. “Give him a day. Enough for his wounds to...” He swallowed. “If we leave without him, my father will kill him.”
Ordinarily, Lu wouldn’t have challenged him. They couldn’t leave Gunnar. “What if the defensors don’t let him heal enough to escape?”
Ben bit his lips together. He looked at Gunnar once more, then back at Lu.
He nodded at the single cot and an uneaten tray of food. “Just one day. Give him that.”
Lu hesitated. Ben insisted again. She relented, grabbing a chunk of stale bread and pulling herself onto the thin, lumpy mattress.
“A day,” she agreed.
The stomping of boots pulled Lu from a light, vacant sleep.
Ben stood at the cell bars. Across the way, Gunnar swayed against his chains.
Lu pushed upright on the cot, dreamlike, the world shifting.
Four defensors stopped in the hall. None had a whip. But one of them—the one Ben had fought on theAstuto, Jakes—cleared his throat.
“The Eminence King demands your presence, my prince. And the Mecht.” His voice was rough, as if he had been weeping.
“Why?” Ben demanded.
Defensors unlocked both cells. Lu was vaguely aware of them letting Gunnar down, muzzling him, while Jakes snapped manacles on Ben’s wrists. He resisted with a cry.
The defensors were taking Ben and Gunnar away. Lu would be left alone.
The horror of that possibility made her shoot off the cot as defensors relocked her cell.
“Wait!” Lu grabbed the bars. “You can’t—”
“Do you want to repent?” Jakes whipped to her as another defensor led Ben up the hall.
