Page 134 of Daughter of the Dark Sea
“You can’t be serious!” Aryn shook his head.
“Aye, listen to me.” Samuel approached Aryn. “Look around.” His eyes flashed, and she understood—there was nothing they could do. No one could help her. Not while they were in the heart of the enemy.
Gods, the Talmon Empire was now herenemy.
“She has betrayed the empire,” Garvan scowled. “Learn quick and fast, lad, if you want to advance in our ranks.”
“She hasn’t done anything . . .” Aryn whispered, his face going into shock. Samuel stepped beside him, placing a giant hand on his shoulder. His tattoos rippled in the light. “I’ve failed . . .”
She sobbed as he lowered his longbow, his astute gaze drinking in the mass of soldiers surrounding them in the barracks. He flicked his gaze back to her and something passed between them—a silent promise. The tiniest kernel of hopebloomed in the torrenting darkness raging within her. A small slither of blue light, glittering in a sea of despair.
“Well, this is all very moving.” Barron clapped his hands. “We have a dungeon to get to.”
As they carried Kora out of the barracks, she kept her gaze trained on Aryn until the doors slammed shut behind them.
Part FOUR
GALEN RETURNS
52
Kora peered through the bars of her cell, inhaling the scent of death and ocean spray. Built inside the cliff, beneath the Citadel, the vertical dungeon tunnel consisted of rings of iron-barred cells leading to a death drop to the ocean.
Thick, curling tree roots and rotting vines drooped from hardened soil at the top of the prison spiral, and at the bottom was a wide mouth leading to the ocean, with clusters of sharp, jagged rocks. Her cell was right at the top, amongst the rancid earth. Vines coiled along the ceiling, reaching to ensnare her, and she squirmed.
“No! No, please!” a shriek rang several rings below.
“Aye, get this wench overboard now!” Garvan’s voice followed.
Kora couldn’t see the commotion. An iron-railed walkway spiralled downwards, allowing guards to assume watch, and separating the cells from the death drop. Several cells to her right was a gated section in the railing, leading to a woodenplank. She’d spied the very same plank upon every ring, allowing guards easy access to chuck prisoners overboard.
“Please! I don’t want to die!” the other prisoner’s pleas echoed off the bars.
“Time to walk the plank, lassie.”
A screech of metal, followed by screams, and the wooden shudder of the walk plank. Those screams continued, down, down, down—
Splat.
“What have they done to you?”
Kora silently regarded the familiar healer working on her shoulder. A clump of red-stained gauze flew onto the cell floor, littered with dirt, debris, and gods-knew-what from previous occupants.
“Do you believe in the empire, Koji?” her voice was barely a whisper.
His aged, deft hands halted sewing her wound and she winced. Even with heavily applied arnica, she could still feel the prick of the needle. It was nothing in comparison to the pain consuming her entire essence and soul.
“I told you once before,” Koji murmured quietly near her ear, his golden eyes glinting in the torch light. “I’m not the empire.”
“Right,” she coughed from her feeble attempt to chuckle. “You follow the coins.”
“Unfortunately so.”
She raised a curious brow at him as she gripped one of the bars of her cell. They perched on a wooden bed, connected to the blackened wall by rusted chains. Decomposing hay coated the bed, with a thin, torn woollen blanket as a pitiful excuse to keep the cold at bay.
“Before the trials, I’d never taken a life,” she swallowed. “But then . . . killing became survival. I had to survive thosetrials. I wouldn’t allow my stubborn decisions to become the reason I died.” She winced at the needle sliding through her skin. “I vowed I’d never do it again but . . . I’m a reaper. I’m the empire’s personal blade to their enemies.”
“We live in a harsh world,” Koji replied softly. “Survival to you may be a weapon, but survival for me is money. Survival to another is food. We all have our own demons.”
