Page 8 of Shadows of Winter

Back to the south… as failures.

Kaylina grimaced at the cobwebs in the corner of the shadowy ceiling. She’d come to prove herself. How, after less than a day here, could she already be defeated?

No, she wasn’t defeated. She couldn’t give up yet. She had to do something. But what? Her earlier energy had faded, and intense fatigue bound her to the bench as surely as chains.

“Kaylina.” Frayvar halted, spun toward her, and planted his fists on his hips. “This isn’t a logical time for one of your funks.”

“Is there ever a logical time for a funk?” she murmured.

“When we’re not about to be executed.” His voice squeaked like it had when he’d been thirteen.

When she met his imploring eyes, he didn’t look much older than that now. He was still gangly and frail, a target for bullies. For an asshole lord who thought nothing of slamming him to the ground with his overly muscled weight.

Protective anger simmered, helping to push back the malaise. Kaylina sat up, swinging her legs to the floor. “Do you have any ideas for escaping?”

“You’re the schemer.”

“Yeah, but you’re—”

A scream interrupted her, sending a chill down her spine. It came from one of the other cells they’d passed on the way in. A prisoner being questioned? Being tortured?

The scream faded and didn’t repeat. Kaylina found that more ominous than promising.

“You’re the one who’s read every encyclopedia and textbook in the town library,” she said quietly. “Didn’t any of them discuss jailbreaks?”

“In nonfiction, that comes up less often than you’d think.” Frayvar eyed the iron bars of the window. “Metal contracts when it’s cold and expands with heat, which can break or at least loosen bonds. Unfortunately, the inconsiderate guards didn’t give us a torch.”

“These northerners are a rude lot.”

“Extremely.”

Kaylina rose and tried to get her sluggish brain thinking. It was hard. For the whole journey, she’d been on a cloud, planning what she would do when they arrived, lying awake nights, her brain too busy for sleep. But that alertness had been knocked out of her, as if she’d been the one to take a lead ball to the head.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself.

Kaylina didn’t think she was a schemer—maybe a dreamer—but she would do what she could. She walked to the door and knocked, the cold oak so dense it hurt her knuckles.

What she would say if someone answered, she didn’t know, but she had to barter and negotiate if at all possible. She couldn’t let Frayvar be killed because of her dream.

Nobody answered. She pressed her ear to the door. Was anyone on guard in the corridor?

“I’m sorry Grandma sent you after me,” she told Frayvar in case there wasn’t a chance later. In case she couldn’t negotiate his freedom. “When I left—” fled, the insidious part of her mind inserted, “—I didn’t think anyone would come after me. After what I said to her… Well, you were there.” Kaylina rubbed her face, regret lurking. Always lurking.

Frayvar looked toward the window. “Grandma didn’t send me.”

“Was it Mom?”

“No. Nobody.”

“What do you mean? You told me the family sent you.”

“I lied, Kaylina. I can’t believe you didn’t see through it. I’m a horrible liar.”

“Well, I’m used to you not looking me in the eyes, so I didn’t think anything of it.”

He snorted. “I thought you would need someone to keep the books, to be the practical one, and to help make your business successful. I also worried you were in over your head. The north is harder than the south.” He glanced at the bars in the window and the thick stone walls. The jail in their town back home was made from bamboo, the roof from reeds. “Besides, I owe you. You’ve… you’ve always watched out for me. It’s not like the rest of the family doesn’t, but Grandma is the only one who gets me. Her and you.”

“I don’t get you either, but you’re my brother.”

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