Page 52 of The Last of the Dark Lords

"We will never give up our water!"

"Enough." She locked eyes with me. "He is right. We will not give up control of the dam."

"People are dying,” I argued. “That should matter to you whether they are your subjects or not. I won’t stand by and let it continue."

"This is your home.Theseare your people. I raised you. You owe us."

I couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth. To invoke a familial connection now after betraying me was the height of arrogance.

"You lied to me and abandoned me to my death. I owe you nothing. I've given you the courtesy of entertaining your treaty. I—"

A sharp pain exploded on the back of my skull and a bright flash exploded in front of my eyes. The room began to darken, and I saw the sneering face of my brother, standing over me with the pommel of his sword in his fist.

As everything faded to black, I heard the call of a raven.

Chapter 16

I woke up in a room that should never have existed.

Greatfalls didn’t have a prison system. Crime wasn’t a major problem in the small, tight-knit community. Most transgressions were dealt with using a mixture of arbitration and community service. If someone did something truly awful, the punishment was exile.

But despite that, I was locked in a cell, and I had no idea where it might be located. I assumed I was still in my home city, but from the damp air I could tell I was underground. My people didn't build below the earth. There was no structure in Greatfalls that had space for holding cells in its basement, not that I knew of.

For three days, I spoke to no one. Meals were slid to me through a small opening at the bottom of the large iron door. Once I'd tried to call out when the slot was open, but had gotten back no response.

I'd been stripped of my bow and my daggers, as well as most of my outer clothing. For some reason, they'd left the crown on my head, which was a comfort, although not as much as it could have been. I tried to reach out with it, but using the artifact was like pushing against an immovable wall. It might as well have been an inert chunk of black stone.

By the fourth day, I had mapped every nook and cranny of the small, dark space with my hands. Other than the few moments when my food arrived and light spilled through the opening in the door, it was always pitch black. If it weren’t for the regular meals, I’d have had no idea how much time had passed.

Not that the lack of light mattered to anything aside from my sanity. There was nothing there. No furniture, not even a bed. Only a dirt floor and hard stone walls, and the slow drip of water from a leak in the corner of the ceiling.

I was sitting, my back against the hard wall opposite the door, when a blast of light hit me. The door opened. There was only a single lantern hanging in the hall, but my eyes had adjusted such that even that slight illumination burned. I clenched my eyelids shut.

After a minute, my eyes had habituated enough to see my grandmother standing in the doorway. She was framed by lantern light, a creature of power and control. Behind her in the passageway, two guards watched and waited.

"How are you feeling?"

I cleared my throat. Having not spoken in days, it was scratchy and full of phlegm from the moisture in the air.

"I was attacked by my only brother and imprisoned by my grandmother so, all in all, I’m not having the best time.”

"Now is no time for sarcasm." Grandmother stepped into the cell, but I didn’t move. The cold stone against my back grounded me. "Now is the time for reflection. Have you changed your mind?"

"About the treaty?" I laughed, a guttural sound. Grandmother folded her arms in front of her chest.

"I wouldn't think there would be anything you'd find funny in this place."

"My whole life I was taught to fear the Dark Lord of Ashfuror. I was told he was a threat to all the peoples of Fyr, that his attack against our city could come at any time. That he was the reason my parents died. NowI'mthe Dark Lord, and I find my own grandmother is the true villain."

"The villain?" Grandmother's voice was flat and tight. "My responsibility is to Greatfalls."

"Your responsibility is tohumanity." I pressed my hands down against the cold floor as I spoke. "You hoard water, and the rest of the continent starves. There are people dying out there. There has to be some compromise you could make to help them, some amount of your vast resources that you could give.”

"I don't care about them! They are not my subjects." The lantern-light behind Grandmother flared as if it was responding to her ire. "To think that you've made it this far into adulthood without understanding. The reason Greatfalls prospers is because I protect the people here at all costs. I will not compromise on that."

I shook my head. This argument wasn't accomplishing anything, but she might be worked up enough that she’d let something useful slip.

"What did you do to the Crown of Seeing?" I asked, touching my fingers to the circlet atop my head.

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