Page 25 of Flame and Sparrow

Who did he ultimately answer to?

Who answered to him?

And where was he going to take me?

“What do you know of betrayal and loyalty to any cause?” I continued to eye him up and down, counting the rings on his fingers. Most were relatively plain, but one on his right hand caught my attention—a band featuring several rubies that seemed to sparkle from within.

I leaned closer, drawn to the glimmer before I could help it. My vision blurred with even that slight movement, and my thoughts slurred together. I caught myself and refocused, determined to make my point despite my exhaustion and weakness. “You’re most loyal to the king’s coin, I suspect…not anything worth laying down your life for. So you wouldn’t understand.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Well, as long as we’re making assumptions about one another…” He gave my chained hands a sharp tug, pulling me into step beside him. I fought the urge to jerk back, knowing it wasn’t a war I could win.

“Let me guess,” he continued as we made our way into the hall, “you think you serve a more noble cause than any one I possibly could?”

I didn’t answer right away. I was busy blinking, trying to adjust to the new lighting, and his question felt loaded with implications that my tired mind couldn’t quickly navigate.

He tossed an expectant glance my way.

Silver.

His eyes were clearly silver in the torchlight.

“Is this your attempt to draw more confessions out of me?” I asked. “Still trying to figure out who my accomplices were?”

He shrugged, a slight smile tugging up a corner of his lips. “If you’re willing to tell me, it might earn me some more of the king’s coin.”

I turned away, keeping my eyes straight ahead and my voice devoid of emotion as I said, “You’re out of luck, I’m afraid. I acted alone and served only my own purposes on the night of the temple’s destruction.”

Though I still didn’t look his way, I could feel his gaze raking over me like claws. He clearly knew I was lying. Yet, he didn’t challenge what I’d said.

We walked on in silence, climbing staircase after staircase. They seemed unending. Was this another form of torture they’d devised? Starving their prisoners and then forcing them to climb themselves to their deaths? My legs wobbled. My body swayed and lurched unsteadily about. I slipped and slammed my knees into the hard steps more than once—and my escort was neither patient nor gentle about navigating me through these things.

By the time we reached the last staircase, he was essentially dragging me.

I found my footing again once we made it to a stretch of flat floor. Every step I took made me wince from the pain in my ribs, and I felt only a tingling numbness in my right leg, but I would not be dragged any longer. I breathed slowly in and out and forced myself to march on my own two feet.

There were plenty of windows on this level. The longer I walked through the bright daylight, the warmer I felt—and the more I felt my steadiness returning. It came gradually, and I remained nowhere near my full strength, but a defiant spark of determination flared in my chest all the same.

My guard had hooked a hand around my arm while dragging me; I tested my renewed vigor by jerking away from his touch. The chains still bound me, and he held tight to those—but his actual hands no longer touched my skin.

Small victories.

With the chains pulled taut between us, his outstretched arm was partially uncovered. I saw a mark on his wrist, beneath his rolled-back sleeve: a twisted flame. Like the ruby-encrusted ring he wore, it seemed to glow from somewhere deep within.

“A godmark,” I muttered, more to myself than him. That explained why he was truly here, dragging me so doggedly along—he served an even more nauseating, unforgiving master than crowns and coins. He was likely hoping for an extra blessing from the God of Fire for performing this duty.

What else did he plan to do to me to gain more of that god’s favor?

I steeled myself, working up the energy to demand the answer to this, but he spoke again before I could.

“Just out of curiosity…what did you hope to accomplish by destroying the temple?”

The question caught me off guard.

“How did you think the God of Fire would respond to your crime?”

I stumbled. Caught my balance against the chains he held, composed myself, and summoned as much dissent and vitriol as I could in my sorry state.

“I spat at the feet of your god before I destroyed his temple,” I said, “and I would do it again if given the chance.Thatiswhat I think of the God of Fire, his temples, and all who serve him—and I don’t care what he does in response to these things. I don’t fear him.”

---