Page 100 of The Scarlet Star

RYN

The Mother City prisons smelled like garbage. Ryn moved in slow steps as she was escorted inside and down a set of stairs into an underground network of caves. Not a speck of sunlight made it inside. She blinked to adjust her eyes as she reached the bottom of the stairs and went through a tunnel. She wasn’t given any sort of explanation or warning before she was shoved through a gate. It was closed and locked behind her.

Ryn rubbed the bruises on her wrists. After twenty days of waiting below the palace and eating small morsels of food, guards had finally come to escort Ryn to her new home. Shehadn’t said a word to them. She’d forgotten how to use her tongue. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be alive.

She looked around the new prison, wondering if she might find any priests here from the Priesthood Temple. She didn’t know most of them personally, and she wasn’t sure they’d acknowledge her in a place like this anyway, even if she did cross one. But maybe they would know something about Kai.

Flickering torches were high out of reach every few feet, and large craters speckled the walls in bubble-like pockets where people stored things or made beds to sleep in. Tunnels branched off the main area, their curves blocking Ryn from seeing what was at the end of them. Men and women—mostly men—sprawled around the edges of the cave, some napping while others sat on overturned buckets and played mancala at rickety tables. They all eyed her as she came in.

For a moment, Ryn wondered if this was what her mother felt when she’d walked into this place for the first time. If she’d looked around at all the faces. If she’d been scared.

If she knew she was going to die.

A man built like a bull dropped his mancala stones onto the table and stood. He wandered Ryn’s way. When he kept coming, Ryn dragged herself back, her feet scraping over the floor. “Seems like you got lost and found your way down here with us.” He looked her up and down in a way that made her insides turn. “Why don’t you come—”

“If you lay a finger on her…” A voice lifted from a crater. Ryn and the man both looked over to where someone lounged inside, hidden by the rock. Only a single dangling leg was showing. “…I’ll break off every one of your fingers. And not all at once either; I’ll snap them one at a time.” A pause. “I might even make you eat them.”

The large man released a grunting sound as he drifted a step away from Ryn, his gaze trained on the crater now. He wipedhis palms down the front of his shirt, sweat appearing on his forehead.

That voice.

Ryn stared at the crater, her mouth peeling apart as dozens of memories from the last months flooded in. She almost rushed for the hole in the rock, but the figure sat up and hopped out first.

A dark-haired guardswoman.

Ryn gasped, the weak, dead thing her heart had become finding a small beat for the first time in over twenty days. “Heva?” she breathed.

A loose white tunic and black pants were all Heva wore, and neither were clean, but Ryn could have cried at the sight of her. Heva chewed on a piece of straw; it hung from her mouth as she wandered over.

The man took an even larger step away, holding up his sweaty palms in apology. He scratched his belly, then behind his ears.

“Don’t forget what I did the last time you bothered me, Reedy,” Heva snapped at him.

The man drifted away until he was back at his table, and there he bristled. “You should be careful, Folke,” he called once out of arm’s reach. “Not everyone around here fears you.”

Heva grunted a laugh. “Yet.”

Ryn wanted to throw her arms around her guardswoman. “Divinities, you’re here! You’re okay!” She almost added,“I’m not alone here,”but she let her mouth fall closed, offering a smile instead.

When Heva smiled back, it lit up the entire prison. Her gaze dropped to Ryn’s outfit; the training outfit typically worn beneath armour. She tilted her head. “Is that my shirt—”

“What happened to you?” Ryn asked.

“I think you need to tell me what happened toyou.” Heva folded her arms. “My story’s boring. I was snatched up on myway to the baths and dragged here. That’s it. I’ve been beating the snot out of handsy criminals ever since.” She stepped in and took Ryn’s shoulder. “I’m guessing you were discovered after I left. Come on.” Heva turned her toward the biggest tunnel. “Let’s eat while we talk. I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but we just got some big news down here, and everyone’s freaking out about it.”

“News? Down here?” Ryn looked around at the inmates. There were so many things she wanted to ask. She knew nothing about Kai, had no idea if he was caught and waiting to die. Or…

Or if he was dead already.

Everything had been so quiet below the palace.

“You won’t be excited when I tell you what it is.” Heva nodded at a burly woman who passed them. The woman gave a Folke salute back to Heva. “Listen—Now that the King has gone to war, a census might be made foreveryeligible prisoner—”

“The King went to war?” Ryn stopped walking. Heva noticed a few steps later and turned to look at her like she was crazy. “How did you not hear about this if you were on the outside?”

“What do you meanthe King has gone to war?” Ryn asked again.

Heva sighed. “King Xerxes went to the border, Ryn. He’s leading the army. He’s probably in the middle of a bloody battle as we speak.” She shook her head and waved a hand through the air. “That’s what this is all about. Now that Per-Siana is at war, they might empty the prisons and make burn divisions. Everyone here is restless about it.”

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