Page 81 of Kept to Kill
There were other cells around her and, although the light was bad, she thought she could make out other prisoners. Most were curled up in the corners of their cells, unmoving.
She heard a faraway clinking of a door and sounds of boots stomping closer. A key clattered in a lock and a door opened in her view. In walked a high-ranking soldier dressed in the king’s red whom she didn’t recognize. He was flanked by two lesser soldiers and came to stand in front of her cell, watching her, but he didn’t speak. He seemed to just be observing her.
‘Where am I?’ she asked. She assumed it was the king’s dungeons, but it couldn’t hurt to know for sure. He didn’t say a word, simply turned on his heel and left again.
And so Lily sat and waited, wondering when her torture and killing would begin. Surely they must know about her curse. Out of the countless people that had been killed for alleged witchery, they actually had a girl who could do something.
Tears threatened and she tried to hold on to the thoughts that she’d had yesterday, that it was best for her to die in the city where it had all begun. It was fitting, a good thing that she could hurt no one else. But those thoughts weren’t as strong as they had been, not now that she was actually here. They didn’t make her feel better. Other thoughts were intruding. All she had wanted was to live her life without hurting anyone. Would the Brothers save her? Would they bother? No, she supposed. Quin wouldn’t need to do the unbinding ritual if she was already dead. It would be simpler for them. Though of course she had failed to kill those three fae, so he wouldn’t do it anyway.
She let a sound of anger escape her. What had that other fae said? That there had been others like her and she’d been made by the city wards. Perhaps that was how Vineri had known what to look for and why he had taken her from the city so quickly after he’d found her. So he could hide her in the south, in that tower, to add her to his precious Collection. That had always been paramount to him, she recalled, protecting those artifacts.
She was feeling sorry for herself. What had she done to deserve this? She snorted aloud. She’d killed – at others’ direction, but she’d still done it. No, she definitely deserved to die here. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away.
She noticed that the other prisoners in the cells were getting restless. She could hear the clanking of those who were chained as they moved their limbs. Others were rustling around, and a few moments later, she heard the door open again. A crust of bread was thrust into her cell, along with a small cup of water. She drank the water but left the rest. She was too scared to be hungry.
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to give herself some modesty, even though none of the prisoners seemed to care. They had their own problems, she supposed.
The third time the door opened, Lily didn’t bother to move at all. It was the same man with his two guards and again, he stopped outside.
‘Arms behind your back,’ he ordered.
She did as he said and the door opened. All three men wore gloves, and not a bit of their skin was showing, save their eyes. Her arms were twisted behind her, and when she cried out in pain, one of them hit her.
‘Be silent!’
Her bottom lip wobbled and she bit it hard. She didn’t want to show these men the terror that she was feeling. They looked like the types to revel in it.
Her arms were bound and she was walked from the cells and through the door before her. Here there was a staircase of white stone; steps that they began to ascend. She walked with them placidly. They could easily subdue her, after all, and the element of surprise was gone. Judging from their attire, they knew exactly what she was capable of.
When they reached the top of the steps, she blinked as her eyes got used to the sudden brightness. It was day and the sun was shining through large glass windows that lined the high walls.
She stared around in awe. It was a library.TheLibrary, she realized. Why was she in the Great Library and not in the king’s dungeon, she wondered, becoming more uneasy by the moment.
She was escorted through the stacks, past scrolls and large tomes, past scholars who scratched away on parchments with quills, none of them seeming surprised that a half-naked prisoner was being walked across the main floor.
They reached another set of steps and Lily was pushed up them. She went without a fight, more morbidly curious to see what was at the top than anything. At the end of the staircase, they stepped through a small stone archway that led onto a mezzanine.
It was a large platform in the very middle of the library, high enough for the First Scholar to see anywhere in his little kingdom from this vantage point. And there he sat at a large white marble desk, surrounded by papers and open volumes. He scribbled away as the other scholars had downstairs.
They stood in the middle of the dais in silence, the high-ranking soldier still holding her wrists tightly, his two men behind him. They were made to stand there and wait until the Scholar deigned to notice them.
‘This is the one?’
She looked up and saw that the Scholar was staring at her intently.
‘Aye,’ the soldier who held her answered. ‘Left trussed up on the steps with a note we didn’t understand.’
‘Who is she? Let me see the note.’
‘Don’t know, my lord. The missive mentioned an oddity of the wards.’ The soldier handed it over and the other man perused it, his eyes flicking back and forth over the page quickly.
The Scholar gave a wave of his hand. ‘She’s simply one of thosethingsthat appear sometimes in the slums. Nothing out of the common way, though the last one we had in the dungeon died not long ago, no? She may prove useful. Get rid of that thing she wears.’
Lily tried not to make a sound as her transparent disguise was ripped away, the material tearing like paper. She could do little about the shaking, though, her teeth chattering so hard she thought they might shatter.
The First Scholar approached. He had a short gray beard with smatterings of brown. He wore a tan silk shirt and fine brown trousers of the same material and stylish cropped boots that were in fashion just now, it seemed. Looking at the lines of age on his forehead, she’d estimate him to be approaching fifty.
He looked her over as if she were a rare curiosity, nothing in his face but a calm, somewhat detached interest. After a moment, he went back to his desk and drew on some gloves before stepping closer to her.
