Queen Of The Great Underworld

9

WHEN THE MOP CAME DOWN THE LINE, I WATCHED Gerel.

I watched the way she dunked the dirty mop, pressed the wringing mechanism, and then slid the wet end along the floor five times before repeating the process twice. She used a long, flat broom to sweep the water from her floor into the sewage hole.

That didn’t look too hard.

Farther down the hall, I heard a guard tell a prisoner to come along, it was time for a bath. I could hardly wait my turn. When Yarrow moved the mop, bucket, and broom into my cell, I did exactly as Gerel had. Every gross plop of the mop fibers on the floor was one gross plop closer to a bath. To being clean. To feeling like myself again.

And while I worked, Gerel watched me, evaluating and judging my every move. It was a look I got from Mother all the time, usually followed by a lengthy criticism of my performance on tests, or how I didn’t spend enough time with the Luminary Council.

I tried to ignore Gerel. She wasn’t Mother. She definitely wasn’t Ilydsey or Jan. I shouldn’t care what she thought of me.

When I finished cleaning my cell, I stepped to the back while Yarrow removed the tools.

“Make any important decisions, Fancy?” he asked, setting the empty bucket aside.

Cleaning had been easy enough. Swirl a rag around a dirty spot. Plus, as he’d said, there were benefits to taking a job.

1. Exercise. (I needed to be strong.)

2. More—ideally edible—food. (I needed to avoid starvation.)

3. Pretense. (If Yarrow thought I’d cooperate with him, he might be nicer to me.)

So I gave a short, serious nod.

A predatory grin spread across his face. “Tell me.”

My heart sped up and I prayed I wasn’t making a mistake. “I’ll clean.”

“Good. I’ll inform Sarannai, your new supervisor.” He strode away, too busy to keep taunting me. The rest of the hall was quiet with prisoners taking their turn in the bath. The other guard was gone for now, too, and a tense sense of waiting fell over the cellblock.

“Shouldn’t have done that.” Gerel had a low, melodic voice, not at all what I’d expected from a former warrior. She stood by her door, feeling at the top for something. Then, she lifted herself off the ground.

There wasn’t much room to grab up there, at least from what I could tell on my door. Which meant she was pulling with just her fingertips.

“Why?” I added another item to my benefits-of-working list: I wouldn’t have to spend every day watching Gerel exercise.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” She grunted faintly with effort. My fingers would have fallen off already. “Well,” she said, letting go of the door. She hopped back and brushed her hands over her trousers. “It’s not as though there’s anything better to do here.”

I frowned.

“None of the rest of us have been given the opportunity to work. Why do you think that is?”

How was I supposed to know? Maybe because they’d committed actual crimes?

“Yarrow wants something from you,” she said. “Remember that.”

A shudder ran through me. One of the jobs he’d suggested—

Gerel tilted her head. “No, not that. That, at least, is one thing you don’t have to worry about here. Warriors won’t take an unwilling partner. Kyhan won’t allow it. That offense would put a black mark on their honor for the rest of eternity and they wouldn’t be permitted to fight in Kyhan’s Final Battle.”

“I’m supposed to have faith in their unwillingness to besmirch their honor?”

She eyed me askance. “I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but here, warriors take their vows seriously. Other people may not be watching, but Kyhan is. Always.” There was a pause, like she was thinking about her own dishonor. Her sentence to this prison. “Anyway, that’s not something you have to worry about.”

Thank Anabel for that small measure of safety. There were plenty of other things the warriors could do to me here, but at least that wasn’t one of them. Mother reminded me frequently about the importance of my virtue, and how I should protect it.

“But Yarrow wants something,” Gerel said. “He was never a prison guard before. You must be important.”

There was an implied question in that statement, but she didn’t ask, and I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer the information. “What do you think he wants?”

She shrugged. “How should I know? I can’t read minds.”

Well, neither could I.

“At any rate,” Gerel said, “be careful. Sarannai is not an easy woman to please. Would-be warriors train under her when they come to the Heart.” She stretched one arm across her chest, clenching and unclenching her fingers. “And she supervises Pit prisoners, when she’s feeling testy.”

I hadn’t realized that warriors spent part of their training here, but it made sense, didn’t it? I’d seen the statues and chapels. This was their temple.

“I came to the Heart for training when I was fifteen. Before that, I’d spent ten years preparing. Running. Fighting. Learning to use every weapon available. I was at the top of my class. None could best me.”

Thank Anabel humility wasn’t one of the attributes of a good warrior.

“Then we came to the Heart. We’d heard about it all our lives, of course. No warrior completes training without time here.” She rolled her shoulders as she spoke. “Our first night in the trainee barracks, everyone in the class ahead of us came rushing in, banging batons against the frames of our beds. It went on until the last one in our class—a boy who died a few days later—finished dressing and reported for cleaning duty. Under Sarannai.”