Queen Of The Great Underworld

6.

A loud smack hit the wall. I jumped and scrambled to all fours as the pounding shifted to the floor on his side. Longs. Shorts. But even as my shock subsided and I counted the beats, I couldn’t make sense of the pattern.

I faced the hole in the wall, gripping the crumbling stone between us. “What does that mean?” A harsh note of fury edged the question. It was too much. I knew. I wanted to yank back the tone and smother it, but it was too late.

The words seemed to rip from him, louder than I’d expected. “Don’t know. About dark. About food. About doing anything.” He released a wordless cry, then dropped his voice and hissed, “You talk too much. Please stop.”

I jerked back from the hole between our cells. “Sorry.” Shock hit first, followed by shame. Mother always said I didn’t talk enough. I wasn’t charming enough. I wasn’t Anabeln enough.

“It’s lucky you’re so pretty,” she always said. Not that my beauty helped me here. My neighbor couldn’t see me. And didn’t that just prove that my face was all I had? “It’s almost enough to make up for your interest in that dragon.”

I missed LaLa, too. My golden dragon flower. I couldn’t shake Ilydsey’s words to me—that LaLa and Crystal were gone. Had they flown away? Had they been taken? If Ilydsey had known, she’d have said.

The uncertainty pierced me. I loved that dragon. As much as I loved any human. And Mother had never understood.

At home, I was too quiet. Too strange. My only friends were a Drakontos raptus, an apprentice dragon trainer, and my personal guard.

Now, in the Pit, I was too loud. Too chatty. Mother might have been proud, except for the prison part. And the panic attack. And all the near-attacks since then. And the rude questions I’d asked my neighbor.

He was probably most definitely real, and now I’d alienated him.

I shouldn’t have told the truth.

Haltingly, I crawled out from under the bed and gathered my blanket around my shoulders. With my back against the edge of my bed and my knees pulled up, I lowered my face and prayed. Could Darina and Damyan even hear me from another island, though? I had to believe they could.

“Please,” I whispered to them. “Please help me get out of here. Please help Ilydsey and Jan. Please return LaLa and Crystal. Cela, cela.”

When I prayed at home, sometimes I could feel warmth coming up from the ground. A radiating peace. A sense of love. But I wasn’t on Anabel. The Isle of Lovers was so far away.

Here, there was only the permeating sense of abandonment. Darkness. And the only person who’d made an attempt to be nice to me—well, he hated everything about me. Everyone doted on me at home. They said how pretty I was. How nice I looked in a new dress.

But this boy couldn’t see me, only hear my ridiculous questions. I couldn’t believe I’d asked if he was real.

My chest ached with pressure, but I wouldn’t cry. Not again. I just let the hurt flake and float off me, shedding it with every exhale.

One.

Two.

Three.

Muffled noise signaled movement in the next cell. Wood scraped the floor, like he was putting the cup back in place. Then his voice came from the hole under my bed.

“My name is Aaru. From Idris. I wanted freedom.”

AARU.

Aaru from Idris.

I wanted to ignore him—to punish him for insulting me—but Aaru was from Idris, the Isle of Silence. That explained so much.

“Sorry.” He spoke more gently, with a quick triple tap on the floor. “Shouldn’t have yelled.”

Yelled. He counted speaking sternly as yelling.

I released a long sigh and started to turn around. I should tell him about the tremor on his island; he deserved to know. But at that moment, blinding light flared from the hall.

With a shout, I slammed my palms over my face. All over the cellblock, similar cries echoed. The light leaked between my fingers, making my eyes burn and water. I groaned, trying to rub the stinging away in vain, but it was no use. After hours in the dark, my eyes had grown used to not seeing.

Footfalls slammed through the hall, followed by the rattle of metal on a cell door. My heart jumped. Was someone making an escape?

I scrambled to my feet and forced my eyes open. Through the film of tears, I saw a pair of Kyhani warriors storming through the cellblock. They each carried small sacks in one hand, and a metal baton in the other.

The girl across the hall was on her feet, her back to the rear wall and her hands at her sides. She didn’t look worried as one of the warriors opened a slot in her door and slung a sack inside.

When Yarrow appeared at my door, I followed the girl’s example. My spine pressed against the cold wall, making the silk of my dress snag against the stone. I could feel the tugging and wanted to pull it free, but I didn’t move. I made my face as cool and impassive as I could manage.

Yarrow dragged a baton along the iron grating of my door. Clack, clack, clack. In the opposite cell, the girl picked through her sack and removed a package of dried meat.

Food. The sack contained food.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, but it seemed like ages ago, and the only reason I hadn’t fainted from hunger was because I’d been too scared. But now, my stomach felt achy and hollow. I wanted that bag.

Yarrow offered a sinister smile. “How was your first day?”

I didn’t bother to answer, because the girl across the hall hadn’t spoken to the man tossing food at her, either. And as he moved down, the other prisoners were quiet as well.

Yarrow hefted the bag of food. “This is yours for the next few hours. I suggest eating everything you can, because there’s no hoarding allowed. Draws pests.”

Hopefully there was a lot of food in there.

The warrior opened the slot in my door and tossed the bag at my feet. I didn’t reach for it. I’d wait for him to go away, first.

“A few pieces of information for the new girl,” Yarrow said, putting the baton in his belt. “Once a decan, you’ll have the chance to clean your cell.”