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THE PINPRICK AT the end of the tunnel grows and grows and grows into a horse drawn carriage ablaze with hanging lamplights that rock in the howling wind. A storm has brewed while we were in the cave. No rain yet, but the air has that hot, clammy feel of a tropical tempest. The night around the haze of lamplight is thick and black.
The flame from my lantern flickers frantically, then dies out. I let the swinging handle slip from my grip as I walk, uncaring where it drops, my eyes drawn to the strange carriage. The body is long with a series of windows like the segment of a train, except it’s crafted in wood and the windows are draped in velvet, and it’s drawn by a team of six proud, black stallions.
At the rear, wooden steps lead up to a slim platform, then a narrow doorway. My gaze darts everywhere as I climb the steps, searching for signs of where we are. It felt like we’d walked through the belly of Mount Claire, but we haven’t come out on the shore of the lake that sits on the town side. We’re in a small clearing surrounded by dense forest that’s pitched in the blackness of the stormy, moonless night.
We must still be within the compound, on the dark side of Mount Claire.
My searching thoughts evaporate when I step inside the carriage.
The interior is carpeted with plush wool tapestry in bold colors and swirling patterns. The velvet curtains are a midnight blue. Extravagantly upholstered armchairs with gilded frames are scattered throughout the length of the carriage. A table is spread with towering platters of food. The ornate lamps fixed to the wall have wicks dipped in oil.
It is both beautiful and oppressive.
I feel like I’ve stepped into the receiving parlor of a medieval castle.
From the far end of the carriage, Mistress Ell observes us. Her head is bowed, but I sense her watchful eyes on my skin from within the folds of her hood.
A gentle prod at my back. “Senna.”
I step deeper inside to join my fellow Tithed. We’re standing about aimlessly on this end of the carriage, a flock of confused sheep.
Gabe moves in beside me.
“That’s the last of them.” One of the hooded men has followed us inside, closing the door behind him.
I don’t see the second one, but I do see Kane—shoulder propped against the wall, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles. His stone-chilled gaze holds mine for a moment, then drifts over my head as if he’s looked his full and found me boring.
“Thank you, Grigore.” Mistress Ell’s lyrical voice swirls me about.
She brushes the hood from her face and the material waterfalls around her shoulders. Hair the color of sunset frames her exquisite face and hangs silkily to her waist.
The only thing extraordinary about Mistress Ell is her beauty.
“We’ll be on our way shortly.” Her hands sweep out gracefully to include all of us. “Please, help yourself to refreshments and make yourself comfortable.”
Doubt creeps in over Gabe’s theory.
Mistress Ell doesn’t belong in Ironcross.
This carriage doesn’t belong in Ironcross.
None of this feels real.
There’s not an instant rush for the table, but we’ve missed supper and some of the Tithed slowly amble in that direction. Devon. Georga. Then Chase and Hannah.
I drop into the closest chair, press a hand to the unease souring my stomach. I don’t think we’re in Ironcross anymore.
Gabe hovers near me.
He doesn’t trust this situation any more than I do.
I watch Georga pile a plate with cuts of cold meat and bread and fruit. She’s a stunningly pretty, petite girl with short, ash blonde hair and about as unconventional as it comes. She does things her way or not at all and she doesn’t take crap from anyone. She certainly wouldn’t be easily fooled or lulled into a false sense of security.
Maybe I’m being paranoid.
Or maybe she’s just starving.
The carriage rocks violently in the gusting wind, but then we’re underway, rumbling at a pace that seems to absorb some of the turmoil into a swaying rhythm that gradually settles into my bones. The beat of pounding hooves and the creaks and the howling weather becomes background noise as the wheels crunch up the miles.
Kane approaches with a relaxed stride, lowers himself beside me on bended knees. “You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Gabe crowds us from the other side, placing a predatory hand on the back of my chair. “Leave her alone.”
His voice is biting, sharpened to a blade’s edge. He doesn’t sound like Gabe at all.
Kane’s eyes stay on me, cool and unaffected. “I didn’t ask if you were hungry.” He rises to his full length and redirects his attention to Gabe. “Make sure she eats.”
His dismissive attitude is a bolt of lightning through my numbed emotions. Suddenly they’re fully charged, alive and fizzling.
“Who are these people, Kane?” I demand, my voice hard and quiet. “Where are they taking us? You know more than you’re telling, I know you—”
He slices down across me, cutting my outburst off with his broad chest and words spoken directly into my ear. “You’re in no position to make demands and watch your damn tongue. Nothing here is as it seems.”
The cryptic message and the invasion of his body heat infuriates me further. “I’m not an idiot! I don’t trust—”
“And yet you’re still talking,” he brushes over my earlobe with warm, soft lips.
A shiver of awareness ripples down my spine. My hands come up between us, trying to shove him away. “I’m whispering!”
His chest is as hard and immoveable as a slab of rock. I’m breathless from the effort.
“Whispers aren’t safe here,” he says into my ear. “Be careful with what you say and eat something. Please. You’re going to need your strength.”
With that, he’s gone, striding across the carriage toward the food table, taking his heat and scent of pine and ash and frustrating superiority with him.
I wipe a hand across my brow, taking the moment to catch my breath. There’s a tremble in my fingers that I don’t know what to do with. I glare daggers into Kane’s back. I was doing so well, numb and dazed, now I’m wide awake with anger and dread, and fear that feels like a burning coal in the pit of my stomach.
You’re going to need your strength.
I jump up from the chair and look at Gabe. There’s a fresh layer of emotion darkening his face, creasing into the corners of his eyes. His hand no longer rests on the back of my chair. That little interaction between Kane and me pushed him two feet away, two feet and a mile.
I know what he saw, and I want to explain. The intimacy he thought he’d witnessed doesn’t exist. Kane and I are a science experiment, a flow of heated energy that sparks on contact and means nothing, nothing compared to what I have with Gabe.
Then I remember.
There is no more me and Gabe.
Gabe threw me away, happily threw me into the arms of Kane or any other guy who would take me.
“Come on,” I tell him. “We should eat.”
“Because Kane Marques says so,” he grinds through his teeth.
Because Kane said we’re going to need our strength and I believe him. I don’t repeat that for Gabe’s benefit.
Whispers aren’t safe.
I have no idea what Kane means by that, but he doesn’t make up random crap.
I link my hand in Gabe’s. The familiarity of his touch feeds into me like a barbed caress. The scared little girl inside me craves it. My scarred heart feels the poisoned sting. I brace my shoulders and shut down the conflict. This is about practicality and survival. I intend to follow Kane out of this mess and I intend to bring Gabe along with me. Whatever we are or aren’t, I’d never leave him behind. I just can’t.
Gabe doesn’t resist and allows me to tug him along to the spread on the table.
Mistress Ell occupies a nearby chair. She sits straight and regal, her chin tilted up now that she’s no longer hiding beneath that hood. Her eyes are forest green and hook into me as she catches my stare.
I blink away and grab a plate, looking over the display of treats without enthusiasm. I seriously have zero appetite. My mouth is dry and my stomach is knotted with tangled nerves.
Gabe reaches past me for a flamed chicken leg and I decide that’s as good as anything. I add a miniature savory tart, and some orange wedges since there doesn’t appear to be any drinks available.
Gabe breaks a thick slice of seeded bread in two and drops one half on my plate.
We move aside to stand by a draped window while we eat. The rumble of the carriage wheels is louder here. Sweeping aside a corner of the curtain, I peer out into the night. Shadowed woods fly past in a blur.
How long have we been travelling at this speed?
My teeth rip tender chicken from the bone as my gaze flicks from Mistress Ell to where Grigore maintains his bowed watch from the rear door. Where on earth are you taking us?
Around me, everyone is eating. Some have taken their plate of food with them to a chair. Kane is propping up a wall again, picking at the selection on his plate.
My eyes cross Olly and I find him glaring at me. He blames me for June’s withdrawal from this year’s Tithe. When he tried to start a fight over it in the cave, Kane incapacitated him and sent him crawling into a dark corner. He probably blames me for that, too.
I wonder if I’ve made a lifelong enemy out of Olly.
I wonder what exactly my lifespan is right now and if it even matters.
Georga sidles up to us.
“I saw you talking to Kane,” she says in a low voice. “What’s the plan?”
“I’m not aware of any plan,” I tell her, for the sake of the whisper thieves, but it also happens to be my truth. “Kane was just being Kane, ordering me to eat.”
“Hmm.” She doesn’t look convinced.
Chase joins us by the window and leans in to say quietly, “I reckon we can take them.”
I’d laugh if it weren’t so terribly un-funny. Chase is a skinny boy with beady eyes—he reminds me of a squirrel and there’s nothing fearsome about squirrels. “Unless you’re a secret master of the martial arts, then no, we can’t.”
“I know some self-defense moves,” Georga says.
Why does that not surprise me? I look to Gabe for support.
He shrugs. “There’s ten of us and two of them, and the woman doesn’t look all that tough.”
This is getting into dangerous territory. I’m more worried about the conspiracy discussion than the actual conspiracy—that’s never going to happen. This is all just boy talk.
Mistress Ell isn’t looking our way. If Grigore has some kind of listening device to pick out our low voices, he gives no indication that the conversation bothers him.
“Don’t forget the one outside the carriage in the driver box,” I murmur. “This is crazy. We’re not going to do anything. We shouldn’t even be talking about it.” I look at Georga, Chase, Gabe. “We don’t know who is listening.”
Georga rolls her eyes at me. “Then it’s time we find out.”
She’s off before I can form the words to stop her, marching right up to Mistress Ell. “You promised us answers,” she demands. “Who are you people? Where are you taking—”
Grigore chokes that last question in her throat. He’s lifted her off her feet with a massive hand clasped around the back of her neck.
The breath slams out of my lungs. He was just standing at the carriage door. I look there, not trusting my eyes. He’s no longer stationed at the door. He’s at the opposite end of the carriage, dangling Georga by the neck with a one-handed grip as if she weighs no more than a pup.
Kane has already leapt into action, hurdling over a chair that blocks the shortest path between him and Grigore. He moves silently and swiftly, as light as a cat on his feet, but not faster than the eye can see. Because unless I blacked out for a couple of moments, and I’m fairly sure I didn’t, that’s exactly what Grigore did.
“Release the girl,” Mistress Ell is saying when Kane comes up from behind and lands a double-fisted blow on Grigore’s wrist—the fingers pinched around Georga’s neck flex and she drops from the grip into a limp fall. She’s on her knees, gasping for breath, and Grigore’s already spun about to spar with Kane.
Kane ducks and swerves around thin air, as if he’s fighting an invisible opponent. By the time I think my eyes have tracked Grigore’s next action, the man’s already onto the next kick or swing or blow while Kane’s still evading the last one. I don’t see the blow that sends Kane flying backward with a force that flings him off his feet and up against the wall with a thud that rocks the carriage.
“Kane!” His name rips from my throat with the breath I’ve been holding since the fight began.
He slides down the wall into a crumpled pile.
As I lunge forward, a strong grip on my shirt yanks me back.
“Stay out of it,” Gabe says firmly. “What are you going to do? Put yourself between Kane and Grigore?”
I twist around, slap his hand away so I can rush to Kane’s side. He’s not crumpled. He’s pulling himself up into a sitting position, coughing...his face blanches with pain.
My chest is tight as I fall to my knees. “Kane!”
Gabe is a tick behind me.
He drops down on Kane’s other side and hisses to me, “What the hell, Senna.”
Kane’s eyes lift to me, too slowly, unfocused. He puts a hand to the side of his ribcage, his nostrils flaring as he draws a shallow breath, exhales it. “I’m fine.”
He’s not. “Where does it hurt? Your ribs? Your back?”
He ignores me. His eyes sharpen, flash to Georga, who’s on her feet now. To Grigore, who stands before Mistress Ell with his back turned on us. Clearly we’ve already been dismissed as inconsequential.
Gabe blows out a noisy sigh.
“That was poorly done, Grigore,” Mistress Ell reprimands him. “The girl posed no threat.”
“You didn’t hear them plotting,” he returns in a subdued voice.
“We weren’t plotting,” I say furiously.
Grigore swings his head to look at me over his shoulder, and repeats a line from our quietly spoken conversation word for word. “There’s ten of us and two of them, and the woman doesn’t look all that tough.”
Mistress Ell laughs huskily, her gaze coming to me. “I’d be far less charmed if you had considered me tough looking. That’s a lady’s true nightmare, to be sure.”
Kane was right. Somehow Grigore heard us.
“He heard that?” Gabe mumbles under his breath.
Grigore turns fully to us. “I hear all, boy.”
Fury lances through me. This is why Georga was nearly strangled and Kane was tossed against a wall?
“If you hear all, you would have heard me say we weren’t going to do anything,” I lash out. “Georga was only asking a few questions.”
He advances with a measured stride, a beast stalking its prey. “Aggressive questions.”
That was stupid, drawing his attention. My stomach hollows deeper with each stride that brings him closer. My hands curl into fists that drive my fingernails into my palms. I don’t regret lashing out, though.
I feared the Tithe, and it happened to me anyway.
I never even thought to fear losing Gabe, and it happened anyway.
I fear the future, and that won’t stop it coming.
If I’m going to be crushed regardless, then I’ll go out raging. I’m not this strong. There’s a tremor in my bones that wants me to curl up into a ball and disappear.
But I can pretend.
The strain in Kane’s labored breath alerts me.
“Don’t,” I say, but he’s already upright, one arm flung out to block me as he steps between me and Grigore.
Mistress Ell brings her hands together in a sharp clap. “That’s quite enough dramatics for one day. Grigore?”
Grigore looks at me, his eyes hidden depths. “Watch your tongue, girl. You never know who might bite it off,” he says and turns to return to his mistress.
Kane makes a sound in the back of his throat. He doesn’t say anything, though. He just stands there, blocking me, until he’s satisfied Grigore isn’t coming back.
My legs are ready to collapse.
I sink down to the floor and rest my head against the wall. I can’t even begin to process everything that has happened, but I think I just escaped the clutches of a beast.
The monsters outside the wall aren’t four-legged rabid animals.
They’re much, much worse.