I shouldn’t have come.
I should be preparing for battle.
I accused the Sindaco and High Regent of only thinking of themselves, and wasn’t that exactly what I did?
I didn’t think of Nico.
Or the Night.
That I might ruin the surprise attack.
I’d shout the words, but my voice is hoarse from screaming at the door to my cell, my throat raw like fire.
Back flat against the gravel floor, I try to suck the pain from the fresh wounds on my knuckles. When the screaming didn’t garner anyone’s attention, I moved to punching the door instead.
Then kicking it.
All I have to show for it is exhaustion, sweat, and blood.
I don’t know what’s happening.
I don’t know where Nico is.
I was dragged from his house. Rowed across the Great Sea and to the Island of Sol and, without ceremony or explanation, thrown into this, one of the many prison cells beneath the Coliseum. The place where criminals and those set to be Offered are kept.
The Sun’s now nearly risen.
I’ve been in this tiny stone cell for hours. No word.
I dig my boots into the gravel and bury my eyes into the heels of my hands.
I failed at warning Nico—what will he think when he realizes I know? I can see his expression now, disappointed, hurt.
I failed at being there for the Night. I imagine the little girl who embroidered the moon phases on the scrap of muslin for me, the lettering she worked so hard on. What will she think when she hears there was no Lunalette? When I don’t return?
Lunalette.
I wrap my arms round my middle, curl into myself.
I even managed to fail a fake destiny.
My sight blurs as my eyes prickle with heat.
A guard sticks his nose through the barred window of my cell door, taking me from my thoughts. I’m almost thankful.
He clears something thick from his throat, spitting it on the ground. “Put these on,” he orders, pushing a white bundle through the compartment at the bottom of the door.
The mound thumps against the stone floor. When I look back up at the bars, he’s gone.
I sit up and make my way to the pile. I reach for the clothing, hands trembling, because I’ve just received my answer.
Unfolding the mound, one by one, I lay out a white tunic, white pants, and white boots.
Same thing each Offered wears.
I won’t wear it.
I pick up the clothes and toss them into the muddy corner of the cell.
This isn’t my sacrifice. If I’m executed as a traitor, I’ll do so in my Night uniform, not under the guise I’m doing some favor for the people of Bellona to please the Sun.
I stand, staring through the bars in the door, waiting for anyone who might give me some information. Or better, who might open the door so I can punch and stab and kick my way out of here.
No one passes. I’m alone. Weighed down by endless thoughts and memories.
Just me and the stone and the smell of rot and the drip, drip of something not too far off.
But then there’s something else mingling with the sounds of nothingness. Something far worse.
Even from a distance, I know his silhouette, his stride, the tilt of his hat and the way his red sash is pressed, creased like new.
Raevald opens the door to my cell, locking it behind him, two soldiers appearing from nowhere waiting outside.
He looks me up and down, then stares at the soiled, once-white clothing in the corner. “Do the garments not fit?”
I don’t say a word.
He smirks, nodding knowingly.
I run straight for him and throw a punch that misses spectacularly, my knuckles landing into the door for the hundredth time in several hours. Pain and fresh blood burst across my fingers.
He strides toward me, stopping when there’s no space between us, his nose an inch from mine.
I shove him in the chest to push him back, staining his gold sash with a spattering of blood from my knuckles.
He grabs my wrist, twisting my arm so it burns and threatens to tear in two.
I lock my eyes on his, refusing to be intimidated.
“Tt-Tt-Tt—” He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Save that for the Coliseum. The crowd will love it.” Still squeezing my wrist so tightly my hand’s going numb, he jerks farther, my elbow burning. “I knew you’d be special. The only one to escape the Night.”
I struggle for words. “Why am I being Offered? On what grounds?”
He laughs under his breath. “Treason, of course. Just like your mother. Funny how things come full circle.”
The High Regent lets go of my wrist. I pull away, rubbing my hand back to life.
Eyes wide, all I can do is stare. Hope I can somehow turn my hate for him into fire, burn him to cinders.
“So, you’re my bastard granddaughter…” His eyes search over me, disgusted, like he’s looking down at an insect he’s about to smash. “So much like your mother.”
And he knows about me too.
Raevald walks across the cell until his sculpted eyebrows, his leathery skin, are in my face again. “I’ve said too much. But … you’ll see. I’d hate to spoil the big ending.”
“You’re not my grandfather. You’ll never be half the man he was.”
“Yes, well, I guess we’ll never know, will we?” He sneers.
I spit in his face. Without expression, he pulls a red handkerchief from his breast pocket and wipes it clean.
Turning on his heels, he leaves.
The door locks.
I slide down the wall, bring my knees to my chest, and curl into myself …
TIME PASSES AND doesn’t pass. It’s as if I’m in a trance, staring at the grit between the stones in the floor, trying to think of something, anything I can do. What I should have and shouldn’t have done. But there’s nothing. It’s over.
It goes on like that until I snap out of it, the roar of the crowd gathering above, awakening my body and mind.
I jump up, try to see out of the small opening in the door of my cell, but it’s all shadows. All I can do is listen, the sounds of the Coliseum so familiar and at the same time completely foreign, masked with echoes from down here.
One thing is unshakably clear: The Offering is about to begin.
My heart rushes as it beats faster, rapping against my chest, into my neck, pounding at my ears. It won’t stop. It doesn’t stop.
Pounding.