Silverlight (28 page)

“Handiwork?”

“The scars I left upon your body with my lash.”

His words were arrows and they went deep. I had
nothing to say. I crouched to remove my boots, tears pooling.

He wasn’t done twisting the knife in my gut
yet. “You know, Kymber, when I first heard of you, I didn’t believe it. A woman
warrior? Bah! I scoffed and said it was impossible. Women are weak and
emotional. They make lousy warriors.”

I glared at Tavia, holding that bloody cloth to
her face. “Clearly, you’ve changed your mind about that.”

“Thanks to you. Tavia has earned the honor of
induction into the Pentorian Guild of Assassins, while you . . . well, you’ve
thrown all that away, haven’t you?”

I took my fingers off my bootlaces. Garai never
wasted an opportunity to shove the sword a little deeper.

“But I’m not finished. I heard more stories
about you. ‘Unbeatable,’ they said. ‘Flawless with a sword. The best in
Calari.’ I was interested, but not enough to seek you out.” He bent to speak in
my ear, sending a wave of shivers over me. “And then you killed Beshum Ornatis
all by yourself, without any help from Magnus or the men who coddled you, and I
began to believe you might be the real thing.”

I sucked in a breath. Beshum Ornatis had been
Jalartha’s town bully. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and massive, solid as
an oak. Loud. Everyone feared him. I’d always given him wide sway.

Until the day I wandered into Amix’s cantina
with a terrible thirst. Alone.

Beshum swiped my first glass of tequanti right
out from under my nose, then roared with laughter before downing it in a single
swallow.

I remember thinking,
That’s one.

Then came two and three and four. I counted to
five before I slipped off the stool and pulled Silverlight.

Beshum taunted me before the entire cantina.
“Oh no, what’s the little girl going to do about the big, bad man who’s taking
her drinks?” He thought he was the mighty lion about to eat the squirrel.

 He stopped talking when I opened a bloody
slash down to the bone on his left thigh.

A wound that bad would have dropped any other
man, but Beshum just growled. “I’ll crush you, cunt.”

 Gods, I hated that word. I heard it often
enough. He had no way of knowing he was lighting a fire.

 He came at me, both hands wide open, each
stomp of his foot shaking the glasses lined up behind the bar. Beshum was intent
on crushing my head like an egg. He would’ve done it too, but I swung
Silverlight and cut his right hand off.

I don’t know what the man was thinking. I don’t
know to this day. I had a sword; he had no weapon at all, except himself. Did
he think he’d frighten me with his bluster? Did he think I’d flee in terror? I
wouldn’t have picked a fight with him, but neither would I run.

Still, he kept coming, roaring, dripping blood.
I promptly removed his other hand for him, then his cock and balls, finally
drawing him out into the street so he wouldn’t make a mess all over the floor.

When he fell at my feet, I cut his head off.

That was a long time ago and apparently the
catalyst for my capture at Marilian. I couldn’t have known that someone,
somewhere, would hear of it and want to test me. To remove me from the world.

“Finish your damned story,” I growled.

“When I heard you’d killed Beshum, I knew I had
to have you. The strongest woman in Calari would be mine, bent to my will. I
had you followed night and day, but you were never far from T’hath or Tyrix.”
Garai lifted my chin with two fingers. “I had my spies call upon Tariq, to see
if he could be bought. It was so easy. Offer enough gold and anyone will do your
bidding. Marilian was staged. A contrived battle so I could snatch you up and keep
you for my very own. And it couldn’t have gone any better if I’d planned it.”
He gave a tittering laugh. “Oh, wait. I did.”

It was a more detailed version of the story
Tariq had told me in Adamar. I truly had been one of his damned parrots.
Another unfortunate soul trapped in a cage.

“I killed Tariq when you sent him to Adamar.” I
don’t know why I said it. Garai wouldn’t care. Tariq was simply a means to an
end.

“Oh, too bad. Was it fun for you?” he asked in
a singsong voice.

I met his stare. “My fun hasn’t even started
yet.”

Garai pointed at my feet. “Get them off. Now.”

My boots – and the shoe nail embedded in the
right sole – soon topped the pile of clothing. When I stood completely naked,
Garai addressed his guards. “I don’t have time for this now. Take her to the
dungeon and shackle her. This one too.” He pointed at Magnus. “Put them next to
each other, so they can commiserate when he finally wakes up. I’m going to kill
him, but I want him to know just how much he’s lost first. And I want her to
think long and hard about what she’s done.”

I swallowed hard.

“Welcome home, pretty girl,” Tavia purred. She
blew me a kiss just as the guards took hold of my arms and spun me toward the
door.

P
ain, cold, hunger. Three familiar acquaintances.

Two of them were riding me hard. I lay on the
stone floor of the dungeon, my wrists and ankles shackled to thick, black iron rings
in the floor, and wondered when the dull pangs of hunger would begin. When I
faced all three, would I fight back?

Good question. At the moment, all I wanted to
do was close my eyes and go to sleep. Permanently, if possible.

My battered ribs ached every time I moved to look
at Magnus in the next cell. He was on his side. All I could see from my vantage
point was his lower back and buttocks. I thought he was breathing, but perhaps
my eyes were playing tricks on me in the half-light.

They’d kicked Magnus in the ribs as well, but
only after the cowards had shackled him. He wasn’t even awake when they did it.
Groaning, eyes shut tight, he’d rolled onto his side, drawing his knees up in a
defensive position.

That was the last time I’d seen him move.

“Magnus,” I whispered. “Magnus, please wake
up.” Ignoring the pain in my chest, I took hold of the bars and dragged myself
closer to him. “I need you to wake up.”

No response.

I didn’t know anything about parinthian root.
Magnus might sleep for days, and that would be damned inconvenient.

The shackles around my wrists were forged from
thick iron, too thick to break by banging them on the floor. The links in the
chain were the circumference of my little finger. Without the shoe nail, I had
no hope of getting them open.

I glanced at Magnus again. He was also chained
wrist and ankle. We were doomed. Magnus would be executed, and I’d spend the
rest of my days paying for what I’d done. 

Wait a minute.

My gaze trailed across the bottom of his boots.
The silver head of the horseshoe nail shone like a star in the sky. I released
the breath I’d been holding.

Oh. If I could just pull his foot toward me, I
might be able to pry the nail out of his boot.

I reached into his cell, but my chains brought me
up short. I curled my hands around the cold iron bars separating us. “Think,
Kymber,
think
!” There had to be a way.

The bars were spaced far enough apart to push
through up to my shoulder. If I could force myself in another inch or two –
say, up to my collarbone – Magnus’s boot would be within reach. Just barely.

I couldn’t do it shackled though. I had to get the
damned things off first. How? The only way was to pick the lock, but I had no
scrap of iron, no nail, no nothing.

I pressed my face between the bars, stared at
Magnus’s buttocks, and felt sorry for myself.

 How many times had I lost heart while training
and stomped away, angry enough to chew shoe leather? How many times had I been
so tired I couldn’t sleep?

How does one count the number of tears shed for
a future beyond reach? It had always been beyond my reach. Why? Why, when I’d
wanted it so badly?

Magnus should’ve let me quit, but he dug and
pushed and prodded until . . .

Until I finally found the strength locked
inside me.

It had been quite a journey, but there were a
few miles to travel yet. My final destination was a choice.

It was all up to me, literally do or die. If we
were going to live, if we were ever going to get home and raise Tori and Mia, I
had to fight. The odds were not in my favor, but I couldn’t let the bastard
upstairs dictate how the rest of our story played out.

All well and good, but I faced a number of
problems that seemed insurmountable. Magnus was injured and unconscious. I was
naked and shackled. Even if I managed to free us from this miserable place, we
had a long walk back to our horses. We’d never make it off the castle grounds
alive.

Not without weapons. Where would I find a blade
in this shit hole? Somehow, and despite the risks, I had to get upstairs and
retake Promise, at least. If I got that far, I wasn’t leaving Bloodreign and
Silverlight behind.

An entirely foolhardy plan, but what did I have
to lose? The end result was the same. Stay . . . and die. Escape without a
weapon, be recaptured . . . and die. Get caught trying to reclaim a weapon . .
. and die.

Was there a way for us to live and go home?
Fate would decide. All I had to do was get out of the chains. I tentatively
jiggled the metal cuffs around my wrists, then eased back against the wall to get
a better look at them.

They weren’t tight, but I couldn’t push them
any higher than the first joint of my thumb. Not even that far on my scarred
right hand.

Push them off over my hands – it was the only
way I was going to get out of the shackles. Could I contract my hands enough to
do it?

It didn’t seem likely, but I had no choice. If
I could free my left hand, it might be easier to free the right, so . . . I
folded my hand over on itself and I pulled. I pulled and tugged, wiggled,
swore, and tugged again.

Too tight. It was too damned tight. This was
never going to work.

Never is a long time. Try again.

I spit on the back of my hand for lubrication
then rolled the cuff around until the moisture worked its way between my skin
and the metal. Gritting my teeth, I continued to wiggle, tug, pull, spit, spin,
and swear.

My hand soon went numb. Blood welled up as the
sharp metal cuff peeled the skin from my knuckles. Fortunately, blood was an
effective lubricant, excellent for sliding the cuff forward toward my
fingertips. The tang of blood and sweat and metal combined in my nostrils, but
it smelled like a battle to me. Little by little, painful inch by inch, the
shackle moved upward, upward, upward . . .

 . . . and finally slid free of my fingertips.

The cuff hit the floor with a harsh clank. I
cradled my left hand against my chest, waiting for the pain to subside. I then rubbed
as much blood as I could all over my right hand.

 The cuff was tight, due to the scarring. I
huffed and bit my lip as I pushed, willing my stiff fingers to straighten.
“Please,” I begged no one. “For me. For Magnus.”

Unfortunately, that hand didn’t bend as neatly
as the left. No amount of blood, no amount of spit and determination would move
that shackle. It banded around my thumb and remained tight just below my
fingers.

Now I had a dilemma. This was my sword hand. I
couldn’t scrape it up too badly or I wouldn’t be able to fight. The way I saw
it, I had two choices: push it back down or do whatever I had to do to force it
off the rest of the way.

No choice at all, really. I wasn’t about to
give up the ground I’d gained. I laid my right hand on the floor and pressed a
foot on either side of the shackle. I placed the heel of my hand against the
wider part of the lock, then I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed as hard as I
could.

I thought of Tariq and his betrayal. I thought
of how much Magnus loved me, and how much I loved him. The man had suffered when
he thought I was dead. It should matter.

I thought of all the times I’d nearly frozen to
death in my cave, scrounging for food, fighting to get a fire started. I’d
endured Garai invading my body and whipping the flesh from my back. He’d handed
me over to others despite the plea he surely saw in my eyes. He’d eaten in
front of me when I was starving and drank in front of me when I would’ve cut my
own throat for just one swallow of water.

I pushed on that fucking cuff with both feet
and my left hand until I felt tendons stretch, until every fiber of every
muscle in my body ached like fire. I didn’t care if I injured my sword hand. If
I could get my fingers around the grip, I would fight despite the pain. I would
do it for Magnus, if not for myself.

Garai had made this personal, and I wasn’t
ready to cry quits. I closed my eyes, threw my head back, and pushed. Grunting,
groaning, I struggled to the edge of my endurance and beyond.

The shackle popped loose and flew, slamming
against the bars and falling at my feet.

It had taken hours, but I’d done it. I’d done
it! Slumping to the floor, I buried my face in the crook of my arms. I didn’t
even have enough strength left to cry.

N
othing had ever come
easy to me. Getting Magnus’s boot within range of my fingers was no exception.

I had one shoulder wedged through the bars up
to my neck, but I could just barely brush the thick leather sole with my
fingertips. I scrabbled for purchase against the narrow edge, where the leather
upper met the bottom, but my short, broken nails wouldn’t catch on anything.

I finally had to concede defeat when the sun
went down, throwing the dungeon into darkness.

Crawling to the small pile of dirty hay near
the back of the cell, I fell into a fitful slumber.

I
awoke disoriented in
the gray light of dawn, dreaming of home, and so cold I couldn’t feel my toes.
I reached for a blanket and, finding nothing, opened my eyes to greet my second
day as a captive in Pentorus.

I could hear Magnus snoring. I sat up and
scrambled over to the bars between us. “Magnus. Are you awake yet?”

He wasn’t, but at some point during the night,
he’d straightened himself out. The boot that held the shoe nail was still bent
at the knee, lying at an angle and out of my reach.

The left boot though . . . he’d moved it toward
the bars. It was well within my range.

Holding my breath, I reached out and wrapped my
hands around his ankle. He moaned; I braced against the bars and pulled as hard
as I could. His big body slid across the floor, barely the width of my hand,
but it was enough. I was able to take hold of that right boot and straighten
his leg.

I held him still and pried at the nail with my
fingernails. A stubborn bastard, to be sure, but I couldn’t give up. The nail
finally let go a little; all I had to do then was rock it back and forth. A
moment later, I held it in the palm of my hand.

It was a small, insignificant bit of metal, but
I closed my hand around it and collapsed in the hay, a happy smile on my face.
No jewel, no amount of gold was as precious to me as that shoe nail. I took a
moment to catch my breath, then got to work on the shackles around my ankles.

I’d apparently spent enough in blood, sweat,
and tears to buy some luck. The shackles fell open with minimal effort on my
part. I leapt to my feet, wondering where I might find clothing. Gods, I’d even
tear holes in a feed sack if I had to.

“I’ll be back for you, Magnus.” I gave him a
quick glance as I probed the locked door with the nail. “We’re going home.”