"I don't! Just as I don't trust Trina, or Gerald, or Celia ... or you."
"You don't have to like me, but you can trust me." I wanted to be clear on this point. "Keep your word to the Coracks and I'll do everything I can to help you get through this."
I'd meant well, but her cheeks turned to flame. "Is this your idea of kindness? What I'm doing could destroy my family! Perhaps the whole Dominion."
"The Dominion must be destroyed. You've seen the effects of their rule for yourself."
"Not this way. This is wrong."
I gestured toward the center of Highwyn. "No, what is happening out there is wrong! You are not the victim here."
"Nor are you. For those years you worked here, we fed and clothed you, put a roof over your head, and paid you for your work."
"I only worked here because my father had died and the rest of my family was starving. I needed the money."
"Which my father provided. But somehow we deserve this?"
"Did I deserve this?" I turned away from her, lifting my tunic just enough for her to see the scars on my back from where I'd been whipped. On the darkest nights, I could still hear the whip's crack against my flesh, the way I'd screamed for mercy until I realized begging only made the next hit harder. With the cold air bristling over my back now, I remembered the sting as if I were there again. It had been worse for my friend John.
She drew in a sharp breath, then immediately fell silent. I lowered my tunic and turned back to her. The arrogance had faded from her expression, her shoulders had hunched, and she had become hauntingly still.
Finally, she said, "You were the last one in my mother's room that day, and John supervised you there. I thought it had to be one of you." When she looked up, something was different. This wasn't a challenge, or a trick. Her eyes had become windows, clear and unfiltered. This was the real Kestra.
She continued, "It makes no difference, I know, but I've thought about that day a thousand times since then, wishing I could go back. My mother's ring was found a week later in the cushions of her chair. By then, it was too late for John, and for you as well, I thought. I am so terribly sorry."
I stepped closer and was surprised that she didn't move away. "John and I were sent to the dungeons, to be executed at the end of the week. I was in the lowest cell beneath Woodcourt, where all the sewage eventually collects, making the ground muddy. They warned me not to go toward the back of my cell because if I slipped, I'd fall into an endless pit."
"The Pit of Eternal Consequence." I must've looked confused, because Kestra added, "When I was young, that's what my governess called it. She described a pit beneath Woodcourt where the spirits of all who had died in the dungeons roamed, eager to grab anyone who tried peeking over the edge. She threatened to toss me in if I didn't finish my lessons."
The corner of my mouth lifted. "Well, I haven't heard it called by that name, but the guards told me the story too, and I think some of them believed it, based on the smell alone. For three days, I stayed as far from the pit as I could. But then I saw a rat headed toward the ledge. I followed it, intending to catch and eat it. The rat slipped into the pit, and I fell with it. Had I been less scrawny then, and on my feet instead of crawling, I probably would've died in the fall. Instead, I slid on my back, quite a long way down. My ankle was sprained, but I was alive."
"So there is a bottom to the pit?"
I thought back. "Of course. It was awful, littered with bones, and waste, and other odds and ends I'd wager prisoners threw down there so they couldn't be used as evidence against them."
"How'd you get out?"
"I followed the same rat into a tunnel, almost impossible to find unless you already knew it was there. I don't know how long I crawled, and I don't want to think about what I crawled through, but it felt like hours. Gradually, the tunnel went uphill again, to an exit far beyond Woodcourt's gates." I rapped a fist against my thigh, suddenly uncomfortable. Tenger and several other Coracks knew my history, but I'd never spoken this next part to anyone. "I abandoned John, who was in a nearby cell. Every night for months afterward, I pictured him calling to me, wondering where I'd gone, and finally figuring out I'd left him behind."
Kestra hadn't visibly breathed for some time. Finally, she said, "Your leaving didn't cause his death. I--" She stopped abruptly. We both knew how that sentence should end.
We exchanged another look then, something softer, gentler. My hand brushed against hers, and hers against mine. Her fingertips were cool in the evening air.
"John used to say it was a pity you're a Dallisor, because you might've turned out all right otherwise." My forefinger circled hers. "Sometimes you left little gifts on my bed."
She sighed. "They weren't gifts, Simon. They were leftovers, scraps that might've been given to the dogs if I hadn't snuck them to you."
"They were gifts."
Her thumb brushed over mine, sending a shiver up my spine. "I remember when you came," she said. "You were the first friend I'd ever had. What I did--"
"--was awful." I drew in a deep breath. "But in the long run, it probably saved my life."
I'd never intended to tell her so much. It had nothing to do with finding the Olden Blade, or helping her understand the importance of destroying Lord Endrick. At the moment, all I wanted was for her to understand ... me.
"Soon after my escape, I was attacked by some passing thieves who beat me when they discovered I had nothing they could steal. A kind old gentleman named Garr rescued me. He said if I worked for him, he would feed me and, more importantly, train me with a sword so that I'd never have to endure such a beating again."
Even now, I had a perfect memory of when he'd found me on the roadside, the pity and compassion he'd shown. "Three years later, he was collected by Dominion armies, one of forty people your father claimed were Halderians responsible for kidnapping you. Garr was no friend of the Dominion, but he had nothing to do with your kidnapping. At those executions, Lord Endrick publicly announced that the deaths were in your honor. If Antora didn't know your name before those executions, they did afterward, and not for anything good."