"It was a lifetime ago." A minute later, her breathing became regular. She was asleep.
And with her this close, I had never been more awake.
At least Kestra was resting comfortably. For my part, I should've found a better place to sit than against a sharp rock wall with nowhere to recline my head. A half hour ago, a thick blanket had been sent into the cell, and when I wrapped it around Kestra, she settled lower onto the ground, using my leg for a pillow. The guards also gave me a thick slice of bread, wrapped in a thin cloth napkin. I briefly wondered what to do with it. Anywhere out in the open would call in the rats, so I set it inside my satchel and hoped the rats wouldn't be hungry enough to sniff it out.
I kept the satchel with me as often as possible now. Someone had searched through it once and taken the key, probably Kestra, but I couldn't allow a search to happen again. Nothing in it tied me to the Coracks, but Garr's old ring was in the bottom and I'd promised to keep it safe. On casual observation, it wasn't the kind of ring that would draw much attention, just a gold band with an inner inscription. It had meant everything to Garr, and since his death, it meant everything to me.
For the past half hour, I'd been rubbing my thumb along the ring, thinking of the kind of person Garr had expected me to become one day, and how far from that I was.
Garr would never have supported me joining the Coracks. He didn't trust their motives, or their techniques. He never would have supported this mission I was on, the hard things we'd put Kestra through.
Now that I was with the Coracks, I was disappointing them too, or I would soon. A few months ago, Tenger had hinted that I might one day take a leadership role, become his second-in-command.
What a joke that was. Tenger was as wrong about me as Garr had been--this mission proved that. It was pointless to pretend anymore that I was indifferent to Kestra, not when she constantly occupied my thoughts. And the more certain I became of my feelings toward her, the more I'd begun to doubt everything else, myself most of all. Cursing under my breath, I dropped the ring back into the satchel, where it belonged, and where it would remain.
Then I waited, occasionally brushing the tips of my fingers against Kestra's cheek. She seemed warmer now and was in a deep sleep. One hand rested just below my knee and every so often she gave a soft cry, squeezed my leg, and then released it. Probably nightmares. I hoped I wasn't in them.
Tenger's plan had been easy enough to accept when I hated Kestra and knew she hated me. Now I didn't know what to do. The only way to complete this mission was to stay near her, but the closer we became, the more I doubted that I could see this through to the end.
Nearly two hours passed before she awoke, and she did so slowly, as if she had forgotten--or hadn't wanted to remember--where she was. When she did remember, she sat up suddenly, as if slapped back into reality.
With some relief, I shook out my leg, which had long ago gone numb. She noticed it and wrapped the blanket more tightly around herself, staring at me like I should have made some profound discovery about the Blade while she slept. One of us had to say something.
Then I remembered the bread and pulled it from my satchel. "Not the best place to keep food, but I doubted you'd want to share with the rats."
She took a nibble from the bread, then hesitated. "Have you eaten anything?"
"I'm fine, Princess." I thought she was beginning to tolerate my nickname for her, but maybe not. Her face scrunched up the same as always.
"You still think I'm treated like a princess, after seeing me in here?" She broke the bread in half and held it out to me. "I can share with one rat, I suppose."
At least she smiled as she spoke. She must have been feeling better.
"You need it," I said. "You're imprisoned here. I can leave at any time."
She offered the bread again. "You can, but you won't."
"No, I won't leave." I took the bread, keenly aware of the way her fingers brushed over mine. Did she know how even these small moments dissected me? With some effort, I collected my thoughts again. "Was this Risha's cell?"
"It was her servant's. A woman named Anaya."
I snorted dismissively. "The Coracks believe Anaya betrayed Risha. That she was Endrick's spy among the Halderians, and the reason Risha ended up here."
"Anaya was executed, same as her mistress."
"And Anaya had magic, same as Lord Endrick. Magic is a corruption. Even for tho
se with good intentions, eventually magic will corrupt. After what Lord Endrick just did to you, how can you doubt that?"
"Yes, Endrick is evil. But that doesn't mean Anaya was. That doesn't mean all Endreans are."
I took her hand, letting my fingers dance with hers. "My father was a good man. Soon after the war, he took in an Endrean woman who had escaped from Endrick and was begging for protection. She had the ability to infuse objects with magic, so you can imagine how Endrick desired that power. Over the next few weeks, her temperament worsened, her magic sometimes sparked out of control, and her skin began to gray." I hesitated. Despite how young I'd been then, I remembered everything, and even now, it was hard to talk about. "At the end of a month, she killed my father and claimed it as a victory for Endrick. Up until the night before that happened, she had claimed to be one of the good ones."
I waited for her to say something, anything. When she didn't, I continued, "Maybe you never saw what Endrean magic did to this land during the war, but I have. They destroyed whole cities, a single curse sterilizing vast acres of land. They killed innocents without a blink of mercy, all of them following Endrick's orders right up to the day he killed them too. If Anaya was good, then she was the only good Endrean ... ever."
Kestra kept her eyes on the ground. "Did Endrick really kill all of his own people?"
"He didn't just kill them, Kestra. It was a planned annihilation, taking their magic in the order he needed it most."