"It wasn't Kestra!" By then, I was close enough to press between her and Tenger, and force him back. "It's only a coincidence that they found you."
"How do you know that?" Tenger snarled.
"Because if I'd arranged for your arrest, I'd have also arranged for your execution, not your rescue." She kicked her foot out, connecting with the knee on Tenger's good leg.
Tenger started forward again, but this time Trina intervened. "It's true, sir. We think we know where the Olden Blade is. If it's here, then we must hurry."
Tenger's glare beamed through the dim light. I understood that he didn't trust Kestra, but I did.
Did I?
Should I? Kestra herself had warned me against trusting her.
I took a deep breath, desperate to center my thoughts again. I was here to get the Olden Blade. That was my mission. My only purpose for coming here.
But not my only reason for staying. Tenger never should have sent me, but for the exact opposite reason I had first believed. My mind was spinning with confusion, questions, with Kestra a player in my every thought.
"Someone has to test the rope." Kestra's voice bore an unmistakable waver of fear. "I can't be first."
"Let me do it, my lady." Without waiting for permission, Gerald picked up the rope and swung his weight over the side. A soft crack came from the pillar as it felt his weight, but the knots held. After a breathless few minutes, he called up, "I'm down safe. Send more!"
; Trina and Tenger pushed past the prisoners to get down to the pit. Trina went first, then Tenger. "You said we'd find the dagger," Trina immediately called up. "Where is it?" Kestra looked back at me and shook her head, her eyes wider than ever.
"I'll go right after you," I said. "And Tenger and Trina are already there."
She groaned. "Because that should make me feel better?" With that, she took the rope, offered me a grim smile, then made the muddy descent into the pit. I followed.
It was farther down than I remembered, and darker. But in all other ways, it was exactly as I recalled, a knee-high cesspool of rot that gathered the worst of everything that passed through the dungeons. Mixed in with the sewage and mud were various belongings of former prisoners, and bones from the prisoners themselves who had gotten too close to the ledge and fallen, or jumped. The gates of hell would be flower fields compared to this. Making it more awful, the pit was small, hardly room enough for all the people who would collect down here.
"As they come down, send them into the tunnel," Tenger ordered me. "No one lingers, except those of us searching for the Blade."
Kestra and Gerald were already searching with Trina and Tenger for any sign of the Olden Blade. Another hundred searchers still wouldn't matter. A horse could hide in this muddy soup, never mind a small dagger.
Others were already descending the rope, a few of them Coracks I vaguely recognized from other camps. Most seemed to be ordinary Antoran citizens who must have already questioned a thousand times how they came to be here.
As each person came down, I directed them toward the small tunnel I had used to escape. The entrance was covered in hanging moss and a slime that reeked of decomposing flesh, but I cut away as much of it as possible to urge people inside. Nobody smiled when I showed them where to go, but they all went. It was better than execution. Slightly.
Kestra would disagree. She seemed to be holding herself together out of willpower and a desire to find the Blade, but nothing more. At least once a minute, she stopped to steady her breathing and to wrap her arms around herself. This was nothing compared to the tunnel, which was so narrow and fragile it had terrified me to crawl through it. I couldn't envision Kestra escaping that way, even to save her own life.
"If the Blade has been buried in mud all this time, it'll be rusted through," Trina said.
"Any other weapon, but not the Olden Blade." Tenger shouted to the prisoners. "If you're waiting to enter the tunnel, then help us search for a dagger. It's probably wrapped in cloth, or in a sack, but maybe not. Try not to touch it."
The searching intensified, but rather than joining in, I kept my eye on Kestra. I knew what she was up to, but said nothing. Not yet, anyway. This was the very reason why the captain always warned us to separate our emotions from our assignments.
"Never trust your heart," Tenger would say. "Only your orders."
Earlier tonight, Gerald had also warned me about having feelings for Kestra, though his warning had come too late. I knew he was right. My judgment was clouding, a flaw that could prove fatal. But if there was a way to force these emotions out of my heart, I didn't know how to do it.
"The dagger isn't here." Trina looked over at Tenger, defeated. "This is a trick!" She leapt to her feet, so muddy it was hard to see any actual flesh.
Trina reached for Kestra, but a large crack suddenly thundered from above. The woman who had been on the rope fell to the ground, crying that she had hurt her leg. Some prisoners began lifting her from the mud, but Tenger and Kestra sloshed over to help me gather the fallen rope in my hands.
"The pillar must have collapsed." I was furious with myself. If my attention hadn't been fixed on Kestra, I'd have noticed there were too many people on the rope at once.
Eight escapees were still waiting to come down. From what I could tell, four were children, Rosalie included, three were women, and there was one remaining man, though he was too old to bear the weight of lowering the others, even if he had any rope to do it. Another mistake, letting the strongest come down first.