an end to this. That man is responsible for thousands of lives. His entire family has destroyed our homes, destroyed everything. Why does he get to live?” She juts an accusatory finger in my face, voice escalating. “Why did you save him?”
“Because anything you did would only befall the Moria tenfold. Even if I was killed immediately after. It would be worse for everyone else. The weapon would have been deployed before I could find it. We were trained to think of the bigger picture, Margo.”
Margo sits back. Shivers again. I wonder just how bad things have become to make her this rash, to act without thinking.
“What landed you down here after being the Moria hero?” she spits petulantly.
“I attacked Prince Castian. After Dez was executed—”
“Murdered,” she says.
“After that, a prisoner gave me a memory. The prince was taunting Dez with what was in this box. I believed it was the weapon.”
“Did you find it?”
I make a growling sound of frustration. “If I had, I wouldn’t be here with you.”
I think back to the move that caused me to slip up. I tried to steal Castian’s memories. I felt his thoughts slipping into my mind, but then there was nothing. I couldn’t break through those walls. How did he do it? I tremble from the cold and the anger of having Castian speak my name. Nati. How did he know that name?
“It must have been hard to focus on the weapon while living in the lap of luxury.”
I meet her gaze. “Are you serious? I ate and I bathed and I smiled at the man who took me from my family when I was a child. I bled for the king who killed my parents. Could you have done the same?”
She turns away, but I don’t let it drop. “Answer me, Margo!”
“Leave it alone, Renata,” she snarls like a wolf.
“You’ve always hated me. I could never tell if it was because of what I am or because Dez chose me for the unit despite your protest.”
She grabs a handful of dirt and throws it at me. “Do you think so little of me that I would hate you because of Dez? Dez was my unit leader. And the bravest of us all. You’re weak, Renata. Consumed with your past, living in it and rejecting the people around you. That’s why I hated you.”
I’m breathing fast and hard, and I want to hit her, but her words weigh me down.
“You even managed to hurt Sayida, every time you chose to be alone rather than with the rest of us.”
“The Whispers had no love for me, which you reminded me of daily,” I respond, kneeling forward so she’s forced to look at me.
Her voice is hard and jagged. “Illan disciplined every single person who hurt you. He even separated units to make life easier for you. I hated watching you act as if the fate of our world was yours alone to bear and the rest of us were simply there to torment you. You had to get the alman stone and you had to be the one to find the weapon. Have you even considered that if you trusted us we would have done the same? But no. Dez is dead. You should have been on that executioner’s block. Not Dez. You, Renata.”
I want to hit her. Scream at her until I’m blue in the face. Punch the wall because it won’t hit me back but it’ll still hurt. I want to tell her that I wish it had been me instead of Dez, too, but just then, footsteps echo down the corridor. In this end of the dungeon, the prisoners are not visited and somehow, I’ve already been here twice in my lifetime.
Just like that, we stop fighting with each other and focus on waiting for the guard to come to the door. We revert to our old unit hand signals because we still have to survive.
Margo presses her finger to her lips and points to the far wall, where I move so we cover the most space. If the guard is alone, we can take him. I want to say that we’ve been in worse situations, but this is the dungeons of the palace. It’s the second-worst place to find yourself. The first is Soledad prison.
The steps drum closer, and through the small rectangular opening on the door, we can make out a hooded figure. I press myself against the wall waiting for the tumbling gears of the cylinder