her to her beloved brother, and let’s get started. I’ll have the guards fire up the brazier. I don’t think it’ll take much to break Vocho, do you?”
Petri wasn’t so sure – Vocho was a contrary bastard at the best of times – but Licio’s words made his choice for him. He left with a glance at Sabates, at the marks and patterns that swirled on his hands, that pulled his eyes in. Of crowns and stags and crossed swords. He looked and found he didn’t care.
He went to bring Kacha, but not to Licio.
Chapter Twenty
It didn’t take long for Kacha to be a dozen turns away from her cell, heart skittering in her throat, but by then other problems were starting to worry her. She had to get to wherever they might be holding Vocho, but first she had to get out, and that was going to be a problem.
The Shrive was old and massive and full of twists and turns that probably took years to learn. Some corridors were wide and well lit, and she avoided those. Others were dark and cramped, and she wanted to avoid those more for the groans and shrieks that came from some of them, but dark was her friend until she worked out how in hells to escape. They said there were two ways out of the Shrive, and both of them involved being dead.
The sound of guards, of grumbling and swearing and jangling armour, came from the left, so she went right, headed further into the guts of the prison. The walls here were dank and slimy, and the air was tangy with the scent of the river. She tried not to contemplate the thought of a long swim too closely. For all she was a dock rat by birth, she’d never got the knack of swimming more than a few yards, and the incident where she’d fallen in the Reyes river while sparring with Vocho and damn near drowned was both blurred by panic and crystal-clear with utter terror. Even training at the guild – masters were supposed to be prepared for any eventuality – hadn’t changed that much.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t, more that she’d rather go out the front gates and risk the guards because it would scare her just that little bit less. Because while splashing about in a backwater was easy enough, even if it did make her knock-kneed with a fright she’d never dared to show, the Reyes river was a cold and heartless mistress. It might be warm spring in Reyes, but up in the mountains the melt was in full swing and the water would be close to freezing. Add to that the currents, which made it a treacherous way to travel even on a boat, worse around the islet that supported one end of the Shrive and… and she didn’t want to go that way.
She tried hard to ignore a flapping white hand that came through a grille as she passed, to ignore the pleading croak. The Shrive seemed just as full as it ever had been in the days before the prelate, and worse, she was sure she’d helped put people here on her little jobs for Eneko, those she hadn’t killed. And those… She wouldn’t think on it now, but later she was going to recall who he’d had her kill. She hadn’t wanted to question him, which was the thing. She’d put Eneko on a pedestal, loved him and made herself blind to everything but his praise, and now he’d shown he was just like all the others.
She hurried on, telling herself she’d come back, let these poor bastards out, all of them, and worried that it was an empty promise, that she was just as bad as Eneko, as Petri. Worse even.
The walls grew darker with damp until she was splashing through puddles. The last few corridors had been ominously silent. Down here was as deep as the Shrive seemed to go. Silent except for the rushing of water beyond the wall to her right hand and the faintest of ticking noises. The waterwheels that ran the city, that powered the gears, the mechanical duellist in the guild, the clock in the square outside the Shrive. That powered the change o’ the clock.
Today was First Threeday. She’d vaguely heard some chimes go off not long before, putting the time at eleven at night. At midnight the whole city would change. At the moment the king’s Reyes house was