All the darkness and evil that others perpetrate upon us, all the things we cannot control because we are too young to stop them—they have all stayed with us through the years, waiting in the wings for us to sink to our lowest. Then they leap, ghuls on a dying victim.
The Commandant, I know, is consumed by the darkness. Whatever her nightmares were, she has made herself a thousand times worse.
“Don’t let the fear take you, Tas,” I say. “You’re as strong as any Mask as long as you don’t let it control you. As long as you fight.”
From the hallway, I hear that familiar cry, the same one I’ve heard since I was thrown into this cell. It starts as a moan before disintegrating into sobs.
“He is young.” Tas nods in the direction of the tormented prisoner. “The Warden spends much of his time with him.”
Poor bastard. No wonder he sounds mad half the time.
Tas pours spirits onto my wounded fingernails, and they burn like the hells. I stifle a groan.
“The soldiers,” Tas says. “They have a name for the prisoner.”
“The Screamer?” I mutter through gritted teeth.
“The Artist.”
My eyes snap to Tas’s, the pain forgotten.
“Why,” I ask quietly, “do they call him that?”
“I have never seen anything like it.” Tas looks away, unnerved. “Even with blood as his ink, the pictures he draws on the walls—they are so real, I thought they’d—they’d come to life.”
Bleeding, burning hells. It can’t be. The legionnaire in the solitary block said he was dead. And I believed him, fool that I am. I let myself forget about Darin.
“Why are you telling me this?” A sudden, horrible suspicion grips me. Is Tas a spy? “Does the Warden know? Did he put you up to it?”
Tas shakes his head rapidly. “No—please listen.” He glances at my fist, which, I realized, is clenched. I feel sick that this child would think I’d strike him, and I unfurl it.
“Even here, the soldiers speak of the hunt for the Empire’s greatest traitor. And they speak of the girl you travel with: Laia of Serra. And—and the Artist . . . sometimes in his nightmares, he speaks too.”
“What does he say?”
“Her name,” Tas whispers. “Laia. He cries out her name—and he tells her to run.”
XXXIX: Helene
The voices on the wind wrap around me, sending jolts of unease down to my core. Kauf Prison, still two miles distant, makes its presence known through the pain of its inmates.
“About bleeding time.” Faris, waiting at the supply outpost outside the valley, emerges from within. He pulls his fur-lined cloak close, gritting his teeth at the freezing wind. “I’ve been here three days, Shrike.”
“There was flooding in the Argent Hills.” A trip that should have taken seven days instead took more than a fortnight. Rathana is little more than a week away. No bleeding time. I hope my trust in the Cook was not misplaced.
“The soldiers at the garrison there insisted we go around,” I explain to Faris. “A hell of a delay.”
Faris takes the reins of my horse as I swing down. “Strange,” he said. “The Hills were blocked off on the east side too, but they told me mudslide.”
“Mudslide because of the flooding, likely. Let’s eat, stock up, and start tracking Veturius.”
A blast of warm air from the roaring hearth hits us as we enter the outpost, and I take a seat beside the fire as Faris speaks quietly to the four auxes hovering. As one, they nod vigorously at whatever he’s saying, casting nervous glances in my direction. Two disappear into the kitchens while the other two tend to the horses.
“What did you tell them?” I ask Faris.
“That you’d purge their families if they spoke of our presence to anyone.” Faris grins at me. “I assume you don’t want the Warden to know we’re here.”
“Good thinking.” I hope we do not need the Warden’s aid in tracking Elias. I shudder to think what he’d want in trade.
“We need to scout the area,” I say. “If Elias is here, he might not have gone in yet.”
Faris’s breathing hitches and then continues as before. I glance at him, and he appears suddenly and deeply interested in his meal.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” Faris speaks far too quickly and mutters a curse when he realizes that I’ve noticed. He sets down his plate.
“I hate this,” he says. “And I don’t care if the Commandant’s spy knows.” He gives Avitas a dark look. “I hate that we’re like dogs hunting a kill, with Marcus cracking his