Page 24 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

It smells of rock and steel and iron.

It smells ofblood.

No one from Quayside passes beyond these gates—no one except for the condemned. No one sees the rubies and onyx rumored to be embedded in the hewn gray stone of the castle’s interior walls, thick enough that no battering ram could ever slam through, thick enough to withstand any storm.

The gardai don’t even bother to blindfold me.

We all know I won’t be coming back out.

I’ve lived alongside rats all my life. Usually, they won’t bother you as long as you stay out of their way. But the rats in the castle dungeon aren’t like that.

These rats come right up to me, hissing every time I so much as dare to move an inch from the crumbling corner they’ve backed me up into. Bits of rock flake onto my shoulders, cold stone pressing into the back of my neck.

I run my fingers over names etched in crude lettering on the walls.

There are years of them. Decades. Centuries, maybe. Each initial, each name, each bit of runic ogham carved into the stone is a memory of someone just like me.

There are no windows, just one solid wood door as thick as my palm, with a small metal latch for the gardai to slide open and watch me through.

There’s no way out, no sunlight to gauge how long I’ve been here.

The rats, at least, have something other than me to chew on. Skittering, they gnaw at a gray bone in the other corner. I force myself to close my eyes and fight a losing battle not to imagine who it came from. I fall in and out of a restless sleep. At one point I swear I hear the metal latch creak open just an inch and can glimpse a flash of copper and green through the torchlit shadows beyond… but it’s just my desperate imagination.

A little later, hard voices bark and snap outside my door. There’s a rattling sound that reminds me of throwing dice. I strain but can’t recognize any of their voices from the gardai who brought me here.

“I don’t know why we can’t just kill her,” a rough voice snarls.

My blood freezes. I don’t dare make a sound.

“It’s been five damn years. That blue blood’s the only reason she’s still breathing, I wager.” That’s another voice, this one lower and curt.

“Don’t matter who she is.” A third voice. “She’s a traitor. A dirty, lying traitor. Should be up on one of those pikes just like the lot of them for trying to replace a king.”

“They’re keeping her alive for a reason, I’d bet. Leverage over the others? They never did find…” The curt voice dies out.

There’s a sound like a shudder and another rattle thrown down.

It’s clearly not me they’re talking about… so who? Nobles might not go to the Black Quay for treason but can still be executed, just like us. Just… somewhere else, wherever that is.

And why would the royals need any kind ofleverage? They crushed the uprising. No one escaped their wrath, not even the nobles involved.

Despite the fear wrapping around me, I inch closer to the door and press my ear against the hard wood. Straining, listening for any other fragments of talk in the darkness…

The first High King’s royal line hasn’t broken in all these centuries.

Who could even make a claim?

Cold shadows cling to me as I settle back onto the hard ground. The wordless memory of my mother’s hummed lullaby weaves in my mind. Old Ones, what I would give to remember the words. To hear her voice, just one more time before I die…

A minute passes, or an hour, or days.

There’s no way to tell which.

The voices outside my cell trudge away, bootsteps fading into the dark. After a long while, the tread of more boots pad in the grit again.

Metal keys rattle against a lock. A faint click sounds, and cold sweat breaks out down the back of my neck.

My hand presses tight over my mouth, trapping the scream.