At my scathing look, he adds, “Don’t worry. We have weeks of fun ahead of us, you and I.”
Once again I feel my last meal climbing up my throat, but I manage to keep it down as I watch all the men retreat, carrying Riden’s limp form away with them.
Weeks?
Weeks?
Vordan didn’t leave me much time to think of a way out of this while he put me through test after test, but now desperation sinks in.
I have to find a way out.
I can’t reach any of the surrounding trees. On the ground, there’s nothing but tall grass and sand. A rock here or there. Nothing helpful for getting out of a cage.
I have nothing else except the clothes on my back. Useless, all of it.
They can’t keep me in this cage forever, can they? Eventually they have to let me out to—to what? Eat? They’ll feed me through the bars, no doubt. Relieve myself? Not a chance. Vordan has already been extra careful thus far. He’ll no doubt expect me to go in a corner of the cage.
It’s a strange thing realizing all you need is to eat and drink and you will go on living. You don’t need to interact with others. You don’t need to move, run, walk. You really don’t even need to sleep. I can be trapped forever and go on living.
There were some days, shackled deep beneath my father’s keep, when I thought that might be my life. I would live as an eternal prisoner. I refused to use my powers back then. I pretended they didn’t exist. It was only when I was faced with being trapped forever or using them to escape that my father could coerce me into using them.
In the present—though I’m still hesitant to use them—I will use my abilities to survive, but they’re not even an option now.
And what else do I have? Nothing at all.
Wait. No.
I have Riden. But what good is he, being injured and isolated at the moment?
I think on this as hard as I can. My mind is working so tremendously, I don’t even realize when my thoughts turn into dreams. I see myself looking through the bars, watching Theris take blood from Riden as he attacks him again and again. First with his fists. Then with his sword. Finally, he pulls his pistol from his belt, puts it flush against Riden’s head, and fires.
*
The shot rings through the air, shaking my whole body. When my eyes fly open, I realize it’s not the sound of a gunshot I hear, but someone banging against my cage with a sword.
Cromis steps away from me quickly once he sees my eyes opening.
“Alosa,” Vordan says, “are you ready to start another day?”
Riden is alive, though bloodied from yesterday’s injuries, lying before me on the ground. He looks up at me and smiles.
Why is that idiot smiling? There is nothing to be cheerful about.
Call it what you will: confidence or conceit. But if I haven’t thought of a way out of this, there’s no way he has.
“Couldn’t sleep, I was so excited,” I say, deadpan.
“Glad to hear it,” Vordan says, unfazed by my sarcasm.
The setup is as it was yesterday. Niffon and Cromis have their buckets back. Theris leans against a tree lazily, one hand on a pistol pointed at Riden, the other rotating a coin around his fingers. Vordan stands straight and sure, muscled arms grasping his parchment and charcoal. A bulge in his pocket reveals he has the map on him again, no doubt so I can be smacked in the face with his victory. I’m proved correct when he catches me staring at it and smiles.
Exhausted and aching from sleeping in a cramped cage, I look downward as I rub my eyes. A piece of fruit and slice of bread sit next to a wooden cup filled with water. Cromis must have dropped them in before waking me.
“Did you get anything to eat?” I ask Riden.
Vordan answers for him. “The boy is to be kept weak. You, however, need your strength. I expect a full day of theatrics, so eat up.”
I poke at the food in front of me distastefully. What if he’s drugged it?
“You have exactly one minute to eat that before I order Theris to shoot Riden.”
“Do take your time,” Theris adds. “It’s been a while since I’ve shot something.”
I sniff the bread. Doesn’t smell funny, but if the alternative to eating it is watching Riden get shot, do I have much of a choice? I make a face as I bite into the fruit. It’s not quite ripe. I swallow large mouthfuls in an attempt to avoid tasting too much. When I’m done, I rub my tongue against the bread as I chew, trying to scrape the taste off.
Riden watches me eat, smiling all the while. He had better have a plan and not simply be enjoying the fact that I’m stuffing my face for him. Otherwise, I’ll have to let Theris shoot him.
When I’ve swallowed the last morsel, I wash the scanty meal down with the water. Since it’s freshwater, it does nothing to restore my song, but I need to drink just as much as regular humans do to survive.
Vordan and Theris start discussing their plans for today, momentarily taking their attention away from me and Riden.
Riden makes a flicking motion with his hands, catching my attention.
He’s moving his lips.
I glance over to the men in front of the buckets. They’re watching Riden, but their heads are inclined toward Theris and Vordan’s conversation. They can’t be paying much attention to us.
“What?” I ask Riden, barely a whisper.
He repeats the motion. This time I have no trouble reading it. Get ready.
For what? I mouth back. What could he possibly do?
This time he chances a whisper. “Remember our sword fight?”
I nod. He was a cocky idiot, allowing himself to get hurt so he could win. What does that have to do with anything?
Now, he mouths.
I tense, though I don’t know what I’m waiting for.
And Riden, who is unrestrained, yet injured, leaps forward toward Niffon’s bucket. He cups his hands in the water as a shot goes off.
Smoke billows out of Theris’s pistol. Riden collapses to the ground, holding his hands above him, trying to preserve the water cupped so carefully.
But Niffon finally jumps to action, slapping Riden’s hands to force the water to the ground. He wipes Riden’s hands on his own pants before tossing him back toward me, away from the water.
“Idiot,” Theris says calmly. He begins reloading his pistol, applying more powder to the weapon and lodging in another iron ball.
“You idiot,” I repeat, not caring if the others hear me. “This whole time I’ve been making sure you don’t get shot. Shouldn’t have bothered.”
Riden’s grasping his leg, just above his knee. His voice is heavy. “I’ve never been shot before. It sort of hurts … a lot.”
I know exactly how it feels to be shot. It feels as you would expect it to. Like iron is splitting your flesh at lightning speed and wedging up against your bones.
“Try that again,” Theris says, “and you’ll feel it twice as strongly.”
“At least they didn’t kill me,” Riden says, ignoring Theris.
“Except now you can’t walk.”