Frozen Tides (25 page)

FELIX

KRAESHIA

H
e didn't scream at all during his first day in the Kraeshian dungeon, but that resolve didn't last long. He wasn't that surprised when the howls came forth. As a Cobra, he'd quickly learned that enough torture would break anybody. Even him.

Especially torture meted out by prison guards faced with a Limerian accused of killing their royal family.

After a week in the dungeon, his back had been lashed into raw meat. A hundred, five hundred, a thousand kisses from the whip. He didn't know anymore. He hung limply from the chains bolted to the ceiling as the blood oozed down his ruined back.

“Go on,” a guard taunted him. “Cry out for your mama. It'll help.”

Felix didn't know the guard's name, but in his head, he called him the demon.

“Hey, remember this?” The demon threw something onto the dirt floor right in front of Felix. “Now you're looking at yourself.”

A filthy eyeball stared right up at Felix.

How much simpler things had been earlier today, when it had
been in his head, before the demon-guard took a dagger to his left eye socket.

“Why don't you get on with it and kill me,” Felix sputtered.

“Where's the fun in that? I have to work here, with you stinking, disgusting murderers, day in and day out. Why would you deny me a little joy?”

“Your joy is wasted on me. I didn't kill Emperor Cortas and his sons.”

The guard smiled thinly. “Of course you didn't. You're completely innocent—just like the rest of the scum in this prison.”

“That bitch you call a princess framed me for her crimes!”

“Oh, not this again. Beautiful, sweet Princess Amara, killing her father and brothers? Why would she do something like that?”

“For power, of course. Trust me, there's nothing sweet about her.”

The demon-guard snorted. “She's nothing but a woman, what use would she have for power?”

“You're so stupid, I almost feel sorry for you.”

The demon-guard narrowed his eyes and rose to standing. He took his dagger out and used the tip of his blade to poke the wound where Felix's tattoo used to be.

Felix cried out at the sharp, sudden pain.

“Aw, does that hurt?” the guard asked, grinning.

“I'm going to kill you,” Felix gritted out.

“No, you're not. You're going to hang there in chains and let me keep hurting you until it's time for you to die. And then I'm going to beat you some more before I finally eviscerate you.” He scraped at the flayed patch of skin again. “Yeah, we know all about you and your Cobra Clan here. You lot think you're so tough, so elite. Well, you were right to slice your meaningless tattoo off. Because now you're nothing. Can you see that? Can you see you're nothing?”

“Go kiss a horse's arse.”

The guard trailed his blade up Felix's arm, along his shoulder to his neck, and up over his chin and cheek until the sharp tip came to rest right beneath his right eye. “Maybe I'll take this one, too. Maybe I'll take your tongue and your ears, too, and leave you blind, mute, and deaf.”

He thought about reminding the moronic guard that taking his ears wouldn't make him deaf—he'd witnessed someone in the Clan make this mistake before—but he said nothing.

There was a knock at the door of his cell. The demon-guard answered it, speaking to someone through a small window.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said, turning back to Felix, “but I have to leave you for a bit. I promise I'll be back later. Rest up.” He cranked a wheel that lowered Felix's chains, relieving him from standing on the tips of his toes and sending him slumping down to the floor. “Look at you, red with your own blood. Red is the color of Limeros, isn't it? I'm sure that King Gaius would be proud to see your patriotism now—that is, if he gave a damn about you anymore.”

Laughing, the guard left him.

“Well, now,” Felix mumbled to himself, “this is certainly an unfortunate situation, isn't it?”

He choked out a laugh, but it barely sounded human.

The walls of his cell were covered in foul-smelling slime; the floor was nothing more than a mixture of dirt and bodily waste. He'd been given nothing but filthy water since he'd woken up there, and not a single scrap of food. If it wasn't for the chains holding him up, he didn't think he'd be able to stand on his own.

“What do you think about all of this?” He posed his question to the large, hairy spider in the far corner of the ceiling. Felix had named his ugly cellmate Amara.

In his nineteen long years of life, Felix has never hated anyone as much as he did Amara.

“What was that, Jonas?” Felix had also given a name to the spider's most recent victim: a fly who'd haplessly wandered too close to the web and was now as trapped as Felix was.

He held a trembling hand to his ear. “‘Don't lose hope?' ‘Keep that chin up?' Sorry to say, friend, but it's far too late for that. For both of us, it seems.”

The only thing that was keeping him conscious, that kept him fighting to live through this hell, was a hopeless dream of vengeance. Oh, how he would ruin her if he ever managed to escape. That deceptive, conniving, ruthless, cold-blooded, power-hungry monster.

Just the thought of her now made him tremble with rage, a wracking motion that quickly devolved into a mess of dry sobs.

Oh come now,
Amara the spider said.
You've done more than your share of harm in your life. Wouldn't you say you've earned this kind of treatment?

You're as bad as they come,
squeaked Jonas the fly.
You're a killer, remember? You don't deserve a second chance.

“I'm not saying you're wrong,” he replied. “But you two aren't helping, you know that?”

He gingerly touched his face, feeling the thick, dried blood caked to his left cheek. His severed eye stared at him from the far side of the cell.

Amara had made him feel like he mattered to her—like he mattered at all—if only a little bit. And then she'd done
this
. Why? And why did the king so readily go along with it?

It didn't make any sense.

Felix thought he'd earned the king's forgiveness and trust, but perhaps that too had been a lie. Perhaps the king had only brought him along for this very reason—to have someone to blame, someone to punish.

He lay down on his side, shivering.

He'd felt lost and alone and hopeless before, plenty of times, whether or not he'd ever admitted it. But never like this.

“I'm going to die,” he whispered. “And no one in the entire world will miss me.”

Slowly, he faded into a semiconscious state—whether it was sleep or simply pure blackness, he wasn't sure. But time passed. And then the rattling of a key in the door jarred him awake.

The demon-guard peered at him through the small window. “Did you miss me?”

Felix sat up quickly, his body screaming with pain. He scooted backward, as far as he could get from the iron door.

He didn't think he could endure more torture. Any more and he was certain he'd lose his mind completely.

He was already naming insects and talking to them. What next?

The guard was about to open the door when, suddenly, a loud boom sounded out, roaring through the dungeon. The walls shook, dust falling from the ceiling in large clouds that made Felix cough and wheeze.

The guard turned around to look down the hallway, and then disappeared.

Felix pressed his head back against the slimy wall, momentarily relieved.

Another boom, even bigger than before, rocked the dungeon. A small crack started splintering along the wall and spread up to the ceiling, until a chunk of rock crashed to the ground only a few feet away from Felix.

This whole place was going to come crashing down on his head.

Felix supposed it was better to die this way than at the mercy of that sadistic guard.

He moistened his dry, cracked lips with the tip of his tongue, tasting sweat and his own coppery blood.

“I'm not afraid,” he whispered. “I'm not afraid of death. But I want it to come quickly. Please, goddess. No more pain. If that request makes me a coward, then so be it, I'm a coward. But please . . . please. I've had enough.”

He waited, straining his ears to hear anything out in the hallway. But after the second explosion, all had gone deadly silent.

Minutes passed, or was it hours? He didn't know how long he waited. Time had no meaning here.

Then, he heard it. Shouts. Screams. The clash of metal on metal, the crash of iron doors against stone walls. He strained to break apart his chains, but the cuffs only bit deeper into his wrists, rebreaking the wounds they'd already inflicted.

Someone was trying to escape. And someone else was helping him.

“Here—I'm in here.” He tried to shout it, but he could barely manage more than a rasp.

He had no idea who might come to his door, if he were calling out to friend or foe. But he had to try.

“Please,” he gritted out again. “Please help me.”

Finally, the clash and clatter hushed, and the battle sounds faded away to silence.

Felix inhaled, his breath making a shaky, pitiful sound, and he felt the shameful sting of tears.

He'd been left behind to rot.

He closed his eye against the dust and nothingness, hoping he could just fade away in peace. But then a small scuffle from the hall made him look up again.

Footsteps. And they were growing louder, closer.

Finally, someone came to the door. All Felix could see was a pair of eyes, briefly glancing in at him through the window before they disappeared again.

He heard a key turn in the lock, and his whole body tensed. He waited, barely breathing, as the door squeaked open.

Afraid to look up, first he saw a pair of mud-crusted black boots. Leather trousers. A dirty, blood-spattered canvas tunic with ragged, crisscrossed ties.

The glint of a sharp sword.

Felix began to tremble as he forced his gaze upward. Dust filled the air and Felix's eyes burned from it as he tried to focus on the shape of this intruder.

Familiar. He seemed . . . so familiar.

The young man silhouetted in the doorway wore an expression filled with horror. “Damn it. What the hell did they do to you?”

“I'm dreaming. A dream, that's all this is. You're not really here. You can't be.” Felix leaned back against the wall. “Oh, how funny. A dream about an old friend, just before dying.”

The dream figure came to crouch in front of him. “This is what you get for trying to be one of the good guys, you arse,” he said.

“Apparently so.”

“Any regrets?”

“A million or two.” Felix blinked up at him. “Is it . . . is it really you?”

Jonas nodded. “It's really me.”

Felix shook his head, still too afraid to believe this could be real. He felt something hot and wet on his cheeks. Tears. “How?”

“You're not going to believe me, but you have Prince Magnus to thank for this. He and I are allies now. Sort of. He got your message, then sent me here to kill his father.”

“Now I know I'm dreaming. You'd never stoop so low as to help the prince.”

“A lot has changed since we saw each other last.” Jonas held
out a small key and fiddled with the cuffs, finally easing them off Felix's bloody wrists. “You think you can stand?”

“I can try.”

Jonas helped him to his feet, and Felix saw the shock on his face as he took in the sight of his missing eye. He swore. “You've been through hell.”

It hurt too much to laugh, but that was an understatement if ever Felix had heard one. “Yeah, to the darklands and back again. How did you find me here? Mikah's revolutionaries planned to break some of their people out of here today?”

“Not exactly. They were sure you were already dead, but—I don't know. I had this feeling you weren't.”

“And this feeling was so strong that you risked busting into a Kraeshian prison to see if you were right?”

“Looks like it worked.”

“You came here to help
me
.” Felix stared at Jonas, and the tears began to fall again. “Damn it.”

“If that's your way of saying thank you. . . .”

Another short, painful gasp of a laugh lurched out of Felix. “I should be begging for your forgiveness right about now.”

“No, I should be begging for yours,” Jonas said. “I'm sorry, Felix. I'm sorry I doubted you.”

Felix drew in a ragged breath. “Let's put it in the past where dark things belong. Right now, I need an enormous favor.”

“Anything.”

“Get me the hell out of here.”

The rebel grinned. “That I can do.”

Jonas quickly explained that the dungeon was in shambles and the Kraeshian revolutionaries were working their way through it, freeing prisoners and killing any guard who tried to stop them.
Felix just stared at his friend, his words a comforting buzz in his ears as Jonas helped him to his feet, his body screaming in pain with every movement.

Jonas helped Felix through the cell door. As they gingerly traversed the hallway, Felix saw what was left of his torturer, slumped over against the wall, hacked into several pieces.

Felix nodded at him. “That's unfortunate.”

“Why's that?”

“I wanted to kill him myself.”

Jonas shot him a dark grin as they continued to navigate the ruined dungeon.

“We've got a lot to do,” Jonas said as they began up the stairs. “And we need your help. Are you in?”

Felix nodded. “I'm definitely with you. Whatever you need.”

“I have someone who can heal you quickly.” Jonas looked him over again, grimacing. “I don't think she can help with your eye, though.”

“Ah, thanks for the reminder. I knew I forgot something in my cell.”