A Thousand Heartbeats

She was stunned into silence, her carefully calculated mask of pride quickly deteriorating as her eyes went glassy.

“What?”

“I confess, for the last three years, I wondered if ‘Annika’ was some sort of a prayer in a language I didn’t know. The syllables rolled off her tongue so serenely, so hopefully, that I wondered if they were her way of pleading with some deity for mercy or saying goodbye to the world.”

“My mother was here?” she let out in a whisper.

I nodded.

Her chest heaved, and I watched as her eyes dashed back and forth, searching for which question to ask first.

“She truly is dead?”

I studied her in silence for a moment, almost pitying the sound of a dying hope in her voice.

“Yes.”

“And you were with her when she died?”

“I was.”

“Was she . . .” She swallowed, trying so hard to keep herself together. “Was she in pain?”

“No,” I admitted. “She went quickly, as painlessly as anyone could ask in this life.”

A single tear fell down her cheek, passing a rising red welt. She didn’t sob or faint; she didn’t slip into a rage. I wondered if she knew how like her mother she was.

“Thank you for your honesty,” she eked out, reaching up to carefully wipe at her cheek, wincing when she moved her left arm.

“You’re welcome. I expect the same level of honesty in return. Sit.” I motioned to the short stool near the side wall, and she obeyed, the bravado knocked out of her by the truth of her mother.

She raised her eyebrows. “What do you want to know?”

“Numbers, Princess. I need to know exactly how many people inhabit the kingdom that you’ve stolen, how many ships are in your navy. How many—”

“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “Stolen? We haven’t stolen anything.”

“Oh, but you have. I know your history better than you do, Princess. I bet you’ve been told your whole life that your ancestors were chosen to lead the clans to victory against invaders, am I right?”

“Yes. Because they were. And we did.”

I shook my head. “You might have held off those who tried to ruin the seven clans, but you stole your crown from my people, the Dahrainian clan. Most of the people here are their descendants, and the only reason we aren’t currently sitting on the throne you hold is because your great-grandparents slaughtered half our clan and ran the other half off, stealing the role we were specifically chosen to take.”

She had the audacity to smirk at me. “You are painfully mistaken. The land where Kadier now sits was once made up of six clans, not seven. And my ancestors held the bulk of it. You’d have nothing to illegally invade were it not for us.”

I chuckled at her speech. “You’ve been lied to. The land where your little castle sits, where your pretty little bed is made, belongs to my people, the Dahrainians. We have been living in exile for generations, and we want it back. And you will help us,” I told her. “Or you will die.”

She stared at me, looking as if she were trying to decide if I was lying or not.

“It’s all true,” I insisted.

She scoffed. “Even if it is, I don’t have what you’re after. The soldiers you took probably didn’t, either. My father keeps the census guarded. As to soldiers and ships . . . they might have had an idea. But seeing as I’m a second-born child, and a girl no less, I’m not privy to such information.”

I stepped in front of her, lowering my gaze to hers, forcing her to look me in the eye. Goodness, that piercing stare was familiar. It was like seeing her mother all over again, only not.

“You know something,” I said. “More than you’re willing to say, at least. I think a girl who rides a horse like she’s stolen it and wields a sword like she’s a knight might have more information than she wants anyone to know she has.”

She swallowed. There it was. No one else would have suspected her of holding much of anything, information or otherwise. But hidden under those messy curls and a flowing dress, I saw a heart and a mind the rest of the world had ignored. She’d locked them both up tight, and now the trick was to find the proper key.

I took a casual stroll around the cell, thinking. Sometimes, silence itself was enough to make some prisoners so uncomfortable that they spilled everything for the sake of filling the void. There was the possibility of torture, of course, but I never enjoyed that. Pain wasn’t my goal; victory was.

The key to victory over her? Information of my own.

“I’ll make you an offer. Tell me how many guards are in the palace, and I’ll tell you the thing you want to know most.”

“Which is?”

“I’ll tell you exactly how your mother died.”

“You were truly there?” she asked again, her eyes growing softer for a moment.

“I was.”

She looked down, thinking. When her face came back up, she kept her eyes closed, wincing as she spoke.

“There are sixty-eight soldiers assigned to the palace on any given day. If there’s a holiday or celebration of some kind, the number goes up, but it rarely surpasses a hundred.”

I raised my eyebrows. She was so concise, so perfectly specific. If I could get her to keep talking, I’d have Dahrain in the palm of my hand.

“Well done, Princess.” I walked back over to her, standing in front of her stool again. “Your mother was my charge. I was in the room with her for maybe twenty minutes trying, as I am now, to get her to speak. She didn’t share anything of consequence, not as far as our mission was concerned. So she was beheaded.” He paused. “And I did it.”

Her eyes darkened. “You?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“How could you do it?”

I tilted my head, stepping away. “She had to die. And I think you already know why.”

Her eyes . . . they were as wild as the sea, raging underneath her regal upbringing. Her chest was rising and falling with angry breaths, and I could see her filling in the blank spaces of the full picture in her mind.

“Go ahead and take a guess,” I offered. “I saw your face in the woods. You stood out to me instantly, the exact image of your mother. But you recognized me, too. Put the pieces together, Annika. Who am I?”

Her chest was rising and falling so quickly as the horror of it all came to her. “You’re the son of that monster Jago.”

I gave her a quick bow. “So you see, it was only fair. You beheaded my father.”

“I did nothing,” she said. “I didn’t judge or condemn him, though he clearly deserved the punishment for his crime. And at least your father had a trial.”

“You put his corpse on the back of a cart and left it to wander in the woods! It was by sheer luck that we got his body back, and you somehow think your actions were noble?”

“Her body . . .” Her voice broke. “Is she here? Is she buried here?”

“Yes.”

She looked away, like she didn’t want me to see the tears spill over. I gave her a moment to compose herself.

“If you had any self-respect,” she said quietly, “you would remove these shackles from my wrists, give me a sword, and take me outside. I could match you now without question.”

“No, you couldn’t,” I replied curtly. “You’ve got talent, I’ll give you that, but I have far more experience. And I know that when you go to attack in blind anger, you make mistakes. I’d still win.”

She shook her head. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was disagreeing with me, clearing her thoughts, or just frustrated that she was crying. Maybe it was all three.

“I have more questions.”

She laughed coldly. “If you think there’s any way I would give you anything else now, you are deluded beyond measure.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I said. “I know more about your mother, and I’m willing to exchange what I know for what you do.”

She crossed her arms, a difficult task with the chains around her wrists. “I will keep the memories I have, and you can explain to your leader how your own arrogance shut down your interrogation.”

The spite in her voice, the immediate understanding that I’d rather crawl through fire than admit defeat to Kawan, pushed me to the point of rage. It nearly boiled over, but I refused to let her see how deeply she’d stabbed me.

I pulled my switchblade from my belt pouch. “You have a very slender neck, Your Highness.” I pulled out a lock of her hair, holding it in front of her face. “It would be easier than this to remove your head.” I cut the hair in a quick upward slice, so deftly she probably didn’t even feel a tug on her scalp. I held it up, swinging the messy curl in front of her. “If I were you, I’d start talking.”

“No.”

Her voice was stone, immovable and cold.

“I made sure your mother didn’t suffer, but I don’t owe that to you. I’m still willing to tell you about her final moments, but only if you talk.”

I swept away to the door, looking back at her before I left her alone in the cold. Her arms were still crossed as she stared at the opposite wall.

“I’ll be back in an hour. Consider your choices well, Princess.”