A Thousand Heartbeats

When I woke, the first thing I noticed was the uncomfortable pain in my back. Ah, that’s right. I’d slept up against a wall. A stone wall at that.

Then I noticed the rain. It had actually been soothing when I was trying to sleep, but now, alert, it was just a reminder that I was trapped. The sky had managed to get even darker, so it was night. I hadn’t been here that long. And then, a whisper of an afterthought, I noticed the pressure of Annika’s foot against my leg.

At some point, she’d curled up on her side, holding herself against the cold. The fire was low but not dead. Still, it wasn’t offering much heat at the moment. I watched her breathe. In sleep, she had the same peaceful look across her face that her mother carried. It haunted me. She let out a tiny sigh, so blissfully lost to the world. I could admit I thought she was beautiful. Annika was beautiful in the same way a sunset was: so heartbreakingly sweet your soul could only stand taking in one glimpse a day.

But she wasn’t all sweet. I could admit that, too. She was also angry and determined and sad in ways that confused me. It would take too long to understand her, and it was better for both of us if I never did.

It would only take a second.

I could snap her neck so quickly she wouldn’t even feel a thing. It would be the most merciful of all my options.

But I’d given my word not to harm her while she slept. And though I hated to admit it, of all the lives I’d been forced to take over the years, hers would sting the most. I was not in the habit of knowing the people whose lives I ended.

As if she could sense I’d foolishly considered breaking my promise, she roused, looking around in confusion before remembering where she was. She sat up, pulling her hair back and wiping at her eyes.

“Are you ready to die yet?” she asked, her voice still sleepy.

I fought a smile as I shook my head. “Not particularly.”

“Me either.”

She stood and walked over to the mouth of the cave. The ceiling was so low that if she reached up and stood on tiptoes, she could touch it.

“It got worse. This rain,” she said heavily. “It’s so impossibly thick.”

I stood, going to inspect for myself. If I squinted, I could see a cluster of trees nearby, but only barely. That was it. No clouds, no grass, and, most important, no one from either of our camps.

“I hope the others are all right,” she breathed.

It seemed she was reading my thoughts. “I hate to tell you, Princess, but unless they found cover, you and I could be the only ones left.”

“Don’t say that,” she insisted. “Don’t even think it. Aren’t there people from your own army you’re hoping are still alive?”

“Two,” I said in a gut reaction. “What about you?”

She stared, looking sad. “Two. No, four.” Then she sighed. “Maybe four and a half.”

I’d have been lying if I didn’t say I was shocked the number was so low. “Your brother is one. I know that,” I told her. “I saw him take that hit, Princess. You might be down one of your picks already.”

She swallowed hard. “He’s stronger than you think. And I don’t know your friends well enough to guess at both of yours, but I’d suppose one must be your girl.”

I looked down at her and then back at the rain. “I don’t have a girl.”

She chuckled. “You most certainly do.”

I glanced down at her as she pointed to her cheek. “I took a hit to the face for even suggesting you were kind to me. Blondie didn’t like that at all.”

With that she started sauntering back to the mostly dead fire, bending to feed it.

“So that’s how you got that welt on your face.” Blythe was more jealous of her than she’d admitted. “Is your precious fiancé included in your count?”

“For the sake of Kadier . . .” She poked at the fire, letting that sentence trail off. “He’s the ‘and a half.’ Who’s your other one?”

“Inigo,” I admitted.

“The one with the scar?”

I nodded. She’d taken in a lot in that short time.

“Well, I hope your best friend isn’t dead.”

“Never said he was my best friend.”

“If you want him to live, that’s what he is. And if you want Blondie to live, she’s your girl. Don’t think I didn’t notice you bypassed your mother.”

I did, didn’t I? I looked down at my cape. It wasn’t quite enough to undo years of neglect. There was also Griffin and Andre and Sherwin . . . I guessed I’d done a better job at locking people out than I’d thought.

“I stand by my count.”

She shook her head. “I can’t enumerate the things I would do if it meant I got another hour in my mother’s arms, and yet you don’t even want yours. I don’t understand.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t speak about my mother.”

“What? Do you suddenly care about the woman you wished dead thirty seconds ago?”

“I didn’t wish her dead!” I insisted.

“You all but did! Is that any way to talk about the person who brought you into this world? Even if you think she’s awful or—”

“Do not speak about my mother!” I yelled, the sound echoing in the little cave.

For a moment, she was silent. But she didn’t stay that way. “I didn’t say anything worse than you did. And considering you took mine, if I hated your mother with my last breath, don’t you think it’d be a fair trade?”

I stormed to my side of the cave, picking up my sword and coming at her so quickly she had no time to prepare. Even so, the same calm her mother wore in the moment of death was painted clean across her face. I hated her all the more for it.

“You would stab an unarmed woman?” She shook her head. “You are the coward I always assumed.”

I hurled my sword back to my corner, putting my face in hers. “I am not a coward! You have no idea what I’ve done to have every drop of cowardice removed from my body, and you . . .” I stepped away slowly, laughing. I probably looked like I’d lost my mind. I felt like I had.

“I just realized something,” I said, my eyes wild. “I can tell you everything. Because you’re right: one of us will die. Either it will be you, and you will never have the opportunity to share my secrets . . . or it will be me, and I won’t be here to care if you shame me in my death. So there, you want to know everything, Your Highness? Here you go.”

I felt like all the tightly tied strings I’d been using to hold myself together had completely come undone. And now, Annika was going to get the wrath of it.

“My nose isn’t this shape by accident,” I said, pointing to it. “I’ve lost count how many times it was broken. My mother, who I have tried repeatedly to love, has been present for several of them and never intervened. I’ve probably broken more bones than I could count. I’ve been kicked in the gut, stabbed, cut, slapped across the face so many times I hardly feel it when it happens now. Like this,” I said, pointing up to my eye. “That was a gift from Kawan only this morning. He’s the only one who’ll dare risk it now. Because people will always come for you when they think you’re the weakest. But do you know how to make people stop making you feel small? Any idea?”

Annika shook her head, looking scared, and rightly so.

“Make them fear you,” I said, the words dripping from my lips. “Kill off a handful of people. Kill some more. When the opportunity comes to kill someone important, don’t flinch. When someone disobeys an order. When someone looks at you the wrong way. When the sun isn’t shining. When it is. Kill. And then they think twice before so much as walking in your direction. That is the secret of staying alive.”

“By making sure there’s no one left to take you down?” she asked.

I shook my head. “By making sure people know you don’t care about them, about anything. You want to know when my life turned a corner? When it got better? A lone wolf from our army who was determined to take vengeance for my father’s death decided to kidnap a woman and put her in our dungeons. But,” I went on, “no one wanted this woman’s blood on their hands. I had been beaten down so many times by that point. So many times. So why not prove to them I wasn’t the weakling they thought I was? I didn’t know who she was, so what did it matter to me? They were too afraid to do what must be done, and so I did it.”

Annika didn’t flinch or look away. “My mother.”

I nodded, speaking calmly now but still forcefully. “I took her life to save my own. I talked to her for maybe twenty minutes, trying to get anything useful out of her. I failed at that, so I took my sword and removed her head so quickly and cleanly, she felt nothing. And I was praised for it,” I informed her, pointing to my chest with pride. “I’m still living off the prestige of that moment. So I actually owe your mother a huge debt of gratitude. She made my life a fraction easier than it was the day before. And if I had to do it a second time to save myself from the hell I was trapped in, I would. She got me out, and I’m thankful.”

I walked away from her, slumping down to the floor against the wall. I looked out at the rain. I couldn’t run. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.

Annika had stayed on the other side of the fire, not even moving as I huffed and sulked and burned. When I finally met her eyes, silent tears were spilling out of them.

“Then I suppose I can be thankful, too.”