Page 86 of The Prince's Sacrifice

Tor

Tor startled awake. There was a long moment where he didn’t know where he was, and then the weight of everything crashed down on him again. Pel. The dungeon. Treason. That howling void in his middle.

That lone lamp had been half shielded, making it even darker in Tor’s cell, so it took him a moment of staring at the bars to realize… Was his cell door ajar?

He climbed to his feet and advanced carefully. There was no doubt that the door was open. Tor cautiously peeked outside and saw no guards.

“Goddess take you, Nawila.”

He’d told her not to interfere—but it looked like she’d outsmarted him. He could truthfully state that he’d seen no evidence of a rescuer, and he trusted that she’d covered her tracks equally well.

Tor had truly intended to face his fate, whatever it might be… but not leaving when the open door of his cell was literally in front of him felt like outright foolishness. Tor had been resigning himself to death, but that didn’t mean hewantedto die.

He was still worried that fleeing would bring down ire not just on Tor’s head but on anyone he knew. If all his friends and loved ones were constantly harassed—or worse—in the fear they harbored him, Tor would only be compounding his mistakes.

But… what if he could actually manage to talk to his brother alone? He’d be angry about the escape, of course, but that was nothing new. If Tor escaped but came to talk instead of running, wouldn’t that say something?

He had to risk it.

Tor sucked in a breath, hoped he wasn’t making yet one more wrong choice, and stepped out of the cell.

No one immediately jumped out at him to drag him back in and declare this had been a test that he’d failed, so that was something. Energy surged through his veins. He wasn’t hopeful, exactly, but he felt a little less fatalistic.Heknew he wasn’t a traitor, after all. All he had to do was get Varex alone so that he could make him see it, too.

The entire corridor of cells was deserted, no guards in sight, and Tor wondered what Nawila could possibly have done to ensure that no one was here. Tor wasn’t a particular flight risk, it was true, but if he were Varex, he would have put him under better guard—and if Varex didn’t, surely Yomil would have convinced him of it.

But there was no one here, and Tor still didn’t see anyone even when he climbed the two flights of stairs that led up to thelower level of the castle. Tor hoped Nawila hadn’t done anything really foolish. He didn’t want to trade his freedom for anyone else’s. But he was out of the dungeons now.

His clothing looked a little too plain and rumpled to be the King’s, but… it was probably his best bet if someone caught sight of him. If everyone knew that Tor was imprisoned, the free person they saw was going to be Varex, right?

It would hopefully give Tor precious moments he needed to act, anyway.

How could Tor get Varex alone? He passed a window that showed him it was the middle of the night. There’d be guards at the King’s bedchamber, and it would be useless to go there anyway, because Fernila would also be present. She’d never let Tor talk to Varex alone.

How could Tor manage it? He knew the castle well enough to hide until morning, but… what then? At some point, he’d be missed, and that would make this even more complicated.

So if he wasn’t going to try to sneak into the King and Queen’s bedchamber (and he could think of nothing he’d like to do less), then where was he—

Tor grinned to himself. Of course. Cala. Varex went to see his daughter every morning, a few minutes on his own before he went about his day. Tor had run into him once or twice, though he was more likely to have stayed up all night or gone to see Cala because he couldn’t sleep.

Tor wondered if he could have seized one of those moments… But they’d both treated those chance encounters like an unspoken truce, and maybe that had been important, too. And it didn’t matter, anyway, because Tor could look back through his whole life and list decisions he could have made differently, but they were all in the past.

All he could do was try now.

He hurried along the corridors, praying that no one saw him and raised the alarm just when he’d finally come up with a plan. They remained empty, and he supposed that Nawila had chosen the optimal time to spring him.

(Had she done this before, he wondered idly. Did she have tales of a misspent youth?)

And then Tor turned a corner and found a guard slumped on the floor dead. Sucking in a shocked breath, Tor dropped to his knees and checked for a pulse, despite the blood. But no, someone had slit his throat, and his eyes were glassy and staring sightlessly.

Tor swallowed heavily, closed the man’s eyes, and muttered a fast prayer, commending the man to the goddess.

And then he took the man’s sword and scabbard, strapping it on. Nawila wouldneverhave hurt a guard, and that meant something else was going on. Tor didn’t know the number of the enemy, nor their goal.

He crept along the corridor even more carefully now. He should simply raise the alarm, he supposed, no matter what. If they’d been infiltrated—

And then he heard the yelling. He broke into a run, and it took two more corridors before he could hear the cries clearly. “Fire!” and “Foe!” were both being yelled at volume, along with multiple wordless cries and screams.

Fire and foe in the same night? What were the chances? He could hear the clash of blade on blade, so there was actual fighting going on nearby, but that would mean—