Page 12 of Foundling

Head slumping back against the stone wall of their cell, Attalus grinned humorlessly at Phiobos. “What’re the chances the guards take her back out again if we ask?”

Phiobos snickered, his eyes glittering with humor despite the lines of exhaustion marring his young face.

“This isn’t a joke, Attalus. No one’s sent to the Maw by accident.”

No, they weren’t. They were either fetched eventually for execution or left down there to starve out of sight. He took heart in the fact that they were being fed still; even if their rations could hardly qualify as food.

“I’m not laughing at the Maw or our being in it, sister,” said Attalus. I’m laughing at you. He didn’t have to say the last part aloud, though, Chrysanthe understood.

The dragoness scowled across the dank corridor between their cells. Her sour look told him she’d happily leave her cell to come into his and strangle him. What was funny was she probably could. As far as any of them knew, Chrysanthe was free to leave. She’d certainly entered the cell of her own free will.

“Tch.” Chrysanthe snapped her forked tongue against her fangs. “Leave it to you to resort to poison. The cowardly assassin’s choice.”

“As opposed to the dead assassin’s choice of challenging the anax directly.”

“So you admit, it was you?”

“Of course not.” Attalus rolled his eyes. “If it was me, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to put the poison in wine from a vineyard I own?” He snorted, insulted more by the assumption he’d be that imbecilic rather than that he’d try to kill their older brother.

“Araxos hardly ever drinks wine,” Phiobos said with a shrug. “At least not in front of anyone.”

Attalus nodded, although it intrigued him why Phiobos should have noticed that in the first place.

“Well something almost slipped past,” Chrysanthe fumed. “If I had been appointed agodoros, none of this would—”

“Chryse, if you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll do it for you.” Eudora’s glare was downright dangerous.

The elder dragoness shot her sister a withering glare. “You’re lucky I’m here. What would you do without me?”

“Get a bit of sleep,” muttered Eudora.

Chuckling, Attalus put his arm through the irregular bars, all gone a rusty red with age. Like with the rest of the palace, the Maw had been molded from rock and dragonfire, with a bit of iron thrown in. And as with anything forged with dragonfire, once it set, it couldn’t be melted nor even softened again. At least not outside the heat of a volcano, which even dragon scales failed to withstand.

Resting his elbow on a relatively flat piece of bar, he rolled his wrist nonchalantly. “All these questions, Chryse. You’d think it was you sent to interrogate us.” He smiled, revealing his fangs, when Chrysanthe turned her frown back on him. She’s just too easy. That was the problem with caring about everything—anything bothered you.

“I’m here to ensure nothing happens to Dora.”

“Like what? Do you know something we don’t?” Tilting his head back, Attalus said with a smile, “What’s your mother up to this time, I wonder?”

Chrysanthe threw herself against the bars of her cell. “Don’t you dare insinuate—”

“That your snake of a mother would conspire against the anax and anyone else in her way? Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You fucking son of a—”

“He’s just riling you up, Chryse. Stop falling for it.” Eudora rolled her own eyes before pinning Attalus with a disapproving pout.

He merely shrugged. How else would they pass the time?

“Your mother truly isn’t behind this?” he asked Eudora.

“Not that I know of, but it’s not like she’d tell us if she was. Not me, anyway.” Eudora squinted up at her elder sister. “Probably not Chryse, either. Pyrrha was the one she liked to conspire with.”

“Don’t speak of Pyr. Not in this place,” Chrysanthe hissed, making Eudora pale.

The rumor was that it’d taken Pyrrha, the eldest of Clymestra’s daughters, much longer than most to finally starve to death down here in the Maw. It’d been punishment for turning against Diometrios, when Clymestra and her brood had initially supported him against Araxos’s coup. They’d failed badly in their own plot, and Pyrrha had been the one to pay for it.

Diometrios had been defeated eventually, of course, but not in time to save Pyrrha. Clymestra’s cries when she found the husk that remained of her eldest could be heard far out to sea.