Eona - Alison Goodman [107]
“Got it,” Yuso said. “Are there any other interesting prisoners in there?”
“No, he’s got the whole place to himself,” the warden said. “Nothing too good for the Dragoneye Lord, eh?” He offered the lamp to Vida. “Hold this for me, my dear, while I let you in.”
With a pretty smile, she took the lamp and followed him to the sturdy inner door. Yuso stepped out of their way as the warden unhooked a set of heavy keys from his belt and held them up to the light, their polished brass tops glinting in his thick fingers.
“This one will get you into the cell itself,” he said. “Maybe if you play your cards right, you can have a closer look.”
Behind him, a duller gleam of metal caught my eye: Yuso’s blade sliding silently from its sheath.
“I’d like that,” Vida said. A tilt of the captain’s head edged her back a step.
The warden inserted the key into the lock. “Me, too.” He gave a low laugh as the lock clicked and the door swung open. “You just give me a call and—”
With savage speed, Yuso clamped his arm around the man’s chest and thrust the knife into the sacral point, low and hard. The warden arched back, the brutal flex of his throat stifling his cry. Yuso yanked out the bloodied blade, raised it again, and plunged it over the man’s shoulder, hard into his chest. The only sounds were the soft thud of hilt hitting home and a tiny wet gasp. The man’s weight sagged against Yuso.
I let out a long, ragged breath—I had not even realized I was holding it. Ryko had spun around to cover the entrance, knife ready. But the door did not open; neither guard had heard the muted sounds of death.
Yuso eased the warden’s body to the ground and dragged it out of the inner doorway. He looked around at us, the violence still raging in his eyes.
“Get going,” he ordered.
Vida ripped the ring of keys from the lock, then forged down the shallow set of steps, lamp held up to light the way. I started to follow, but my knees buckled, the fall stopped by Dela’s quick reflexes.
“I’ve got you,” she said. “Just lean on me.”
Together, we lurched down the steps into a stone corridor. Ahead, Vida’s lamp showed a narrow downward slope and low ceiling. The stench of human pain—sweat, vomit, blood—caught in my throat, some primal part of me fighting the descent toward it.
“Holy gods, that’s foul,” Ryko said behind us.
“Here! He’s in here,” Vida called from the far end of the corridor, the ring of keys jangling as she fitted one into a lock.
Dela hauled me past three empty cells, the dark maws of their open doorways waiting for new flesh. The stink seemed embedded in the stone around us, our movements stirring small currents of air like fetid breath. We reached Vida as she pushed Ido’s cell door open and held up the lamp.
The light found him against the back wall: naked, starved body curled side-on against the stone, his forehead pressed into the cradle of his shackled hands. The slow rise and fall of his chest rasped with effort, but he did not stir. His head had been shorn, the two sleek Dragoneye queues reduced to matted spikes. The one eye visible to us was swollen, the strong shape of cheekbone and jaw below it lost in a dark mess of blood and bruising. His nose, too, had been broken, its thin patrician length smashed and swollen. But the worst injuries were on his body: someone had taken a cane to his back and legs and the soles of his feet, and they had not stopped at shredding skin and muscle. The exposed bone and sinew across his shoulders caught the light like slivers of pearl.
“How could he survive that?” Vida whispered.
An image of the Rat Dragon—pale and agonized—leaped into my mind. Was the beast keeping him alive?
Vida pressed her hand over her nose and led us into the cell. A slops bucket, from the smell of it, sat in the far corner. In sharp contrast, an elegant table—its legs carved into four dragons—stood against the left wall. It held a porcelain bowl, the delicate gold edge encrusted with dark ooze, and