Sara Larson - Defy

THE FIRST THING I noticed was the sound of water. It was everywhere, echoing, a dull roar humming through my head. I tried to open my eyes, but they were so heavy , I felt as though I had been drugged. Clenching my teeth, I forced my lids to open. I was lying on my back in a cavern of some sort. The ceiling looked damp and the air I breathed was fetid with the smell of soil and water and humans.

“He’s up,” someone remarked from nearby.

“That was fast.”

I turned to see two men standing over me, swords pointed at my throat and belly. The world spun when I laboriously sat up, unable to use my hands to aid me, since they were tied behind my back.

“I wouldn’t try that yet, if I were you.”

Ignoring them, I fought the spinning in my head and remained sitting.

“Okay, have it your way.” The first man, holding the sword now pressed against my clavicle, shouted over his shoulder, “He’s ready to talk!”

“First, tell me where my companion is.” My voice came out wrong, like I’d been drinking and couldn’t form my consonants and vowels sharply enough.

“He’s alive. That’s all you need to know.”

A third man walked over to me, a woman trailing him. He was short, shorter than me, but his arms were thickly muscled. The woman in his wake was taller than he was, and painfully thin, almost birdlike with a hooked nose and narrow-set eyes. “If you want to live, you’ll answer all of my questions truthfully. When your partner wakes, we’ll ask him the same questions and see if your stories match,” the man said without preamble. “First of all, tell me where you got that map.”

“I’m second-in-command in the prince’s personal guard. We were sent here by order of Prince Damian. He gave me the map and asked me to deliver a message to your leader.”

The man’s eyes widened, and the woman behind him stiffened. “You ask me to believe that the prince would dare communicate with us?”

“It would seem so.”

The pair shared a glance, then he held out his hand. “Let me see this message.”

“First, you’ll have to ask your henchmen to untie my hands.”

He nodded and the closer of the two guards knelt behind me and, using his sword, cut the ties from around my wrists. “One wrong move, and we’ll dart you again. I have three men out of sight, waiting for my signal. If they all hit you at once, you won’t wake up until Friday. If you wake up at all.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him and, without responding, reached into my vest and pulled out the vellum parchment containing the message held shut by the prince’s personal wax seal. He snatched it from my hand and moved to tear it open.

“Stop! Borracio will want to see the seal himself. He’ll know if it’s authentic.” The woman reached out and grabbed the letter. I watched as the pair turned and walked away, apparently forgetting about me for the moment. The effects of the drug they’d put on their dart were wearing off quickly, and I could have easily disarmed the two men standing guard over me. But I didn’t move, choosing to wait and see what happened.

While I waited, I surreptitiously took account of my surroundings. We were definitely in some sort of network of caves. There were tunnels heading off in three different directions. Where was Rylan? How big was this place? How large was this group of would-be assassins?

Minutes passed in silence, with no sign of either the man or woman. I wondered what time it was, how long I’d been out. Prince Damian expected me back tonight — and so did Deron. What would they do if we didn’t return?

Finally, just as my back had begun to ache from sitting on the hard ground for so long, another man strode out of one of the tunnels, heading straight for me. He was olive skinned, with dark hair and eyes, and he moved with an animal-like grace. I recognized a fighter in him immediately.

“You are the one who brought me the letter from Prince Damian?” His voice was accented; it sounded like he was from Blevon.

“Yes.” I kept my face and voice impassive. “Are you Borracio?”

He ignored me. “Were you aware of its contents?”

“Unfortunately not. We are not at liberty to ask the prince any questions when he gives us orders.”

He stared into my face, his eyes like flint, hard and cold. There was a strange feeling around him, something … unnatural. As he continued to hold my gaze, my stomach tightened into knots. His expression changed suddenly, and he lifted one eyebrow. “This … guard … speaks the truth.” The way he slid over the word guard put me on edge. And how could he know if I had spoken the truth so definitively?

“You may give your prince a message. Tell him we are not to be trifled with and expect him to stay true to his word.” He stepped closer to me and bent down, until his mouth was next to my ear. I stiffened. “I know your secret,” he whispered in my ear. An icy tremor of shock skittered down my spine.

He straightened, his eyes piercing when they met mine. I lifted my chin, refusing to let him see how scared I really was. Who was this man and how did he know my secret? I clenched my fists in my lap to keep my hands from shaking. Then he nodded at the two men standing over me. “You may escort both of the men out. I have nothing further to discuss with them. Make sure to take them the back way.”

He turned on his heel and strode away as the man on my right reached down and yanked me up. I pulled out of his grasp and barely suppressed the urge to knock him out cold. “I’m perfectly capable of moving on my own.” My voice was like ice and the man shrugged. He was obviously someone who underestimated my ability to fight based on my stature. How I would have loved to wipe the smug expression from his face.

But I held my temper in check as the other henchman took a lit torch from a sconce and headed across the cavern. It was more important to get out of here, retrieve my weapons, find Rylan, and return to the palace before nightfall. I wanted to put as much distance between Borracio and myself as possible.

“Where are my sword and my bow?” I asked as I followed the men down one of the tunnels.

“You’ll find them where we found you. If someone else didn’t claim them already.” The man snorted, and his companion couldn’t quite hide a bark of laughter, either.

There was no way I was going back into the jungle unarmed. I glanced at them out of the corner of my eye. No bows, but both carried decent swords. That was better than nothing. I docilely followed them on a winding path through various tunnels, the light of the torch the only thing beating back the darkness. At times, we sloshed through water, or it dripped on our heads. I tried not to think about what could be in the tunnels with us. Rats. Bats. Snakes.

I shuddered.

At last, I saw daylight ahead. My sigh of relief was so audible, one of the men snorted again. I didn’t care. They wouldn’t be laughing anymore soon enough. We had to climb over a huge boulder to exit the tunnel. When we were finally standing on the dry ground with nothing over our heads except sky — a much darker sky than I’d hoped for — there was no one else there.

“Where’s Rylan?” I turned to ask gruffly.

“How would we know? We were in charge of you. I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.” The shorter one smirked. He outweighed me by at least thirty pounds. I’d been watching him walk and noticed that he favored his right leg infinitesimally, most likely from a recently healed injury.

Without any warning, I kicked him in the knee. With a cry, he dropped to the ground, his leg giving out entirely, just as I’d figured it would. Before he even had a chance to realize he was on the ground, I’d already grabbed his wrist, twisting it in a movement so hard and fast, I could hear the bone snap and his sword fell into my free hand just in time for me to spin and parry the blow heading in my direction as his partner charged me. Within less than a minute, I had disarmed him as well, and they were both on the ground. I let the guy with the broken wrist be, since he made no move to attack me again. But his partner tried to get back up, so I hit him in the back of the head with the hilt of one of the swords hard enough to knock him out. Aside from a pounding headache and wounded pride, he’d be fine when he woke up.