Achan didn’t know why he’d want to do that, but he was glad he wasn’t afraid of the bloodvoices anymore. They had suddenly become a new plaything.
“Have you ever heard a different kind of voice?” he asked. “One that warms you from the inside and seems to know exactly what is happening in every moment of your life?”
Sparrow frowned, then opened his mouth to speak, but the door burst open and the two guards stormed inside. One carried a whip and a set of iron shackles.
Achan didn’t like the looks of either. He stood and tried to look threatening. “You could have knocked first.”
Sparrow scrambled into the corner.
The guards seized Achan by his arms. Pain shot through his injured shoulder. Goosebumps rose on his arms at the sudden chill that wafted though his cell.
“What are you doing?” Sparrow asked.
“This one tried to kill the prince,” a guard said, clamping an iron cuff to Achan’s wrist.
Sparrow wedged between the guards. “That is ridiculous. He saved the prince. I saw it happen.”
“You know not what you say, Vrell.” The old man stepped into the cell again, with Lord Nathak and the valet at his heels.
“Lord Nathak.” Achan panted slightly as he waved his good arm around to keep the guard from securing the second cuff. He was finished with trying to get on anyone’s good side. “I was just noticing how something smelled, and here you are.”
Lord Nathak sighed. “The older you grow, the bolder you become. It does not suit a stray who hopes for a secure future.”
“I hadn’t realized there was such a thing in your service, my lord.”
Sparrow spoke. “Master, he should be allowed to appear before the Council, where I will testify as a witness to his heroism. I saw him save the prince, when all his other protectors were gone.”
The guards forced Achan onto the stone bed. The loose straw poked and scratched, and he arched his back to keep his wounds from being aggravated. Lord Nathak stepped forward holding a ceramic funnel and a large wooden mug. One of the guards squeezed Achan’s cheeks until his jaw opened.
Pig snout.
Sparrow’s sorrowful voice pleaded, “Master, please. This is barbaric.”
Lord Nathak wedged the funnel between Achan’s teeth and dumped the mug’s contents.
Achan gagged but had no choice but to swallow the bitter goo. His teeth grated against the funnel, his eyes watered, and a tear ran down his cheek.
The valet handed Lord Nathak another mug, and he poured it into the funnel. Achan tried to swallow quickly this time, but the overwhelming mentha taste tingled his throat. He coughed, which only made swallowing harder.
The liquids trickled into Achan’s stomach, and a fog drifted over his mind. He was both outraged and relieved. He’d finally accepted the voices as his, but they had nearly driven him mad. He lost control of trying to close off his mind. The voices screamed now, as if they had been waiting for an opportunity to speak and could feel the tonic pushing them out.
Do not go!
Who are you?
Come back!
Achan, wait! Sir Gavin said. Stay open!
Before Achan could reply to Sir Gavin, Lord Nathak removed the funnel and the guards yanked Achan to his feet. They looped the chains in his shackles through two iron rings high on the dank, mildewed wall.
Achan ran his tongue over his teeth, seeking to clear his mouth of all flavor. His mind felt numbed, but he wasn’t bereft of his senses. “What exactly have I done to deserve this, my lord?”
“You led the Crown Prince into the Evenwall,” Lord Nathak said, tapping his fingernails against the ceramic funnel, “thus endangering his life. Yet you were sworn to protect him. You will receive ten lashes for this blunder.”
Achan stood facing the stone wall, the shackles holding him in place. “Ten? Oh, that’s not so bad. You do realize my taking him into the Evenwall saved his life. And, in case you missed it, I took three arrows for His Royal Plague. The one in my back is particularly painf — Aagh!”
Achan screamed as a guard jerked the chains up the wall, raising his arms above his head and stretching his sore shoulder. His chest slammed against cold, slimy stone. Achan shivered and glanced at the beefy guard who held the chains. “Do you mind? I’m trying to have a conversation.”
Lord Nathak motioned to the other guard. “Only ten. And go easy.”
Go easy?
The other guard stepped forward clutching the whip.
20
“Hold still,” Vrell scolded. The spicy smell of cloves mixed with calendula numbed her sinuses — a blessing in Achan’s rank cell.
Achan lay prostrate on his horrible stone bed, his face buried in the crook of his arm, straw poking out from under him. “It hurts!”
“I can see that.” Vrell scooped ointment with two fingers and ran it over a lesion on Achan’s back. His muscles tensed, but the ointment had already made a difference in the newest wounds on his back. She still couldn’t believe how scarred it was. She could not imagine Achan committing a crime that deserved such punishment.
It’s cold, Achan bloodvoiced.
Sorry. She scooped up another glob of ointment and rubbed it between her hands before tending the next gash. She gasped. “You can hear my thoughts, now? Despite the tonic?”
“Aye. Your little fruit did the trick.”
Vrell smiled. She had remembered Jax’s advice and had taken a sack of karpos fruit from the kitchens and given it to Achan when he’d awakened after the scourging.
“What now?” Achan asked, his voice muffled by the fact that his face was buried in the inside of his elbow. “Teach me something.”
Vrell twisted her lips. “Well, I am best at blocking. That would be a good thing for you to master. You must concentrate. It is like having drapes in your mind to draw closed around your thoughts. Once you learn, you can practice letting in only what, and who, you want.”
Vrell rubbed more salve over the arrow wound on Achan’s left shoulder, then traced along one shoulder blade to the other, smearing ointment into his skin as she went. With wounds like his, infection could kill, especially in this disgusting cell where rats flourished. So she added more ointment.
Achan’s head popped up. “Did you hear that?”
“No. Did someone bloodvoice you?”
“He said, ‘Gavin’s coming.’ But I didn’t recognize his— Um, Sparrow?”
“Yes?”
“You’ve put on enough gunk now, don’t you think? Or must you rub me raw?”
“Yes — uh, no.” Vrell jerked back her hand and stood. Heat flooded her cheeks. “I believe that is plenty for now. Does it feel better?”
“Like new.” He sat up and rolled his injured shoulder. “Think you can find me a shirt?”
“I should be able to.”
“I had a spare, in my bag.” Achan stared ahead as if remembering something sad.
Vrell didn’t know what that sad thought might be. But judging from those scars on his back and the fact that he’d spent any time at all subject to Prince Gidon, his past was likely riddled with anguish.
Perhaps when Vrell was home, she could convince her mother to speak to the Council about strays. It was senseless to treat a man like an animal. They were all the same inside, physically anyway. Plus, both Achan and Prince Gidon were dark-haired, tall, and strong. But where the prince was cruel, Achan was knightly. The way he’d fought to protect a man who wanted to kill him…
Vrell shook her thoughts away, picked up the jar of ointment, and walked to the door. “Guard!” She turned back to Achan. “I shall try to bring more food as well.”