Of Blood and Mercy

I hummed a tune I could no longer name, the sound as dull and lifeless as the rest of me, and finished braiding my hair. Filth coated the long, greasy strands, and gods only knew what kind. Vermin excrement, surely. Maybe even some of my own. The narrow hole in the cell’s corner that served as a latrine handled most of the waste, but it did little to keep me clean. Braiding was the best way I’d found to keep my hair out of the worst of it.

Once upon a time, this level of filth would have made me retch. Now, I barely batted an eyelash. Imprisonment had a way of warping a girl’s philosophy on cleanliness.

And her sanity.

I tucked the braid aside, then rested my hands in my lap and waited for them to stop shaking. I wasn’t exactly sure when the tremors had started. Nor did I have any idea what triggered them. All I knew was the fits came more often now and lingered longer when they did. And since I was trapped inside this stone box that would one day become my coffin, I was in no position to seek help.

All I could do was sit and wait.

For the tremors to pass.

For the darkness to swallow me.

For death to finally claim me.

I’d lost track of how long I’d been wasting away in this cell. Days had bled into nights, weeks into months, months into years, until time itself stopped. The guards shoved food through a hatch in the door often enough to keep me alive, but whether they came once a day or every three, I couldn’t say anymore. I’d stopped counting long ago. The only proof of how much time had passed was my hair. I’d always kept it around my shoulders. Now, unbraided, it hung to my hips.

Everything else remained the same. Dark. Cold. I barely remembered what warmth felt like.

Then there was the loneliness. The only sound of life came from the other prisoners’ cries and the footsteps that passed by my door. Thanks to the ironbound door locking me in, I couldn’t see the guards themselves, but I knew them all the same. Each had their own cadence, while the prisoners never walked at all. But oh, did they scream. And I’d memorized their cries.

The guards here were monsters. They might have sounded like men and laughed like men, but I knew the truth.

They were evil.

My hands had barely stopped trembling when footsteps approached. I knew from the uneven rhythm—heavy on the left heel, lighter on the right—that it was Crooked, as I’d come to name him. He walked slower than the others. Never laughed. Almost as though he hated being down here. I couldn’t blame him. I’d want nothing to do with this place either, given the choice.

The footsteps stopped outside my door. I held my breath and listened. Crooked opened the thin rectangular slat at the bottom of the door, and a small wedge of light cut through the dark before he shoved a wooden bowl through the gap. I winced when the gruel sloshed over the rim and splashed onto the grimy floor.

The smell hit me instantly. Rancid grease and boiled oats. It was enough to make my empty stomach cramp. I wasn’t sure when food had stopped appealing to me. Long enough ago that I barely remembered what good food smelled like anymore. There’d been a time when hunger had gnawed at me endlessly. But even that had faded, the pangs coming less often until they stopped altogether.

“Eat,” Crooked ordered, his voice flat and empty.

“You first,” I muttered. Just once, I wanted to see them choke on the swill they fed us.

I stared at the door, its outline barely visible in the faint light seeping beneath it, and waited for his response.

The slat snapped shut, and the footsteps retreated.

My gaze dropped to the bowl, but I made no move to retrieve it. I let it sit there. Festering in the dark.

Instead, I rested my head against the wall, closed my eyes, and lost myself to silence.

“If you don’t eat that, the vermin will.”

I didn’t open my eyes. “Let them. It’ll do them more good than me.”

A quiet sigh came from somewhere to my right.

He was close tonight. So close that if I shifted my hand, I might be able to touch him. Or so my brain liked to hope.

“Fayne, you need to eat.”

“Why?” I choked on the word. “Food just prolongs the inevitable.”

“We’ve talked about this before,” he said. “You need to live.”

“This isn’t living,” I argued weakly. “This isn’t even existing. It’s torture.”

When he didn’t answer, I finally opened my eyes and turned my head just enough to see Asher. My eyes had long since adjusted to the gloom, enough so that I could make out every detail of him with painful clarity. And as always, the sight of him fractured my heart. He looked exactly as I remembered. Clean, wavy blond hair. Eyes like the sea after a storm. The familiar curve of his mouth.

He sat with his back against the wall opposite mine, one knee bent, his forearms resting loosely across it. It was how he always sat to block my view of his ruined chest.

“I wish you were actually here,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

“But I’m not,” he agreed.

“Because you’re dead.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice sad.

I waited for the tears to come, but they didn’t. Either I was too dehydrated or too broken to cry anymore. Just something else these monsters had stolen from me.

“You know…” I released a long breath. “If I was dead, then we’d be together again.”

Asher’s expression tightened into a scowl. It was the same one he’d worn whenever I’d done something he didn’t approve of, which, admittedly, had been often. He especially hadn’t liked it when I’d mouthed off to nobles. Not because he’d believed servants needed to behave a certain way, but because he’d feared how the nobles would respond.

 Like, say, call for my punishment, or worse. The fact that I’d been the princess’s personal servant—and her friend—had done little to reassure him.

I’d always thought he’d worried too much.

He’d always insisted I didn’t worry enough.

It’d worked for us.

“Don’t talk like that,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’ve survived this long. You just need to hold on a little longer.”

“Why?” I dragged my knees up to my chest and rested my cheek against them, staring at the door. “No one’s coming for me. Everyone’s dead.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I know you’ll survive this.”

My lips pulled into a grim smile. “You don’t actually know that. You’re just my brain playing tricks on me, trying to convince me to keep fighting. But there’s nothing left to fight for.”

“Fayne…”

“I can’t keep this up, Asher. I’m so tired.”

“I know, love.” His voice dropped, gentle now, the way he used to speak to me. “I know. I wish I could be here for you. Gods, I wish it was me trapped in this wretched pit. I would give anything to take your place. I know you want to give up, but you need to fight. One more day. And then one more after that.”

My breath hitched at the familiar phrase. Asher had always promised he would love me forever. And then one more day after that. Hearing it, even as a manifestation of my own cruel imagination, was like a cold dagger plunged right into my heart.

“We’ll see each other again, I promise you,” he said. “But not like that. Not because you gave up.”

I shook my head, a lone hot tear sliding down my cheek. Guess my body had found a little liquid after all. “There’s no one left for me to fight for. Everyone I cared about is gone. You’re gone. I can’t—”

“You can.” His tone sharpened, the authority of a guard captain slipping back into his voice. “You’re stronger than you think. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”

I scoffed.

“I believe in you.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off gently with that blunt certainty only he possessed. “By the gods, Fayne. Just stay alive. If not for yourself, then for me. For us.”

My throat closed, and my chest tightened.

For us, he’d said.

Except, there was no us anymore.

Because a soldier—one who’d worn the same heavy, clinking armor as the guards outside my door—had taken his sword and driven it straight through Asher’s chest right in front of me. I saw it every time I closed my eyes.

We’d spoken our wedding vows to each other earlier that night, and we were celebrating with our friends and loved ones. The princess lent me one of her dresses, and Asher wore an outfit meant for a prince. He laughed when I told him he looked silly without armor or a sword. He said, for once, he wanted to look like a man and not a weapon.

Then came the screaming. Fire. Swords. Arrows. People fell all around me.

And Asher… Without armor, the soldier’s steel slid through my husband’s chest like butter. The sound—that wet, horrible sound. Asher’s breath left him in one stunned gasp as he stumbled back into me. The shock of his weight nearly knocked me off my feet. Blood sprayed my face, stained my hands, soaked through my bodice.

He crumpled to the ground, the blade still buried in his chest as they dragged me away. I fought them every step, desperate to reach Asher, our friends and loved ones, the princess, the king, and the queen. Instead, I watched them all fall. Nothing stopped the soldiers. Not even when they threw me over one of their mounts and hauled me into the woods. The only thing I saw through the trees was the orange glow of the flames devouring the castle and everyone left inside.

Heartsickness settled over me. After that, everything felt distant. Like I was watching someone else’s life unfold. I remembered the jarring gallop of the stavik beneath me, my fingers knotted in its mane while its hooves pounded the earth. The metallic clatter of armor. Then, the sudden panic. The soldiers shouted frantically, whipping their mounts to run faster, terrified of whatever was chasing us through the dark. I remembered the snap of branches. The heavy scent of animals. Hands dragging me. Stone steps. The scrape of a key. A door slamming shut.

After that, nothing but darkness. They’d dumped me here and left me to rot.

“Asher—”

But when I glanced up, he was gone.

And silence flooded back in. My breath slipped past my lips as heat flared in my chest. This was how it always went. My mind conjured him in my darkest moments, anything to convince me to hold on, but it never lasted.

I straightened my legs and let my head fall back against the stone wall. But the silence didn’t last long. Screams came from a few doors down, followed by metal boots thudding against the floor, while raucous laughter echoed down the corridor. A prisoner pleaded, begged, and sobbed. It didn’t stop the guards. It never did.

I slowly turned my head in time to watch shadows pass by my door. Through the narrow gap at the bottom, I spotted two pairs of metal boots flanking two bare feet as they dragged the prisoner away. I squeezed my eyes shut, counting in my head until the noise faded into the distance.

It wasn’t the first prisoner I’d seen dragged out, and it wouldn’t be the last. My heart ached for the poor soul they’d carried away because those who left never came back. I only prayed their end came quickly.

And when my day came, I hoped someone prayed for me as well.

Asher’s words, begging me to fight, echoed in my ears. I loved him more than anything in this forsaken world. Had given him my heart, my soul, my future. Now, all he asked of me was to fight. And though the notion exhausted me, I knew I couldn’t ignore his request. Real or not.

I stared at my hands. The skin was thin enough I could see the bones. They hadn’t always looked like this. Once, they’d been strong, hardened by years of scrubbing floors, hauling buckets, and cleaning until the palace shone. Long before I’d become the princess’s personal servant, I’d spent my days doing whatever work in the castle needed doing. Afterward, I’d traded buckets and scrub brushes for heavy gowns, armfuls of luggage, and bathwater. Different work, but no less demanding.

Now, my arms shook when I so much as shifted my weight.

One more day, Asher had said. And then one more after that.

For him, I would.

I crawled toward the bowl, my joints groaning in complaint. I reached for it and dragged it closer, grimacing when the slop spilled over the edge. My cell stank enough without adding rancid gruel to it.

I placed the bowl in my lap and stared at it, nausea rolling through me in slow waves.

This was what my life had become. A choice between starvation and swallowing something that hardly resembled food.

Eat, Fayne.

Asher’s voice again.

He would haunt me until my dying day, but I didn’t mind that in the least. Any company was better than none.

Finally mustering the energy, I lifted the bowl to my lips and swallowed. My eyes instantly watered, but I forced more down anyway, all while trying not to think about what I was eating.

The next sip came a little easier, so I kept going in small amounts. It hadn’t taken long for the gruel to cool or the grease to congeal into a waxy film that coated the roof of my mouth. I had to chew the liquid, breaking down lumps of uncooked grain that felt like gravel between my teeth. My body begged me to spit it out, but I forced myself to swallow, fighting the gag reflex that spasmed in my chest.

After a few mouthfuls, my stomach clenched, and my hands started shaking again. This happened every time—my empty belly rebelling against the food. I lowered the bowl and forced myself to breathe through it. I couldn’t afford to throw it back up. If I was going to fight, then I needed every last nutrient, assuming the food provided any.

“I hope you’re happy,” I whispered, even though Asher wasn’t here to revel in his win.

Once the tremors and cramping passed, I finished the bowl, then returned it to the door, leaving it beneath the slot where the guards could reach through and collect it later. Only then did I crawl over to the corner where I’d cleared a small spot to lie down—my makeshift bed, such as it was. I curled on my side and stared at the light beneath the door all while willing myself to sleep before more screams came.

“One more day,” I whispered. “And then one more after that.”

Until the day came when I could no longer fight.