All's Fair in Revenge

Part I: Present

Thirteen hours until execution.

I should have killed him when I had the chance. It's all I've thought about for the last three days in our shared prison. Three days spent glaring at his unconscious body waiting for him to wake. Three days with too little food, too little water, and too much rage. I seethe. I pace. I swear and growl and roar until my voice is rawer than splintered wood. Anger is all I have and thank Eyr for that because at least it keeps me going.

And then he finally stirs.

I cross my arms over my heart, hope it will keep my chest from exploding. Anticipation stings the back of my throat. I kick a pebble at him. It hits him in the forehead, his snarled hair doing little to protect him. It's not the nicest way to check for consciousness, but I've never claimed to be nice. He deserves much worse.

"Ow." He groans, rubbing the area with the heel of his fist.

"About time," I say, focused on a spider in the corner of the mossy stone wall. I can't bear to look at him, to almost meet his eyes. Not yet anyway.

He mumbles something and rolls to his side, rubbing the pain from his temples. "Did we have a good time last night?" A greasy strand slips into his eye. He swipes it. It falls. He gives up with a heavy, burdening sigh. If he thinks that's the worst of his day, reality's about to hit him like a silver hilt to the gut.

"Hardly." I tuck my arms tighter around me. More than my heart, my hands need containment. I know what I'll do given half the chance. He's lucky I haven't done it yet.

He winces up at me. He takes in the dampness of our cell, the hazy heat, the missing stones like windows scattered above us. The various scents crinkle his nose. Is it the mildew or piss that assaults him first? His eyes meander to a bucket in the corner. The piss, then.

"Where are we?" The man's voice rasps more than usual, more scratch than the growl I'd come to know.

I gesture to the solid wood door with a slotted window to the palm-sized padlock on our bars. "You are many things, but a fool is not one of them."

"Right," he says and if I weren't so mad, I'd laugh. He's so cavalier given the circumstance. Though, I don't know what I expected. He once confessed to losing nearly a dozen men at sea and managed to laugh through at least a third of the story. Taking things seriously, acknowledging the gravity of a situation; these have never been his strengths. He shuts his eyes, squeezing them tight, and I hold my breath. I wait for him to spiral just as I did when I first woke.

Instead, he drags his hand over his week's old beard and says, "If not a hangover, why do I feel as though I fell off a bloody horse?" He forces himself to sit, wobbling as he adjusts. Moments later, his eyes clear and the weight of our predicament washes over him like glacier water from along the Green Pass. He stares at me, examines me, and unfettered longing drags my pining heart into my stomach.

Traitor, I think. Doesn't the bleeding thing know we hate him now?

He says something, but I'm too deep in thought for it to register. "What?" My tongue whips the question at him.

"Nothing, I just..." he pauses, "who are you?"

"That isn't funny." He knows me. He knows he knows me.

"It isn't?" The confusion written into his brow threatens to convince me. However, he's fooled me before. I won't fall for it-or him-again.

"Quit it." I take a step toward him, my feet padding the moist stone.