A Court of Starfall & Deception - An ACOMAF Rewrite

Chapter 18

Amren was standing at the foot of my bed.

I jolted back, slamming into the headboard, blinded by the morning lights blazing in, fumbling for a weapon, anything to use –

"No wonder you're so thin if you puke your guts up every night." She sniffed, her lip curling. "You reek of it." My cheeks burned.

The bedroom door was shut. Rhys had said no one entered without his permission, but -

She chucked something onto the bed. A little gold amulet of pearl and cloudy blue stone. "This got me out of the Prison. Wear it in, and they can never keep you."

I didn't touch the amulet. I remembered Rhys's warnings.

"Allow me to make one thing clear," Amren said, bracing both hands on the carved wooden footboard. "I do not give that amulet lightly. But you may borrow it, while you do what needs to be done, and return it to me when you are finished. If you keep it, I will find you, and the results won't be pleasant. But it is yours to use in the Prison."

By the time my fingers brushed the cool metal and stone, she'd walked out the door.

Rhys hadn't been wrong about the firedrake comparison.

***

Rhys kept frowning at the amulet as we hiked the slope of the Prison, so steep that at times we had to crawl on our hands and knees. Higher and higher we climbed, and I drank from the countless little streams that gurgled through the bumps and hollows in the moss-and-grass slopes. All around the mist drifted by, whipped by the wind, whose hollow moaning drowned out our crunching footsteps.

When I caught Rhys looking at the necklace for the tenth time, I asked, "What?"

"She gave you that."

Not a question.

"It must be serious, then," I said. "The risk with –"

"Don't say anything you don't want others hearing." He pointed to the stone beneath us. "The inmates have nothing better to do than to listen through the earth and rock for gossip. They'll sell any bit of information for food, sex, maybe a breath of air."

I clamped my lips shut.

I could do this; I could master this fear.

Rhys had been right yesterday – we had gotten out from Under the Mountain. Amren had gotten out of this place. And stayed out. And the amulet – it'd keep me free, too.

"I'm sorry," I said. "About yesterday." I'd stayed in bed for hours, unable to move or think.

Rhys held out a hand to help me climb a particularly steep rock, easily hauling me up to where he perched at its top. It had been so long – too long – since I'd been outdoors, using my body, relying on it. My breathing was ragged, even with my new immortality. "You've got nothing to be sorry for," he said. "You're here now." But enough of a coward that I wouldn't have gone without the amulet. He added with a wink, "I won't dock your pay."

I was too winded to even scowl. We climbed until the upper face of the mountain became a wall before us, nothing but grassy slopes sweeping behind, far below, to where they flowed to the restless gray sea. Rhys drew the sword from his back in a swift movement.

"Don't look so surprised," he said.

"I've – never seen you with a weapon." Aside from the dagger he'd grabbed to slit Amarantha's throat at the end – to spare me from agony.

"Cassian would laugh himself hoarse hearing that. And then make me go into the sparring ring with him."

"Can he beat you?"