“You do realize you’re leaving streaks of blood. Someone will have to mop.”
Tallora held her tongue.
“Say the word, and I’ll carry you back.”
Tallora’s arms failed her; she fell against the floor once more. “Touch me,” she said, breathing labored, “and I’ll bite.”
“Bite me, and I’ll pluck your teeth out. One by one.”
Tallora’s mouth ached at the mere thought. Her tears fell in droves. When she looked down at her chest, she saw streaks of raw skin, scraped by the floor. Dauriel’s footsteps stopped beside her; Tallora curled into a ball, the shame of defeat settling upon her.
“Pitiful, truly. But I think it should stand to reason that tears won’t draw any sympathy from me.”
Tallora’s arms covered her head, a vain attempt to block the hateful words. Callused hands against her back caused her to flinch.
She was surprised when Dauriel pulled back. “Let me pick you up. I’ll take you back.”
Leather-bound arms lifted Tallora’s limp form. She wept, still covering her head, even after water enveloped her as she was pushed inside. The water embraced her as she gently floated to the bottom, sobbing all the while.
Hope seeped away with her tears. Tallora cried herself to sleep.
* * *
A voice spoke through the fog of her dreams, as clear and familiar as her own.
“Tallora, my child . . . do not lose hope.”
Tallora felt nothing, saw nothing—simply existed within a void.
“Your prayers have been heard. My wife is displeased at your confines but will not interfere. It is not our place. It never has been.”
Tallora wondered if she imagined the regret in the voice.
“But I have not abandoned you. You must save yourself, but I shall give you the means. At the new moon, await my gift.”
The world erupted in a sea of stars. Tallora saw a woman of pure light, radiant wings bursting from her form. Kindness shone in her visage, her eyes as soft as her smile. Her arms wrapped around Tallora, embracing her.
Tallora felt divinity and warmth.
She awoke to morning light, rested for the first time in days.
Tallora sat up, her vision replaying over and over, the burning touch of the angelic goddess still lingering. She’d witnessed a miracle. The goddess knew her. She’d heard her.
Tallora cried, but for hope and joy. The new moon was only a few weeks away.
When her wits returned, Tallora realized that upon a stone slab touching the invisible wall was . . . food?
Tallora swam to investigate. Blue flounder, chopped and prepared, though a few hours old now. Dauriel had brought this last night, she realized.
Had Tallora no hope, she would have dumped it beyond the barrier. Instead, she needed strength. Whatever boon Staella offered, Tallora had no guess, but with hope came the resolve to play a different game.
The day passed with little aplomb. No one visited, not until Dauriel made her predictable return in the evening. Tallora feigned indifference to the tray of food in her hands. “Isn’t it demeaning for a princess to wait hand and foot on a prisoner—?”
Dauriel dropped the tray inches beyond the barrier. The chopped fish scattered across the tile, and Tallora’s starving stomach lurched. “Glad we agree,” the princess replied, and she walked away.
Tallora spent hours pushing past the barrier, trying and failing to retrieve her meal. When the crescent moon had risen high in the sky, she admitted defeat, quietly weeping from hunger.
* * *
She was awoken by an irate reprimand—“What in Onias’ Hell is this?!”
Tallora peered through the wall of seaweed and saw General Khastra pointing furiously at the spilled platter of fish. Dauriel stood tall before her, but one could only stand so mightily before the behemoth. “She was disrespectful—”
“If this is your treatment of disrespect, then it is good you abdicated your throne. Clean it up.”
“I’ll call someone to—”
“You clean it up.” The De’Sindai pointed at the mess; the incredulous princess gawked at her.
It might have been humorous, given Dauriel only barely stood as tall as the general’s sternum, but the ensuing stare-down held more fury than a clash of gods. Silver flame rose at Princess Dauriel’s feet, which she visibly fought to subdue; General Khastra became the immovable object, staring sternly down.
The fire remained as Dauriel knelt to pick up pieces of raw fish, piling them onto the tray. Tallora resisted the impulse to laugh, her cruel joy unparalleled for her torturer to be so subsumed. Again, she noticed the inked designs on Dauriel’s wrists and realized it was writing—writing that matched the elaborate décor on the general’s body.
“I will come back, and it will be gone.” The general left, her hooves echoing across the stone tiles.
Tallora prayed her grin was shit-eating enough to further stoke the fire. “Abdicated your throne, huh?”
Dauriel spared her a glance, her skin unquestionably glowing.
“I wondered why your baby brother would be inheriting the throne instead of you. I’ll bet it’s a wonderful story, full of drama and intrigue. Did you kill a diplomat? Fuck the wrong foreign prince? I have to know.”
A strip of meat squished as Dauriel tightened her fist. “I abdicated on my own accord,” she spat. When she relaxed her hand, raw bits of meat stuck to her palm.
“Realized you were bitchier than your mother?”
The princess brushed off her hands, her task hardly complete, but she turned her attention to Tallora fully now, and she wondered if she might die from Dauriel’s fury. “I’m not any happier to be your keeper than you are. Yes, it’s demeaning. I came home a victor only to be demoted to a mere servant—a beast keeper.”
“Oh no. I feel so terrible for you,” Tallora said, utterly straight-faced. “I’d cry a few tears, but I need to keep them for me.”
“A mercy, then,” Dauriel seethed, silver fire escaping from her mouth, “for a price.”
Tallora refused to admit intrigue at this dragon-esque behavior. “You’ve already stolen my pride. Don’t offer me pity—”
“I will free you.”
Damn it all. Tallora listened now.
“Give me your name, and I swear upon my ancestral blood you will be freed upon my mother’s death. I have no use for a menagerie, and my brother can be swayed.”
The Solviraes famously lived to be centuries old. “Seems a paltry offer, for me to live most of my life in a gods-forsaken bubble.”
Within Dauriel’s hand sparked an idle flame of pure silver. She brought it up, staring into the fire as she whispered, “Given a reason, that time might not be so far away.”
“What sort of reason?”
The flame rose and fell as she flexed her fingers, yet Tallora saw the tension in her countenance—as well as subtle glowing from the tattoos on her wrist. “I do not know. I only mean to give you hope. And perhaps make both our lives easier.”
It wasn’t sincerity she saw in Dauriel’s flame-lit features, nor mercy—furious resolve, perhaps.
Apparently her name was worth its weight in gold. Tallora shook her head and swam back. “You think I don’t know of magic that binds a person with their name? Whatever your plans, I’ll keep my free will, thank you. I don’t need your mercy.”