Page 69 of Kingdom of Waves

“I did,” he says. “Why? Have you come to your senses?”

I laugh coyly. Like the girl he remembers. The soft girl, so eager for pleasure and comfort, so willing to live in secret, in fear.

“Gin,” he says, and he pulls me in.

I dreamed of this once, I wanted this once, so badly that it was all I dreamed of. I wanted to be loved by a rich Laconian lord, told I was worthy, that I wasn’t like the others. I was ashamed of who I was, of who I came from, of my people and my blood. But I know better now. I am proud of who I am, of where I come from.

“See, I knew you would come to your senses,” he says. “You care for me.”

“Oh, Rollo,” I whisper, and then I pull a hidden blade and strike it deep into his side. “I did once, but now I wish I never did.”

He staggers back, clutching his stomach, blood spurting from the wound.

Then I pick up the box of relics and run.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTGIN

I run as fast as I can up from the vaults, through the passageway. All around me prisoners are running. And when I make it out of the tunnels and into the main house, it’s utter chaos. Everyone is running, guests, nobles, servants. I see a familiar face amid the fray.

“Where’s Eban?” I ask Silva.

She shakes her head. “He stayed behind to make sure everyone got out, but I haven’t seen him since. I thought he found you.”

House Dominant is burning. The fire that started in the arena has consumed almost the entire estate, and everyone is running for their lives. Most are running out toward the main roads, but I head back toward the fire, down toward the garden that leads to the shore.

I can only hope that he’ll meet me outside.

He promised.

He would free the prisoners and I would get the relics and we would meet as planned at the eastern garden by sundown. But when I get there, there’s no sign of Eban.

A boat arrives at the hidden dock. Perlah at the helm. “Do you have the relics?” she asks.

I nod.

She looks around. “Where’s Darius? Eban?”

I shake my head. “Darius is dead” is all I tell her. And Eban… Eban promised he would meet me here. He promised he would live, that he would survive. But he’s not here. He freed the Ophir but he is not one of them. I have to face it.

Eban is gone.

EPILOGUEEBANHOUSE ETERNAL

Many months later, ten stories belowground, down endless grimy stone steps, where rats and spiders and snakes slither freely in the dank darkness, a prisoner kneels. His knees are scraped and bloody from the sharp gravel ground. His wrists and ankles are bound in rusty chains, tethered to the brick wall. It’s a crowded prison, loud and boisterous all hours of the day and night, full of so-called thieves and murderers and other enemies of the estates—rebels, dissenters, and insurgents. Here they await their sham trials, or pray fervently before their inevitable executions are carried out. Lacon does not forgive and it will not forget what happened during the last Liberation Day, and so even more Ophir are made to pay the consequences. The cavernous dungeon echoes with their cries, trapped there beneath the surface, never to reach the world above.

But this prisoner is silent. Though his jailers have tried to break him, he will not yield. He lives in eternal darkness, daylight but a memory.

“Still alive, are you?” sneers his warden, Rollo of House Eternal. Although truth be told, Rollo’s breath hitches when he speaks, and blood seeps from his bandages on his torso, from a wound that stubbornly won’t heal.

The prisoner sees all of this and says nothing.

For he has one last secret weapon that his captor knows nothing about.

And he has been saving it for the right moment. For he has one chance, and if he fails, it’s over. He cannot fail. He must get back to his people. To Gin.

With what little strength remains, Eban lifts his head and calls out: “I am ready for my trial.”