The Affiliate Read online

  Rising uneasily to her wobbly legs, Cyrene forced the image of dying by flesh-eating fish out of her brain.

  She had torn her shift in several places, and massive bruises blossomed on her hip, knee, and shoulder. In addition to scrapes on her leg and shoulder, a trail of blood ran down her right leg from her knee. Ripping off a piece of her nightgown, she tied it around the injury as best as she could. She would deal with it when she got out of here.

  Striving not to put pressure on her right side, Cyrene teetered over to the edge of the wall and grabbed another torch, this one dim and barely flickering. Blowing on it brought the flame back to life. She tried to open the only visible door, but it was locked, so she moved back to the docks.

  She yanked an oar out of the smallest boat, the only one she might be capable of rowing by herself, and untied it from the end of the dock. After seating herself within, she shoved off and allowed herself to drift out on the open waters.

  Tentatively, she dipped the oar into the water and waited for the little monsters to come back.

  Nothing moved in the cavernous lake.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Cyrene painstakingly rowed herself toward the large arch exit. She didn’t waste her time with the other doors, assuming they would also be locked.

  After what felt like an eternity, Cyrene approached the huge carved doorway, molded with gray-and-black stone that was similar to the interior of the castle. She rowed under the arch, and the boat collided with something, emitting a loud gong-like sound. She sprawled backward onto the planks of the boat. Her small boat swayed from the force of the impact, and she waited until it stilled.

  Cyrene righted herself and let her fingers graze a smooth metal surface. No wonder the inside of the cave was black as night. It was closed off from the outside world. Her gaze scoured the archway and found a thick worn iron chain. She grappled with it and gave it a tentative tug. A creak set the hairs on the back of her neck on edge, and the water rippled around the door where it moved marginally away from the wall.

  The heavy metal chain tensed her shoulders as she pulled it, hand over hand. Voices sounded over the drone of the metal door screeching against the rock archway, and Cyrene rested her cracked hands as she craned her neck and listened. She hadn’t thought anyone else could access the cave.

  The voices picked up again, but Cyrene couldn’t decipher what they were saying. She couldn’t see anyone, yet the voices were getting clearer. Then, her gaze landed on something in the water. Her stomach sank through her body, and she held back the nausea that threatened her.

  A Skrivner snake.

  Even though she couldn’t make out the entire outline of the body, she was sure of it, and she wasn’t going to wait around for it to get any closer. A Skrivner was the deadliest water snake. Its three-inch-long fangs caused hallucinations as the snake feasted on the blood of the victim. Plus it could mimic human sounds, and if she was right, then that was where the voices were coming from.

  Ignoring the sharp pains in her hands and the blood she’d left behind on the chain, Cyrene wrenched it with every ounce of strength she had in her aching muscles. The metal door seemed to move even slower than before, as if her efforts were becoming more futile. She muttered every curse word her father had ever used as she heaved the chain putting her shoulders, back, and legs into the motion of yanking on the insufferable chain.

  She glanced over her shoulder just once. The Skrivner approached fast, his crimson eyes bright with bloodlust.

  Finally, the door opened far enough for her to be able to maneuver the boat through. She quickly tied off the chain, sank back down, picked up the oar, and paddled like the prize of becoming consort waited on the other side.

  Tonight was not her night to die. She had too much to accomplish. She still had to see the world!

  With one final push, she glided forward through the archway, and a fast-moving current seized her boat. She swiveled around in her seat to see the Skrivner strike out at her, but it was just out of reach, so it slithered back into the black lake.

  “By the Creator!”

  Tears trickled down her face while blood boiled under the surface of her skin. She had never felt happier to be alive.

  At the first turn, she paddled off the current. The river flowed more smoothly down this path. Her head swelled with curiosity as rowed past several more turns. Where did they all lead?

  Her mind focused on the bits and pieces she knew of the underground passageways within the castle. Hidden doors wound up to the rooms above, and some even led to the grounds themselves. Finding one that might be open was her only chance.

  She traversed the pathways, passing doors with giant iron locks on the outside. Someone had been down here long ago to prevent intruders from infiltrating the castle. Cyrene panicked at the thought. If they are all locked up tight, then how can I find a way out?

  A spark ignited in her chest, and out of it, a thought flickered to the surface. Believe in those whose honor doth shine.

  Where did I read that? Cyrene didn’t have a clue, but somehow, it felt right. It just felt right.

  Her heart beat in her temples, her bloodied fingers, and her splintered feet as she searched out the inscriptions on the doors before her. She didn’t want to think about how many doors lay within these walls or of the possibility that none of them would lead her out of here or what would happen if she encountered another Skrivner, feral fish, or the mouth of the Keylani.

  Then, as if she had conjured it up from nowhere, a door without a padlock appeared with words gleaming on the surface. She could just make out the words shine and honor. She didn’t have another option. This one had to be it.

  Groaning in weary relief, she rowed toward the ledge. She barely made it as her throbbing arms worked against the current. After tying up the boat to a peg stuck in the ground, Cyrene exited the boat, reached forward for the door, and recited the words that she felt were her saving grace, “Believe in those whose honor doth shine.”

  The door easily swung open at the touch of her fingers, and she entered into a small dusty room, empty of all belongings. This entrance had surely not been used for years.

  Her legs felt like lead as she followed a winding flat pathway upward for what felt like an eternity. Finally she reached a large cellar door that blocked the passage in front of her. She pushed it open with her shoulder. Hay exploded all around her, sticking to her skin that was slick with water, blood, and sweat. Cyrene coughed at the sudden onslaught and shielded her eyes with her arm against the brightness. Light filtered in through the slats of the stable, but thankfully, Cyrene didn’t see anyone else.

  After stepping through the cellar door, she closed it and covered the area over with hay again. Since the door had clearly fallen into disuse, the last thing she wanted was for people to notice it.

  As she started to walk cautiously away from the door, she hit something sturdy and toppled forward. Gasping, she landed hard on a solid body. Her eyes flew open, and she struggled to get away from the man beneath her. When he didn’t move, she lightly nudged him with her uninjured foot. After everything that had happened to her tonight, she prayed to the Creator that he wasn’t dead.

  A gargling noise came from the man, and she blew out a breath.

  As he sat up and stared at her through bleary bloodshot eyes, she scrambled to her feet. He didn’t look much older than her, but he already had the body of a sturdy hunter. He had haphazardly tousled dark brown hair intertwined with hay. Blood and dirt caked one side of his face where he had been lying down. His clothes weren’t in a much better state. One sleeve hung almost completely off, and he had a gash across the stomach of his shirt. It looked as if it had been sliced through with a knife, but she saw no blood. His pants were frayed at the ends, and he had somehow managed to lose just one boot.

  “What ya want?” he grumbled, closing his eyes and pressing his hand to his head.

  “For you to get your putrid stink away from me,” she said with no tolerance f
or anyone after this night’s events.

  Cyrene was surprised to find her voice unchanged. After running, rowing, pulling, and climbing her way away from her own death, she’d thought it would have changed somehow, yet she still sounded strong, maybe even stronger.

  He roared with laughter and then covered his mouth as he leaned away from her. He held his side and coughed into his hand. After a minute, he turned back to face Cyrene and really seemed to look at her. His eyes bulged, and he whistled lowly. “What in the Creator’s name happened to you?”

  Cyrene blushed despite herself. She didn’t even want to know what she looked like in her torn white shift. Her body was relatively numb at this point, but she knew the extent of her injuries—sliced open foot; bruised everything; aching and cramped arms and shoulders; bloodied hands and fingers; stiff legs—but it was better than being dead.

  “What happened to you?” she countered.

  He looked nearly as bad as she did.

  A rueful smile crossed his tanned features. His mischievous eyes were deep dark brown with rings of gold around the pupils.

  “Too much fun,” he said with a shrug.

  “I see. Remind me never to have fun with you.”

  He laughed again, harder than before. This time, he turned and vomited out the contents of his stomach. Cyrene’s stomach seized at the sound and smell, and she nearly wretched herself.

  “Sorry,” he moaned. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

  “I have to return to my quarters.”

  “Wait, you never said what happened to you.”

  “Too much fun,” she said bitterly.

  She pivoted on her heel to walk away from him.

  “You’re Cyrene, right?”

  She stopped in her tracks. “Yeah, I am.” She was surprised he knew who she was.

  He stood and leaned against a wooden beam that had been driven into the ground. “I’m Ahlvie. Ahlvie Gunn, at your service.”

  “Ah, the drunk,” she murmured, remembering how he had gotten thrown out of her Presenting ball.

  By the Creator, was that only yesterday?

  “If the shoe fits.”

  She nodded at him and staggered forward to leave.

  “Might I be of assistance? I’m quite good at getting through the castle without being seen. And if I were you, I wouldn’t want to be seen like that.”

  Cyrene looked down at her torn nightgown that was wrinkled and splattered with her blood. He was right, of course. She couldn’t be seen like this.

  What if the King saw me? Or even worse, the Queen? Cyrene couldn’t bear it.

  “Please.”

  Ahlvie smiled crookedly at her. “This way.”

  She followed him through a back passage that wound all through the castle. As soon as Ahlvie got her into the Vines, unseen, she thanked him, and then she rushed to her room and slammed the door with force.

  Cyrene threw her ruined shift in a heap on the ground and buried her naked self under the goose down comforter. A rustle of someone passing by her door made her get up to investigate to make sure she had locked it. She didn’t want to be disturbed ever again.

  As she reached her chamber door, a piece of paper stamped with the royal seal slid underneath it. She ground her teeth as she snatched it off the ground and jerked it open.

  WELCOME TO THE RANKS, WARRIOR.

  She didn’t know who had subjected her to this torture and then left this note, but she hated them. She would always hate them. She would hate them with every fiber of her being for making her suffer through that, for making her risk her life for some ill-brained cause. She was not a warrior, nor would she ever consider herself one.

  But if they wanted to believe they had won the battle, she would show them that she could win the war.

  Ahlvie watched Cyrene disappear down the hallway to her rooms before tucking back into the secret corridor. He didn’t know what had possessed him to help her. He wasn’t particularly susceptible to damsels in distress or the like, but something in her eyes had spoken of determination. He actually believed she would have gone strolling around the castle, looking like a beat-up drowned rat.

  She reminded him a bit of himself when he had first arrived in this Creator-forsaken castle. He hoped that she could keep up the rebellious nature, but he doubted it. This place could leech the life out of a person.

  Pushing the new girl out of his mind, he contemplated returning to his quarters to change before vanishing from the castle grounds once more. He jerked on his sleeve, and it ripped the rest of the way off. If he’d managed to keep both boots last night, then he wouldn’t have to return to the High Order quarters. He would make it quick though.

  He navigated the empty morning corridors with ease and then crashed into his barely lived-in room. He opened his wardrobe and saw that someone had laundered his clothing. Hopefully, the person hadn’t gotten all the bloodstains out of his clothes from home. Every other article of clothing had the High Order logo attached to it.

  How did anyone expect me to move around so easily in the city with a Dremylon D plastered on to all my clothing? Not a single person in Low market would talk to a High Order. Half the people in the Laelish wouldn’t either.

  After pulling on newish boots and a slightly less destroyed dark blue shirt, he left his room in a hurry. He careened around the corner and slowed his feet when he saw the hallway was occupied.

  “Creator,” he grumbled.

  “Ahlvie,” Reeve called down the hallway.

  Reeve was the nicest of the High Order around Ahlvie’s age, but he hung out with the pigheaded idiots—Rhys, Clovis, and Surien. Ahlvie cared little for other people at court in general, but those guys were the foulest lot.

  “Have you seen Zorian this morning?” Reeve asked as he approached.

  “Is he back from Carhara? Tahne is a rough sort of city,” Ahlvie said of the capital city of Carhara.

  “Came back last night.”

  He skirted around Reeve. “Perhaps he is still as intoxicated as I am.”

  Reeve narrowed his eyes. “You don’t look too bad.”

  “You mean that you’ve seen me look worse.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Reeve said, exasperated. “If you see Zorian, will you send him my way? We have an outstanding dice game.”

  “Dicing?” Ahlvie’s eyes lit up. “Let me know when you play.”

  “I would if I wanted to lose.”

  Ahlvie smirked at him. “I’ll tell Zorian about the dicing if I see him, and we’ll find a time to play.”

  Reeve shook his head, but Ahlvie knew that Reeve would dice with him later. Ahlvie’s fingers itched for his own dice to throw. He thrust them into his pockets and ignored the inclination.

  He swung around to the back entrance to the High Order quarters, which the guys called the Flames. Guards were stationed at the exit. Most of them knew him by sight. Still, he could sneak by them at night. Considering the security of the castle, it could be done a little too easily, but it was convenient for him.

  Ahlvie left the grounds on a path that ended in an unpleasant steep descent into the capital city. He wasn’t sure how he had come back this way last night while completely obliterated. As he skidded down the slope, he saw a large body passed out in the middle of the path.

  Ahlvie laughed out loud and jogged down toward the man. Apparently, he hadn’t been the only person sneaking in and out of the castle while inebriated.

  “Hey!” Ahlvie called out. “Had a bit too much to drink, my friend?”

  Rolling the man over onto his back, Ahlvie got a clear look at the man and then stumbled backward a few steps in horror. He fell onto the rocks and wretched up whatever was left in his stomach.

  Most of the man’s face was…missing.

  Cyrene awoke the next morning, aching all over. She had tended to her wounds last night, and she was surprised to see her injuries were healing remarkably fast. She was still stiff and sore, but after a few steps, she managed to walk with
out flinching.

  Two servant girls in long-sleeved white gowns arrived to help her dress in a sky-blue gown with cream lace sleeves. They placed a plate of toasted bread, seasonal berries, and a hard-boiled egg on her table along with a fresh pot of tea. She graciously thanked them before they departed.

  After taking the last sip of her tea, Cyrene placed the porcelain cup on the matching saucer and stood from the sofa in her sitting room. She eased her damaged fingers into her plait and tried to loosen some of the strands. She had already woken up with a headache that morning with the memory of what had happened the night before still fresh. She shuddered at the thought of Kael and the warrior ceremony and hoped that no one else would find out about either incident.

  Trying to push that out of her mind, she focused on her fast approaching meeting with Queen Kaliana. Cyrene would be given her official duties as an Affiliate today.

  Cyrene wasn’t certain where she was supposed to meet the Queen. Despite her fears, she opened the door to her chambers and gazed out into the empty hallway.

  Her heart sank. No one was there to direct her, but at least there weren’t masked figures. She wished she had thought to ask the servants. The next best thing would be to hunt down the directory from last night.

  As she was about to start wandering the corridors, the door next to her room opened, and a petite girl no older than Cyrene with stick-straight blonde hair walked out in a pale yellow gown, her nose buried in a book.

  “Um…excuse me,” Cyrene called out.

  The girl stopped abruptly and looked up from her book in confusion. “Yes?”

  “Sorry to bother you, uh…Affiliate. I’m supposed to have a meeting with Queen Kaliana. Do you think you could direct me to her rooms?”

  “Oh. Yes, of course, I can,” she said with a bright smile. She closed the book and held it against her chest. “If you want to follow me, I can take you there myself.”

  “That would be most helpful. Thank you.”