Tainted

Chapter Nineteen

Silence.

"Heva." It's the healer's sharp voice in his own tongue.

"The warden knows she's here," Alani repeats. Her feet move quickly across the stone floor as she hurries over and pulls the blanket back from my face.

Alani looks petrified, her blue eyes wide and fearful.

"Mira you need to leave," she says.

I don't move. "What?"

Alani tugs at my hands, trying to pull me from the table. My right arm burns and tears leapt to my eyes. I sit up and my muscles tingle as the blood rushes back to places I'd let fall numb.

"Get up. He's coming," Alani says. She presses a thick, velvet cloak of the deepest forest green into my lap. It's lined in soft white fur with a diamond-ringed gold clasp stitched just below the neck. I rub my fingers along the fabric instinctively. It's beautiful.

"Wear this. You'll look like a noble. Keep the hood up. The guards don't pay attention to faces. I'll take you to the dungeon. You can escape there." Alani opens a cabinet and takes down a vial of medicine. She stuffs it into a small purse cut from the same cloth as the cloak.

"Gregor, go and make ready the rope," Alani says to him. She reaches into another cabinet and snatches a wad of fresh bandages, adding them to the purse.

The healer stares at her. He seems to be calculating something in his mind, and I'm wondering if it's whether or not I'm worth saving.

Sighing heavily, he removes the healer's coat and hangs it on a peg by the door opposite the prison. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, his fingers clawed around the brass ball.

"Please, Gregor," Alani says quietly. Tears well at the corners of her eyes. They sparkle and glisten in the torchlight.

The healer doesn't look back. He simply twists the knob and slips through the gap between the door and the jamb, pulling the door closed behind him. A key sounds in the lock, followed by the deadbolt slamming home, and then...nothing.

I have enough time for a quick breath before I hear it. Footsteps.

I slide off the table and my legs buckle beneath me. I have to keep a hand pressed to the scarred wooden surface to keep from falling.

"Put it on, put it on," Alani says. She tries to pull the cloak around my shoulders, but her hands are shaking too much for her to be of any real help.

I still feel dazed as I fumble to fit the heavy cloak around my body. I watch Alani bunch her skirts in her hands as I snap the cloak's clasp shut around my neck.

"How am I supposed to escape through the dungeon?" I ask.

Alani places her ear against the door leading to the prison cells. From behind the other door, we can hear the metallic clang of the guards' footsteps. They're getting closer.

The blood rushes through my heart. I feel on the verge of running. Through the door beyond Alani is freedom. No one knows I'm alive. I can run and run and never come back. But behind me, is the warden. And once he sees me, I know it won't be enough for me to simply die again. He'll do something awful to make me pay for what I've done.

It would be a long time before the warden let me die.

"Alani, please." I hate how I'm mirroring her begging tone with the healer, but I'm about ready to push her aside and run for it. I can't go through whatever the warden will make me do, I can't. It'll break me, and I'm not strong enough.

"Gregor will be at the top of the skylight. He'll send down a rope. Climb the rope, and then you're free," Alani says. She still has her cheek stuck tight to the wood grain of the door.