"I can't unlock the Woodcourt door until everyone is safely put into cells," the guard explained to me. "Wait on the stairs, out of their way, or you might accidentally be put back into the cells with them."
Trina grabbed my arm and pulled me up onto the stairs. Not that I needed any persuasion. I couldn't go down into the dungeons again. I barely could tolerate being here on the stairs, which by comparison felt like a palace.
Five Dominion soldiers came in, accompanied by a line of prisoners too beaten down to raise their heads, much less offer any resistance.
"Why are these people here?" the dungeon guard asked. "Another uprising?"
One of the soldiers had already noticed me and cocked his head. "Kestra Dallisor? My lady, it's appropriate that you're here to welcome this scum. Your father ordered these Coracks rounded up in revenge for the attack on you at the inn. Dallisors always get the last word, no?"
"Kestra wasn't attacked!" Forgetting her role as a handmaiden, Trina had stepped in front of me, nearly bursting with anger.
"The master described sores on his daughter's wrists, and a cut. Someone tried to kill her. Sir Henry wants people to know what happens to those who attack his family."
Considering the reason I was in these dungeons in the first place, that was a joke, and I would've told him so if a face had not caught my attention in the crowd of new prisoners.
Rosalie.
The young girl whose bread was stolen from the market. It was easy to spot her because she still wore the cloak I had given her yesterday. It was wrapped tightly around her like a shell she hoped would protect her from whatever was coming next.
I hurried to the bottom of the stairs and pointed her out, saying to the soldier, "That girl with the cloak, she's only a child. You know she could not have been involved in the attack at that inn."
"Of course not, my lady. But that's a Dallisor cloak she wears, so she knows more than she's saying, and she'll hang with the others."
"This is ridiculous!" I snapped. "I gave her that cloak myself. She's done nothing wrong!"
"Tell that to your father," he said. "I have no authority to release the prisoners once they're here."
"Your father won't release them
either," Trina whispered.
No, he wouldn't. He believed compassion was a weakness, and refused to admit a Dallisor could ever make a mistake--even in the arrest of a young girl. But I had to try.
I started up the stairs again when Trina grabbed my arm, pulling me back beside her and nodding in the direction she wanted me to look. One man had stopped directly on the dungeon slope, his eyes on us, seemingly unaware of the other prisoners around him. The way his gold metal leg glinted against the torchlight should have already caught my attention.
Captain Grey Tenger.
I wasn't sure whether he was staring at me or at Trina, and it probably didn't matter. His expression was like stone, a practiced indifference to what was happening around him. He was in the middle of the line, unchained and with a shiny black eye. If the soldiers had known who he was, a fist to his face would've been nothing. They'd have shot him on the road.
"Is there a problem, my lady?" the guard asked.
"No," I mumbled. Yet another lie.
Should I tell them about Tenger? He was responsible for the attack on me, for what was happening to Celia and Darrow, and for the fact that my life was in complete chaos. Only two days ago, I had quietly vowed to destroy the rebellion.
Now here was their leader, in the bowels of the Dallisor dungeons. All it would take was a few words from me and I could end the Corack rebellion where it stood. I didn't need to prove who Tenger was. My accusation was enough to guarantee his immediate death. Trina's too.
And Simon's.
Darrow's and Celia's deaths would follow, wherever they were.
And mine, eventually. The Coracks would see to that.
But this was no longer about my life, I understood that now. I'd just spent hours in a dungeon once occupied by two women who sacrificed everything in the hope of defeating Lord Endrick. The Coracks wanted to continue their quest, and had forced me into their battle. My only remaining question was, would I join that fight, even if I were not compelled?
The churning in my gut returned, worse than before. I didn't like Tenger, didn't trust him, and the idea of helping him achieve anything made my head spin. But he was on the right side of the battle. He would make me a traitor after all.
"Take us upstairs," I ordered the dungeon guard. "Now."