“Barely,” Paxton answered. “My family was cast out generations ago.”
“Let’s show her,” Banques said. “Show her why she should agree to your proposition.”
I felt the numbing heat of the wine in my belly, wishing it could numb far more. “I will never agree to any proposition.”
Banques smiled. “Oh, I think there’s something that might change your mind.”
“Maybe I’m a bit of a gambler after all,” the king said, stepping forward, unafraid, “and the best gamblers always hold back a bit of negotiating gold.”
I stared at him, his eyes like hard glass, and icy fingers clutched my spine. Was his bumbling, oafish manner just a part of the façade he had carefully groomed for years? Suri. Such is the life of a farmer king. I remembered his shrug and clownish grin. That was not remotely the man who stood before me now. There was awareness in his gaze, and a swagger in his stance. He knew what I was thinking, and it seemed to energize him, the sly king at last taking center stage.
“Go,” he said. “Look out the window. There are other guests here at the inn whom I think you know.” He nodded to Truko.
Truko was a hulk of a man with unruly hair and wiry black brows always pulled in a scowl. His eyes were wide and unblinking. When I had told Jase about one of my rules of survival, blink last, he was amused, laughing that it was one of the things he hated about Truko—the man never blinked. Jase never knew what was going on in his head. As I met his frozen stare now, there was nothing amusing about it. His steps wheezed against the floor as he plodded to the window and whisked back the drapes.
This was no bluff. I knew before I even lowered the fork or walked to the window that the king had won. That Death had seen all of this coming and that was why he shook his head at me.
“Go,” the king repeated. “See who is out there. I think you’ll be surprised.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JASE
It was the sound of water rushing over stones. A sucking, gurgling noise like a tide rushing out. It came again. And again. It ebbed and rose with the stab in my chest and then I realized it was not stones and water I heard. It was my own breaths, liquid, wet, the sounds of me trying to breathe.
There were other sounds, distant, garbled voices, but those didn’t matter.
Only the stones, the water, the next breath.
Write it down, before you forget.
And each day we do.
But we can only write about Now.
Before is already gone, except for the nightmares.
Every night we must comfort the younger ones.
All they know of Before is the After.
They are afraid it will happen again, that our new family will be torn apart.
That is the reason we hide in here, Nisa cries.
She is right.
I am afraid too.
My grandfather believed in me.
I try to believe like he did, but som
e nights, after Nisa is asleep, I cry too.
—Greyson Ballenger, 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN