At some point, Tiiran’s stomach ceased to growl and merely hurt. The door didn’t open, even when he waited and watched. He assumed his fate had been decided at last, but when he pushed himself to his feet and shuffled to the door to be sure, the hall outside was silent.
Stretching unsteadily, he peered out of the opening, but all he saw was flickering torchlight. No movement. There was still not a sound.
“Hello?” He had to lick his cracked lips to speak at all, and nearly fell after trying again as loud as he could. “Not a fucking guard to be found?”
The demand echoed back to him, unanswered.
“Seems to be my destiny,” Tiiran rasped to himself, “asking but getting no reply.”
He stepped down, then was pulled forward, his head smacking against the door when the tip of his boot caught in the hem of his robe where his mending had again given way. His hiss of pain didn’t quite drown out the clatter of metal hitting stone, and he looked down reflexively, although he had to crouch to find the source of the sound—Mattin’s broken hair clasp, now mostly twisted wire.
Tiiran turned with it in his hand to stare at the tiny sliver of light coming from the door handle.
From the lock mechanism on the door handle.
Once again, he was going to have to do everything himself.
If he could.
He’d never picked a lock before.
In addition to lock-picking, Tiiran would have to take time from his studies to learn the proper layout of the palace. That was, if he returned to his studies. He had no actual idea if he would be able to, or how to even find his way out of this building, whatever building it was. And if he did, he didn’t know where he would go. But he wasn’t thinking of that now, except for fleeting, dizzy ideas about sneaking to his room for a bath and clean clothes, so he wouldn’t look like someone escaping from being held captive. Beyond that, the only way out of the palace he knew of was the main gate, and he doubted he’d make it through there without being noticed.
Maybe he would stay within the palace and find Piya, and as a final act before he fainted or was killed, Tiiran could tell the king what he truly thought of him.
He walked down the corridor from his tiny cell, closing the door behind him, and considered hiding, but though someone had put torches up to light the hall, no one was there to hidefrom. The rooms appeared empty.
Tiiran was possibly feverish and dreaming. He kept walking until he found stairs, where he rested and debated directions before deciding onup. It should at least be less damp on the upper floors.
At the landing, he had to rest again, which gave him plenty of opportunity to peer around the corner of the stairwell into a new hall, also lit with torches. The hall was lined with doors, all of which were swinging open. He saw a makeshift table made of a flat plank of wood atop two barrels, with dice as well as an abandoned bottle and three cups, as if bored guards had been playing a game to pass the time but had left in a hurry.
The bottle was tempting. Tiiran ambled toward it, wrinkling his nose at the smell of wine but guzzling it anyway to wet his throat.
Noises cut short his moment of triumph at finally having his thirst somewhat quenched. Some distance away there was a commotion. Shouts.
Tiiran had heard shouts like that within the palace before, and ducked behind and beneath the table, visible to anyone who cared to bend down, which hopefully no one would.
The shouting grew louder.
He would not escape the palace, Tiiran reflected without much feeling. He wouldn’t even get a chance to shove the truth down Piya’s throat, which sparked a small bit of fury in his heart. Maybe the wine had granted him his temper back. It might also have numbed him to fear as the shouts became cries, and pounding footsteps, and then the crash of something heavy through, or onto, something solid.
“You can’t let them get to the lower levels! It’s all we’ve got to—”
Tiiran shut his eyes at the sudden, pained groan that cut off the words, then flinched and opened his eyes at the clash of metal on metal.
One of the noble families must have chosen action. Palace guards against sworn guards, or against nobles themselves who had learned to fight. That was good for everyone except the palace guards, but they had chosen this, so Tiiran chose not to care about them.
“We can bargain!” someone shouted. “We know where…”
“Bargain?” someone interrupted in a voice shaking with fury. “Bargain?”
A third speaker did not sound angry and yet Tiiran quailed at the calm, cold rumble that carried down the hall. “You don’t bargain with lives.”
The furious speaker must have agreed, although he only grew angrier. “Tell us where he is and I won’t kill you.”
Tiiran almost didn’t recognize the voice with its softness all afire. He was dreaming, he reminded himself, feverish. Drunk as well, now.
More stumbling and clashing metal shook him from his daze, and he peeked out from around a barrel to the bloody chaos at the end of the hall by the stairs.
