And her name is…

I wake up with my pants on, and both my towels and food tray are gone. He must have dressed me after I fell asleep, but I can’t bring myself to be embarrassed after everything else that’s happened between us.

No sooner am I up before the doors are opening and Kheliq is marching in. The part of me that missed not seeing Wulfric go shrivelled up and died as I prepared for what peace I had to be destroyed. He flicks his hand toward my cell door and the guard with the key jumps up to open it.

The metal key sounds cold and disappointing as it’s turned in the lock before…

“Your highness!” The voice is Wulfric’s but I can’t see him with those in front of my cell and I’m not about to move to change that. “There you are. I was looking for you. What are you doing spending such a lovely day down here?”

I could see Kheliq’s lip curl in distaste, his grand entrance to my cell has been ruined and his motives questioned. Then he schools his face and turns around with a grand, fake, smile.

“General! I won’t be long, just here to collect…”

“Blood?” Wulfric gasped with something like disgust in his voice. “Didn’t you just do that for the Queen’s tea with the ladies? How much blood do you expect a little mouse to have?” By the end of his question he is laughing almost cruelly.

“She’s survived this long,” Kheliq mutters under his breath, turning slightly to glare at me like I was a puddle he’d stepped in. “There’s clearly more she’s hiding.”

“And you think you’ll figure it out by bleeding her dry? Whatever, I was going to take some of the boys hunting. We’ll be running into the cold season soon and there’s only a month or two left before most of the game is migrating to stay warm, but I guess you’d rather stay here?”

“No,” Kheliq says immediately his eyes alight with the thrill of a hunt. “The half-breed can wait. Have the hands bring out my horse and I’ll go change.” He turns to me and sneers, “another time.”

The door closes behind him and I almost cheer. I’m left sitting up on my cot just grinning ear to ear and the guards look at me with something akin to fear. I know I must look insane, and I still have to crawl across the ground to get my breakfast when it arrives, but I feel like my strength is starting to return.

I spend the morning talking about the clock tower we attempted to put in and how it wouldn’t keep time no matter how hard we tried. The bloody thing was always off, and if I climbed up to fix it in the morning it would be wrong by dinner. On the last day the town could boast any population at all, I swear it tolled midnight as I was carted away, bound and nearly unconscious draped over someone’s horse, even though the sun was clearly rising.

-

Kheliq comes marching in just before lunch. His cloak is muddy around the bottom and his shoes looked soaked through. His face is red with fury and as he enters I try to shield my face with my arms but he just shoves my entire body into the wall and I heard the knocking of my skull before I blacked out.

-

I wake up by dinner, though the food on the tray does little to help my aching stomach. I was up briefly around lunch but with the throbbing pain in my head, my body sought out sleep to avoid it. My head still throbs and I look hopefully to the guard with the green eyes. He meets my gaze with questions and concerns.

“Is thereanyway, I could get some more water?” I’m nearly begging, but doubtful that he’ll do anything.

Instead of laughing and turning me down he thinks about it. This is already more than I’ve gotten before and I sit on the floor in front of the tray gap patiently. After a moment he nods and picks up the cup.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

The guards never use each others names and I find myself disappointed that they never slip up, even when they talk without meaning to.

“It’s water,” he grumbles back. “I don’t recall ever being told her water intake was limited, do you? Let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute, we know her affinity isn’t water or she would have utilized that when she was outside beside the pond. It could be like medicinal, or something, but it could just as easily be something a lot of us can do. Have you ever heard of Sioga drinking each others blood?”

He slips his hand between the bars and hands me the cup. “Thank you.”

My eyes almost start watering at the sight of the full cup. My fingers tremble intentionally as they brush his and take the cup. Then I’m drinking it slowly down, hoping it won’t run right through me and cause me to need to pee right away.

“Why does the General call you little mouse?” the guard asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Why, what does Kheliq call me?” I return, noticing how my guards have long since stopped trying to make me use his title but still bristle when I do it.

“ ‘She’ or ‘the half-breed’ mostly,” he chuckles.

I take a break from the water and look up at him, forming a plan behind my innocent eyes. “Maybe it’s because he knows more than one she or half breed,” I tease, “or because he doesn’t know my name and it’s been so long that neither of them willreducethemselves to asking.”

The guard returns to his spot against the wall but several of them are chuckling with him as he asks. “They’ve never asked your name?” I shake my head. “Has anyone?” Again I shake my head. “Would you tell me?”

I smirk. “I don’t know. I feel like I have some world record going on here. With how close me and all of you are, I feel like this is the world’s longest relationship without sharing names. Do we really want to ruin that streak?”

A guard in the corner with deep pink eyes, deep skin, and thick hair leans forward and I’m stunned. “I do, this is too good. My name is Rook, what’s your name?”

Rooklooks excited and, I have to admit, so am I. Before I can say anything I get three more names. Tradd, Zev, Kipp. I barely see who is giving me the names as they shout them out.

“Wait, wait. This isn’t fair. I have like six names to learn, you only have one, and I don’t trust you to repeat them after you know mine. Give me like… a week to learn them and I’ll tell you mine,” I bargain.

“A week to learn six names? Are you slow?” One who hadn’t spoken yet mocks.

“I expect Kheliq to continue how he’s always been and one good kick to the head will erase the whole fucking day. I’m probably going to need to learn them twice.” I roll my eyes and place the empty cup on the tray.

“Still,” the same one mutters.

I pretend to be thinking up this idea for the first time. “Okay… what if.. okay. You get the other shifts in on it, give me… two days on top of the week and I’ll give you my last name too.”

The green eyed one laughs loudly. “Why would you do that? You could just as easily give us a fake name.”

My eyes light up. “He’s never asked my name. Never in six years has your king thought it necessary to know the name of the girl he kidnapped and tortures. I think it’ll be hilarious that his entire guard squad knows something he deemed unnecessary.”