He put on a pair of spectacles and inspected the trooper as if to see if he was, perhaps, a young prince, dressed up and playing a joke. "There have never been prisoners here as long as I've been dungeon master."
"There are prisoners now. Come out and show them to their new quarters."
"Hold your yaks, then, while I get the key. Never had need of it afore." He ducked back inside and returned in a moment with a large key.
Crossing the hall he inserted it into a door. "One prisoner in here."
Consecration's trooper gave him a shove. He landed on his face on the icy floor and cried out.
The dungeon master moved to the next door and inserted the key again. "And this one for you, my dear," he said looking intently at Repentance. "I hope you find the accommodations comfortable. If not, don't hesitate to tell me." He laughed, his eyes distorted and eerie-looking behind thick glasses.
Repentance hurried in to keep from being pushed.
The door slammed behind her.
She let her eyes adjust to the dim light in her cell. There were no suncloths but a small window in the door let light in from the bright corridor.
Bitter cold came off the bare ice floor, passing through her slippers and burning her feet. The cell had no furniture—nothing she could climb up on. She lifted one foot and then the other, like a trotting yak, trying to keep her feet off the floor. In one corner she spotted a bit of material bunched up. Lavacloth. She spread it on the floor and sat down.
Her cell was ten feet by ten feet, solid ice. Nothing in it at all except for one square of yellow light lying, like a golden brick, in the middle of the icy floor. She saw a shadow in the corner opposite her and went to investigate. It turned out to be a hole in the floor big enough for a baby to fit through but not big enough for Repentance. A freezing fog rose from it. She couldn't have escaped that way, even if she had fit. Under that hole was the freezing lake. She'd die in an instant if she fell in there.
Repentance returned to her lava cloth and curled up on top of it, hugging herself to stay warm, and staring at the patch of light on her floor.
All she'd wanted was to keep from having her babies stolen, really. She could have been content on a sunny farm, working hard and minding her own business. She could have even learned to be content in the choking fog, down with the whispering villagers who supposed she was cursed. If only the overlords would have not have forced her to button and breed.
She'd stood up to the overlords.
Had it been worth it?
She'd never have to give sons to the evil warthogs. They could kill her, but at least she wouldn't leave behind any pieces of herself to go on suffering. And she had a little sunlight besides. She'd longed for sunlight ever since she'd read about it in her schoolbooks. And now she had one little square of the lovely stuff, sitting on her cell floor. The yellow light wasn't thrown from the sun directly, but it was still good.
Had it been worth it? She worked her buttons around and around in her pocket. She could have buttoned with Sober. She closed her eyes and pictured his smile, his warm eyes looking into hers with that look ... the one that made her knees feel a weak. She could have shared a home with him.
But she wouldn't have been happy. She would have hated herself for giving in. For giving up. For giving away her babies.
A picture of Comfort flitted into her head. She had ruined Comfort's life. Oh, if only Providence would wake up and start looking after the lowborns.
She didn't remember even closing her eyes, but when she opened them back up, she knew she'd been asleep. She didn't know for how long. The little square of light on her floor hadn't moved. It would never move unless someone covered the suncloths in the corridor.
She stretched, looked around the room, then, because she had no reason to keep them open, she shut her eyes again.
Thoughts of her first trip up the mountain—the first time she saw sunlight, and snow, and trees dripping shadows in green meadows—washed across her mind. She remembered the stars, glowing like drops of molten metal on black velvet. Who knew the world was so beautiful?
She slept again, this time waking with a raging thirst.
And other needs. She looked for a waste stool so she could relieve herself. Ah, that's what the hole in the floor was for. It was hard to manage, without touching the ice and burning her skin. She had to hold the lavacloth against the wall and balance carefully as she leaned back.
Exhausted from that meager effort, she slept again and dreamt that she was eating hot sand that burned her mouth and throat.
The key in the lock grated into her dreams and yanked her from the sandy bank at the village swimming hole back into her cold dungeon cell.
Her small square of light grew narrow, and ran ahead of a large golden rectangle, which raced across the floor as the door swung open. The large rectangle finally caught the smaller one and gobbled it up. Repentance felt a stab in her heart as if she'd lost a friend.
"Stand and bow." It was the prince. So he was come to torture her before she died. She was not to die in peace, after all.
Her tongue felt fat and dry, but she managed to speak with venom, all the same. "I don't bow to murderers."
"You are still not ready to admit your guilt?'
She began to hum.
