Tesni went to bed with a sick feeling in her stomach. She hadn’t intended to reveal anything of import about the Wilde boy, not when he knew her greatest secret. It had just slipped out. She didn’t doubt that the General would get what he wanted from him. She just hoped he wouldn’t give her up in the process.

After tossing and turning, Tesni fell asleep eventually, only to be rudely awoken at the crack of dawn. Her mother shook her shoulders, jarring her awake.

Tesni rubbed her eyes. “Is it morning already?”

Her mother’s lips were pinched. “Not by genteel standards.” Anytime before noon was not morning as far as Mared Kendrick was concerned. “Get up, child. Your father insists.”

“Why? I don’t have any studies until tomorrow.”                                                                                      

Mared wrung her hands. “State business, he said. Do hurry and get dressed, Tes. Gareth is waiting for you outside.”

Fully awake now, she asked, “State business? Me?”

Her mother gave her a pointed look. “Walking into the gael with that Wilde boy? You meddled where you shouldn’t have, and now you’ve gone and gotten yourself involved.”

Her heart leapt into her throat. “Involved in what?”

“The General’s affairs.” Her mother sniffed. “Nasty business, war.” She made a show of yawning (covering her mouth, of course). “Now that I’ve done my civic duty, I’m going back to bed. Don’t keep Gareth waiting.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Unsure of where she was going or what her father had planned, Tesni dressed in a sensible muslin walking dress and sturdy boots, and tied up her hair into a simple knot. She spared five minutes to wash her face and apply a bit of powder to the apples of her cheeks. Beauty was its own weapon—that was something she’d learned from her mother—and she wanted to be prepared for anything. Her smile might be the only thing that saved her if her secret somehow came to light.

Gareth waited for her on stone steps of the porch outside the front door, tapping his foot. “What took you so long?”

“The sun’s barely up,” she pointed out. “Now where is it we’re going?”

“Back to the gael,” said Gareth. “The General seems to think your presence will loosen the Wilde’s tongue.”

Tesni hid her nerves behind a wall of sarcasm. “I take it from your tone you disagree.”

“It’s not my place to question the General’s decisions,” he said stiffly. “Let’s go. I’ve called for a hackney coach. It’s waiting for us at the end of the driveway.”

“We aren’t walking?” she asked, surprised.

He shook his head. “We haven’t the time.”

Without further ado, they bundled into the horse-drawn hackney and sped off at a near gallop toward the gael. At Gareth’s command, the jarvey drew to a halt a short distance from the prison grounds. “We’ll walk from here,” he told the jarvey, handing him a few banknotes to cover their ride.

The warden stood at his same post by the gated front door. She wondered if he ever slept. “Lieutenant,” he said, nodding at Gareth, and then he beamed at the sight of Tesni beside him. “Twice in two days, Miss Kendrick. I’m a lucky man.”

She smiled wanly in return; her hands were sweating and she wasn’t able to muster her usual enthusiasm. “You’re too kind.”

“The General is around back, in the prison yard,” the Warden said to Gareth. “Shall I take you to him?”

“At once.”

The Warden glanced at Tesni and cringed. “Both of you? Pardon my saying so, but it’s no sight for a young lady. Perhaps Miss Kendrick would prefer to stay here?”

Gareth clenched his jaw. “I follow the General’s orders, Warden. Miss Kendrick comes with me.”

The Warden gave her another uncertain look. “As you say, Lieutenant. Follow me.”

He took them through the gated front door into the gael and guided them through the maze of hallways by torchlight; the gael was no brighter at dawn than it was at the dusk of night.  They were led to a wrought iron grated door with a heavy lock. The Warden fished out a key that hung from a long chain underneath his uniform. “Through here,” he said, opening the door and closing it behind them.

Grown accustomed to the darkness of the gael, Tesni was momentarily blinded by the sun. She blinked, and the prison yard came into focus. The stone walls were high and near impossible to scale, topped with loops of barbed wire that were just barely visible from the ground. She couldn’t see far into the yard; rows of soldiers in gray uniforms stood around the periphery in a loose formation, their guns resting on their shoulders. Tesni peered between their shoulders, trying to see beyond them.

A shot rang out, and someone—a boy—shouted in a foreign tongue.

Her pulse spiked. The Wilde boy. Was he dead? “Let me through,” she commanded, and without bothering to wait for Gareth, she shoved past her father’s soldiers.

Tesni gasped. A man lay sprawled in the grass, a bullet through the back of his neck, chains around his hands and ankles. He twitched once, twice, and then lay still. A Wilde was dead, but it wasn’t her Wilde boy.

No, her Wilde boy was alive, albeit a very bruised and battered alive. He was chained up like a dog to a tree in the middle of the prison yard. He sat on his knees, his hands tied in front of him. His face was beaten and bloody, and one of his eyes had swollen entirely shut. His hair had come loose from its braid, spilling in wild, tangled waves around his shoulders. The General loomed behind him, gripping the boy’s shoulder with one hand and a whip in the other.

He saw her with his one good eye, and his face crumpled in anger. “Durzu!” he swore at her.

She didn’t know what “durzu” meant, but she could guess well enough. It was her and her big mouth’s fault he was here, facing the General’s ire. Guilt consumed her.

Her father broke into a smile, stepping away from the Wilde boy and pulling her into a hug. “Tesni, my dear. Thank you for joining us.”

As if she’d had a say in the matter. “Why did you bring me here, Father?” Thinking quickly, she added with a small shudder, “There is a dead man, Father. I want to go home.”

He patted her hair. “I’m sorry, Tessie, but it’s for the good of Oldfall.” In a voice that carried, he said, “Is it true, Tesni, that you heard the enemy speak in Commons?”

She looked over at the Wilde boy, and he watched her with a guarded expression. She wanted to protect him, but she couldn’t change her story now, not in front of all her father’s men. “Yes, General.”

His eyes flashed with betrayal, and she felt another deep stab of guilt. I’m sorry, she wanted to say, but he’s my father.

“I believe you, Tessie, my girl,” said the General. He strode back to the Wilde boy’s side. “But our young prisoner refuses to speak in anything but Wildish, despite my very best efforts to convince him otherwise.” He grabbed the Wilde boy by his hair and yanked his head back. “Did you speak to my daughter, vermin?”

The boy responded by spitting in the General’s face.

Foolish boy, thought Tesni. Foolish, brave boy.

The General retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and coolly wiped off the spittle. “I will take that as a yes. Now, what will it take to get you to speak to me?”

The boy said nothing, his lips pressed in a firm line.

Unflustered, the General turned to Gareth, who waited at attention nearby. “Fetch another Wilde prisoner from his cell and bring him to me.” He smiled grimly at the boy. “How many of your comrades are you willing to let die for your pride?”

Minutes later, Gareth returned with a chained prisoner in tow. Tesni recognized him as one of the six Wilde men who had yesterday stood bleeding in her mother’s parlor. He was a fierce-looking man, with a double-braided black beard and a tattoo over the left side of his face.

“Hakon!” said the boy.

The fierce-looking man looked up and said something quickly in Wildish.

“Nie,” the boy said, shaking his head. “Nie, Hakon!”

Hakon dipped his head and said another short phrase in Wildish.

When Tesni looked back to the boy, his eyes were wet, but he nodded at whatever it was Hakon had said.

“Enough chatter,” said the General. He withdrew his pistol from its holster and placed the barrel to Hakon’s forehead.

Tesni squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t watch this. She was going to be ill.

“Talk, boy,” said the General. “Or your friend is dead.”

There was a slight click as he flicked off the safety of his gun.

“Hakon!” the boy cried out. “Hosun!”

“Last chance,” her father warned.

He was going to do it. She’d seen the dead Wilde when she’d arrived. He’d do it again. A man was going to die, and it was her fault. She might as well have pulled the trigger herself.

“Wait!”

A hundred pairs of eyes swung to her. The General sighed in frustration, dropping the pistol to his side. “What is it now, Tesni?”

“It’s just—does he have to die?”

Her father frowned. “Your sentimentality is sweet, but misplaced. These men are magicked savages.”

She winced at the careless insult. She had magic—if the General knew, would he put a bullet through her head, too? She took a deep breath as her mind formulated a plan. “What if…what if we were to work out a compromise?”

The General folded his arms over his chest. “A compromise? Of what nature?”

She spoke directly to the Wilde boy. “Would you talk to me? If my father weren’t there? You did before.”

The boy looked back and forth between her and her father. “Durzu,” he sneered.

Tesni walked closer until she stood just a few feet away. I’m sorry, she tried to say with her eyes. “For Hakon,” she said quietly, and willed him to trust her, to give her a second chance.

She turned back towards her father. “I propose that I serve as your conduit. I will meet with the Wilde prisoner and ask him your questions.” She managed to give him a cheeky grin. “Who better to report back to you than your own blood?”

“I’ll do it,” the Wilde boy said in Commons. Tesni was shocked into silence. “If the kokot agrees to my terms.”

Tesni coughed into her hand. “He means you, Father.”

“I’m listening,” said the General. A small smile played on his lips.

“I will speak to you and to you alone,” the boy said to Tesni. “And if any more of my companions are killed, our deal is over.”

“Agreed,” the General said quickly.

The boy shot him a dirty look. “I will need proof. Every day, you will take me here to the prison yard, and you will show me my friends are alive.”

The General’s mouth twisted. “Fine. Agreed.”

“It is settled, then.”

“Not quite,” said the General. He crouched down in front of the Wilde boy and gripped him roughly by the jaw. “You touch one hair on my daughter’s head, and I will flay you alive.”

A/N Yay new chapter part! Still a bit out of writing practice...please give me your honest feedback and let me know how I'm doing on this new story! Gracias.