I scratch up dirt from between the stones in the floor and rub the damp grain between my finger and thumb. Then I add the tiny ball to the fragments lined up on the end plank of the cage pallet. Eight pieces of stone dust and dirt. I'm uncertain how much time has passed, but for every approximate hour, I've added another piece.

What I do know is time is running out. The all-night sun may only be a couple of weeks away, but the days do not yet stretch so long that they can elude night altogether.

Soon after Sixe left, one of the guards roused and staggered off for help. The soldier with the rumpled ear-skin who wanted me to crawl to the throne room arrived. While his unit carried the unconscious guard to the army infirmary, rumpled-skin rattled the bars, spitting and cursing and promising me he would be standing in the front row at the hanging, applauding my death. Curled on the pallet with my back to him, I was thankful this time that Strik was the only one with a key to my cage.

Since then, the last few hours have been uneventful. If waiting to die could ever be considered a non-event. The cold, the pain, the hunger and exhaustion of my body are excruciating. But the real nightmare is agonising over how I will never have said goodbye to Ma and Pa. I will never have thanked them for everything they gave up to keep me safe. I will never be able to explain to Kel why I didn't make it back with Tug.

Because Tug will make it back to Lyndonia. Neither he nor the Prince are going to get themselves killed trying to save me. When the guards come, I will take Calmi's potion. Oh, she has been clever, giving me a choice when she knows it is no choice at all.

There is every possibility the potion is Blue Death or a poison she made to kill her grandfather. But by telling me I have a chance of waking from the coma she avoids serving me the ultimate test of self-sacrifice. A test she is not convinced I would pass?

As dusk grows closer, I find myself on my knees praying to Jakut's Gods, or any Gods who will listen. Praying that by some miracle the Prince will find a way to rid Caruca of Lord Strik before the hanging. Praying I will wake from Calmi's coma. Praying Kel has grown strong in the days we have been apart. Strong enough to keep it together when he sees Beast-face coming for him, instead of me.

I should have given Tug a message, like Calmi spoke through Sixe to me. Explained that Tug is no longer our captor, but our friend. At least then Kel would have believed I had sent Tug to take him home.

I'm lying on my pallet muttering to myself and shivering when a dark cloud of energy sweeps through the mind-world. I strain to pull myself up to a seated position. Is it dusk already? Has Strik come to fetch me in person?

Pain shoots through my foot when it touches the ground. My fingers fumble over the tiny clumps of dirt. Ten. There should be at least fourteen. The sun had only just risen when I was taken to the throne room. Surely it's not time yet. It can't be.

The guards become aware of our approaching company a few seconds after I do. They stand to attention, muscles taut, backs straight.

The passage grows light. Two boys carrying torches emerge from the gloom, followed by a girl with a bowl and funnel, Strik's assassins, and Lord Strik himself, tall, dignified, changed from this morning's attire into a black tunic with dark, supple trousers.

My heart feels erratic, as though I might be having a seizure even without Calmi's poison mix. I fumble with the miniature crystal bottle, only now remembering I am holding it, and I was supposed to take it before I was collected for the hanging. Too late. With a shaky hand, I hide it in the bandage next to my wrist.

Strik steps through his entourage and opens the cage door. It swings back clanging against the wall. He is the first to enter, followed by the boys who attach metal wires to the bars to hold the torches. Then the assassins kick aside damp straw in the murky corners, pull me off the pallet, check under the boards, run their hands over my waist and down my legs for weapons.

I shiver at their touch, avoiding Strik's gaze which is riveted on me from where he stands in the center of the cage, his strong lined face awash in orange flame.

A table and chair are set up before my pallet. The girl sprays the cage with a strange skin sac attached to a silver funnel. Misty vapour perfumed with cloves, orange, rose petals, and other scents I do not recognize, fills the air. A boy settles a silver covered bowl on the table.

My eyes whip about in confusion. Beads of sweat form on my brow and my throat tightens. What now? Some new kind of torture? Perhaps it is the fear, or the aches and pains which leave me in permanent agony, but the thunderous pull of Strik's mind has grown softer.

"King Alixter's father," Strik says, sniffing and blowing his nose in a silk handkerchief as he sits down, "had this cage built for his moon-snow tigress. A rare and dangerous creature. Beautiful, but deadly."

A spindly woman hovers at the edge of the cell. He waves her in. She bows, pads across the floor, and lifts the lid off the silver bowl. Smells of cooked dough, melted cheese, meat and spinach set my mouth watering. I have not eaten since Commander Linx gave me soup, and before that, an apple yesterday morning when Calmi came to my chambers. The food taster sniffs the pastry.

"The tiger," Strik continues, "went crazy down in these tunnels. Couldn't be trained. Couldn't tame it. Killed eight men before the King finally agreed to have her life taken. Some creatures aren't made for cages."

I am half-listening, half-paralysed by the food taster's task, but when he speaks about creatures and cages a shudder runs down my spine. It's as though he's really talking about me. I try to break through the haze of terror and pay more attention.

The food taster chews the pastry, survives, bows again and leaves us. I glance up to see her go, noting Strik's assassins have replaced the guards on either side of the open cage door.

"It has been many years," Strik says, "since I've come across one of your kind that wasn't born in captivity."

Sickness rises in my throat. A mix of hunger, and disgust, and fear. He is not here to take you to the hanging. Calm down. You still have time. Time for what? To poison myself? I struggle to clear my mind. If Strik is not here to take me to the hanging, then I must find out what he wants.

"A wild shadow weaver," he continues. "An outlaw. Hunted, feared, and yet you managed to convince me that you were a baroness." He snorts. "How is it, a young girl descended from a people who do not fight, fought off my bird-men? How is it an outlaw is taken prisoner to serve a Prince, and wins his heart?"

Heat prickles up my arms and legs, flushing across my chest and rising to my cheeks. Alertness buzzes in my head. My mind stretches wide, trying to grasp at what is happening.

"Oh the Prince has put on a good show," Strik continues. "I think he has almost convinced himself he is not in love with you, and because he knows himself so little, he will allow you to die trying to prove it."

What does he mean? Has Strik realized his voice has no power over Jakut?

"He will let me die," I say, "because you manipulate him against his own will."

"The Prince's mother," Strik says, ignoring my interruption, "was a Rudeashan princess, picked to marry Alixter because of her unusual strength. But her dedication to her ignorant, conceited husband destroyed her. She risked his hatred, his unkindness, and ultimately his neglect, all to protect him. Her power was so great that it kept me from the Red City even in her death."

My breath heaves unevenly in and out of my chest. My mind is on the brink of piecing something together, as though I am just beginning to see a picture forming, but one essential piece is still missing.

Strik rubs his hands together, settling in, enjoying his one-sided monologue.

"Ninety-two years ago, the Carucans came across the ice with an army, intending to conquer Rudeash. All they found was a simple people. Eight tribes, governed by eight kings and queens with crowns of thorns. The shrouders hid the great wealth of Rudeash, the ice cities, the beauty and riches of their lands. But they could not hide all of their wealth. The lands were too rich in crystals and precious stone. So they gave the tundra mines to the Carucans and to deter them from ever returning for more, pledged a Rudeashan princess in marriage for each Carucan king's eldest son, as an agreement of peace and cooperation.

Forty years ago, when I became chief adviser to King Rex, the Prince's grandfather, I realized the Rudeashan princesses had been given a second, more pressing task. To protect Caruca from me." He laughs and blows his nose again. "Prince Jakut's mother was particularly powerful. She used the power in her voice to make me believe conquering the Red City would end in my death. I knew what she'd done, but despite all logic, I was unable to overcome the conviction she'd planted in my brain.

Then the Prince came of an age to rule and wished to sacrifice his father for the throne. I felt the power fade. You see, the King's death, and the alliance formed between the Prince and me, allowed me to crush his mother's hold over my ambitions and enter the Red City. I have not been killed yet," he adds wryly.

Understanding plunges through me. In some way by assisting in his own father's death, the Prince has shattered the city's only wall of protection from Lord Strik.

Jakut will never win Strik's trust, because Strik is not careless enough to let his guard down around the son of a powerful enemy. And now there is nothing to stop Strik. Not even the missing Rudeashan princess Jakut was supposed to return with from the north.

Hope slithers away. I stare at Lord Strik, emotion torn from my body; numb like a ghostly witness of something I am powerless to stop.

He takes a pastry from the bowl, pops it whole into his mouth, and licks his lips. Then he holds the bowl out to me. I gaze at it, wondering what good food will do me now. He slides the bowl across the floor towards the pallet.

"What do you want from me?" I say.

He adjusts his position, crosses one leg over the other. The gesture generates a tiny electric spark, enough to snap me out of my stupor. He does want something. What could I possibly have that he wants?

"When I told you about the shrouders protecting the Rudeashans just now, you knew what I was talking about. The last time we met, you muttered something about the veil."

"I am Uru Ana."

"You have seen inside my memories."

My eyes rise to his face. Is that surprise? Why would he be surprised I can see inside his mind? Isn't this the fuel he used to turn the Carucans against my kind?

"You are not like the slaves who work my land." He rises and I sense a shift in the dark pull, as though it has glitched for a moment. He strides towards the cage door. I don't know what he's doing, but I know he has not finished with me.

In the few seconds his back is turned, I slip my fingers into my bandage and unhook the clasp from the crystal. Breath caught in my throat, face prickling with heat, I hurriedly sprinkle the poison over the remaining pastries in the dish at my feet. I cannot see where the drops land, how many, or on which pastries. My eyes flick up to the cage door as Strik indicates something to the assassins. They move further down the tunnel.

Strik closes the door and returns. I hunch my shoulders together to stop the shaking in my body. The crystal presses into my closed fist.

"I have waited a long time to return to my homeland with the Carucan army," he says. "I will take back what is mine. And you could help me discover something I would like to know once the kings and queens of the eight kingdoms of Rudeash are bowed at my feet."

"The Prince will not allow you to attack Rudeash." If I can keep him talking for long enough, perhaps luck will be on my side and he will eat one of the poisoned pastries.

"The Carucans neither respect nor fear the young Prince. He has no authority. When the Duke and the Queen are both dead there will be no one with enough influence to stop me."

Strik has been a step ahead of Prince Jakut from the beginning. I remember our first encounter. I was right when I said he was cautious around the Prince. He already suspected the sway of his voice did not work on Jakut. But now he is in the Red City there is no need for caution.

Whether the Prince responded to his voice, or not, has never mattered. There would always be others who would. The Prince's lack of authority renders him ineffective. Even the ignoble or noble nature of Jakut's true intentions didn't matter. Strik was never going to be a partner, never going to trust the son of his enemy. His plan covered all eventualities.

Except one.

I pick up a pastry and play with it in my fingers, reminding him they are there to be eaten.

"You are considering my offer," he says, a smile forming at the edge of his lips. If you could call the tight-lipped pull of his mouth a smile. "I suspected when I first saw you that you had a keen instinct for survival. Heroic gestures that end in death are for those who have never struggled to stay alive from one day to the next."

"You could use your power to make me do your bidding. Why are you bargaining with me?"

"I noticed you had a hard time paying attention when I used my influence. The journey across the tundra will not be easy. If I have to break every bone in your body just to get you to Rudeash, you will not be much use to me."

I fiddle with the pastry, willing him to eat another. Eat it. Eat!

"Go ahead," he says, gesturing to my hand. He thinks if I accept his offer of food I will accept the offer to work for him. If I don't eat, I'm declining. And I can't accept his offer but not his food, because he's astute enough to realize something is off. Strik is a tyrant, but he is also shrewd.

I close my eyes, and nibble at the corner. My dry mouth turns to ashes, making it hard to swallow. It feels like eating sand. In my head I count to five. Calmi said the poison acted fast. How fast?

Lord Strik watches, examining the minutest expression on my face. He is unconvinced. He will think my reticence is because I'm undecided. I take a larger bite. Warm cheese melts on my tongue. There is nothing I can do to stop it disintegrating. I should have waited to hear what he wanted before trying to poison him.

At least my larger bite has the desired effect. His intent look relaxes. He reaches for the bowl, and pops a mini roll in his mouth.

I freeze, waiting for some sign of poisoning, barely able to curb the anticipation. Nothing. Did I even get the potion in the dish? My hand had been shaking all over the place. I'd been too scared to look at what I was doing and take my eyes off Strik for more than a second. But there were at least twenty drops and only two would be enough to kill him. Or me.

His head tilts to the side. "You need not die today," he says. He reaches for another roll, now trying to encourage me. "Eat."

If I eat the rest of my pastry, he'll eat the second one he's holding. That's the deal. We're making a contract with food. He just doesn't know it could kill us.

I put the end of my flaky roll in my mouth, chewing slowly. Strik reflects my gesture, wiping crumbs from the corners of his lips as he eats.

We are down the road of no return. Calmi said the poison was quick but I don't know if she meant it would work in seconds or minutes. All I can do is keep Strik eating.

I am reaching for a pastry when Strik fumbles for the collar of his tunic. He undoes a button. In the dull glow of the lantern his face grows red. Sweat glistens on his upper lip.

He pushes to his feet, steadying himself with a hand on his chair. There is a moment when his eyes flame with understanding. He grasps for a small blade handle tucked beneath his tunic. Before he can remove it from his belt, a spasm jerks through him.

The pastry I'm holding falls from my fingers, hitting the ground just before Strik. His collapse sends the dish clattering across the stones. Two assassins burst into the cage. I scurry back on the pallet, tuck myself into a ball, half-expecting an assassin to take his knife and slit my throat, half-expecting the potion to start working on me at any second.

Strik flips on the ground. One of the men shouts at a guard to fetch the food taster and a healer. Mayhem erupts in the tunnel. I peek out from my ball to see Strik's eyes roll back into his head. White foam froths at the sides of his mouth. More than two drops and you are sure to die, Calmi had said.

How many seconds have passed since I ate my pastry? Is it longer than the time since Strik swallowed his first one?

In my head I am counting as the assassins lift Strik and carry him from my cell. Counting when the echo of their boot-steps falls into silence. Counting as I belly crawl towards my open cage door.

Option one, I hang. Option two, Strik takes me to Rudeash to destroy a kingdom. Option three, my personal favorite, Strik dies.

Even a brilliant tyrant can't plan for everything.