I think I’ll matter quite a bit to you when my father returns and pounds you into the dirt for hurting me. Do you know why I keep you here? Why you will stay here until I am king, until people say the name of Robin Hood and ask who that is? Because you will be forgotten. He smiled at me, and his teeth gleamed wet and yellow in the light. Until she-and the rest of England, including your foolish Hood-forgets about you entirely. It’s only a matter of time, he said, shrugging. Isn’t that why you keep moving me around? You don’t want her to find me. Because you’ll never kill me, we both know that.

David moved a little, enough to make his armor give off shivery metal noise.

Why don’t you come in here and find it yourself?ĭon’t be stupid, he growled. And without it, she’ll never believe you’re dead. The one you somehow smuggled in here with you, because it’s not with any of your belongings. He stopped in front of the door to my cell, looking me over. I blinked against the brightness as David came, holding the flame, and behind him, in heavy boots and a thin cloak, came Prince John. When the torch appeared, it were almost blinding. Holding a breath, I tucked the stone shard back against the wall. The light came then, the tiny flicker that spread like fingers crawling over the wall to get to me. I sat up straighter, staring at the cell door. At least two people-beyond that it were hard to tell. And then the footfalls, too many for just David, my favorite guard. A heavy iron clang that ran over the stones, rushing its way to me.

The noise were the first thing to announce the visitors. I squeezed my half hand round it, pain aching through the stiff, scarred stumps that were left of my two fingers. It weren’t a knife, but it gave me the same kind of calm to have it in my hand. I ran my hands on the wall, feeling first with my fingers until I found the flat bit of rock I’d pried free from the wall. I didn’t want to be a thing of darkness anymore. I’d gotten a taste of it, in Rob’s kiss and touch, in the fickle, brutal shine of hope, and I wanted it back. The strange thing were how much I missed the light. Sometimes-like when the last time you saw daylight you watched your friend die, staining the snow with his blood-it weren’t so bad to be haunted. I weren’t the sort that went mad in the dark. I always rather thought that I were a creature of the dark-moving in it felt like my home, and that hadn’t changed.

Lion heart ac gaughen