The Merry Men Masquerade

24. Dreamless

Ronan did not want to fall asleep.

He sat upright in bed even as his entire body sagged, terrified he might miss something. Amir would appear on the other side of the cell, flanked by armed guards, and Ronan would somehow sleep through it. By the time he was jostled awake and escorted out of his cell, Amir would be out of arm's reach, watching his acquittal from across the castle courtyard.

The mattress was hard and scratchy and the pillow was so thin it might as well have been an illusion. There really was no blanket, and a certain dampness clung to the air, so Ronan's skin prickled with goosebumps. Staying up should have been easy.

Still, he nodded off, shaking himself awake just to slip lower, until he was flat on his back with his head caught at a terrible angle against the wall.

Ronan came to with an aching neck, clutching the pillow against his chest. A cup of water and another bowl of guck waited for him.

He took inventory of himself and his situation. Starting easy, he went over the things he knew.

1. The knife in his right boot had been confiscated.

2. His earrings had been taken, too.

3. He was being used as bait.

It was an unfortunately brief list.

Then there were the things he could guess. That Amir would take the bait. That escaping probably wouldn't be so easy the second time around - the castle had some pretty high towers.

And then, the question he pondered in a rush, knowing he was running out of time to come up with an answer: What could he do to help?

If he could escape this cell, or break free of his guard on his way out and intercept Amir, or figure out where Amir would be kept and use the tunnels to get to him...

His thoughts boiled over in a great steaming mess. Curling his body tighter, he buried his face. It burned with shame. He had never been smart in the ways that mattered. He punched the pillow and wished for Vito; clever Vito, charismatic Vito, who could plan around almost any issue and talk his way out of everything else.

Ronan wasted hours thinking in concentric circles. What he knew, what he could guess, what he could do to help; what he knew, what he mostly knew, what he didn't know at all; what he felt, what he feared - why was he so useless?

His next rest was fitful. He splayed out on his stomach and imagined returning home after this, knowing his life had effectively been traded for Amir's.

When a helping of porridge slipped beneath the bars, Ronan batted his eyes at the guard and asked demurely for something yummy next time, snickering at the disgust with which he was ignored. He reckoned he couldn't exactly call it the last laugh when he was the one spooning gruel. Why did a royal kitchen even have such flavorless food? Maybe they were feeding him horse oats. He pouted around his spoonful, knowing damn well that there were more than enough leftovers in the kitchens to provide him a better meal than this.

That line of thought was promptly hacked into segments and scattered, before it could point him back to a secret corner of the castle's kitchen, that little capsule of time where Ronan had been treated to a four-course meal by- by a prince.

It was too late. He was there, tasting raspberry pudding and fucking blancmange in their first kiss-

Anything else. Think of anything else.

Reason #1 I can't stand the rich: They lie.

That would work. That would do. Ronan washed down a massive bite of sludge and thought bitterly that this list applied to Amir now, too. Especially Reason #1.