My head throbbed.

I rolled over and buried my face in my arms as if that would stop the pain, but of course it didn't. It took me a moment to remember where I was. Earlier, the Deoran guard had dragged and pushed me down into the bowels of the ship. I had started struggling the moment Tannix was out of sight, which had only resulted in the guard slamming me into a wooden beam to stop me. I vaguely remembered my mind swimming in and out of focus while we entered a dark room, lined with shelving.

But there had been something weird about the shelving. Instead of cargo, there had been people lying on the shelves.

Without opening my eyes I could tell I was on one of the shelves, and that I was surrounded by people. I could hear breathing, and shuffling. Mostly I could smell them—sweat and other even less pleasant smells. There were cuffs around my wrists, loosely locking my arms in place at the head of the shelf.

The ship was swaying and creaking around me, the thought of which ignited my terror. There was water all around us, with only some wood protecting us. What if the ship sank? I'd have no way to get out, I would drown, I would—

I grit my teeth and forced myself to stop thinking about it. Roe wouldn't let me drown. Once I'd calmed down, I took a deep breath and tried to push myself up, only to immediately hit my head on the shelves above me. I bit back a groan and opened my eyes.

It was dark in the room, but shafts of light came from above that were just enough to make out my surroundings. On the other side of the room, across a narrow aisle, there were more of the shelves. They were stacked three high, with people packed on each one. The shelves ran the length of the room, each prisoner's head was at the end near the aisle. Their wrists were chained above their heads. It seemed safe to assume that my side of the room looked the same.

"Finn?"

My name was hissed from close by. I blinked in an attempt to help my eyes adjust to the darkness. It was Acen lying next to me, his long blond hair free from its usual knot.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I was caught." I glanced at the man on my right, hoping to see another one of the knights, but he was a stranger. "What is this?"

"A prison ship," Acen whispered.

"Where are the others?"

In the dim light I saw him shrug. His hands were bound, and attached by a chain to the wood above his head. There was enough slack in the chain that he'd clasped his hands together and was resting them under his head. "I tried calling out to them when we were first locked down here, but the Deorans don't want us talking."

"Oh." I lowered my voice instantly, even though there didn't seem to be any guards around. "I saw Tannix."

"Where are they keeping him?"

"I think the captain's quarters."

Acen sighed. "Good. He'll be safe there."

"Safe? How?"

"From starvation and sickness. Sicknesses spread quickly in these ships. But he's valuable. The prince will take care of him."

Acen's words made me aware of the gnawing in my stomach. "How long have we been here?"

"Hard to tell. A day or two."

"What?" My voice rose with my panic, but I forced it down again. "What? Days?"

"You've been out the whole time. I was afraid you might die." Acen shifted, rolling onto his side slightly so that he was facing me. "Can you pick locks?"

"Sometimes."

"Good. I have something for you, then. This shirt I'm wearing was too loose, so I bundled some of the cloth together and pinned it near the bottom. When they took away our weapons they didn't notice. Do you think you could reach it and unlock your cuffs?"

"I can try."

I slid back as far as the chain on my wrists would allow, and Acen shuffled forward. Finding the little bundle of cloth on his hip was easy enough, but getting the pin out was a little more difficult. I had to use my teeth to pull it out, and even then, it took me a few tries. It was a fairly simple cloak pin. A thin pin stuck to a plain metal ring that acted as the clasp. It was dull gray, nothing like the fancy ones Tannix sometimes wore. I crawled up the shelf again to drop the pin into my hands.

"So?" Acen asked.

It dawned on me that he had spent possibly two days trying to figure out how to get us all out of this, and his whole plan hinged on me being able to pick locks. "Just let me..." I held the pin awkwardly in my left hand and slipped it into the keyhole. After some fumbling and jiggling, I heard a click and I grinned at Acen. "Got it."

"Good." I could hear excitement in his voice. "Now, you need to—what are you doing?"

I paused, having just reached out for his cuffs. "Letting you out?" It came out more like a question than a statement.

"No, you need to find the other knights," Acen said. "We need to plan out our next move and we can't do that if we don't know where anyone is."

"Oh... good idea."

Acen nodded towards the aisle. "Go look around."

I stabbed the pin into the wood so I would know where to find it, and then cautiously climbed out of my little section of the shelf. As I'd guessed, the side Acen and I were on was also three shelves tall, and ran the length of the room. All of the prisoners were men, making me wonder if there was a second room with women or children. Or maybe the Deorans had just ignored women and children. Some of the men were Telts, some of them were Native Zians. Most of them watched me silently as I carefully walked down the aisle. Some of the men tried to speak to me, but I forced myself to ignore them. As much as I wanted to help everyone, the knights had to be my first priority.

The first knight I found was Mandell, lying on his back, taking up nearly twice the space as the men on either side of him. Without warning, I leaned into the shelf next to him.

"Mandell," I whispered.

He flinched and almost hit me with his bound hands before realizing who I was.

"What are you doing here? You were supposed to go to Roland."

It was a lot of words for him to say at once, as opposed to the one or two words he would usually use to communicate. I guess chastising me was the perfect reason to use full sentences. "I know, it's a long story. Acen wants me to find everyone so we can make a plan."

"And?"

"I found you."

"Oh, well, Jalor's right there." Mandell rolled over, forcing me to duck out of the way before his shoulder hit me in the face. He pointed across the aisle, where I could just make out Jalor's blond hair. Like Acen, his hair had fallen loose. I stepped across the aisle and crouched next to him.

"Jalor? Are you hurt?"

He must have heard me talking to Mandell, because he wasn't surprised to hear my voice. He shook his head. "Never better. Aside for being tied to a wooden plank."

"Glad to hear it," I said. "Any idea where I might find Evrik and the twins?"

"They were taken into the next room," Jalor explained, nodding to my left. For the first time I noticed the darkened doorway at the end of the aisle. There was even less light shining into the second room.

With a sigh, I got to my feet and tiptoed to the door, once again ignoring the other men trying to talk to me. The next room was set up in exactly the same way, with shelves of men. Right away I noticed a knight on the closest shelf. I recognized his dark Crelan hair.

It was only when I got closer that I saw the blood-soaked side of his tunic. He was at the end of the row, so I could actually stand beside him. His breathing seemed shallow. Fear shot through me as I gently lay my hand on his shoulder. He moved, but the fear didn't disappear. He was badly hurt.

"It's Finn," I whispered, shaking his shoulder gently. "Wake up."

He opened his eyes, and that simple movement seemed like a battle. "Finn?"

"Yes. Ender, Acen's coming up with—you are Ender, right?" I had been so sure it was Kor yelling at Kalvahi earlier, but now faced with the injured twin, I couldn't tell. He was so pale and so still. Whatever clues I had been getting used to for telling them apart were gone.

He chuckled weakly and closed his eyes again. "Aye, mate. Kor would be dead."

"Well, Acen's trying to come up with a plan. I'm going to look at your injury." I wasn't sure if he heard me, but I moved down to his side anyway. His tunic was stiff with dried blood. I gently prodded at it, and quickly realized that if his tunic had dried to the wound, pulling it off would hurt him even more. The last thing he needed was for it to start bleeding again.

"Ender," I whispered, moving back up to his head. "Does it hurt?"

For a moment I thought he'd passed out, but then he shrugged.

"I'll be back soon. I just need to find Kor and Evrik. All right?"

He nodded.

I hated leaving him. "Anniva, watch over him," I whispered as I moved on with my search. I found Kor and Evrik and moment later, side by side. They were on the highest shelf, and I used the lower shelves like a ladder to get close enough to talk to them.

Exactly like Mandell had, Evrik said, "What are you doing here?"

"I followed you and then I got caught," I explained quickly. "Listen, Acen told me to find everyone and I have, so—"

"Where's Ender?" Kor interrupted. "Have you found him? Where is he? How is he?"

"He's... alive." Kor flinched and I rushed to add, "I mean, he was awake. He spoke to me. But I couldn't see his wound properly so I'm not sure how bad it is. I'm sorry. He did say that if you were the one who was hurt, you'd be dead."

A very brief smile flashed across Kor's face, but it was instantly replaced by worry. "Is there anything you can do?"

"If he's making jokes, he's better off than we thought, my friend," Evrik said.

A new noise caught my attention. I pulled myself up onto the shelf and crawled down between the knights, hissing at them to be quiet. A moment later Evrik shifted so that his shoulder touched Kor's, hiding me completely from view.

A few Deoran guards entered the room. I quickly prayed to Zianesa to make sure the guards wouldn't see me, but I wasn't sure how much power she had over them. Their voices became clearer as they moved closer, and while I couldn't understand them, I could tell they sounded bored.

"They're checking some of the other prisoners," Evrik barely whispered. I read his lips more than heard his words.

"Where's Ender?" Kor asked, his voice louder. "If they touch him I'll—"

Evrik elbowed him sharply, cutting him off mid-threat. Kor glowered at him but fell silent until the Deorans left. Only then did I crawl back up to look over the edge of the shelf.

"Ender's there," I said, pointing. "He's hard to see, but that's his head."

Kor squinted. "Are you sure?"

"I just spoke to him."

"You have to help him," Kor said. "Can you get him some food?"

The hopefulness in his voice convinced me to at least try. "I'll see what I can do, but I don't really understand ships. Or like them." I wiggled out from between them and started to climb down. My feet hit the wooden floor with a dull thud. A few other prisoners looked over, and I forced myself to ignore them again.

Finding the ship's version of a kitchen turned out to be simple enough. I reported back to Acen and snuck out of the prison rooms, pleased to find that the rest of the ship smelled much cleaner. Still damp and musty, but the stench of locked up men was gone. It was also near a meal time; I could smell fish cooking.

My stomach growled, and with a bit of a shock I realized that it had been a long time since I'd last felt truly hungry. Living in West Draulin had spoiled me.

The prisoners were being kept at the very bottom of the ship. I cautiously climbed up a staircase, ready to jump into the shadows at any moment. Being so alert was exhausting, I was out of practice. I was also learning very quickly that ships were noisy. Every creak or groan of the wood made me flinch.

I slowly worked my way up two levels of deck before I found the source of the delicious smell. The kitchen was very tiny, and it was empty. Lukk was watching over me, but it wouldn't last. I had to hurry. The first food my gaze landed on was a pot of steaming potatoes. No one would notice if some of them were missing. I bunched the front of my tunic into a makeshift pouch and grabbed eight potatoes, one for each of us, and an extra for Ender.

Feeling quite victorious, I hurried back to the prison rooms. I passed out the potatoes to Acen, Jalor and Mandell as subtly as I could, hoping to avoid the attention of most of the other prisoners. In the second room, I went to Ender first. Before I could shake his shoulder, a hand grabbed my ankle.

I almost yelped and would have fallen over if I hadn't grabbed the edge of the shelf to steady myself. I shook my foot, trying to dislodge it, but it only held on tighter.

"Finn?"

I glanced at Ender, only to realize that it wasn't his voice. My name had come from the owner of the hand, and I recognized the accent. Curiosity overcame the fear of being grabbed, and I crouched.

"Joen?"

"That is your name, right? Finn?" Joen said.

I nodded slowly. "What happened? Where's your family?" He was a large man, and probably in his thirties, but I still felt responsible for him. His family would be safe in their house if I hadn't spoken to them. He wouldn't be lying in the dark, on a filthy wooden shelf.

"They got to your ship. Deorans grabbed us in the port, but they let Catia and the children go. I saw them get on the ship. Did they get Lord West Draulin?"

Again I nodded. "And the knights. All of us."

"Are you planning something?"

"I think so," I said. "Really I'm just following instructions for now."

Joen took a deep breath. "I know I'm not a soldier, but your lord saved my family. I'll help you, if I can."

I remembered him nearly killing me with a pan, and his comment about the soldier's knife I had given him, and his forge. And I thought about his family. He deserved to get back to them. I pulled a potato from my make-shift pouch and handed it to him. "Here. I'm sorry it isn't much."

He hesitated to accept it. "Do you still have enough for your knights?"

"I had an extra. I'll keep you updated if our guard captain comes up with a plan." I watched Joen eat the potato in two bites, before standing up. I nudged Ender until he opened his eyes to glare at me. "Eat," I said firmly, dropping a potato into his hand.

Ender blinked slowly a few times and stared at the food. "No," he finally said. "Give it to one of the others."

"They all have food. Eat it."

He dragged his hands over to his face and ate it. I made up my mind suddenly and handed him another potato. He narrowed his eyes.

"Eat it," I said.

"Whose is it?"

"No one's, I brought you an extra," I said, which wasn't really a lie. He didn't know I'd just given the extra to Joen. "Eat it, Korender."

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Aye, aye, sir."

I watched him eat it, then went to give Kor and Evrik the last two potatoes. I ignored the growling in my own stomach and returned to my spot beside Acen. It wasn't worth the risk to try to get more food right away. Besides, it wasn't the first time I had gone hungry. I would be fine.

I slipped the cuffs over my wrists so that they looked locked, and fell into a light sleep.