Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta Page A

their people had died.
    "Do you ever wonder if they're better off inside Lumatere?" Finnikin asked.
    Trevanion shook his head. "When I first chose to challenge the king about his Guard and the dragonships, it wasn't only because of the former captain's weakness, Finnikin. It was because of his baseness. I'd heard stories of what he allowed to happen in the palace prison. What he instigated himself."
    And then there was silence. Finnikin studied the hard outlines of his father's face.
    "What of the Monts?" Trevanion asked.
    "We've seen no trace, but we have a strong suspicion Evanjalin knows where they are."
    "Evanjalin?" his father asked.
    "Spawn of the devil," Finnikin reminded him.
    Trevanion grunted. "When did you last see the Monts?"
    "In the Valley of Tranquillity," Finnikin said quietly. "Saro moved his people out there in the days before the curse. Almost the moment they heard the queen was dead."
    He thought of the horror of that day. Of the grief of the queen's mother, the yata of the Mont people, wailing, "My pretty babies. Where are my pretty babies?" Many had walked away or
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    pressed their hands against their ears to block out the sound of her anguish, but Lucian had not left his grandmother's side. And from a distance, Finnikin had kept his vigil with the Mont.
    Trevanion spoke only once more that night.
    "The girl," he said.
    "Evanjalin?"
    "She has my mother's name."
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    ***
    CHaPteR 8
    A week after his arrest, Finnikin spent his first day in the outside world. It was a relief to be able to breathe, despite the fact that he was shackled to five of the most vicious humans he had ever encountered. The guards saw to it that every inmate who worked outside the mines was a foreigner. If escape became a reality, the guards knew the prisoners would be at the mercy of a kingdom that despised outsiders and would soon find themselves back in the mines. Or, worse still, hanging from a tree.
    When the head guard gave Finnikin an instruction to pass on to the others, he was instantly confronted with snarls and bared teeth.
    "They despise with a passion those who interpret," Trevanion murmured. "They consider them spies for the guards."
    And so Finnikin endured one of the longest days of his life. The menacing prisoners attached to him took every opportunity to tug the chain around his neck, causing it to chafe his skin. Or to drop rocks of considerable weight on his feet. Or yank his foot shackles so he found himself flat on his face on cold hard
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    stone. When he picked himself up for the tenth time, he was shaking with rage.
    The moment they reached the caves and his shackles were removed, Finnikin launched himself at the Osterian prisoner until both had blood pouring from their noses. The three hundred pounds of pure ugliness and fury held Finnikin's head under his arm, while the guards stood by and watched. If there was one thing they enjoyed, it was the sight of the inmates trying to tear each other apart. Then Trevanion become involved and suddenly blood flew in every direction.
    "I can handle this," Finnikin hissed, jumping onto the Osterian and pressing the side of the man's face into the wall as hard as he could. When the Osterian looked like he was ready to pound a fist into Finnikin's temple, Finnikin remembered how Trevanion had bitterly recounted Evanjalin's words. What needs to be done.
    "We're going to break out," he whispered into the man's ear in Osterian, before he bit part of it off and spat it out. "Interested in joining us?"
    By the time the guards dragged the inmates off each other, Finnikin had also recruited the Yut, the Sarnak, the Belegonian, and the Charynite. Although there was no honor among these men, there was a hierarchy of hate, and they despised the Sorelians first and foremost.
    "You're making my hair turn white," Trevanion muttered later, when they were alone in their cage.
    "That would be your old age," Finnikin replied, trying to stretch out the aches and pains in every joint in his