“She’s not even born yet, and she may never be. Remember I told you, dragons live on magic? We’re formed of it. Right now, Maeve is stealing all the magic that the little one has accumulated so she can hatch. She won’t be strong enough to break through the shell.”
“What will happen to her?”
“She’ll die.”
The walls shook and dirt rained down on Siobhan’s head. “What was that?”
“That will be your brother, my dear.”
Excitement had her jumping to her feet. “Bosco, he’s here. He’ll rescue us.”
From outside the cell another male voice spoke. “No he won’t. He’ll kill us all.”
“Who is that?” Doyle demanded.
But Siobhan recognized who it was. “Ardan, what are you doing here? Have you come to gloat?”
“No, I’m here to save you.” She heard the rattle of keys and the door opened. “Come on, there’s still time. She’s distracted. We might be able to get out.” He shoved her knapsack and weapons belt at her.
“Bosco will be here. He’ll get us out.” Bosco had come back. For her. A surge of love for the brother who was now a man rushed through her. A hundred years, and who knew how many miles, and he was here. For her.
“She’ll bring the whole place down before he gets in, and he’ll be taking it down from the outside. We’ll be squashed dead between the two armies, caught under the weight of the palace.” Ardan turned to Doyle’s cell and unlocked the door.
“He’s right you know.” Doyle looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept in years. His skin was grey and his blue eyes were dull sunken pits. “She’s crazed with hatred. I saw it in her eyes. And the palace is already shaking with the stress of having its magic pulled without thought to the cost.” He had strange white chains with black script that curled and danced and sparked with magic. He stumbled to the door but didn’t cross the threshold.
“There’s only one person who can stop her.” Ardan jerked his head at Doyle. “Him. Come on, we need to get you out.” He moved down the hall, but Doyle stayed in the cell a dark smile playing on his lips.
“I can’t leave.”
“What do you mean, you can’t leave?” Siobhan stared at him as she buckled on her sword. “Just walk out.”
“She’s forbidden me to leave the cell and she’s sending a ton of magic to keep me here. Go, save yourselves.”
“But, Doyle...” Her voice trailed off.
She was mad at him, so mad. He’d betrayed her, deceived her, used her. But was she mad enough at him to just leave him here? He’d done it all for someone else, for a vow he’d made years before he’d met her. Could she ever understand him? He was a dragon. Immeasurably old and unknowable.
“I’ll keep trying.” He moved into the doorway and the manacles on his arms flared. The smell of burning flesh filled the corridor. “I’ll see if I can get to the base of the stones. Maybe I can stop the flow of magic to her.”
“But if you do that, what happens to the little dragon?”
“What little dragon?” Ardan asked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She met Doyle’s eyes, cat’s eyes that now she realized weren’t just like the dragon’s—they were the dragon’s. His expression was sad and his voice a whisper. “She’s just a baby, Siobhan. I had to protect her first.”
A baby. Another child that Maeve had stolen the life from. Another life sacrificed to the queen.
A rush of anger fueled her. There was more than one way to beat the queen.
She grabbed Ardan by the sleeve. “Ardan, see if you can get out. Find Bosco. Tell him I’m alive and in here, and to stop destroying the palace.”
“Are you crazy? What are you going to do?”
“Just go.” She gave him a little push. An explosion rocked the dungeon and more debris rained down on their heads. “Go.”
“I’ll tell him. If I can get through this hell hole and if he doesn’t kill me on sight.” He ran, heading for the stairs that would take him up and out.
“Now, Doyle, any ideas how I can get to the bottom of this monstrosity of a palace?”
His haggard face lit with hope. “You’re going to try to save her?”
“I’m going to damn well do more than try.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Doyle leaned against the side wall of his cell, the weight of the iron laced in the manacles pulling him down. As long as he stayed within the cell, he could move around without too many issues. But as soon as he tried to leave the manacles flamed, burning his flesh and at the same time becoming as heavy as mountains. He struggled to even get the tip of a toe past the cell door. For a man who was used to being one of the strongest beings in the known worlds, it was devastating.
“Is there a secret door?” Siobhan crouched down at the base of the wall at the far end of the row of cells, running her hands over it and checking every crack and crevice. “We’re already beneath the palace, but it feels like the place I need to go is further down. It feels like I should be able to go right there, but this wall is definitely in the way.”
An explosion sounded above them, and the walls shook, small bits of stone and dust coming loose and falling down around them.
“There’s a way in and I can find it, but I don’t know if you can without me. The ground here has shifted. There are traps and hidden things. Shards, it’s been years.” Doyle moved back into his cell. He needed to do something, anything, but he was stuck here, unable to help. “Damn, we should have kept that grown-up boy-toy to help us find the way.”
“No, we need him to get to Bosco.” Siobhan’s face was smeared with dirt and her clothes were torn, but she stood up straight, her eyes gleaming with purpose. “I can do this.” She came into the cell and took his hand. “We can do this.”
She had no reason to trust him anymore, she shouldn’t even be here, she should be leaving and finding her brother, but here she was, helping him when he didn’t deserve the help. His voice choked. “Thank you.”
He’d been alone for too long, isolated in his goals, but she’d taken him outside of himself, outside of his mission. And while it had led here, with him bound and useless in a cell, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Okay, that was wrong. He laughed bitterly to himself. He’d have the egg saved and all of this over without the iron-laced bone wrapped around his wrists, but he would keep Siobhan looking at him in just that way. As if they were partners. Equals.
“I don’t know how you’re going to find her,” he finally said. “Follow the magic. Now that you know the feel of the dragon magic, you won’t have any trouble. And I’ll give you the keys to get you past my guards.”
“Guards? What kind of guards?”
“Just a few tricks I left in place to keep her safe.” He snorted at the look in her eyes. “I’m not a complete idiot. You can’t leave something that precious alone without making sure it’s safe.”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Dragon tricks designed to keep a queen safe. That doesn’t sound good. You’ll have to come with me. I need you.”
He wanted to laugh at the faith in her eyes, but he only managed sort of a smile. “I can’t. She has me weighted down so heavily, it would take me days to crawl and the iron will burn through my wrists and ankles, leaving me with no claws to defend with. You’ll be much faster, and more effective, on your own.”
“I may not have the power I used to, but let me see what I can do to at least stop the burning.” She took his hands in hers and closed her eyes. A sphere rose up around them, icy clear with glowing blue edges.
“You’ve been practicing.”
“Yes. Now hush, I need to focus.” Dancing blue light brushed against his wrists. The dwarven writing sparked darker black lights against her pale blue, fighting for control. But then, something happened. Ice spread over the manacles, coating the writing and cooling the constant burn.
“It’s working,” he breathed, not willing to speak too loud and destroy her f
ocus.
She shook her head at him, her lips pressed tightly together and a wrinkle of concentration etched into her forehead. The blue spread, and the black sparks cooled, becoming brooding dark coals buried under the ice. She turned her attention to the bindings on his ankles and once again the ice spread out, cooling and soothing everywhere it touched his skin.
“There. Can you move? How does it feel?”
“Amazing.” He felt hundreds of pounds lighter. He walked to the cell door and through without even a hitch. “Look, I’m out.”
“What about your magic?”
He reached inside, but still, he couldn’t access his Gift. “No, that’s still cut off. I don’t think I’ll be able to do any magic until we get rid of these.” He shook the manacles. He almost thought he could hear the sighs of the dead in the rattling bones.
“Can you shift?”
“These corridors are too narrow. We have to wait to try that until we’re in a larger space.” He reached out and took her hand, turning it over and kissing the back. “Thank you.”
She blushed. “I couldn’t have done this without learning from you.” She gave him a sidelong look. “And the dragon.”
“About that—” Another blast shook the walls, and the lights flickered.
Siobhan placed a finger on his lips, shushing him. “Later. We don’t have time to go there. There’s a baby dragon to save.” She took his hand. “Come on, there’s no way out down here.” They ran up the stairs to the main guard room. All the doors had been left unlocked and no one was at their post. “Looks like Ardan did us a favor.”
“Humph.” It came out as more of a growl than a word. He avoided her eyes and looked for some clothes, finding and putting on an extra pair of pants and shirt tucked away in a series of cubbies. He’d seen the way Ardan had looked at Siobhan. She had more in common with the former Winter King than she did with a dragon like himself, and it set the muscles on the back of his neck on edge.
“Which way?”
He glanced around. Before he could decide, a blast of power shuddered through the walls. Bright light burst into life as magic of different kinds fought for supremacy “Down!” Grabbing Siobhan he pressed her against the wall, sheltering her with his body as dust and debris rained down on top of them.
A demonic rainbow of power stretched through the hole in the ceiling, reaching for them. He tried to throw up a shield, but his magic still wouldn’t come. The tangle of power skimmed the dusty air by his face and he braced for the attack.
But it didn’t come. The bright blue-white light of Siobhan’s shield sprang up, sheltering them as the magic harmlessly bounced off it. They huddled there, against the wall, waiting out the falling stones and listening to the explosions over their heads.
Finally, there was a moment of quiet. Siobhan dropped her shield and they were plunged into darkness. Dust flooded into what had been clean air. She coughed and asked, “Are you okay?” A globe of light appeared on her hand and she let it go to float between them.
“I’m fine. Embarrassed, but fine.”
Siobhan crawled out from under him and they both stood up. “You have no reason to be embarrassed. Your magic is trapped.”
Her glow-light floated above them, illuminating the disaster. The way out was a pile of rubble. Automatically he tried to use magic to move it, but nothing happened. His inability to make even the slightest thing work rushed through him, leaving him feeling bitter and depressed.
“Can you move those rocks with your Gift?” He tried not to sound too acerbic as he waved one of the manacles in the air. “The way these things have stolen my strength, I think it would take me days to move them by hand.”
She shook her head. “My magic isn’t that strong without the extra support of yours. I could cover them in a beautiful mosaic of colored ice, if you want.” She grinned, and he smiled back at her, his spirits rising. With her dirt-streaked face grinning up at him, how could he not be more optimistic? “What about you?” she asked. “Can you find a way out? Is there another way to the egg?”
He tried to reach for the tiny queen, but still he was as blind as a night crawler. “Damn it!” He shook his head. “If there is, you’ll have to use your magic to find it. I’m power-blind, and none of this was here when I buried the egg.”
She closed her eyes.
She only had her own power, but there was a confidence to her now that had been lacking before. She opened her eyes. “This way.”
His hope rising, she led him back down the way they’d come, down into the dungeon.
SIOBHAN LED THE WAY past the cells they’d just gotten free from and further into the chilly depths of the stone walls of the dungeon. Despite the collapse of the entrance, she felt strangely exhilarated. She’d done amazing things with her Gift, things she’d never even thought to try before. And maybe, that’s exactly what it was. Maybe she’d been short-changing herself all the way along, thinking she wasn’t useful for anything but making things look pretty. Until Doyle had given her the dragon pin and she’d pushed the boundaries of everything she’d ever done with her Gift.
Before the explosion, the trace of dragon magic had led her up into the main part of the palace. But with the disaster of the only exit blocked, she had had to search for a new route. She’d honed the questions she’d asked of her Gift. Asking not just the way to the queen but the way from here. And that led down past the upper level cells, into the belly of the palace.
“Can you still feel her?” The anxiety in Doyle’s voice was strangely endearing. He cared about the little dragon he’d hidden here. He’d cared enough to keep it secret for a very long time.
“Yes, I can feel her. But she’s getting weaker. Fast.” What had been a fine line tugging her along was now almost see-through. The Winter Queen was pulling power fast and hard from the palace, and the little dragon suffered.
They wound their way past damp musty cells, and the deeper in they went, the lower the ceiling dropped. The farther down they went, the colder it got until finally, they were bent over, backs scraping the top of a small tunnel and headed for a corner barely visible behind a protruding nub of rocks. “In here.” She pointed at the small black hole, so low it was almost in the ground.
Next to her, Doyle gave himself a hard shake. “I may like living in caves, but small spaces are not a dragon’s friend.” His voice rumbled low and his pupils were mere slits. “I won’t be able to shift down here at all. And with my magic tied up, I won’t be able to defend you.”
“Here. You can use this.” She handed him her long-bladed knife, keeping her sword for herself.
“Thanks.” He grinned, looking like his normal self. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a guy without a weapon.”
She flashed him back her own grin and gave him a very pointed look down. “I think you always carry a weapon.”
His laugh was short, but the comment had done its job. He had his swagger back. Magic or no magic, he was still Doyle.
“I’ll go first.” He moved forward.
“No.” She put a hand on his shoulder and he stopped. “I’m still the only one able to trace her and shield. Let me.”
He frowned again, but let her lead. Swagger or no swagger she could see how difficult it was for him to step back. He’d always been the strongest being in the room, now he was handicapped and it obviously threw him off.
She let go of her fairy light sending the globe floating down into the hole. Inside, it looked just as damp and dark as she expected with ice coating the dirt of the walls. “No more cut stones, just dirt.”
“That’s a good sign. We’re getting away from Maeve’s palace and closer to the feet of the stones.”
“It looks wider in there. Maybe, once inside, we can stand all the way up.”
“Definitely looking forward to that. Let’s go.”
She slid in and past the narrow gooseneck of the passage, emerging into a more open tunnel. Doyle came after her. The air here was fresher, a cool, dry
breeze blowing through natural holes in the walls, but no light came through so she could only assume it was a cave wind, the natural effect of different pressures and temperatures under the ground. They followed the trace of magic, her brave glow-light the only bright spot in the tunnel.
“How come no one else has come down here?” She rounded a corner and stopped short. The tunnel ended here in a wide room, with a narrow hole in the far wall looking like the next entrance. “I guess I spoke too soon.”
The first body was slumped against the wall, and the next, only a few feet past it, had its hand stretched out to the black hole in the wall, as if it were entreating whatever lay beyond. The icy dry wind had mummified the bodies. They were perfectly preserved, both faces drawn out in the rictus of death, their mouths and eyes frozen open in identical expressions of horror. Just before the first body, a line had been toed into the dirt.
And on the wall someone had scratched the words No Farther.
“What does that mean?” she whispered. This area seemed to be even colder than the passage that had led to it and a dark shiver had her hunching her shoulders inside her jacket.
“We’ve reached the first defense.” He had his blade lifted and she went to pull her sword from its sheath. “Blades won’t help, not against this. You’ll need to tell it the password, and then it should let us pass.”
Her mouth was suddenly dry and she licked her lips with what moisture she had left. “What is it?”
“An ice shadow.”
A bolt of childhood fear cut into her. “They don’t exist.” Ice shadows were tales told to children to keep them inside during the long winter nights. They slid like black ice between corners of tightly built houses and sucked souls from sleeping children who’d been bad.
“Of course they do. This is Underhill and all it takes is one person’s strong magic and belief to create it. Entire villages passing the stories give it enough power to exist on its own. But they live on the magic of others, and this one’s been starving down here ever since these men died. Get ready. It will move fast—faster than you think. We won’t have much time. You’ll have to catch its attention with your magic while I say the password. And if that doesn’t work, make sure you are back over that line before it finishes with me.” He gestured at the line and the bodies on the other side. “Are you ready?”
Caged: A Fae Fantasy Romance (Fae Magic Book 4) Page 22