Past the point where I feel like I can’t take another step, I have to keep climbing. Until finally the staircase ends. There’s a door in front of me. It’s fastened with a padlock and three heavy wooden bars and can clearly only be opened from the outside.
This place is a prison.
Siegfried puts the torch in a bracket and unlocks the door. But the space beyond is not what I was expecting. There’s a broken chair to one side. Nothing else. Just thick dust and cobwebs and ten wooden pillars, supporting the beams that make up the roof. The only windows are high up in the walls, just beneath the roof beams: narrow glazed panels, half opaque with dirt, half smashed. I can hear the scream of the wind and the sea beating against the rocks below. Turik binds Letya to the pillar nearest the door. When he is done, Siegfried waves him away.
‘Wait for me at the bottom of the stairs; I’ll want you to take back the keys.’
Turik doesn’t move; he is staring at me, his mouth working slightly as if he wants to say something. Siegfried shoves him.
‘Get out!’
With a sob, Turik flees down the stairs. The echo of his footsteps fades. Letya, Siegfried and I are alone with the shadows.
‘Why did you bring us here?’
‘To keep you out of the way – your absence will suggest your guilt. And to give you time to think. Rookwood will be taken for execution tomorrow morning. I will return tomorrow evening with a confession. Either you sign it and confess your guilt in front of Convocation, or you can watch your friend here suffer. If you still refuse, I’ll find someone else you love. Your steward perhaps – Lord Lancelin will undoubtedly come to find out what’s happened to you. And to plead for the body of his son, of course. Whatever’s left of it.’ He grins at me, and I’m reminded of a grinning skull, bone-white and fleshless. ‘I’ll be interested to see how much blood you’re willing to spill before you give in.’
‘I’m going to kill you.’
‘How, exactly?’ He moves towards the door, stopping next to the pillar where Letya is pinioned and holding the knife to her neck. ‘Unless you want me to slit her throat, I suggest you stand well back, Your Grace. Against the wall there. And don’t move.’
I obey, stumbling backwards until I can’t go any further. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going to give you something to think about, while I’m gone.’ My friend is trying to twist away from him, but she can’t. ‘The flightless are so easily damaged. It would have been far better for this woman if you’d left her among the peasants, where she belongs.’
Siegfried places his hand on her neck, closing his fingers around her throat – holds them there as Letya begins to whimper.
‘Stop it!’
He lifts his hand away and laughs. ‘As you wish. Until tomorrow evening then. I look forward to describing Rookwood’s sufferings to you. With a bit of luck, he’ll still be alive, just about.’
I scream and run at him, my hands raised as if I could claw away his skin – his life – with my nails.
But I’m too late.
He hurries out of the door and slams it behind him, and by the time I reach it I hear the last of the bars drop into place. I beat my fists against the cold wood, kick it, throw the broken chair at it – the door barely shifts in its frame. Siegfried has gone.
It’s hard, untying the ropes that bind Letya to the pillar. Siegfried took my mother’s knife with him, so I have to use my nails. My fingers are bloody by the time the last knot is undone. Letya slumps to the floor and pulls the gag out of her mouth.
‘Turik tricked me. He told me that he regretted what he’d done, that he could make things right if I would just wait for him and take him with me …’ She covers her face with her hands, sobbing so hard that she can’t speak, can hardly breathe. I take off the many-layered petticoat that’s beneath my gown and use it to cover my hands and arms.
‘Letya …’ She leans against me. I wrap the fabric around her and hold her for as long as I dare.
She cries for a long time. But eventually her sobs quieten, stop.
‘I’m so sorry, Aderyn. If I hadn’t told Turik that I was helping you, and what I’d found out –’
‘It’s not your fault, Letya. None of this is your fault. May I see your neck?’
She sits up carefully. There’s no colour here, barely any light, but I can just see how her skin has darkened and blistered beneath Siegfried’s touch; she is branded with his handprint. Tears spring into my eyes. ‘My poor Letya. I don’t know what to do to help you.’
‘It hurts. Especially when I move.’
‘Here.’ I bunch the petticoat into a makeshift pillow and help her to lie down.
‘We’re trapped, aren’t we?’
‘Yes. The door is locked from the outside.’ But even if we could force our way out, there are no other boats here. I sit back down again by Letya’s head, hugging my knees to my chest. ‘I wish you weren’t here. I wish I’d let you stay at home. I wish I’d never left Merl.’
Letya’s eyes are closed but she smiles faintly. ‘If wishes were feathers … that’s what my mother used to say. “If wishes were feathers, the flightless would fly.”’
‘I’ve not heard that before.’
‘It’s probably not a saying among nobles. You can already fly.’ Her eyes open. ‘I’m sorry. I heard what Siegfried said to you. What he called you.’
‘It doesn’t matter now. And what he said was true. I just didn’t want to hear it.’
‘It’s not true.’ She shuts her eyes again, but her fingers – she is still wearing her gloves – grope for my hand. ‘Your mother taught you to transform, Aderyn. I never met her, but you’ve talked about her. She would have taught you well. So you can fly. You just …’ Her forehead puckers with pain.‘… you just need to let yourself remember how.’
Oh, Mother … I stare into the shadows, as if she might suddenly emerge from the darkness.
I wish you were here. I wish you would tell me what to do.
But you know what to do.
The voice arrives unbidden in my head. A memory: my mother and I, at one of the lakes in the grounds at Merl. I am nervous about transforming, and she is encouraging me. I remember her smiling down at me, cupping my cheek in her strong hand.
You know what to do, Aderyn. The power is in your blood. You were born with it, and it won’t ever leave you. It wants to change your shape. You just have to let it.
But I’m frightened. What if it doesn’t work properly? What if I get stuck? What if –
So many questions.
She laughs and crouches down and looks me in the eyes.
You trust me, don’t you?
Of course I do.
Of course. Because you are my daughter, and the daughter of Atratys too. And I trust you, Aderyn. Now you just have to trust yourself.
‘But, Mother –’ I’ve spoken aloud, breaking the silence of the tower. ‘Mother?’
It’s as if I’ve lost her all over again. I weep like I haven’t wept for years – not even when my father died. I scream at the Creator for allowing her to die, at myself for not being able to save her, at my uncle for his wickedness. Letya can only watch me, sympathetic tears spilling across her cheeks. I rage and rage until I’ve worn myself out.
Until finally, with exhaustion, comes a kind of peace.
‘Letya?’
‘Yes?’ Her voice is weak.
‘I’m going to fetch help.’ I stop, laugh at myself. ‘I mean, I’m going to try. If I don’t manage to transform before I hit the ground …’
‘Aderyn, are you sure? Couldn’t you …? Couldn’t you climb down first? Just a little way?’
‘No. I have to go from here or not at all.’ I lean in closer, so I can look into her eyes. ‘I don’t want to leave you. I’ll come back soon. If I succeed.’
She reaches up and touches my face. ‘You will.’
I hope that I can find that same certainty when it comes to it.
But first, I have to ge
t out of this room. I walk around the walls, running my fingertips against the stonework. It’s rough, but not irregular enough for me to find any foothold. The length of rope that Turik used to bind Letya is still on the floor. I pick it up, weighing it in my hands, squinting up at the windows above me.
There are brackets of some kind, on the walls below the windows. Metal rods of the sort that tapestries may be hung from. Some of them are loose; the iron fixings have rusted away. The chance that one of them will take my weight seems small. But I can’t think of any other way.
I take off my gown and undergarments. Pick a bracket that looks firm, tie the end of the rope into a noose. Start throwing it upward. It takes me an age. I get sweaty and tired and every time the noose misses its mark I want to scream with frustration. But finally, it catches. I tug on the rope as hard as I can; the bracket creaks, but it doesn’t move. Gripping the rope in both hands, wincing at the pain in my injured palm, I start walking my feet slowly, slowly up the wall.
My progress is agonising. The rope grows slippery with blood and sweat. The muscles in my shoulders send bolts of pain down my arms and into my back, and I have to keep stopping as it gets harder and harder to force myself up. But gradually I climb higher. And higher. Until I winch myself up one last time and my feet are next to the iron bracket.
The window is just above me. Holding on to the rope with one hand, I grope blindly upward, grab hold of what is left of the wooden window frame and pull –
I’m hunched up in the opening that pierces the wide tower wall, clinging to the window frame. The breeze whips my hair around my head and brings my naked skin up in goose pimples. On one side is the room where Letya is still imprisoned. On the other, the rocks and water of the fjord. I don’t dare look down.
The Citadel is opposite me, rising from the head of the fjord. It looks a long way away in the darkness; here and there are scattered gleams of light from windows, and a brighter patch where the landing platform projects out over the water. That’s what I need to aim for.
But I can’t transform where I am. I can’t even try. There’s not enough space.
The night Lucien flew back to Merl – I remember him leaping from my window, launching himself into the darkness. I have to do the same.
I have to let myself fall.
Closing my eyes, I try to ignore the wind, and the fact that I’m crouched high in the air above rocks and water. My first instinct is to try to remember everything my mother taught me about air currents and lift and speed of attack – but a flash of insight tells me that such details are not going to help. This isn’t a problem that can be solved by memory or thought.
I have to feel, instead. To allow myself, finally, to feel everything, however much it might hurt.
My skin, first of all. The damaged as well as the whole, the scarred as well as the smooth. In my mind, I examine every contour of it, separating myself from it, letting go of the feelings of pain and shame until my skin is no more to me than a convenient covering for muscle and bone. Then I move on to the current that runs constantly beneath my skin. The innate power, flowing from my parents, my ancestors, flowing through my blood. I follow the current, embracing it as I let myself sink into my core, leaving behind my human shape. Deeper and deeper the current draws me, until I can sense that my form is drifting, fragmenting, becoming malleable. And then …
I jump.
The air tears past me, threatening to drag me back into solidity. And for a moment the scream of the wind becomes –
– the scream of the hawks, clawing their way back out of my memory –
– the screams of my mother as she dies, of my father as he gathers her broken body in his arms –
Image after image flashes through my mind as pain sweeps across my scarred back. But still I am falling, falling away from the hawks and the hurt, and the shrieks dwindle and fade. There is nothing but me and the wind.
And the wind and I belong to each other.
I open my arms in a wide embrace. Spread them out into strong white wings. Skin, muscle, bone: everything changes, lightens, and the wind catches me and bears me upward –
Sea spray, against my face. I open my eyes and I’m flying above the waves.
I’m flying …
The exhilaration is there, the exhilaration that I remembered, that was so absent from the flights I took with Siegfried’s potion in my blood. But it’s the joy that shocks me. So much joy that my heart might break from it, that my whole body might burn up in its fierce heat. With sudden clarity I recall flying between my parents, hearing both their voices in my head –
You’re doing so well, Aderyn!
Come, daughter, let us see how swiftly you can fly …
How swiftly can I fly? I tilt my wings, stretch forward, rush across the choppy waters of the fjord towards the Citadel. The mountains above call to me as my flight feathers sweep the distance away; my heart beats faster at the thought of exploring them, of soaring above glaciers and snow-shrouded valleys. I long to see the beauty of this land from the air …
But I am in control now, and the landing platform is below me. I circle round once, twice, making sure there are no other nobles in sight, and I land.
Panic flickers inside me briefly, as I hit the water – panic that, having succeeded in becoming a swan, I won’t be able to change back. But in fact I barely have to think about it. One moment I am settling my feathers and folding my wings; the next, I am crouched in the shallow water.
A hooded servant approaches, offering a robe. I take one – my hands are shaking, and my knees – and cover myself.
At least Siegfried won’t be expecting me to be here. He thinks I can’t fly.
But I’m not planning to find him. Instead I make my way to Aron’s room and knock on his door.
There’s no answer. For one heart-stopping moment I wonder whether he’s fled, or has been arrested. I knock again, louder.
This time the door opens.
Aron is rubbing his eyes, as if he was asleep. He opens the door wider to let me in.
‘Aderyn? What’s going on?’ His glance takes in my robe. ‘Where have you been? And why weren’t you at the trial?’
‘Because Siegfried abducted me. Aron –’ I reach out for him as a wave of dizziness throws me off balance. ‘Cousin, I need your help.’
Eighteen
Anger ignites in Aron’s eyes. ‘You’re injured … That bastard. What did he do to you?’
‘It’s only my hand.’ I stagger; Aron puts his arm around me and leads me to a chair. ‘And I’ve just transformed for the first time in years. It was …’ I catch my breath, struggling to find words that can adequately describe how it felt. ‘It was wonderful, Aron, but I hardly ate anything today – or I suppose it was yesterday, so –’
‘What do you mean, you’ve transformed for the first time in years? You’ve been flying for weeks already – with Siegfried. I’ve seen you with my own eyes.’
I shake my head, my excitement fading, dreading the effect of another revelation. ‘I’m sorry, cousin: what you saw was a lie. Siegfried deceived you. So did I.’
As Aron cleans my hand and helps me knot a handkerchief around it, I tell him about the potion that Siegfried gave me. That my father made. He fetches me a glass of wine and some biscuits, and I tell him everything: my attempt to kill Siegfried, the hidden passage, the tower. His expression grows more and more grave, but he doesn’t interrupt. He just sits with his chin propped in his hand and lets me talk.
‘… and now I’m here. But Letya is still in the tower. We have to rescue her and get a doctor to look at that burn on her neck. And we have to stop them executing Lucien.’
Aron sighs. ‘I wish you’d waited, cousin. Or at least told me what you were planning. My messenger returned from Merl not two hours ago. We have the letters that Siegfried wrote to your father.’
My shoulders sag with relief. ‘Then we must rouse Convocation immediately.’ I glance at the clock on the mantlepiece; the ni
ght is already wearing away. Lucien is supposed to be brought for execution at dawn.
Aron is still watching me, frowning.
‘Cousin? Don’t you agree?’
He nods. ‘Of course. And we will go to Convocation. But there is another factor to consider. What will happen to the crown?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘At the moment, Odette and Siegfried are due to be crowned as soon as they are married. Once Siegfried and the queen have been exposed, the marriage will obviously not take place. Odette will not be able to claim the throne. Neither will you, since you are also unmarried.’
‘But I could marry –’ Sudden embarrassment halts me. ‘I mean, I could marry someone.’
‘If you’re thinking of Rookwood, you could of course marry him. But if you want to be queen, Convocation would have to approve the match. And they won’t: you and Lucien are both from Atratys; it would concentrate too much power in one dominion.’
‘I don’t want to be queen. I just want to go home.’ I sigh. ‘Who’s next in line after me?’
‘Siegfried controls his father – assuming he’s still alive – so once he and Aurik are both excluded, the throne falls to either Arden of Dacia or Thane of Fenian – Grayling’s father. Both married, both – due to the complex intermarrying of their ancestors – with an equal claim. The kingdom might end up in a civil war.’
‘I feel as if Arden is more likely to win.’ I’ve never met Thane, but if he’s like his son … ‘Would Fenian contest the throne?’
‘Hard to say, but to give up such a prize without a fight …’ He smiles contemptuously. ‘I doubt either of them would make a good king. Not that my father set a particularly high standard. Of course, as someone with a better claim to the throne, you’d be left in a somewhat awkward position. As would my sister.’
He means we’d be at risk, of course. At risk of being forced into marriage. Or imprisoned. Or worse. A lifetime dealing with the sorts of threats I’ve had to face for the last three months. I take a sip of wine, hoping its warmth will dispel the chill of panic that just assailed me.
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