Double-checking her weapons, she looked over at Zel. He was crouched beside her, face unreadable as he stared at the Tower. “You ready?” she whispered.
He turned to stare at her, eyes still hard as he frowned. “Ready for what?”
She jerked her head in the direction of the Tower.
Zel shook his head. “We can’t go in now.”
“Why not?”
“Because I haven’t had time to get the local shadows on my side. It’s going to take me at least a day, and if I don’t, Chayn will know the second we get close to the Tower. We need to do this right if we’re both to survive.”
Terrwyn crossed her arms over her chest, chin jutting forward. “Aricia is this close and I don’t know if she’s safe or not. They could be hurting her right now! If our waiting ends with her dead...”
He studied her face, glanced at the Tower, then grimaced. “What if I can find out how this princess of yours is? What if I could tell you she was alive and unharmed? Would you be willing to wait then?”
“Yes. But I thought the other shadows won’t tell you anything since Chayn’s in charge here.”
“They won’t, but there’s a third option.” He didn’t explain further, only closed his eyes and held one arm outstretched with the palm facing out.
Terrwyn watched, but nothing happened other than Zelek’s breathing slowing. She looked around but couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Soft movement drew her attention to the ground. Zel’s shadow was shifting, moving independently from him. It seemed to condense, strengthen, until it finally moved so that it was facing Zel, its palm outstretched same as his.
He opened his eyes and stared down at his shadow. A moment later both Zel and his shadow nodded, almost in unison, before the shadow turned and slipped over the hill, hurrying towards the Tower. He sighed, his shoulders slumping.
“What—”
Zel cut her off. “I sent my personal shadow. The other shadows won’t say anything about him, since technically he’s only a shadow and not attached to me. If this were anyone except Chayn, it wouldn’t work, but he’s never treated his shadows well. As long as my shadow doesn’t run into his, he won’t be alerted.”
She frowned. “Can he do the same thing? Should we be worried?”
“No, he can’t. It’s...it’s not a common skill.” He turned back towards where they’d tied the horses. “And my shadows are far more loyal and would alert me if he could. We should start planning what we’re going to do, how we’re going to get in.”
Terrwyn didn’t like the look on Zel’s face, but didn’t say anything until they were settled among the handful of trees while their mounts were contentedly eating grass. “Are you going to be all right? You—you don’t sound right about sending your shadow. Is it dangerous?”
He dropped down so he could lean back against one of the trees. “As long as my shadow isn’t caught, it’ll be fine.”
“And if he is?”
Zel looked at her, deep lines running from his nose to his mouth. “Then my ability to command shadows will be halved. And depending on the abilities and knowledge of the mage, I could be put under a variety of extremely unpleasant spells. I don’t know how common that knowledge is here, but there are more than a few in my homeland who would be able to do so, and would know what a lone shadow meant. Chayn may know the spells even though he doesn’t have the power to perform them.”
Guilt twisted her stomach. “Zel, I—”
He shook his head. “It’s fine. It’s not a bad plan anyway, getting an idea of what’s happening now, so we can plan with that information while I convert the shadows here to our side.”
Terrwyn’s forehead remained furrowed as she looked at him, thinking that she was putting him in worse danger. At the same time, she had to know if Aricia was safe, her duty to the princess undeniable. She found herself caught between her desire to keep Zel safe and to save Aricia. It was turning her stomach into a knotted mass that she didn’t have a hope of untangling.
Some of what she was feeling must have crossed her face, because Zel offered her a smile. “Rather than worry while we wait, why don’t you tell me a bit more about this princess? She must be something special to engender the amount of loyalty in her as you have.”
While she still felt faintly nauseous, Terrwyn nodded. At the very least, if Zel understood why Aricia was important, why she was a good person, he’d take even better care of her once they both got out. She knew he wouldn’t abandon Aricia for her sake at the very least, but giving him a reason to like the princess certainly wouldn’t hurt.
* * *
Arm held in a tight grip, Aricia was led back to her cell by Kirja. She kept her gaze moving, looking around the big stone room that filled most of the floor. At the side farthest away from her room was the staircase that spiralled up and down. Beside it was one of the thin, arched windows that let in the weak light of the day. Most of the illumination was provided by the lanterns spaced equally along the walls.
Closer to the stairs, Chayn leaned against the wall and watched her through slitted eyes. After her escape attempt two days earlier, Kirja no longer brought her out of her room without him to keep watch and block her. She’d heard the witch say her spells would more likely kill her than contain her and they needed her alive to finish the unsealing spell.
Aricia did her best to push the thought away. She knew that the final requirement for the spell would likely be her life, so there was little hope once they got to that point. If it came to that, she’d try to find a way to kill herself. She couldn’t risk Slel being revived. Not with what the legends said of the monster, of what he could do.
Though she feared that if she died, they’d go after Zelina, and she couldn’t bear the thought of her little sister going through this. All she could hope was they’d improved their defences and Chayn wouldn’t be able to get in again. But until it got to the end of the ritual she’d continue to try to find a way to escape.
So far she hadn’t seen anything she could use. Kirja’s work area was filled with odd liquids and strange powders housed in various glass bottles scattered across the scuffed desk. The centrepiece was the ancient book left open to a page covered in symbols Aricia didn’t recognize. The iron dagger Kirja used to draw Aricia’s blood was there, and she’d eyed it more than once. Aricia thought she could probably get it from the mage when Kirja was distracted, but would only have enough time to plunge it into her own throat, so it would have to be a last resort.
They had reached her open cell, and she was pushed inside, the door shut behind her. Aricia stopped in the gloom of her room, waiting for her eyes to adjust. They’d taken her candles after she’d tried to burn the door down. She had really only succeeded in setting her bed aflame and had nearly died in the resulting smoke. It wasn’t something she’d try again, even if they’d been willing to get her candles.
At least her current bed was better, a rag-stuffed mattress that she thought had recently belonged to one of the other two. She assumed Kirja had some way of bringing supplies in, since she’d never known either of them leave, and it wasn’t as if there were markets in the middle of the Wild Lands. She wouldn’t be surprised to find out they’d just been stealing whole meals since her food was genuinely quite good. Neither of them struck her as the domestic type, so she doubted they were cooking it.
Able to see with the faint light coming in through the cracks in her door, Aricia moved to her bed and sat down. It was by far more comfortable than the curiously smooth stone floor. Folding her legs beneath her, Aricia stared at the door and considered the few options she had left.
While she was still looking for a way to escape, she didn’t have many illusions about her probability of success. Even if she managed to get away from both of them, managed to get out of the Tower, managed to get past the sand and into the hills, she’d still have to
contend with Chayn and his shadows. He’d already told her how easily he’d be able to hunt her down, how he could track her and her shadow anywhere she went.
She shivered. But if by some miracle she could remove him, have him incapacitated when she escaped, she’d be in the middle of the Wild Lands with no idea where home was and no real ability to defend or feed herself. Without someone coming to rescue her, she had no hope of surviving and she hated that thought. Depending on others had never bothered her before, but she’d never been helpless like this until now.
If she got out of this, she intended to change that. Terrwyn had been after her to learn some knife or sword work, and Aricia would damn well take her up on it. She’d fit in those lessons, as well as archery and surviving alone, into her schedule. If someone wanted to kidnap her after this, she’d be ready for them, and just as likely as her bodyguards to skewer the person.
Aricia continued to make plans for the future, refusing to think she would actually die, and wouldn’t think about that possibility until it came to that point. She wouldn’t be able to hold herself together otherwise. Her emotions kept pushing at her control, the fear and panic never far away. She was the woman who was going to be queen and needed to be strong even in a situation like this.
The light in front of her door fluttered. Aricia frowned and leaned forward, but saw nothing. She hadn’t heard Kirja or Chayn walk by, and with the lanterns, the light was generally steady. Her lips pulling farther down, she narrowed her eyes. It had to be Chayn, spying on her with his shadows again. She made a rude gesture she’d learned from the kitchen boys in her childhood. She wouldn’t let him see her afraid.
She perked her ears up when she heard the distant thrum of voices, but ignored it. They were too far away for her to hear the words, and she had a pretty good idea of what they were talking about anyway. Chayn was impatient and would harass Kirja for an update every few days. It was obvious to Aricia, if not to Chayn, that the witch was growing heartily tired of him and his whining. If she didn’t need him to keep Aricia in line, she’d probably have killed him by now.
Which was all to the good as far as Aricia was concerned. The more divisiveness between the two, the more hope she had. If she could turn them against each other, she’d have some real hope of escaping.
With nothing else to do, Aricia turned her thoughts towards various strategies to worsen the relationship between Kirja and Chayn, putting everything else from her mind.
Chapter Twenty-One: Together
Zel’s shadow returned just after they’d finished setting up their camp. They both heaved sighs of relief as it reattached itself to Zelek. Terrwyn left off pulling the last of the branches up to screen them from the Tower and hurried over to him, unable to keep the anxiety from her face. If Aricia was hurt...
She shook her head and did her best not to hover as Zel went quiet in a way she knew meant he was talking to his shadows. She often wondered how they communicated, as he never appeared to make noise with them, but then again, shadows didn’t make noise themselves. How did you talk to shadows?
Her wandering thoughts were pulled back when Zel looked up. “Your princess is fine,” he said, the words made her go almost limp with relief. “They have her locked in a cell, but from what I understand, she’s anything but broken. What’s troubling is what my shadow overheard.”
Terrwyn shifted her weight from one foot to the other, but he didn’t leave her in suspense long. “The spell the witch is trying to perform is to be done at the next moon dark. Until then, they need your princess alive. But when the spell is complete...”
She didn’t need him to explain as fingers of ice invaded her stomach. She looked at the sky, but the sun was still up, if hidden behind the grey clouds of the day. Even without being able to see it, she knew that the moon was waning and already a crescent. They had less than four days to save Aricia.
Zel grimaced. “I know,” he said in reply to her unspoken response. “We don’t have a lot of time. I’ll be doing everything I can from now until then to convert all the local shadows. If we’re lucky and Chayn hasn’t suddenly changed his attitude, I should be able to get this finished by tomorrow.”
Terrwyn chewed the inside of her cheek but nodded. As much as she wanted to go now, she wouldn’t risk Zel’s safety, not when Aricia was unharmed for the moment. She wished there was some way she could let Aricia know they were coming, that help was on the way. But they couldn’t risk tipping the other two off. They needed every advantage if they were to get Aricia out safely and keep the demon witch from following.
She left him to his business, finishing off some grass weavings he said he could hide their supplies under, and she went back to putting the screen up. It only took her a matter of minutes and from there she turned her attention to digging an underground firepit so they could cook something. If they were going to be in the same camp for more than a little while, she wanted to make them as hard to spot as possible.
But once she was done, Terrwyn found herself with nothing to do. Their camp was set up, the horses hidden in their own little screened area and busy eating the grass they’d cut for them. They had wood for the fire and water. They’d scouted as much of the Tower and the area as they could and hadn’t found any signs of monsters or recent movement from the Tower.
Zel had his eyes half-closed, hands still. She assumed he was talking to his shadows again. She’d even found the time to make two rough wooden spears, though the wood here hadn’t been ideal for it. Knowing she couldn’t just sit and wait, she moved over to Zelek. “I’m going to the pond.”
He glanced up at her, gaze not completely focused. “Be careful.”
She nodded and turned. Heading away from the Tower, Terrwyn felt better moving. She might not be doing anything right now that would help free Aricia, but moving made her feel like she had a sense of purpose. Sitting still would only bring with it all the emotions she was trying her best to ignore. There was no point in dwelling on any of them. They wouldn’t change what she had to do, what she would do.
Terrwyn reached the small pond. The water was clear and edged by trees on one side, so the shadows played across the surface in time with the wind that swept through the branches. Even with the sun hidden, the day was warm, and the water when she’d touched it earlier had reflected that fact.
She stared at the pond for a moment before she strode forward. Taking care to avoid the grassy banks that were soft in some places, she started walking laps around the water. Tomorrow. They’d head into the Tower tomorrow, go rescue Aricia, and if everything went according to plan, she’d be able to distract the demon witch long enough for the other two to escape. Then she’d die.
Terrwyn stopped for a moment at the thought then started off again. It didn’t matter. What she felt, what she wished for, that didn’t matter in this. And she had to be honest, Aricia and Zel’s safety was what she wanted most. If she could be sure of that, she really didn’t mind dying. She’d always wanted her death to mean something.
Her steps got faster as her thoughts moved on. This would be her last full day of life, the last day to do what she wanted. But what did she want to do out here? Her family and friends from home she couldn’t see, it was the wrong season for strawberries so she couldn’t hope to find any of those to eat, and she obviously couldn’t travel to see those places she’d always meant to go. It was only her and Zel.
Just thinking his name sparked a mental image that had her cheeks flaring. Terrwyn nearly missed her next step and half stumbled. She slowed down to keep herself from falling, eventually coming to a stop. A glance at her reflection in the water showed her the state of her face, making her very glad Zel wasn’t with her right now. Somehow he’d figure out what she was thinking and would only grin at her like he always did.
Thoughts stuck where they were, Terrwyn could feel her temperature rising. Walking would only make it w
orse and going back to their camp would have her face to face with him. She looked down again and she had a sudden idea. After a quick look around to ensure she was truly alone, Terrwyn began to strip.
She piled her clothes neatly on the shore, left her sword on top so she could reach it in a hurry, before she slid into the water. The water was cool enough against her skin to be delightful, so that Terrwyn practically purred. She could just reach the sandy bottom by the pond’s bank but could feel the slope that told her she’d have to swim in the middle. Not that she cared. She was comfortable, moving, and distracted from her highly inappropriate thoughts of Zel.
Terrwyn grimaced as she realized she hadn’t completely escaped one of her mind’s favourite forms of harassment. She pushed off from the bank and swam to the middle, focusing on how good the water felt against all the places that had been sweaty. It was nice to get clean. She hadn’t had a chance to since...
Michme’s face flashed in her mind, and she stopped swimming to tread water. She should write a letter, should explain Michme’s wishes and her own and slip it into Zel’s things. He’d see it got to the correct people.
She sighed and shifted so she could float on her back, attention on the grey sky. Too bad her last day hadn’t been sunny. Still, better than if it had been raining. Then they’d be huddled by the fire, probably wet and miserable. Though the branches and stuff they’d used to hide their camp might have kept them somewhat dry.
Terrwyn shifted her arms so her head stayed better above water. She should write the note. Maybe she could give it to Zel and tell him not to open it unless she died, or something. Though that might put quite a damper on their evening—
The sharp crack of a branch breaking had her dropping her legs and spinning herself in the water to face the sound. She managed three long strokes towards her sword when she got a proper look at the intruder. Standing several feet away from her clothes, eyes on all of her—for once it was Zel who was at a loss for words.
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