by Claire Merle
“Have you won the Prince’s special favour?” Strik asks, leaning over. Waxy cold fingers caress my neck. Suddenly they pinch together, squeezing my windpipe. “Answer me!”
“I don't know,” I sob. “I don't know.”
“Then we will have to find out.”
Forty-Eight
I rouse, struggle to open my eyes, fall back under, crushed by pain. Repeat. I have no idea how many times this has happened since Commander Linx returned me to the cage. I have been floundering in an ocean of darkness, only to regain consciousness and wish I had not.
At some point, I wake to find the commander rubbing cold cream on my toes, bandaging my foot and crushed finger. In the light of an open torch strapped to a bar of the cage, the strain and desperation on the commander’s face drives into me exactly how far Strik's power is able to corrupt a man. He forced Commander Linx to an act of violence that went against his nature.
I wanted to ask the commander whether he'd seen the Prince, but he hushed me each time I tried to speak. And it was hard to think about anything but lessening the pain and satisfying my hunger spasms, as he spooned watery soup down my throat.
The soup and cream have helped enormously. The last two times I stirred, I stayed conscious for many minutes, watched my guards dozing against the wall opposite the cage door, and wondered about the world Strik comes from.
Rudeash is a kingdom where implanting suggestions is a part of their way of life, where shrouders are capable of concealing the Rudeashan cities from outsiders. This is why Tug saw no others like Strik when he crossed the tundra to Rudeash.
The distant sound of boot steps send my guards hurrying to their feet.
My heart pounds as I remember Strik's parting words. Calmi was wrong. Her grandfather did not lose interest because I am Uru Ana. But why this obsession with the Prince's affections? With a few words, Strik could convince the Prince he was in love with Calmi, couldn't he?
Torch light flickers down the long stretch of corridor, casting shadows on the grimy walls.
“We need the prisoner,” a soldier says.
The guard with the shaved head, who allowed Lady Calmi to visit me, blocks their path. “Whose orders?”
“The Prince of Caruca has summoned all captured traitors to the throne room.”
My muscles tense, and my jaw locks, teeth grinding. Strik is setting a trap. He must intend to show Jakut that I have been tortured. He believes the Prince is as calculating and cold as he is, so any sign of emotion or outrage from Jakut will be taken as proof that I have wheedled my way into the Prince's heart and must be gouged out and gotten rid of, permanently.
A key clangs in the cage door. I hope Sixe has been keeping an eye on me, and has found a way to warn Calmi. I hope Jakut will be prepared.
“Kneel and hold out your arms,” the soldier says. I drag myself up, taking my weight on the hand that is intact. My feet are bare. The bandaged foot protrudes from under my folded legs. I avoid putting pressure on it, but the pain flares when it touches the ground, the lightest contact is like a pulverising boulder.
Manacles slid over my wrists and lock, pinching my skin. The soldier yanks a lead of chain attached to a circle of iron. He means to pull me to my feet, but I stumble and fall smack on the side of my face. The bruise to my cheek radiates heat.
“She cannot walk,” the guard with the shaved head says.
“Then she'll have to crawl,” the soldier sneers.
A few chuckles echo in the underground passage. I push up, stare at the soldier through straggles of tangled hair. He is around Pa's forty years. The skin near his ear is ruffled where he's been burnt. I swallow hard, steeling myself against their cruelty.
When Lord Strik turned the Carucan people against the Uru Ana thirty years ago, he only had to suggest we were the enemy. Calmi said it was the King's soldiers and the Carucans who chased my people from their homes, who arrested them, and burned them. Is it really so easy to wipe away compassion by convincing a man he stands before his enemy? And yet I know the answer. If it weren't, the bloody wars that have written the history of Caruca and Etea would have been impossible.
“Move!” the soldier orders, yanking the chain. I bite hard on my lip but it isn't enough to stop a yelp from escaping. The muscles in my shoulders burn, ripped from their sockets. A few more hard pulls and I will lose the use of both my arms.
The guard with the shaved head enters the cell, pushing the soldier aside. “She is just a child,” he mutters, scooping me up.
The soldier barricades our way. “I will take her any way I see fit,” he says.
“I doubt the Prince of Caruca has all day to wait while you drag her up the stairs,” the guard says. “And if he is bringing the prisoners to question them, better she is still conscious and able to talk.”
The soldier glances back at his men. Then he winds up the chain attached to my wrist, reeling himself toward us until he stands head-on to the guard. He thrusts the chain into my stomach with a hard punch. I automatically curve to take the blow and whimper at the pinch on my rib cage. I turn my head into the guard's chest, gritting my teeth.
Then we are moving. The sound of boots thumping through the tunnel, and the battering of the guard's heart against my ear, fill my senses. I am carried through dim passages, up a short flight of steps, around another tunnel, then a longer flight of stairs.
At the top of stone stairs we are bathed in sunlight. I screw up my eyes against the stinging brightness. Warm air washes across my face and into my lungs. As we continue, I squint at our surroundings. I vaguely recognize the corridor. It is one of the many passages on the first floor that Tug and I ran through before we found the nursery.
And then the guard is setting me down before the giant umber and ebony throne room doors. It has not been two whole days since Tug and I were ushered into the throne room to stand before the Queen, yet it feels like weeks.
The throne room doors stand open, the hall beyond obscured by several rows of soldiers. Lord Strik's mind seeps out, a dark pall. I resist the rumble and drag of energy, focus on my trembling body, taking as much weight as possible on my good foot without losing my balance.
A soldier produces a key. The chain attached to my manacles is removed, and the men guarding the throne room part to create a passage. I hobble forward, the eyes of those closest boring holes in my skull. They have no idea who I am, or what I am supposed to have done yet the hatred is palpable.
Seconds pass and I have not even reached the threshold. My movements are cumbersome. There is no pain, I tell myself, but each time I put pressure on my bandaged foot, black dots bloom at the edge of my vision, and I fear I will pass out.
Dipped in stark light from the window, a dozen prisoners kneel before the dais steps. It suddenly hits me that if Calmi and Jakut did not find a way to free Tug, he will be one of them. I rub my eyes and scan the captives looking for anyone with Tug's broad back and wavy hair. I daren't glance up at the thrones. I cannot face seeing how the Prince is reacting to my pitiful entrance. And if I catch his eye, I might destabilize his efforts to remain indifferent.
“Ah,” Strik says. “The last of the prisoners has finally arrived.” I keep my head bowed, concentrate on the next step forward, trying to look stronger than I am. I have not reached a third of the way to the other prisoners when my legs give way and I crumble to the polished floor.
Head lowered, I silently beg Jakut will rake the very depths of his talent for deception and disguise to prove to Strik his indifference.
Light steps resound at the far end of the hall. My shoulders shake. The rush and roar of energy in the mind-world means I cannot tell who has descended. Please don't let it be the Prince.
“The only way to quell the trouble in the city,” Strik says, “and among the courtiers, is by showing a firm hand, Your Royal Highness.”
A little sigh of relief escapes me. It is Strik moving closer, not the Prince. The irony of my line of thinking—hoping for Strik rather than the
Prince—is not lost on me. I glance up. Strik stands at the foot of the dais in a striking royal blue and gray tunic, hair swept back from his face and glimmering silver in the sun.
A movement in the shadows catches my eye. A lithe man slips further up the hall to mirror Strik's position. It fleetingly crosses my thoughts that the lord’s assassins are undetectable to my inner-eye, as though being around Strik for so long, their minds have been diffused and melded with his. Apart from Strik's personal entourage, no other soldiers or guards remain in the hall.
He steps closer to the line of prisoners, continuing his address to the Prince. “The people do not need to love you. They need to respect you. You must show your authority.” His energy swells as he uses the voice. I hold my breath, anticipating the pull into his memories, but nothing happens. I wonder if it is because his words are directed at the Prince rather than me.
“I am not a coward,” Jakut says. I raise my eyes, cold tingling through my hands and feet. Jakut lounges on the throne, looking at once displeased and awkward. “Anyone who does not respect the curfew, anyone who is caught trying to leave the city, anyone who is reported as attempting to assist the Queen, is being arrested.”
“It is not enough,” Strik answers.
My eyes shift to Calmi. She is sitting beside the Prince, staring forward, unblinking, gaze blank. My heart beats faster. Calmi was wrong when she said her grandfather would lose interest in me once he learned why I was travelling with Prince. What if she is also wrong about the Prince? She said Jakut was different, but unless he can overcome the suggestive power in Strik's voice, he does not stand a chance against Strik.
My cheeks flare. I quickly shift my eyes from Calmi to where I sense someone watching and my stomach plunges when I meet Strik's satisfied stare. As far as I can tell, the Prince has not reacted to my presence. He is better at this than I anticipated. Or Strik has used the hours since I have been captured to convince Jakut that I am a pawn in their game, a pawn who has betrayed him and is now worthless.
Strik slowly walks the line of prisoners. Though my head is lowered, I follow him in the mind-world stopping to see if he hesitates over any prisoner in particular. I try to take in the feel of the minds he passes, but he has this way of smothering them.
“A public hanging in front of the palace,” Strik declares.
“What about their trials?”
“Your Kingdom hangs in the balance,” the lord answers, turning towards the Prince. Hands clasped behind his back, he walks up the dais steps, feet as light and swift as a young man. “Your uncle has not been caught, and keeping the Queen alive, while necessary for a short while, fuels the rebellion. One prisoner has already escaped. The guards responsible for this error will hang beside the prisoners as a warning.”
The Prince looks at Strik with some misgiving, but he nods, assenting.
“Greatness is shown by a man's strength,” Strik says, striding to Jakut's right-hand side. “A man's ability to make hard decisions.”
The Prince stands. “The prisoners will be hanged at sunset,” he says, staring forward, as though he cannot meet Strik's pressing gaze. “I hope it will be enough to quell the bloodshed.”
Something in his voice, a sense of remorse, makes me look up. For a split-second the Prince's untrained gaze locks on me. Adrenaline surges through my body.
“I will not allow the Kingdom of Caruca to fall into tatters,” he says, ending their conversation.
I drop my head. I am trembling again, wondering if he was making that final address to me. An apology?
Downtrodden, he descends the dais and walks through the center of the hall. Prisoners shuffle out of his way. He moves through them without glancing down, headed for the giant hall doors.
My shaking grows worse as he passes me. Now he is away from Lord Strik, I sense the shape of his mind and realize how much of his memory has returned to him. It is no longer a canvas of ash and ruin, his past buried beneath an avalanche of dust. His mind feels like an enormous, long wall. A strange, ominous wall, built to divide a kingdom from the dark creatures lurking on the other side.
Have we lost the Prince? I look up as Calmi follows in Jakut's wake, her face a numb mask.
The Prince's footsteps fade. An instant later, soldiers march in to round up the prisoners. I am left until last. Chains are locked onto the shackles of the other prisoners and they are dragged from the hall.
Has Jakut just saved my life, or condemned it? My body sways. Adrenaline fades and pain looms. Blackness swims on the edge of my vision. Thunder roars in my ears.
Strik.
He stands in the dome of light at the center of the hall, watching me. As the four soldiers who brought me to the hall swoop in to attach my chains, he steps forward.
“She is not to join the other prisoners until the hanging. Return her to the cage. The key comes straight back to me.”
The soldier with the ruffle of burnt skin nods. Then with a hard tug he pulls me to my feet. I cry out tripping after him. He moves too fast. Light flares on my eyes and I start to reel. We reach the throne room doors. I look up at the sun pouring in from the hall beyond, the beautiful carved ceiling with men in bloody battle, and white birds sweeping the sky.
I cannot take another step. With the force yanking on my arms I fall forward. Faces of the guards outside the throne room blur. The guard who carried me from my cage lunges to catch me. But my gaze focuses for a moment on the soldier behind him. The tattoo markings and bruises on the man's face have been expertly concealed. He stares at me, desperation stifled by an iron-will of control.
Tug has escaped his prison, but he is not on his way to Lyndonia. He is here in the palace. And his eyes are telling me to hold on.
Forty-Nine
My stomach is a tight knot of nerves, and despite the cool, mouldy air in my cage, I am sweating. I sit on the wooden pallet, my damaged foot raised awkwardly to lift the weight off it, but it is hard to stay still.
Picking at the thread of the bandage on my hand, I wonder what kind of dangerous plan Tug is concocting to get me out of here. He has never trusted the Prince, and after what happened in the throne room, I can't say I'm sorry for it. But he is taking an enormous risk just staying in the Ruby Palace. His presence here fills me equally with relief and dread.
And what about the Prince? What was that performance in the throne room, if it was a performance? All my previous fears about the Prince's memories coming back and transforming his personality wrestle inside me. Either way, Jakut is a long way from controlling the situation.
I force myself to stop fidgeting, breathe deeply and focus through the pain and anxiety. Eyes closed, I glide through the mind-world, move up the palace levels headed for the Prince's chambers. I want to discover if he’s still fighting for us, and against Strik. The only way to be sure is to root around his recent memories.
It is some minutes before I come across the mind shaped like a great wall of some ancient myth. A wall built to keep out demons; a myth told to scare children. Even exhausted, bones aching, pain constant, moving through the mind-world is a hundred times easier than it was when I first left Blackfoot Forest. It is like a muscle that has grown strong from weeks of practice.
I slip inside the Prince's mind without effort, skim across his recent memories until I find one where he and Calmi are alone.
Calmi stands by the door of a lavish suite with enormous wood carvings, purple pillows strewn across six low ottomans, blue hand-painted patterns on the walls. The Prince is twisting an ornament in his hands, a golden filigree egg. He watches Calmi and she stares back.
“If you want to pass Grandfather's test,” she says, “Mirra must hang.”
“It's not an option.”
“Then he will know his voice wields no power over you. He will not hesitate to get rid of you. The Queen and the heir she carries will take your place. And Caruca will be under his rule.”
“You are asking me to make an impossible choice.”
“Th
ere is no choice. Your emotions are getting in your way.”
“Sacrifice one to save many?” Jakut says, scornfully.
“As you did with your father.”
“This is different. My father was not innocent.”
“It is not different. The only difference is the way you feel about her. Grandfather is suspicious—because of your spiritual cleansing after you massacred his men, and now the missing Duke, and the escaped prisoner. Unless she hangs with the others, you will never get close enough to kill him.”
“I cannot do it.”
“But you must.”
A shout from somewhere near my cage yanks my attention out of the Prince's mind. I blink at the murky darkness, noting the smell of burning that lingers on the air.
The torch on the wall outside my cage has been snuffed out. There comes another gruff shout, then a sound of a fist hitting flesh. A sword clangs against stone, followed by a crack. I crawl off the wooden pallet, and wriggle across the cage floor on my stomach. More grunts, gurgles, sounds of punching, kicking. I pull myself up to the bars and squint at the faint edges of shadow.
A scuffling sound, followed by an agonised cry, quickly smothered. I wait, time pounding in my ears with the beating of my heart. The darkness is like a wall, like the mountain is claiming back these subterranean passages and trying to bury us.
Don't be dead, Tug. Don't you dare be dead.
A match sparks. In the light of a small flame, all I can make out are the fingers holding it. Then the flame grows as a torch is lit, illuminating the man who carries it.
I clap my hand over my mouth to stop myself from sobbing. Tug is panting, breathless, blood licking down the side of his unmarked face. A soldier moans, but I barely notice. All I see is Tug, those fierce, determined eyes, and I can't break it to him. Not straight away. He doesn't know that Strik is the only one with a key to my cage.
I prolong the moment of truth, distract both of us, if only for a few seconds. “When you said you'd come back for me,” I say, “I thought you meant in a few months, not hours.”