by Claire Merle
“Sorry to disappoint you.” He moves away from the cage door, props the torch in a sconce and starts hunting for the key. I watch him. For some reason I still cannot tell him he won't find what he's looking for.
I guess I'm afraid I'll see that defiance crack and if Tug cracks then I'm not sure I can keep up any semblance of bravery. His search grows more vigorous, more impatient. Eventually, once he has scoured both soldiers twice over, he turns to me from where he is crouched over one of the men.
“Where's the key?”
“Strik has it.” The truth falls down over his eyes like a pitch-black night. He looks ready to snake his arm over the soldier by his side and suffocate him. “Tug, Tug, please. You can't get me out of here. I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry?” There's an edge to his voice that winds me.
“Please, just talk to me for a few minutes. Then go. Get away from the city. Go to Lyndonia.”
“I'm not going to let you die today. I will kill Strik if the Prince cannot.”
“You said it yourself. Many have tried. Yet Lord Strik still lives.”
“The Prince will find a way to delay. He will not sacrifice you.”
“He has no choice. Strik has used his power to order the hanging.” I do not tell him that I have discovered why Calmi puts so much faith in the Prince, because Jakut has the unique ability to resist Strik's power. I do not tell him because I know what Tug will do if he discovers the Prince could stop my death, but allows it to win Strik's trust and save the kingdom.
“You did not come here to die, Mirra.” The anger and frustration seem to bleed out from him, twisting up my insides. It is worse to be left behind. To have someone taken from right under you, and be powerless to stop it. I could not let it happen to Kel. It will be hard for Tug. He will blame himself for the fact I'm here in the first place. The Prince might be capable of sacrificing me for the greater good, but unless I persuade Tug otherwise, he will die trying to stop it.
“If the Prince cannot find a way to take Lord Strik's life before the hanging,” I say, “then it is impossible. You cannot allow yourself to be killed. You still have a promise to keep.”
“Damn you, Mirra. Start thinking of yourself. Your brother is safe.”
“You have received word?”
“It is too soon. But the carrier pigeon will have reached Lyndonia. And an answer will arrive before nightfall.”
I look down, wondering if I will ever know that answer. Tug's hand wraps over mine where I hold the cage bars. His knuckles are bleeding. I can feel lacerations cut into his palm.
“You have to let me try, Mirra.”
He wants my permission to let him get himself killed trying to assassinate Strik. I don't want to give it. But if I make him go against his own nature, the sense of honor that he has finally won back, then am I any better than Strik? How would I have felt if my mother had emotionally blackmailed me not to go after Kel? I would never have been able to live knowing I'd done nothing.
I tilt my head in a small nod. “But only once you've received word from Lyndonia and are certain that Kel is safe.”
“Then I will wait,” he nods, “and whatever I do, it will be at the hanging.” I twitch my fingers to press against the bottom of his. We stay that way for a long moment, the fragile connection of touch like the delicate threads holding our lives to the world. On the edges of my inner-eye I sense someone approach.
“Someone is coming.” Tug withdraws his hand but I'm not ready to let go. I reach through the bars, and put my palm on his shoulder. The powder he has used to conceal the tattoos has smeared, revealing shadows of his beast-face. His look presses into me.
Tug the mercenary, the soldier, the diplomat, the guardian, the drunk, the hero. My feelings are as tangled and complicated as his past. Up until two days ago, I didn't think I had any, except for hate, distrust, and anger.
The lantern in the sconce on the wall flutters and dances. Tug nods at me, then steps away and silently vanishes.
I grip onto the cage door and wait for the mind that has entered this underground tomb through a forgotten passage. A passage I imagine only the rats have used for a thousand years.
Sixe approaches like a spectre. If I couldn't sense his mind, I would have no indication he was here. When he is close enough to see the guards, one unconscious, the other still splayed on the floor whimpering, he stops hiding and rushes to the cage.
In the mind-world he pulls up a memory.
Calmi stands in a stable, hair tied back, sweaty as though she has just returned from riding. She holds out a pendant with a glass centerpiece shaped like a crystal sword.
“This is for you, Mirra,” she says, talking to Sixe, but addressing me. “It is a mix of herbs and two poisons. I have only tested it on rabbits, but it is designed to slow the heartbeat. In the long-sleep the heart rate drops to fifteen beats per minute. Two drops of this and it will drop to two or three beats per minute. When you sense the soldiers coming for you just before dusk, take two drops. No more. It is fast working. By the time the soldiers reach your cell it will look as though you are having a seizure and dying. When they check for your pulse, they will not find it.”
Calmi glances behind her, eyes wide and wary. Then she looks back at Sixe—at me. “I do not know how long the coma will last. I cannot promise you will ever wake from it. But if you don't take it, there will be no stopping Jakut. He plans to surprise Grandfather at the hanging. He will try to stab him in public, in plain view of Grandfather's assassins. And while Grandfather may survive the attack, it is certain the Prince will not. I am sorry to ask you to do this, Mirra.”
She pushes the pendant into Sixe's hands. “Go now,” she tells him.
The memory dissolves, and I am left gazing at Sixe. He slips the crystal pendant through the bars. I take it. My hand shakes as I lift the glass to the torchlight. For a moment I think Calmi has made a mistake and the glass is empty. But then I realize she has filled it up to the top so it looks as though there is nothing there.
I slip the thread off the pendant and tuck the narrow crystal into the bandage around my injured hand. Then I look at Sixe. His expression reminds me of a river pebble I once found, formed in beautiful layers. Each layer a shade of sandy brown, volcanic black, salty gray, the passage of time captured in the sedimentary strips. I showed it to Ma and she called it the silent life of a stone, a witness to the force of nature and the passing of the ages.
I reach through the bars and squeeze Sixe's arm. As he turns to leave, I see the tear glistening on his cheek. Far off in the mind-world wind howls and waves crash against the sparkling cliffs of the Island of the Rushing Winds, the home of our ancestors, drowned beneath the sea years ago, but still echoing in our people's memories.
Fifty
I scratch up dirt from between the stones in the floor and rub the damp grain between my finger and thumb. Then I add the tiny ball to the fragments lined up on the end plank of the cage pallet. Eight pieces of stone dust and dirt. I'm uncertain how much time has passed, but for every approximate hour, I've added another piece.
What I do know is time is running out. The all-night sun may only be a couple of weeks away, but the days do not yet stretch so long that they can elude night altogether.
Soon after Sixe left, one of the guards roused and staggered off for help. The soldier with the rumpled ear-skin who wanted me to crawl to the throne room arrived. While his unit carried the unconscious guard to the army infirmary, rumpled-skin rattled the bars, spitting and cursing and promising me he would be standing in the front row at the hanging, applauding my death. Curled on the pallet with my back to him, I was thankful this time that Strik was the only one with a key to my cage.
Since then, the last few hours have been uneventful. If waiting to die could ever be considered a non-event. The cold, the pain, the hunger and exhaustion of my body are excruciating. But the real nightmare is agonising over how I will never have said goodbye to Ma and Pa. I will never have thanked them for
everything they gave up to keep me safe. I will never be able to explain to Kel why I didn't make it back with Tug.
Because Tug will make it back to Lyndonia. Neither he nor the Prince are going to get themselves killed trying to save me. When the guards come, I will take Calmi's potion. Oh, she has been clever, giving me a choice when she knows it is no choice at all.
There is every possibility the potion is Blue Death or a poison she made to kill her grandfather. But by telling me I have a chance of waking from the coma she avoids serving me the ultimate test of self-sacrifice. A test she is not convinced I would pass?
As dusk grows closer, I find myself on my knees praying to Jakut's Gods, or any Gods who will listen. Praying that by some miracle the Prince will find a way to rid Caruca of Lord Strik before the hanging. Praying I will wake from Calmi's coma. Praying Kel has grown strong in the days we have been apart. Strong enough to keep it together when he sees Beast-face coming for him, instead of me.
I should have given Tug a message, like Calmi spoke through Sixe to me. Explained that Tug is no longer our captor, but our friend. At least then Kel would have believed I had sent Tug to take him home.
I'm lying on my pallet muttering to myself and shivering when a dark cloud of energy sweeps through the mind-world. I strain to pull myself up to a seated position. Is it dusk already? Has Strik come to fetch me in person?
Pain shoots through my foot when it touches the ground. My fingers fumble over the tiny clumps of dirt. Ten. There should be at least fourteen. The sun had only just risen when I was taken to the throne room. Surely it's not time yet. It can't be.
The guards become aware of our approaching company a few seconds after I do. They stand to attention, muscles taut, backs straight.
The passage grows light. Two boys carrying torches emerge from the gloom, followed by a girl with a bowl and funnel, Strik's assassins, and Lord Strik himself, tall, dignified, changed from this morning's attire into a black tunic with dark, supple trousers.
My heart feels erratic, as though I might be having a seizure even without Calmi's poison mix. I fumble with the miniature crystal bottle, only now remembering I am holding it, and I was supposed to take it before I was collected for the hanging. Too late. With a shaky hand, I hide it in the bandage next to my wrist.
Strik steps through his entourage and opens the cage door. It swings back clanging against the wall. He is the first to enter, followed by the boys who attach metal wires to the bars to hold the torches. Then the assassins kick aside damp straw in the murky corners, pull me off the pallet, check under the boards, run their hands over my waist and down my legs for weapons.
I shiver at their touch, avoiding Strik's gaze which is riveted on me from where he stands in the center of the cage, his strong lined face awash in orange flame.
A table and chair are set up before my pallet. The girl sprays the cage with a strange skin sac attached to a silver funnel. Misty vapour perfumed with cloves, orange, rose petals, and other scents I do not recognize, fills the air. A boy settles a silver covered bowl on the table.
My eyes whip about in confusion. Beads of sweat form on my brow and my throat tightens. What now? Some new kind of torture? Perhaps it is the fear, or the aches and pains which leave me in permanent agony, but the thunderous pull of Strik's mind has grown softer.
“King Alixter's father,” Strik says, sniffing and blowing his nose in a silk handkerchief as he sits down, “had this cage built for his moon-snow tigress. A rare and dangerous creature. Beautiful, but deadly.”
A spindly woman hovers at the edge of the cell. He waves her in. She bows, pads across the floor, and lifts the lid off the silver bowl. Smells of cooked dough, melted cheese, meat and spinach set my mouth watering. I have not eaten since Commander Linx gave me soup, and before that, an apple yesterday morning when Calmi came to my chambers. The food taster sniffs the pastry.
“The tiger,” Strik continues, “went crazy down in these tunnels. Couldn't be trained. Couldn't tame it. Killed eight men before the King finally agreed to have her life taken. Some creatures aren't made for cages.”
I am half-listening, half-paralysed by the food taster's task, but when he speaks about creatures and cages a shudder runs down my spine. It's as though he's really talking about me. I try to break through the haze of terror and pay more attention.
The food taster chews the pastry, survives, bows again and leaves us. I glance up to see her go, noting Strik's assassins have replaced the guards on either side of the open cage door.
“It has been many years,” Strik says, “since I've come across one of your kind that wasn't born in captivity.”
Sickness rises in my throat. A mix of hunger, and disgust, and fear. He is not here to take you to the hanging. Calm down. You still have time. Time for what? To poison myself? I struggle to clear my mind. If Strik is not here to take me to the hanging, then I must find out what he wants.
“A wild shadow weaver,” he continues. “An outlaw. Hunted, feared, and yet you managed to convince me that you were a baroness.” He snorts. “How is it, a young girl descended from a people who do not fight, fought off my bird-men? How is it an outlaw is taken prisoner to serve a Prince, and wins his heart?”
Heat prickles up my arms and legs, flushing across my chest and rising to my cheeks. Alertness buzzes in my head. My mind stretches wide, trying to grasp at what is happening.
“Oh the Prince has put on a good show,” Strik continues. “I think he has almost convinced himself he is not in love with you, and because he knows himself so little, he will allow you to die trying to prove it.”
What does he mean? Has Strik realized his voice has no power over Jakut?
“He will let me die,” I say, “because you manipulate him against his own will.”
“The Prince's mother,” Strik says, ignoring my interruption, “was a Rudeashan princess, picked to marry Alixter because of her unusual strength. But her dedication to her ignorant, conceited husband destroyed her. She risked his hatred, his unkindness, and ultimately his neglect, all to protect him. Her power was so great that it kept me from the Red City even in her death.”
My breath heaves unevenly in and out of my chest. My mind is on the brink of piecing something together, as though I am just beginning to see a picture forming, but one essential piece is still missing.
Strik rubs his hands together, settling in, enjoying his one-sided monologue.
“Ninety-two years ago, the Carucans came across the ice with an army, intending to conquer Rudeash. All they found was a simple people. Eight tribes, governed by eight kings and queens with crowns of thorns. The shrouders hid the great wealth of Rudeash, the ice cities, the beauty and riches of their lands. But they could not hide all of their wealth. The lands were too rich in crystals and precious stone. So they gave the tundra mines to the Carucans and to deter them from ever returning for more, pledged a Rudeashan princess in marriage for each Carucan king's eldest son, as an agreement of peace and cooperation.
Forty years ago, when I became chief adviser to King Rex, the Prince's grandfather, I realized the Rudeashan princesses had been given a second, more pressing task. To protect Caruca from me.” He laughs and blows his nose again. “Prince Jakut's mother was particularly powerful. She used the power in her voice to make me believe conquering the Red City would end in my death. I knew what she'd done, but despite all logic, I was unable to overcome the conviction she'd planted in my brain.
Then the Prince came of an age to rule and wished to sacrifice his father for the throne. I felt the power fade. You see, the King's death, and the alliance formed between the Prince and me, allowed me to crush his mother's hold over my ambitions and enter the Red City. I have not been killed yet,” he adds wryly.
Understanding plunges through me. In some way by assisting in his own father's death, the Prince has shattered the city's only wall of protection from Lord Strik.
Jakut will never win Strik's trust, because Strik is not careless enough
to let his guard down around the son of a powerful enemy. And now there is nothing to stop Strik. Not even the missing Rudeashan princess Jakut was supposed to return with from the north.
Hope slithers away. I stare at Lord Strik, emotion torn from my body; numb like a ghostly witness of something I am powerless to stop.
He takes a pastry from the bowl, pops it whole into his mouth, and licks his lips. Then he holds the bowl out to me. I gaze at it, wondering what good food will do me now. He slides the bowl across the floor towards the pallet.
“What do you want from me?” I say.
He adjusts his position, crosses one leg over the other. The gesture generates a tiny electric spark, enough to snap me out of my stupor. He does want something. What could I possibly have that he wants?
“When I told you about the shrouders protecting the Rudeashans just now, you knew what I was talking about. The last time we met, you muttered something about the veil.”
“I am Uru Ana.”
“You have seen inside my memories.”
My eyes rise to his face. Is that surprise? Why would he be surprised I can see inside his mind? Isn't this the fuel he used to turn the Carucans against my kind?
“You are not like the slaves who work my land.” He rises and I sense a shift in the dark pull, as though it has glitched for a moment. He strides towards the cage door. I don't know what he's doing, but I know he has not finished with me.
In the few seconds his back is turned, I slip my fingers into my bandage and unhook the clasp from the crystal. Breath caught in my throat, face prickling with heat, I hurriedly sprinkle the poison over the remaining pastries in the dish at my feet. I cannot see where the drops land, how many, or on which pastries. My eyes flick up to the cage door as Strik indicates something to the assassins. They move further down the tunnel.
Strik closes the door and returns. I hunch my shoulders together to stop the shaking in my body. The crystal presses into my closed fist.