by Megg Jensen
Over his shoulder I glanced around the cell. The door was closed and probably locked. The high grates didn’t show anything more than flickers of candlelight. I pulled back and looked at Kellan again.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
Kellan stood up and began to pace the cell. Specks of dirt flew through the air, disturbed by his heavy boots.
“I overslept this morning and guards arrived at my door and woke me up. They arrested me immediately, accusing me of treason against the king.”
I gasped and my hand flew to my mouth. “I’m so sorry, Kellan. I didn’t mean for this to happen to you.”
“They also accused me of using magic to help you bring down the kingdom. Why would they think we have any magic? Everyone knows it was bled from our people after the war. You can use magic just about as well as Bryden can run a race.”
“Why do you always have to put him down?” I sighed. “What did he ever do to deserve it?”
Kellan stopped pacing and knelt down on the floor next to me.
“Why are you always defending him? What’s going on between the two of you?”
“Nothing,” I muttered. It was the truth. Bryden had decided to leave without me. Since he wasn’t in the cell with us, I could only guess he’d gotten away too. Maybe he and Mags were together, helping each other. “I just don’t like it when you tease him for no reason. He can’t help that his leg was injured. It wasn’t his fault and it isn’t nice to keep reminding everyone of it.”
Kellan put one hand on my shoulder and the other on my cheek. He leaned in to kiss me, but I turned my head to the side. I was tired of pretending. Mags and Trevin were free. I had nothing left to lose.
“Why won’t you kiss me?” he asked. “Is there someone else you’d rather be kissing?”
“Let it go, Kellan,” I said.
He grabbed my chin, hard, and forced me to look at him.
“You’ll tell me everything I need to know and you’ll tell me now.”
“I have nothing to tell you,” I said.
His fingers squeezed my chin and a stinging sensation rushed through my face.
“That hurts. Stop it.”
I threw out my arm and knocked his hand off of my face. He teetered backward slightly, but then he jumped off his knees and pushed me back to the ground. The back of my head hit the hard-packed dirt and I saw flashes of light. I hadn’t expected it and didn’t even try to break my fall.
He pushed down hard on my shoulders and dug his knee into my chest. I couldn’t breathe well and took small, shallow breaths. Instead of gasping for air, I regulated my breath out of fear of hyperventilating and passing out again. I tried bucking up with my legs but my energy was tapped and he was too strong. For the first time in my life, Kellan had an advantage over me.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. I’d cried so much lately that the tears came easily. They weren’t from fear or sadness this time. No, I could feel the anger increasing in me. The fires were back. I’d killed Albree with little effort and although I didn’t have romantic feelings for Kellan anymore I didn’t want to hurt him.
“Why are you doing all of this Lianne? I think you need to answer me first. I’ve done nothing other than love you for the last few months. Yet you partnered up with Bryden to take down our kingdom, a kingdom that’s never done anything but try to help us so we can go home someday and help our people.”
What was he talking about? He was the first one to encourage me to fight the king. Kellan wanted me to kill him.
“But you said —”
“I said you should let Mags go. I said you should move on and forget about her. She was a traitor. She made a fool of the king. She had a baby and tried to pass it off as a royal heir. She deserved to die.”
“And your father?” I yelled. “What about Aric? He’s dead now.”
“As he should be,” Kellan said, not letting up on my chest. I wanted him to stop, but I knew I couldn’t force him to move. I had to wait until he was ready.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I whimpered. I still had plenty of air, but I hoped he would let down his guard for a moment if he thought I was weakening.
“I want you to tell me how you did it,” he snarled, his face hovering inches above mine. I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“Did what?” I asked.
“The explosions, as you walked on the platform. I want to know how you did it.”
“I didn’t do anything.” It was the truth. The first explosions were thanks to Bryden.
“I saw your hand move as you walked behind Mags. I want to know how you did it.”
I stared at his eyes. We’d been this close many times before, but always in a loving embrace. I didn’t see a difference in the way he looked at me. I’d always wondered if the hard gaze was love, or lust, and if he was trying to control himself. Having been just as close to Bryden and seeing the softness in his eyes, I knew now, for certain, that Kellan’s gaze had always been threatening. I’d seen love because I wanted to, not because it was really there.
He’d told me he wasn’t at the execution, that he’d overslept. And now he was telling me that he saw my motions as I walked on the platform. I remembered moving my hand. I had swayed slightly after ascending the stairs, trying to regain my balance. So Kellan lied. He had been there. He had seen it all and done nothing to help me.
“It’s easy. Don’t you know how, Kellan? Didn’t you learn upon your Awakening? Haven’t you learned to control yourself and the magic that’s been flowing back in to you?” I taunted him.
“Those stupid men,” he growled. “They came to me on my birthday and told me about the magic. They promised I’d learn to control it. But they didn’t tell me how. They thought it would be best if I figured it out on my own.”
“They’re dead now,” I said. “They can’t teach you anything.”
“Of course they’re dead. I’m the one who turned them in. If they weren’t going to teach me how to harness my magic then I wasn’t going to let them teach you. I wanted us to figure it out together, Lianne. Just the two of us, but you never gave me a chance.”
“You turned them in?” I yelled. “How could you do that?”
“I’ve done so much more than you know. Don’t cross me.”
The fires flickered in his eyes. I’d seen it in Bryden’s eyes before he used his magic, but his was only a slight flicker, not an ongoing fire like I saw in Kellan’s eyes. He’d never learned how to control it and I wouldn’t be the one to teach him.
One of his hands slid across my shoulder, sending a warning tingle down my arm. His hand cupped my throat and he squeezed a little.
“Tell me how you did it,” he demanded.
“Never.”
“Then tell me where your stupid boyfriend is hiding. I’ll make him talk.”
So he wasn’t in the cell with me against his will. I’d wondered as much as the conversation changed. He was working with them. It didn’t make sense since he’d tried to get me to kill the king, but that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was that Bryden was safe and free. If they had him, Kellan would be torturing him instead of me right now.
“I don’t know,” I said, smiling. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d succeeded. Everyone I wanted to be free, except poor Aric, was free now. I’d done it.
Kellan heaved himself off of me and sat back on his feet.
“You’ll tell me eventually,” he said.
I rubbed my neck and sat up. “I’m never telling you anything.”
Kellan’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re just like your friend Mags, a stupid whore.”
His hand curled into a fist and he threw his elbow at my jaw. Before I could block him, the impact knocked me back on the ground. I rolled over and focused on his boots as he opened the door and left me. The sound of the lock turning was the last thing I heard before passing out from the pain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I came to but didn’t open my eyes right away. I listened, waiting to find out if I was alone this time. A wail in the distance assaulted my ears, but everything in my cell remained silent. I waited a few more minutes just to be sure.
When I opened my eyes I glanced to each side before rolling over. I couldn’t be sure no one was behind me, but I had to hope, to believe I was alone this time. I didn’t want to be the victim of a surprise attack. I was still dealing with the pain from the elbow jab Kellan had dealt me.
I sat up and scooted my butt along the floor until my back was against the wall. Looking around, using the tiny bits of light floating through the bars, I saw I was alone and I let out a sigh of relief. My shoulders fell and my hands relaxed on my knees.
Mags was free. Trevin was disinherited, out of the castle, and safe with a midwife. I guessed Bryden had gotten away. Kellan and I were definitely broken up. The only problem was that I was stuck in a cell. For the first time in days I didn’t know what was coming next. I didn’t like it.
“You awake?” a voice called through the grates in the door. I couldn’t see who it was without moving and I didn’t want to get any closer.
“Hey in there. I heard you moving. I know you’re awake. You want something to eat and drink?”
I glanced down at my stomach. I wasn’t hungry, but my dry, cracked lips told me I needed water whether I felt like drinking or not.
“There are three other guards out here so when I open the door, don’t try anything. No fighting and no magic. You hear me?”
I nodded in the dark, not that he could see me from outside the cell. I was too weak to consider using either anyway. At this point I just wanted to drink. Escape was too far beyond my comprehension.
The door opened slowly and a wooden tray with bread and water appeared at the threshold. The guard didn’t even step a foot inside for a couple of seconds. If I’d felt better I would have laughed. He really was afraid of me. I suppose I didn’t blame him, after all I killed my own sister with just a gesture of my hand. Not that I really knew what I was doing at the time. My anger, my fire, had overcome me. I’d wanted her dead, but without the uncontrolled magic I never would have gone through with it.
The fires flickered in my belly, but my guilt doused them. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.
A boot stepped into the room, followed by the rest of the guard’s body. He looked around the room and saw me crouched in the corner.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, reaching out for the tray. Instead of bringing it to me, he set it down on the ground in front of him. I squinted my eyes and through the darkness. I saw it was the same guard who had escorted Mags to the platform.
He paused in the doorway. “Aric was my friend. He didn’t deserve a beheading. If I could have saved him I would. I was as stunned as you and the queen yesterday when I saw his head sitting on the table.”
His voice was quiet, but I heard him. He must have been telling the truth about the other guards being outside the cell door, on watch. It was empathy meant for only my ears.
“Then why didn’t you help me fight back?”
“I did,” he said. “I let the queen go. I could have stopped her and I didn’t.”
Then he walked through the door and closed it behind him. The flicker of the candlelight dissipated, barely making it through the grates in the doorway.
I crawled over to the tray and took a sip of the water. The guard had said he’d let Mags go yesterday, so I hadn’t been out for too long. But still, I didn’t want to upset my body by downing the entire mug of water. I wanted to keep it down, not feel it come back up.
He said he’d let Mags go. Everything had happened so fast I couldn’t remember exactly where he was positioned. I know he had been next to Mags, but after she fainted I thought he moved away.
I nibbled on the bread and washed it down with more sips of the water. Slowly I felt my strength coming back. Not enough to fight an army, but enough to prove to myself that a full recovery wasn’t far away. I had to formulate a plan to get out. I couldn’t control my magic enough to blast my way out and get away. There were too many barriers, too many innocent people who could get hurt. I was done with hurting people.
Images of Albree danced in my memory, reminding me of the times when we were little girls, before she decided she was better than me. She was fun to play with, always pretending to get married. We would play Choosing Day and drape cloths on our heads, imagining we were candidates for bride of the king. Of course she was always chosen and I became her maid, but it had all been in good fun, until Albree turned the ripe old age of five and realized I would never be her equal.
My chest ached as I thought of her the moment before she fell off the dais to her death. I hadn’t meant to kill her, but I couldn’t control myself or my magic. I wasn’t ready to use my magic and Albree’s death was the result of my lack of control. I thought I was ready to kill and deal with the consequences.
I was wrong.
The guilt gnawed at me worse than the fire ever did.
A few hours later, my guard showed up again. He knocked on the door, opened it and, stepped in. I hoped he wasn’t afraid of me anymore. I had no intention of hurting him unless he hurt me. I had no friends left anyway. Mags and Bryden were gone and Aric dead. If he wanted to be kind to me, I’d take it.
“I see you ate your bread and drank your water. Hope you didn’t do it too fast,” he said.
I shook my head. “No nausea. I’m okay.”
He picked up the mug and refilled it with water from a pitcher and tossed another hunk of bread on the tray.
“Thanks.” I didn’t want to get too close, for fear of spooking him. “Do you know what the king’s plans are for me? I know everything I did was considered treason so am I up for the chopping block soon?”
I swallowed hard and rubbed my neck. I didn’t want to think about Aric’s head, but I couldn’t help it. It would be better to know than to wonder about what he was going to do to me.
The guard chuckled. I couldn’t imagine how what I’d asked was funny. “They’re too afraid of you. They think if they bring you out of here that you’ll blast them all to bits.”
“Then why are they even holding me hostage down here? Couldn’t I blow them to bits just as easily from down here?”
“They’re hoping you realize that blowing the castle up from the bottom would just kill you too. There’d be no way out of here if you rained down rubble upon yourself. They also think you’re too kind to hurt anyone innocent, so here you stay.”
“So I’m in limbo,” I said.
He shrugged. “It’s better than being dead, isn’t it?”
I nodded. I’d seen what this place had done to Mags in such a short time. I didn’t know if I’d stay sane in here for more than a couple days.
“Look, girl, you make me just as nervous as the next guy, but I honestly believe you were only trying to help your friends. If there was anything I could do to get you out of here, I would do it, as payback for trying to help the queen and because I know Aric would have wanted me to do it. Is there anyone I can send for? Anyone who can help you?”
My head dropped as Bryden flashed into my mind. But he was gone and I had no idea where to find him. Beyond him there was no one else. I shook my head.
“No. There isn’t anyone left who can help me. I suppose I’m stuck here until they figure out what to do with me.”
He nodded his head and turned toward the door. “I’m John,” he said as he closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next morning I was woken up by the grating of the door as it pushed open. I took a deep breath, as if I was rising up from being underwater. The nightmares were back, more vivid than ever. I could still hear the boat creaking as it rocked back and forth. My eyelids fluttered, stunned by the flood of lit candles marching into my cell. I curled up into a ball, the only defensive move I had against so many people, and hoped for the best.
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I couldn’t see who was holding the candles, but there were three flickering lights moving in the darkness. I couldn’t tell exactly how many people were behind them. I might be able to take three and if John was still out there, he just might let me escape like he did Mags.
From my crouch, I balanced on my toes ready to spring up and take down the first person. They didn’t look ready for an attack, the way they were holding the candles, but without any knowledge of their intent I had to be prepared either way. I flexed my arm muscles to make sure they were ready and I didn’t feel any tension or fatigue. Years of training made my body more refined and less likely to atrophy after just a couple days of lockup in the dungeon.
“Lianne?” one of the voices called out. He sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “Lianne, child, are you in here?”
I sat still, not ready to reveal my location in the darkest corner until I knew for sure who he was.
“She’s in here, right?” he asked.
“I know she is.”
The second voice was John’s. I’d know his voice anywhere. It was the only friendly voice I thought I’d hear for the rest of my life.
“The head librarian is here to talk to you,” John said. He set two candles down on a ledge and the librarian set his candle next to them. John set something else down on the floor and when all of the candlelight stopped shaking I could focus on what they were doing.
The librarian took a pack off his shoulder and sat on a stool, which had to have been the other item the guard had set down. I’d been over every inch of this dark cell and the stool hadn’t been there before. It would have come in handy as a weapon if Kellan ever came back. I hoped they’d leave it there when they left.
I crawled out of the corner and into the pale light. It was the same old man I’d seen that day in the library when Bryden was waiting for me. Only a few days ago, yet the memory seemed so far away.
“I’ll leave you two to it.” The guard headed back to the door. “If you need anything, call me,” he said to the librarian.
He looked me up and down and then glanced back at the guard. “I won’t be needing you. I’m not afraid of a little girl.”