Panic wells up in her heart. “What matters, father? I didn’t hear what you said. What matters?”
“Get the hell away from her,” he said. “Give her some—”
* * *
“—breathing room. She needs fresh air!”
An obese Kard with muttonchops and a beard with bits of food stuck in it was staring down at her throat.
“This is going to hurt a lot,” he said, his voice brusque and matter-of-fact. “If you move, you’ll probably die, so I don’t recommend it.”
Willow sniffed once, and then smiled. “You sure do smell bad,” she said and then giggled.
The surgeon drew back, caught by surprise, and then sneered at her. “Good. You have a little life left in you. We’ll see if that’ll be enough.”
He did something with hands just barely within her peripheral vision. Suddenly, though, she felt as though she were being torn apart from within. She heard an ear-blasting shriek that was so high-pitched, it hurt her eyeballs.
Then she realized it was she who was shrieking.
* * *
“Father!” she cries as she’s ripped from his arms and soars up into the night sky. He reaches out for her, but there’s no way he can catch her. He’s already so far away she can no longer see him.
“I won’t give up!” she shouts. “I’ll keep fighting! I won’t die!”
She soars into the infinity of darkness, shouting in defiance at the stars as they whiz by.
Chapter 52
Drip.
Drip.
The sound penetrated the darkness. In her delirium, she envisioned herself suspended deep under black water. Far up was the sunlit surface. The fragile barrier between her dark underwater world and the world of light and consciousness was a thin film that rippled and undulated in waves of light and dark.
Drip. A ring appeared in the center of the boundary, followed by others, forming a series of concentric waves radiating from the center. Willow turned her head, but the filmy boundary was always in front of her, no matter where she looked
Drip.
Drip.
It echoed through whatever space she was in, that dripping noise. Willow slowly spread her awareness from the tiny kernel of her soul in the middle of nowhere. Delicate, tenuous tendrils of thought and sensation filigreed her dark world.
First, her ears awoke, but they had been partially awake, anyway. She heard the drips, and the echoes of those drips, and now she heard more sounds in the distance: clanks of metal, creaks of leather, treads of boots, moans, screams.
She inhaled deeply: dank, musty, stale sweat, excrement, straw. She licked her lips: salt, dirt, grit.
At last, she opened her good eye and peered into the gloom. Yep, it was a dungeon, all right. Her vision was hazy, but a wavering image of a dark and dirty ceiling appeared before her like a phantom. She lay on her back.
She tried to turn her head, couldn’t. She tried to lift her head to look down towards her feet or up away from them: she was similarly impeded. Something locked her head where it was, staring at that hazy ceiling.
Rolling her eyes as far downward as she could, she spotted a metal door with bars on it leading to a hallway. A disused cot lay neglected on one side of the room, piles of straw and a bucket of water at the other end.
She wore only a coarse woven sheet, draped carelessly over her body. Her entire right leg was bared to her upper thigh and was covered with goose bumps.
“Terrific,” she croaked, and not surprisingly, her throat hurt.
“Willow?” Tamlevar’s voice drifted and reverberated in from distances unknowable. He could have been across the hall from her, or across the building. “Is that you?”
“I sure hope not,” she said.
“By all that is pure! I’m so glad to hear your voice.” She tried to pinpoint his location. Close. Next door? Across the hall?
A moan filled the hall, a pathetic dismal whine: “Preever …”
“Will you shut up?” Tamlevar shouted. “I keep telling you, he’s not here!”
There was a long silence, then: “Preever …”
Willow grunted, finding it too difficult to speak. She moved her eyes around in their sockets, taking in all that could be seen from her restricted viewpoint, assessing the situation. Weapons? None visible. Exits? Just the one door, and the barred window therein. Food? Water? She couldn’t see the floor, so who knew what was there?
Assets. She was alive. Her body—and she activated each of her limbs and digits in turn—was working for the most part, but she was strapped down.
She tested the restraints. Binding was leather. Extensive, binding her at multiple points of articulation. Very little slack or stretch to it.
Assets. Tamlevar was alive. In what condition?
“Tamlevar, are you ok?”
She heard him laugh. “It depends what you mean by ‘ok.’ I’m alive, and no major injuries. But they got me in this contraption: I can’t break free no matter how much I try. Every time I struggle, it”—he made an unexpected squawking sound—“Every time I struggle, it tightens the strap and chokes me. Plus, I haven’t eaten or drank in over a day.”
“How about the others?”
“A few of the elves were killed, but most were taken alive. Including our friend Sil-Then down the hall.”
“Preever … Where are you?”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Tamlevar said. “He’s not here!”
“Focus,” Willow said. “What else do you know?”
“There’s no sign of Tee-Ri or Snyde. They were with us at the start of the march, but vanished before we arrived at the castle.”
“That’s because they betrayed us to the Kards,” she said.
“You—” Tamlevar started to shout, but then his voice cut off. After a moment, he said, “Do you know this for certain?”
“Yes. Snyde told me … right after he stabbed me. Oh, and he and my mother are lovers.”
Tamlevar’s groan filled the space between them. “I’ve wronged you, Willow.”
“Forget it,” she said, not wanting to get into this now.
“I’m really sorry. Here I am telling you, I love you, I love you, and then I go and believe every lie your mother tells me about you. I’m not much of a man, am I?”
She wanted to leave the room, avoid the conversation, but no escape was possible. She cleared her throat.
“Forget it. She’s good at getting men to believe her. It’s her art.”
“I’m supposed to be empathic.”
Willow chuckled.
“What?” Tamlevar’s voice was indignant.
“Both you and your mother are empathic, and you’re probably the two worst judges of character I’ve ever met.”
She heard his laughter and it eased her stomach some.
“You may have a point there. Perhaps, empathy is an impediment to true understanding.”
“Perhaps.”
There was silence, broken only by distant shrieks and crashes. The occasional roar of flames or shouting of orders. And Sil-Then’s constant moaning, of course.
“What do you think’s going to happen to us, Willow?”
I know it’s been hard, but it’s going to get harder still. The words echoed in her head. Where had she heard them?
“Oh, torture,” she said breezily, “then execution.”
“Hmm. I don’t suppose we could ask them to skip the torture part?”
“Feel free to try.”
“Or the execution?”
She tested her bonds again, systematically this time: first trying to move a toe, then the next, then the arch, the ankle, and so on. She would need any edge she could find.
“Willow?”
“What?”
“I’m scared.”
“You’re right to be scared. I know these people. I know this place. This used to be my home, and these creatures stole it from me. They’re not human.”
Tamlevar laughed. “Neither are we.”
/>
This caught her off-guard and she chuckled. “True enough.”
“What do we do?”
“Pay attention,” she said. “And look for anything that we might be able to turn to our advantage. And be quick about it. I don’t think we’ll have much time. And Tamlevar?”
“Yes?”
“I know it’s been hard, but I need you to be strong. It’s going to get harder still.”
“I understand. I’ll try to be strong.”
“I know you will.”
Chapter 53
The feeling of imminent doom grew as she waited. Unable to move, ignorant of her surrounding—her premonition that she would die in this castle seemed increasingly likely.
Dammit, she needed to think. She had to find a way out of this situation. Then she had to locate the Prince, rescue him, and get back to Bryanae.
Her smile was humorless. Sure, and while she was at it, she might as figure out a way to turn lead into gold.
But that was the wrong attitude. She had to assume that the problem was solvable. Defeatism only aided the enemy. There had to be a way out of—
“Preever …”
Dammit, she couldn’t think with Sil-Then’s constant moaning.
“Sil-Then,” Tamlevar said as though reading her mind. “Will you please stop it?”
“Preever …” Sil-Then’s voice was scratchy and frail.
Willow sighed. This couldn’t go on.
“Lord Sil-Then,” she said. She might as well try diplomacy, seeing as everything else had failed. She could only hope she’d be able reach him by appealing to his ego. “What sorrows afflicts Your Greatness?”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Tamlevar protested.
“Shut up, Tamlevar. I’m trying to reason with him.”
“Willow, the guy is a lunatic. He’s always been a lunatic. He always will be a lunatic.”
She ground her teeth. Did he have to interfere with everything she attempted?
“That didn’t stop you from selling me to him,” she snapped, and then instantly regretted it.
A long silence hung in the air, not even interrupted by Sil-Then’s moans.
“What?” Tamlevar said.
“You heard me.”
“Preever …” Sil-Then’s voice was losing strength. It had been days since they had been fed or given water.
“Will you shut up?” Tamlevar exploded. Then, to Willow, he said, “Now, what in the name of all that is pure are you talking about?”
All that is pure. An ironic choice of words.
“Forget it.”
“Are you kidding me? You just accused me of selling you out. How am I supposed to forget that?”
“I didn’t say that you sold me out to him. I said that you sold me to him, as in you tried to trade my body for your safety.”
Tamlevar’s laughter was bitter. “You’re as mad as Sil-Then.”
“Forget it.”
Tamlevar’s booming voice reverberated through the hall. “Will you please stop telling me to forget it and start telling me what the hell you’re talking about?”
She sighed.
“All right. I’m talking about the deal you made with Sil-Then: you got to hide out in his little playhouse and in return he gets a shot at getting me pregnant.”
“What?”
The word hung in the air. His voice was so incredulous, so offended, that instantly, Willow knew she had been wrong. She lay back limply on her table, utterly defeated. She had gotten this wrong, too. Why not? She had been wrong about almost everything so far.
She was an utter failure. She was going to die here, in these dungeons, and her legacy would be shame.
“Willow,” Tamlevar said. “You can’t be serious.”
She didn’t answer. She had nothing left to say. All she felt was tired. She wanted to sleep, to give up.
“Willow?” Tamlevar’s voice was uncertain now. “Did you really think I’d make that kind of a deal? Is that what you think of me?”
The hurt in his voice was palpable. She wanted to turn her head away, but could not. She closed her eyes.
“Willow? Are you there? Willow, I made a deal with Sil-Then, yes, but the deal was that he got to ask you questions about your family. He likes to think himself an historian.”
I’ve become a bit of an amateur historian of your family. Might I ask you a few questions?
Of course. He had said so himself. How eager he had been to ask his questions.
Do you remember anything that happened to your family? Anything at all?
Sil-Then had been crestfallen when she had shaken her head. But she had been so caught up by her mysterious amnesia to note it. Yet another error in a never-ending stream of them.
“Willow?” Tamlevar’s voice was filled with worry. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” she said, her voice dead.
“I would never do something like that to you.”
“I know,” she said. “I was wrong.”
He kept trying to get her to talk, but she was out of things to say. Her eyes remained closed and she waited for the inevitable end.
Chapter 54
A door clanged open down the hall, startling Willow from a doze. Since she had regained consciousness days ago not so much as a jailor had passed by. No food was brought to them, nor any water. In a way, she was glad: it was a fair bet that they wouldn’t have brought her a chamber pot had she needed one.
The hunger pangs were gnawing at her belly, competing with the fiery ache of her belly wound. Nearby, Tamlevar had complained constantly of thirst and fantasized aloud about huge banquets for hours on end. Sil-Then’s moans had increased in fervor for a while and then, ominously, ceased.
The echoes of the door reverberated for several seconds, and then the strange sound of syncopated footfalls clopped and dragged along the hall towards her cell. A terrible dread clamped its fist around Willow’s heart, for she knew whose domain she was in. Sure, she had avoided speaking of it, refused even to think about it, but the knowledge was always there just the same. No longer was this the home of Kral-Sus, the beloved and benevolent king of the elves of Ignis Fatuus. It wasn’t even, in Willow’s mind, the home of the current warlord Jabar.
No, this was the haunting grounds of a demon. The Warlord Rackal was dead—she had seen him die with her own eyes—yet even now she was convinced that these were his shuffling footsteps that she heard, dragging along the hallway. He had somehow clawed his way back from the netherworlds to exact a terrible revenge upon the living.
Step, drag … Step, drag …. Step, drag ….
Willow’s heart pounded in her chest. Her breaths came in unfulfilling gasps.
Discipline?
Right. Like she had any discipline left after all that she’d been through. She was just a little elf girl who happened to inhabit the great Willow’s body. She was no warrior, no leader. She was alone, her father was dead, and now her worst nightmare approached.
Step, drag … Step, drag …. Step, drag …
Willow squeezed her eyes closed, as though refusing to look at him would somehow deny him reality. Perhaps if she refused to credit his tenuous existence in this world, perhaps his wraith-like hold on corporeal form would break, and he’d evaporate like a ghost at dawn.
Step, drag … Step, drag … Step, drag …
“Who is it?” Tamlevar asked. “Can you see?”
She forced the terror from her voice, made it calm. “No, I can’t. Can you?”
That was a stupid question. Of course he couldn’t see. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked her.
Step, drag … Step, drag … Step, drag …
Almost outside her cell now. She squeezed her eyes shut. She would not, could not look. She would not validate Rackal’s existence.
Step, drag … Step.
She heard the clank of key in the lock. Then the door creaked open and slammed against the wall.
“Who is it, Willow?” Tamlevar called, a quaver of fe
ar in his voice. “Willow?”
The footsteps resumed, step-dragging towards her. It was inside the cell! It was inside the cell!
“No,” she whispered, almost a whimper. Her eyes were so tightly closed that she saw starbursts. “You’re dead. You’re dead. I saw you die …”
She knew he was standing beside her, over her, looking down at her pinned, barely-covered body. He could do anything he wanted to her: terrible, terrible, awful things.
She would not look upon him. Perhaps if she did not see him, he would not solidify into reality.
“Have they hurt you very badly?” The man’s voice was strangely familiar. A gentle hand rested on her shoulder. Against her will, she flinched.
Discipline. Willow clenched her jaw and then commanded herself to open her good eye. The light of a torch blazed in the room.
At first, she didn’t recognize him. His hair was shoulder-length; his clothes were tattered and filthy. His face was cut and bruised almost beyond recognition. But then suddenly, she knew him, and it surprised her so much that even her bad eyelid popped open.
“Your Highness!”
“I’m sorry, Captain Willow,” said Prince Vazerian of Bryanae, tears streaming down his purple-bruised face. “It’s all my fault you’re in trouble. I’m so very sorry.”
Chapter 55
“Is that the Prince?” said Tamlevar. “Here?!”
Willow didn’t answer, was too dumbfounded at seeing Prince Vazerian’s abused countenance. His face looked like someone had collected berries and tomatoes into a sack and then pounded it with a mallet. Horrid purple blotches and still-healing cuts and abrasions painted his face. Some of the cuts were still bleeding, while others had crusted over black.
Worse yet, though, was what they had done to his spirit. Vazerian had never been the strongest of men—growing up beneath the iron fist of his domineering mother had seen to that—but it looked as though something fundamental in him had been broken. This was a man who had spent his entire life being pampered, where the worst thing that had ever happened to him was a forced engagement to that chubby, giggling monstrosity, the Princess Sherrilou. No one had ever raised a hand to him, made him labor, and, other than his mother, no one had even spoken so much as an unkind word to him during his entire life.
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