“Where does it come out at?”
“Go and see for yourself.” Nathaniel pointed to a curve in the wall around which there was now a distinct line of light. “Take the baby with you. I’d like to have a chat with Linnea anyway.”
“Here,” Mia said, setting down her crate, then taking the strap of the diaper bag off her shoulder and holding it out to Zander.
Of course she’d had it the whole time. He hadn’t even noticed her handling the weight of the full bag along with the crate. “You’re kind of amazing,” he said as he accepted the bag from her.
She shrugged. “I don’t have a sword.”
Even in the dim light, Zander could see that her eyes didn’t have their usual sparkle. Not that she let him see that for more than a second before she turned and started investigating the supplies, no doubt making a mental inventory and deciding how to organize them better.
“We’ll find them, Mia. He’s all right,” he said.
“You’re a terrible liar, Sir Zander, but I’ll pretend to believe you.”
“Mia?”
“Yes?”
“If you ever again refer to me in a way that sounds like you think I outrank you, or that implies I’ve made a greater contribution to any of this than you have, I will put spiders in your bed.”
She didn’t look at him, but her shoulders shook for a second, and there was laughter in her voice when she answered. “No spider would dare to stay in my bed.”
“She’s got a point,” Nathaniel said.
“Maybe so – but it’s one that only proves mine.”
Mia was so absorbed in her task that she wasn’t even listening to him anymore. A few feet away, though, Samuel was beginning to whine.
“Come on Will, let’s go explore.”
The straight, narrow tunnel they’d followed here was no more, he discovered as they walked. This was a larger cavern that seemed to branch out in more than one direction. Zander headed toward the light.
After they twisted through a narrow, curved passageway, the light suddenly got much brighter, flooding the floor. Wherever they were, they’d nearly reached the outside again. He didn’t think they could be far enough away from the house to be out of danger. He looked at William. “Stay here for a minute.”
William bounced the baby, who was beginning to fuss again. A new smell alerted Zander to the reason. “You shouldn’t go any farther, either. We don’t know who’s out there.”
“I’ll be careful,” he said, pulling the strap of the diaper bag up over his neck and extending it toward William. “Here, you need this.”
Anyone else would have argued with him. Quinn or Linnea would have had his head, but William just sighed and dug in the bag for a blanket to lay Samuel on. Zander was actually sort of glad he was alone with William – he would have gone anyway, and the arguing might have gotten loud.
He was cautious, of course, drawing his sword well before he reached the last corner, and he stopped to listen before he dared even peek around the edge of the exit. He didn’t hear anything except a light trickling sound, like running water. When he was absolutely certain there were no voices or footsteps he stepped into the patch of sunshine. The full light of day was nearly blinding, so much so that he stepped back into the cave for a moment, afraid he wouldn’t be able to see danger.
Once his eyes were adjusted, he took the plunge and stepped outside for real.
The scene outside was unexpected enough that it took him a minute to understand where they must be.
He stood on a rocky strip of land next to a mostly-frozen stream – maybe it was a river in the warmer months, but right now the water level was low. The trickling noise came from the very edges where moving water lapped against the frozen layer on top.
He hadn’t even known he was holding his breath until he was able to exhale when he saw the rest of the landscape around him.
The entrance to the cave was at the bottom of a deep ravine; the walls of earth on both sides of the stream towered well over his head, and trees lined both sides of the ravine all the way to the edge, their roots protruding everywhere, forming a web that could obscure anyone’s view.
Nobody would be able to see them down here – nobody would even try to look, unless they knew about the entrance to the cave already. And since they’d pretty much be toast anyway if someone did, it wasn’t worth worrying about.
Out here, he could hear more noises, but they were distant, muffled by the trees and the sounds of the stream. There were definitely voices, possibly even horses, but none of them sounded like any kind of imminent threat. The town was surrounded by soldiers, after all – ones who were theoretically on the same side he was.
He was much more concerned about the smell.
There was most definitely a fire somewhere nearby; the crisp, acrid smell was much too strong and foul to be an ordinary campfire. He squinted up into the bright gray sky, searching until he found it – a thin line of black smoke.
He had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what was burning.
He ducked back into the cave.
“I don’t think they’re still searching for us in the house,” he told William, who was just picking Samuel up off the blanket on the ground.
William sighed when Zander told him his suspicions. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. I think we’re probably far enough away here to be safe.”
Zander nodded. They hadn’t smelled any smoke in the tunnels.
Now that they thought it would be safe, William followed Zander outside for a while. The fresh air calmed Samuel a little, who was still fussy despite the clean diaper.
“He’s getting hungry,” William said, his voice catching a little.
“Haven’t you been giving him a little bit of food lately?”
“A very little. It’s not enough for him still.”
Zander still didn’t understand how babies worked here. In his world, Samuel would have been getting close to a year old. Aging was different here, where they lived ten times longer, but learning wasn’t any slower, and William had explained to him that the newborn stage of infancy wasn’t much longer in Deusterros than it was on Earth.
There was some long-winded thing about brain development that Quinn probably ate up, but Zander didn’t care. All he knew was that Samuel was about as developed as a five-month-old baby in his world.
Not that he knew all that much about five-month-old babies on Earth, either. His sisters had mostly seemed like drooling blobs until they started crawling. He liked Samuel, but he really wasn’t much more than a drooling blob who smiled and laughed – and fussed. A lot.
“Well, let’s do what we can to keep him happy for now, Will. I’m sure between you and Nathaniel and Mia, we’ll figure out a solution.”
They settled for getting all three of them a drink from the stream before heading back into the cave to find everyone again.
There must have been a good supply of candles in one of the crates, because Nathaniel and Mia had lit enough of them to illuminate the whole circular cavern they occupied. It was light enough for him to read Nathaniel’s expression immediately.
William clearly read it as well. “What’s wrong, Nathaniel?”
“Linnea is in labor.”
~ Forty ~
Underground
QUINN HAD NEVER ACTUALLY seen this part of the castle. It was probably ridiculous, considering it was her castle, the home of her ancestors, and the place she was determined would be the home of her descendants. But she’d never seen the need to visit the cells where prisoners were held before their trials.
She’d made a lot of mistakes.
Although they wore green uniforms, she’d also never seen the four guards who removed her from the carriage and held her arms tightly as they escorted her under the portcullis and into the deepest, darkest part of the castle.
She knew she should have been terrified as the men shoved her into one of the barred cells, unceremoniously slamming the iron gate closed behind her.
Or at least she once would have been scared. Now, though, the only emotion she could summon was anger.
Once she managed to take a few deep breaths and get her bearings – small cell, one window, wooden cot with a straw mattress, one barred window, more cells circling the large room around her – her anger turned to fury.
Though all of the guards except one had retreated after locking her door, she was far from alone. Few of the cells were empty, and she recognized the faces of nearly all the prisoners who were standing by their doors, watching her.
One by one, as her eyes landed on the familiar faces, – mostly guards she’d trusted, but a few servants, too – each person dropped to his or her knees, bowing their heads in respect.
She didn’t deserve it.
Tears dripped down her cheeks as she looked in each cell – she’d left them here, to fend for themselves, these people who’d been loyal to her, who’d believed in her, who knelt before her still.
“Oh enough of that, Your Majesty,” said a voice – the most familiar one of them all; this one turned her dribble of tears into a torrent. She turned to a cell quite near hers and looked into the too-kind eyes of her head housekeeper, Ruth.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out. “I didn’t mean to…”
“Hush. We know you did what you had to do to protect Prince Samuel. And even in here, we’ve heard about what you’ve done out there.”
“Nothing to help you.”
“We’ve held our own, most of us, Your Majesty. We’re only worried about you now.”
Across the room, the lone guard cleared his throat, but he didn’t approach.
Far from intimidating her, as she was sure his noise was intended to do, it stopped her tears and brought back her focus.
Yes, she was sorry she hadn’t made every right decision as queen, ever. Yes, she wished she’d been able to protect every loyal person in the castle the night she fled.
But now wasn’t the time to allow her past mistakes to dictate her future. She couldn’t fix the things she hadn’t done right before, but she didn’t have to make the wrong decisions now.
“What do you think I need to know about right now?”
Ruth’s gaze fell to the floor for a moment, but then she looked Quinn in the eye. “Tolliver has been certain of your capture for days, Your Majesty. I didn’t believe it myself – until five minutes ago. I’ve been hoping he would publicly humiliate himself with the victory speech he has planned for this afternoon.”
Quinn’s heart sank into her stomach. “This afternoon?”
“Yes.” Ruth nodded to one of the high windows. “They’re already decorating for the public celebration.”
She bit her lip and swallowed, trying to keep back the bile that wanted to rise in her throat.
“Do you know who is helping him?”
Ruth shook her head. “As I said, I really didn’t believe the rumors. From everything we heard, you’d been doing so well – amassing an enormous army in the west. I wasn’t sure those of us down here would survive, but I was certain you would.”
The second part of Ruth’s statement didn’t need to be said out loud. The optimism was gone. Everyone in the dungeon was bowing before her not because they believed she would bring victory and salvation, but because they were paying their respects.
* * *
“How far apart are the contractions?” William asked.
“Getting a lot closer. She’s been in labor most of the day, I think.”
Both William’s and Nathaniel’s voices were calm and focused, the way they only reliably were in a medical situation.
Zander didn’t know what to think. Most of the day? “How long has this been going on, Linnea?” he asked. It had been at least the whole time they’d been in the tunnel; he understood that now.
“Does it matter?” she spat. “At what point today would it have been convenient?”
Though the anger in her words might have been intended to rile him up, the tiny catch in her voice did exactly the opposite. It broke him into pieces.
This wasn’t an added inconvenience in an already dire situation. This was the birth of her child. Of Ben’s child.
This was supposed to have happened in a nice room in a castle with a midwife and Ben next to her, not in a cold, dingy cave with her brother and Zander while she worried for the safety of everyone else she loved.
If he were in that situation, he wouldn’t have wanted to admit going into labor in a carriage or an unsafe “safe house”, or a tunnel, either.
“I think we’re safe here.” He could barely force his throat to create more than a whisper. “Nobody will find us.”
Nathaniel nodded.
What must have been a contraction hit her then, making her close her arms around her belly and her face scrunch as she worked hard to breathe.
“Do you need to sit down?” Zander asked, reaching toward her.
She shook her head, taking a small step back from him. “This is better.”
“That was only three minutes,” William said, when she’d finally relaxed and was breathing normally again.
Suddenly, Zander felt panic for a different reason. “She’s not due yet, is she?”
If Linnea’s eyes had been daggers, Zander would have been dead on the spot, but he was more worried about her safety than what she thought right now.
“It’s a few weeks early,” Nathaniel answered, “but late enough that I probably wouldn’t be able to stop it even if I had a way to with the supplies we have here.”
“What can I do?” He hoped desperately that whatever they needed from him, it wouldn’t be delivering a baby.
“Well, I could really use a fire and some clean water. I don’t know what’s going on outside this cave, but I know we’re not leaving it without another baby.”
As if to punctuate Nathaniel’s point, Samuel picked then to start crying in earnest.
Zander needed air. He didn’t say anything as he headed back out of the cave to look for firewood. He needed to find a way not to think about what any of this meant, how dangerous it might be – and he definitely didn’t need to have time to wonder about the rest of their friends who’d been in that house.
He needed a task.
His foot hadn’t even hit the ground outside the cave when he heard a screeching sound that made him jerk back and hit his elbow on the rough stone surrounding the narrow opening.
“Seriously?” He muttered an expletive under his breath as he rubbed his elbow, grateful he was wearing his leather arm guards and cloak. It still hurt. “I would have seen you if you’d made a reasonable noise too, you know.”
The bird didn’t look remorseful in the least. If anything, it was regarding him reproachfully.
“What did I do wrong now?” he asked.
Larya made a clicking sound and looked up at something behind his head. He turned.
Zylia was up there, perched on one of the tangled roots sticking out of the dirt cliff.
He didn’t know how a bird could look worried, but this one did. “She’s in there, Zylia.” He pointed. “She’s fine.” Depending on your definition of fine, anyway.
Zylia blinked at him, but stayed where she was. Larya squawked again.
Zander frowned and knelt down to open her canister. It was empty, but the bird was still tipping her head impatiently, even pecking his hand with her beak. He fished in the inside pocket of his cloak where he always kept something for her and pulled out a piece of dried meat, but when he held it out to her, she didn’t take it.
“Who do you want me to send a message to?” he asked. He hadn’t discussed the idea with William or Nathaniel, but trying to communicate with anyone right now seemed like a bad idea. He didn’t know who’d betrayed them, but someone obviously had, and it could too easily have been one of the people he thought they could trust. Jonathan, Charles, and Ellen were all suspect right now.
Tobias was probably trustworthy – or he at least wanted to believe that he was. But wh
at could Tobias do from where he was anyway?
Back inside the cave, Linnea made a noise that set his teeth on edge. Zylia disappeared into the cave with a quick flutter of her wings. He couldn’t figure out whether his own urge to run to her or away from here was stronger, but he knew who he should send a message to.
He knelt down to dig for paper and a pencil.
* * *
Even if her supporters in the castle prison had resigned themselves to defeat, Quinn hadn’t.
She’d worked too hard, earned the trust of too many people. She meant the promises she’d made to them about peace and safety, and she would fulfill them.
Everyone was watching her, she was aware of that, but she couldn’t worry about what they were thinking – at this point she didn’t even care about the guard in the corner who would barely take his eyes off her long enough to blink.
She paced back and forth in her cell trying to think. She needed more information, but didn’t know how to get it.
Twice now, she’d climbed up on a wooden stool to get a look out the window high in the wall. The view confirmed what Ruth had told her. The whole courtyard in front of the castle was decked in gold and green, except for a few black and red banners that didn’t belong at all. She wondered if she’d been put into this particular cell for the purpose of seeing this.
She could do this – whatever happened today, she could do this.
Or she would die. In front of her entire kingdom. What would William do if that happened? What about Samuel?
She was trying to push those thoughts away, physically push them into the stone of the back wall when the sound of a door slamming open interrupted her, making her spin around, trying to hide the damp front of her shirt by crossing her arms.
No amount of planning or self-talk or even flat-out imagination could have prepared her for who was coming across the center of the dungeon.
A second later, Sophia was standing in front of the door of her cell, ordering the guard to open the lock.
Quinn’s entire body felt like it had turned to jelly. By the time Sophia stepped inside the bars and toward her, she had to look to see if she was even still standing, because she didn’t understand how she could be.
Leaves of Revolution Page 30