Tangle of Thornes

by Lorel Clayton

  “There she is,” Ilsa said, pointing an accusatory finger.

  The guards encircled me, and one slapped a pair of manacles around my wrists.

  I was too dumbfounded to struggle. “What’s going on?”

  “Eva Thorne, you are under arrest.”

  14│ INNOCENT

  ~

  “What for?” Was housing a grall against the law?

  The snide elf who fastened my manacles said, “It is a punishable offence to free slaves without permission from the Crowns.”

  By ‘permission’ they meant heavy bribe. The tight restrictions on slave ownership in Highcrowne imposed by the other rulers had resulted in the Elf King demanding safeguards to prevent the slave numbers from being depleted. That meant slaves could not be freed, not without significant monetary compensation to the state. The cost was outrageous, so it never happened, even if you did find a kind-hearted slave owner who might consider it in the first place. Kind slave owner was an oxymoron.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I had watched Duane enough over the years to know it was best to deny everything. I hadn’t been the one to free Kali, anyway—it had been Erick—so my innocence was entirely genuine.

  “Then why doesn’t your slave have a mark?” Ilsa took Kali by the arm and brought her forward so all could see her blemish-free bicep.

  Of course, Ilsa was behind this. Getting me arrested was an extreme punishment for ruining her shoes, but I suspected there was more to her evil plan. I should have seen this coming.

  I didn’t say anything. Ilsa would twist any words that came out of my mouth. One of the soldiers grabbed Kali.

  “Stop. What are you doing with her?” I protested.

  “She’s evidence.”

  The other two guards manhandled me toward the stairs. I ignored Ilsa and called to Nanny, “Tell Gypsum what’s going on. And there’s a grall in the basement.”

  “What?” Nanny’s eyes bulged.

  “You’ll need to look after him until I get this sorted.”

  Ilsa smiled. “Don’t make too many plans, sweet sister. You’re going to be stuck in a cage for a long time.”

  I feared Ilsa would taunt me all the way to the prison, but she only followed us to the street. Her joyful expression made me feel queasy. The last time I’d seen it, she’d been making my deceased pet mouse dance around its cage, her fingers laced with glowing charms and wiggling in time to the creature’s movements. I thought her ‘cage’ reference meant she now considered me her new plaything.

  It was because of Ilsa I hated looking in a mirror: I couldn’t bear to see her face. Also, they were too easily broken. The risk of bad luck wasn’t worth it. I already had my fair share of doom, but my own stupidity was to blame this time. Why hadn’t I guessed what Ilsa would do?

  Kali sobbed quietly as we were frog marched out of the neighborhood—plenty more gossip would result from this—and to the Watch house in the Market District.

  There were elves everywhere, unsympathetic faces, and knowing smirks. I’m sure they didn’t care what I’d done, being human was crime enough. Once inside, the guards took my belt pouch and key ring away, locking them in an iron-banded box. Kali’s documents were in that bag, my only proof against the slavers.

  My mind raced furiously, trying to come up with a way out of this mess. They were leading us to separate cells. I pulled free, the guard holding me shocked I had managed it, and whispered into Kali’s ear, saying, “Pretend you can’t speak elvish. Don’t utter a word.”

  She nodded, choking back tears. I got a dagger hilt jabbed into the base of my neck for my resistance, knocking me to the ground. I was dragged the last few feet to my cell and tossed inside. A solid iron door slammed behind me.

  Whatever story I came up with, I didn’t want Kali to contradict it, so I hoped she could keep quiet. Should I claim to be unaware her mark was gone? Play dumb? Or, should I accuse the slavers of selling a non-hereditary slave? The elven guards were unlikely to accept Kali’s word she was born free. They could examine the documents and see they were forgeries, but I knew none of these people were on my side. They wouldn’t listen, because they wanted me to be guilty.

  I felt the walls of my narrow prison. I couldn’t extend my arms, and I’d have to curl up into a ball to sleep on the urine-scented straw covering the floor. Jail wasn’t what I’d expected. I’d expected barred windows, but there were no windows. I’d also expected awful food, but, as the hours wore on, there was no food either. It was worse than I imagined.

  I was missing work, my internal clock told me that much. Karolyne would assume I was blowing her off because I’d helped Jorg earlier in the day. This was Nanny’s chance to get rid of me and Kali both. All she had to do was keep quiet, and no one would ever know we were rotting in a cell.

  This was only a Watch house, not Northcliff Prison, so if they wanted to keep us for long, they would have to transfer us. There was a slim chance of seeing daylight one more time.

  Unless the guards forgot about me. Elves didn’t eat or drink as frequently as humans, and I was already parched. I highly doubted they cared.

  I gouged my name in the wall with the edge of a manacle. The blocks were limestone, so it didn’t take long, but in the darkness, I had to keep feeling my work to make sure the symbols were even. Plenty of past inmates must have had a similar idea, because there were indentations everywhere. I could make out some words with my fingertips, the larger ones were epithets.

  One corner had a six-inch hole cut into the stone, an apparent escape attempt, but the budding engineer must have been transferred before he could finish. The walls were at least three feet thick, so it would take ages to dig out. I scraped at the area for a while before I got tired and dozed off.

  It had to be morning by now, but there was still no light. This was longer than I had ever sat still in my life. Lady Halcyon had complained of my constant twitching, unable to balance a teacup on my knee for more than a few moments before I had to shift position. Apparently, all it took to settle me down was a night of imprisonment.

  It was a relief when I heard the key in the lock. I hadn’t been forgotten. The dim light from an oil lamp was blinding, and I put a hand up to shield my eyes.

  “Eva Thorne?” the guard asked.

  “Yes?” My throat was dry and the word little more than a whisper.

  Hands grabbed my elbows and led me down the corridor and into a slightly larger room with hooks hanging from the ceiling. This did not look good.

  The chains of my manacles were fastened to one of the hooks, and I was forced to stand with my arms above my head. Where was the stove with the red-hot pokers? My entire prison experience had been disappointing so far, but I fervently hoped people had been even more wrong about the torture part.

  A silver-haired elf in white robes circled me. The silver hair wasn’t a sign of age but region, likely woodlands. He looked to be about sixty, middle aged for his race.

  “Thank you for keeping the slave girl,” he said. “We now have proof. Too many of your compatriots evade punishment by spiriting freed slaves out of the country. I am fortunate to have captured someone so idiotic.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with it. My own sister turned me in, for spite, and you’re getting played by her. I didn’t do anything. This is a family grudge is all.”

  “You deny removing the slave mark?”

  “I deny everything.”

  His eyes narrowed. “We have ways of making you talk.”

  “Red hot pokers?”

  “No. Magic.”

  That was worse. I might be able to endure pain, or pass out and be done with it, but I couldn’t resist a truth spell. I rooted myself and said, “I demand an advocate.”

  “You’re not a Citizen.”

  “I still have rights. I’m not some beaten down servant. I’m a Thorne.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  Apparently, the family reputation was known
mainly to humans. This was one time when I would have loved the chance to be hypocritical and use my uncle to my advantage.

  “Did you remove the mark yourself? Are you a mage?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Then a mage was complicit. Give us their name and the consequences to you will be less severe.”

  “No. I’m not telling you anything about anything, because this is all a mistake.”

  I recalled a moment when I was eight, chasing after Viktor and Duane in the market. Viktor had been caught with a stolen piece of fruit. Slick and cool as ice, Duane intervened, confidently argued in Viktor’s defense, talking so fast he left the disgruntled merchant confused and scratching his head. In the end, Viktor and Duane walked free and kept their stolen treat. What was it Duane had said? I could only recall one bit that had impressed me, and I used it now.

  “It wasn’t me—I was framed.” I smiled. There. That was my story.

  The silver-haired elf laughed musically, the other two guards in the room joining in. “How very original.”

  He gestured to the guard on my right, and a moment later my head was ringing. The soldier had cuffed me with a heavy gauntlet. I shook my head but had no time to recover before a quick succession of slaps forced my chin on my chest. Now I had a headache.

  “I thought you were going to use magic to interrogate me?”

  White robes swished, a gesture I couldn’t see, and a few more slaps made my cheeks sting. They weren’t hitting hard enough to injure me seriously, but it was making me mad. “Stop it!”

  “None of this will stop until you tell me the truth. I could use a compulsion, but why expend the effort? I know you shall relent.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “You are a foolhardy child who thinks she is rebellious, courageous even, but you are nothing but a pest in our land. You have no patrons, no protection, nothing to keep you from exile. You think we will house and feed you in prison? No, we will deport you and see how well you fare in your homeland. As I understand it, Solheim is not a very nice place to be.”

  I’d heard bad things as well, but I wasn’t going to let him see how much his threat bothered me. “Well, you’re wrong. I do have patrons.”

  “Are you referring to the imbecilic human they stuck in a Guard uniform?”

  “Conrad?”

  “Yes, him. He heard of your incarceration and came here pleading on your behalf. I sent him away. There is nothing he can do for you.”

  I was ashamed to admit I experienced a surge of hope at the thought of being rescued. That hope was dashed before it was fully felt, which was just as well. A lady should never count on being saved. Morgan taught me that when he trained me on my mother’s Ashur. He’d showed me the bloodstains in the grooves and said, “None of this is hers.”

  I wasn’t fighting the Dead God’s hordes or facing the fall of Solheim—these were policemen with a lot of glamour and very little intelligence. I didn’t need Conrad’s help. Still, I was glad he stood up for me. It had taken guts for the new human recruit to confront an elven officer.

  “A few slaps and the threat of exile is all you’ve got?” I had a stupid tendency to taunt those who held power over me. “You know what I think? You haven’t hauled out the magic potions or the torture implements, because you know you’re wasting your time. You know I’m not guilty, and you’re only going through the motions so you can file your reports and say you investigated Ilsa’s accusation.”

  The silver-haired one studied me with lavender eyes. Solhan eyes were pale like that, though usually tinted blue or yellow, so I did not find them unnerving. If that’s what he was hoping for, then he would be disappointed.

  “You are guilty...of something.”

  I swallowed. I’d been right. He knew I wasn’t someone with the power to remove a slave mark. Nevertheless, he seemed happy to offer me up as a sacrifice to his superiors. I guessed the emancipationist investigation wasn’t going well, and any scapegoat would do.

  “Put her back in her cell.” The robes swished, and I involuntarily flinched at the gesture, but this time the guards removed my chains from the hook and led me out of the interrogation room.

  I was going to rot in here. I only hoped they believed I was innocent and knew nothing about the mage who was freeing slaves. I didn’t want to give up Erick. I wasn’t being self-sacrificing because I had feelings for him—I wasn’t sure what feelings I had for him—rather, I didn’t want his work, Viktor’s work, to stop. It was what my brother died for. I’d never done anything with my life anyway, so I might as well spend it in prison.

  Back in my pitch-black cell, I sat, not fidgeting, for far too long. Having time to think was never good, but, this wasn’t me. I wasn’t the accepting kind. I went over to the pathetic start of an escape tunnel and scratched away with my manacles again. I hoped it was an outside wall.

  The ring of metal on stone filled the miniscule room and deafened me to the sound of my own ragged breathing. It helped me ignore the fear that had settled over me like a cold blanket. I fell into a rhythm. Clang, clang, clang, deep breath, clang...chipping at rock until my wrists were chafed and sore. I immediately heard the discordant note when it occurred: a screech of rusted hinges as the door to my cell opened.

  Were they going to question me again? I hadn’t changed my mind.

  A red glow outlined the dark figure of a man. I couldn’t see his face, but I saw my jailer standing in the corridor behind him. The guard was vacant-eyed and drooling.

  “Eva,” the dark figure said, and I recognized the voice. It sent chills up my spine to see him standing there in an elven Watch house as calmly as though he were standing in his own drawing room. Uncle Ulric.

  “What are you doing here?” I looked at the mesmerized guard and added, “How?”

  “Ilsa has no secrets from me.”

  “So, you know she turned me in? Her own sister?”

  “Why are you surprised?” He stepped into the room, and the light followed him; it was coming from him. I knew my uncle had magic, but I had never seen such an obvious demonstration of it before.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “As simple as pulling the strings of puppets. They dance and breathe at my command, what matter opening a door?” He wasn’t bragging but stating facts in that sharply precise tone of his.

  I was terrified of my uncle. Times like this, I understood my fear was well founded. The silver-haired Guard Captain who had questioned me was a mage, I was certain, yet he had not detected my uncle’s presence. Ulric was that powerful.

  “Are you busting me out?” He conducted business on both sides of the law, but I had never imagined Ulric committing a crime as direct as a jail break. Too low class for him. Not that I was complaining.

  He touched a hand to the roof, which was only a hairsbreadth from the top of his skull. “It’s like a tomb,” he noted.

  “I know. I’ve been stuck in here for a whole day, and I’m ready to go.” I headed for the open door, but my uncle brought his hand down from the roof and blocked my path.

  “You are not leaving.”

  “What? I—”

  “I won’t have a Thorne living as a fugitive from the Guard,” he said.

  “You can buy people off. You do it all the time.”

  “Not for you.” Each word was perfectly enunciated in Solhan. He only spoke elvish for business, calling it a degenerate language.

  “You bust in here like some Grand Wizard—”

  “I’m not a wizard.” He looked at me disapprovingly. I was being imprecise and should know better.

  “Whatever you call it, you’ve gone to the effort of mesmerizing the guards and avoiding the mages, so you can...what?”

  “So, I can pay an unmonitored visit to my niece.” He didn’t move his arm, and the red light emanating from him made me unwilling to shove him out of the way.

  My uncle performed dark magic. I was afraid of it and of him. I’d seen Ilsa
and Old Nanny twisting curses to get back at cheating boyfriends or to poison rats, respectively, and they would invariably mention how no one could do it better than Ulric. His reputation preceded him. How many souls had he used up in his life?

  “Why won’t you let me go?” I reverted to being a scared little girl in his presence.

  “You need to learn, Eva. Learn to hate.”

  “I hate just fine, thank you.” I was thinking of my feelings for him and for Ilsa.

  He ignored my interruption. “Solhans have enemies. It’s time you realized the world is a harsh place. You have been coddled too long.”

  “Coddled?” I felt like one of his puppet people, repeating everything he said, but I couldn’t help it. “I’m living on my own now, Uncle, and I don’t need you. Except to get me out of here.”

  He took my shoulders, and I flinched, expecting to be burned my mage fire, but the red light didn’t hurt me. He said, “You have tremendous potential.”

  “I think you’re mistaking me for Ilsa. She’s the one who paid attention to your lessons, learned to be a lady, learned your secrets, and she’s certainly learned to hate. It’s probably time you gave up on me ever becoming a good little monster.”

  “You are a Thorne. You always will be. You cannot pretend to be something lesser for much longer. Darkness is calling, and you must face it.” It seemed his expression softened, but I couldn’t be sure in the strange illumination. “Ilsa has embraced her inheritance, but she’s not like you—she doesn’t question. With Viktor gone, you are more like me than anyone, Eva.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “The path forks before you, my dear. Infinite choices have petrified you, but you must go forward. You remind me of myself at your age. I can’t go back, and I wouldn’t desire to. Not now. I made the right choices, and so will you.”

  I shook my head. “You got lost, Uncle.”

  “The false certainty of youth.” He frowned. “You’ll learn everything I say is true. In time.” He stepped past the open door and began to close it.