SWNOVELS Court of Ice and Ash: Chapter 28
quarries were how I imagined most would be. But at Castle Ravenspire the cells were mostly devoid of prisoners. Lonely, damp, and filthy. In one corner of my cell a constant stream of water left a trail of black moss on the stone and perfumed the air in a moldy stink. The locks on the doors were large with visible levers. I’d spent the better half of the hour trying to snap it out of place. All I’d gained was a crick in my neck and a sliced fingertip.
When the pin from my braid slipped again, the cold iron opened a second finger. “All hells,” I cursed loudly.
Another exasperated sigh came from somewhere down the line of cells. “You’re not smart. If you could pick these locks, don’t you think I’d be outta here forever ago? They’re impossible.”
I knew that voice. “Calista?” She giggled. My heart backflipped. “All gods, Calista. I’ve imagined you locked at the Black Tomb still.”
“Nope. Not that it’s much better being locked away in the smelly innards of the castle.”
“I went there,” I said softly. “I returned to the Black Tomb, and . . . I thought I might’ve left you behind again.”
She hesitated. The girl was young, but I had few doubts had lived a dark life. Still, I noticed when she tried to hide emotion in her voice, and she was trying desperately to remain casual and detached.
“Don’t see how it’s your problem to come after me anyway,” she said.
“You helped us. The Night Prince.”
“I wrote a story to help me. If he got free—which is another reason it’s annoying to see you here—then so be it. Why’d you go and get snatched and ruin all my masterful work.”
I fought the urge to laugh. Calista was a strange girl, but even knowing she’d cursed my own father, she’d twisted fate so I would be tossed into this fight, I liked her a great deal. “When did they bring you here?”
“Right after the last time.”
“Do they know what happened at the tomb?”
“They’re too stupid. But they made me finally fess up about what I can do.” Pain was in her voice. I closed my eyes. Doubtless what she meant was they hurt her until she broke. Calista sighed loudly. “They think I did something and messed with the magic at the Tomb, so they had me curse it again, then tossed me in here. Not before I scared them so they were pissing themselves, though.”
She snickered and reminded me of Ellis. Sly, mischievous, a child trying to survive a harsh world.
“So, you did curse it for me.”
“Yes, and you’re bleeding welcome.” She shifted; the scrape of feet echoed down the cell block. “Your folk wanted to maim you, but I made those shadow guardians thick and slow. I couldn’t exactly write, don’t touch her. No, I had to be careful with my wording, but I’ve been learning new words. I tossed in a few things like ‘apathetic to their strength’ and ‘clutched their leaden’ –it means heavy – ‘blades’. Made them slow, but also made them sound fierce to these sods.”
I grinned. All gods, this girl would be a force to be reckoned with someday. “But why did they want to curse me?”
“To trap you, I guess.”
“Not kill me?”
“Well, not after I convinced them otherwise.”
“What did you do?”
She hesitated, then let out a frustrated sigh. “I might’ve copied an idea from an old storyteller’s work. I know, I know. Unoriginal and lazy, you don’t need to tell me. But, I mean, it was a good idea.”
“Calista, what did you do?” A laugh was in my voice. If I had to be locked in a smelly pit, torn from friends and Valen, I held a bit of gladness it was with her. She seemed hardly aware of her dire situation and held her chin high. Perhaps it was her way of surviving, but there was almost a childlike innocence about her still in there.
“I told that new queen sister of yours that if the lost royal of her blood were killed, the land would weep. It would deaden its heart and return to the wastes that once were. I changed the wording a bit because I’m not that lazy, but it was the same idea as the storyteller who cursed the prince. You know she did that to stop the killing, right? All those old royals, I’ve learned, they kept killing them, so she saved them by lying about what would happen if they died. I did the same. Your mean hearted sister needs you alive. At least she thinks she does.”
“I’ll live?” It was more a question of disbelief than a statement.
Calista snorted. “I guess. From what it sounds like, she doesn’t want you to live comfortably.”
Chills raced down my arms. I pressed my forehead to the bars of my cell, hoping to get a look at the girl. All I could make out were her arms poking from her bars, and I discovered we were not alone down here. In a cell across the block, and to the left of Calista’s a broad bundle crouched in the corner, wrapped head to food in a dirty, woolen blanket.
I didn’t bother with the third prisoner. They had not moved, had not said a word. “We need to get out of here. Can you write another story?”
“No,” Calista pouted. “They took my scrolls and runes.”
I closed my eyes. Think. “There is water coming in. We might be able to find holes and send a signal, or perhaps when they come to take waste buckets we could—”
“Overpower them? Come on, kind heart, they aren’t fools. They come prepared.”
“We can’t do nothing. There is an uprising not far from here. He is there.” Curse the fury lock. I could not say Valen’s name, but it might be a good thing if Runa planned to torture me.
Calista snickered again. “Sheesh, I wish I could’ve seen his face when he figured it all out. Is he a snob now? Or is he bossy? Maybe he’s a quiet prince.”
“He’s . . .” My throat tightened with thoughts of Valen. As they’d taken me away, his desperate cries were all I heard. “He does not want to take the throne. But he is none of those things. He is strong, yet unsure. He is brutal, yet gentle.”
“Huh,” she said. “Sounds like he’s got no idea who he is and needs to just pick one way or the other.”
I laughed now. It scraped at my parched throat. “Yes, maybe he should.”
“It comes,” a throaty, raspy voice came from the third cell.
The prisoner didn’t move, didn’t pull back the blanket. For a moment I wasn’t sure they’d even spoken until Calista giggled.
“Oh, that’s Lumpy, at least I call him Lumpy because he looks like a lump just sitting there all the time.” She giggled again. “He’s always saying things like that.”
“Who, who is he?” I asked, certain the covered prisoner wouldn’t tell me.
“Don’t know. They come for him a lot, but he never tells me what they do. He doesn’t fight, though. He listens to them good, but he’s really, really old, so I guess it happens when you’re stuck here too long.”
“They never use a name when they come?”
“Oh, yeah. Mean ones. Like they call me witch, but they call him all kinds of names. I usually tell them to shut up, but I think it makes them laugh more.”
“You’re kind to him,” I said. “It is you who is the kind heart, Calista.”
“Am not,” she insisted. “I’m ominous and I survive. But Lumpy doesn’t hurt anyone, and he teaches me words sometimes, so I don’t like when they call him names.”
My brows lifted. I looked to the unmoving prisoner again. “He’s been helping you with your stories?”
Was this prisoner an ally?
“Nah, only when I get stuck on a word. He knows words better than me, isn’t that right, Lump.”
The prisoner simply tightened the blanket around their shoulders.
A door clanged down the cell block. We fell silent at heavy footsteps. I steeled myself for what was to come. If this is when I faced whatever torture Runa had in mind, I would do it without a curve in my spine. I would look her in the eyes and never bend. Not to her.
Even still, when three ravens stopped in front of my cell, my stomach twisted in fear. They grinned viciously as they unlocked my cell.
“Come on, now,” said a guard. He snatched my arm, pinching my skin. “The queen has asked for her sister.”
“Last we met she told me she had no sister,” I said dryly, wincing as the guard tightened his grip.
“I’d learn to shut up if you have any brains, girl.”
“I don’t, so I plan to talk until you spin into madness.”
Calista snickered until the guard slapped a rod against her cell bars.
They didn’t speak to me again. I was dragged out of the chilled dungeons and led through the halls of the castle. Memories of running through these with innocence played out in my head. When I still enjoyed Calder as a cousin, when Runa and I snuggled in each other’s beds at night and giggled to sleep.
I lifted my chin as the guards led me into the throne room. Do not bow. Do not cower. This is not the king. The true king lies by your side at nights.
On a raised dais, seated in high-backed chairs, Runa and Calder watched my pitiful procession. Calder had dark gold scruff on his chin. Rings on his fingers. The fur mantles were soft and white. His face was trim and sharp and cold. Runa favored gold, down to her dress. Around her eyes gold powder brightened the blue and her hair was adorned in dainty gold chains.
I tried not to look, but was utterly aware, at her side, my mother and father stood stalwart. My father’s right eye was covered in a frightful patch. My mother was joints and bones wrapped in thin skin. She looked pale and worried, not the proud Mara Lysander she had always been.
The ravens forced me to my knees, then stepped away.
“Cousin,” Calder said after a long pause. “Good to see you. It has been so long.”
“I wish I could say it had been long enough.”
A raven made a move to strike me, but Calder held up a hand. He grinned viciously. “Elise, your sharp tongue is always entertaining.”
“I’d like to return to my cell,” I said. “It is more pleasant than here.”
Calder rose, jaw tight, but a cruel gleam in his eyes. He descended the stairs and stood before me. “My cousin, my soon-to-be sister, will not whither in a cell. Not when there is so much to celebrate. Vows are always enjoyable.”
The vows. My insides twisted. Ari and the others in Ruskig were expecting the vows at the high moon. That was still two days off. I avoided Calder’s gaze. I kept quiet.
“Runa would be heartbroken if her sister were not there with her,” Calder went on. “And I live to please my queen.”
Doubtless by sneaking away with a dozen different consorts.
“So, I devised a way to make the vows even more . . . perfect.” Calder sneered at me as a raven opened a side door. Jarl stepped into the throne room. My stomach heated in sick. I turned away, refusing to look at his horrid face. Calder rested a hand on Jarl’s shoulder. “Elise, I promised to care for your family, and I plan to keep that promise. A strong match for you will ease my bride’s troubled heart over her wayward sister. It will bring you back to us.” Calder chuckled darkly, then lowered so his eyes were level with mine. “Isn’t it a brilliant idea, cousin.”
I clenched my fists, rising to his bait. “What idea?”
“Two vows at once.”
No. The sick abandoned my stomach and burned my throat. No, he couldn’t mean—
“I have given you to Jarl. A wife to tame is a welcome challenge for an esteemed warrior. And if I remember right, you once were fond of each other. Perhaps in time, he will make you fond of him again.”
Runa wore a cruel smile. Calista was right—she would let me live, but in a life of pain and suffering.
“I will never take vows with Jarl,” I said. “I thought the last time he attempted this he had learned his lesson. I do not keep weak company.”
The mood shifted. Jarl narrowed his eyes, and his hand went to his side. I hoped because he remembered the bolt of Halvar’s bow piercing his body.
“Yes,” Calder said airily. “What a fascinating tale my queen retold after Mellanstrad. The Blood Wraith is your . . . ally. But then, he is not just the Blood Wraith, is he?”
“He will come,” I warned. “He’ll slaughter you.”
Calder returned to his throne. “Oh, I plan on him coming. I plan on his entire guild to show. We’ll be ready. You see, Elise, I did not become king in the way I did—”
“Through murder.”
Calder’s eyes darkened. “I did not earn the throne because I am weak. You underestimate me, cousin. I have eyes all around, even in your pitiful refuge.”
Movement at my side, drew me to look. A scorch of betrayal warped into murderous anger. I trembled with hate. “Ulf.”
Ari’s guard met my eye. He was hardened and looked more Timoran than Ettan. “Elise,” he said with a nod.
I chuckled, a little mad, a little muddled by rage. “I hope he finds you first, traitor.”
“Oh, your little fae king and the Blood Wraith have no idea,” Calder says. “After seeing our forces at Mellanstrad this Ettan grew some brains and knew which side would win in the end. Your friends will be sure to know what we plan to do with you. If Jarl and your sister are correct, Legion Grey will come for you. No doubt they all will come to attack our vows. And when their trusted scout leads them in, we will be waiting.”
“You’re a fool. Do you really think you will best the Blood Wraith? He has evaded you and your father for turns.”
“Yes, but that was before he had something to lose.”
I bit down on my tongue. Calder would dangle me in front of Valen, and I had no idea how it would unfold. What the Night Prince feared was losing more people close to his heart. He’d avoided me, ignored me, all to prevent this moment. Would he be clear-headed? Would he be a frenzy of rage and get himself killed?
Calder flicked his fingers and Ulf left the throne room. He left to lie and lie and lie to those in Ruskig. I imagined his death a hundred different ways.
“I see you are worried, sister,” Runa says. “Perhaps you can hide it from others, but you are unsettled. There is a way you can ensure Legion Grey is not harmed. Take vows with Jarl without protest, and the Blood Wraith will not be killed.”
I closed my eyes. He would live, but in a cell. They would never let him go free. He’d be bound for the rest of his days. But if Calder had more cunning than I thought, could I watch him die?
“We’ve given Elise much to think about,” Calder said and held out a hand for Runa. She rose in a rustle of fabric. “Go. There isn’t much time to prepare. Your mother will assist you and the queen for the vow ceremonies.”
I was lifted to my feet, a raven holding my arm. My sister led us from the throne room; my mother walked at my back.
Each step brought the weight of the risk and pushed me lower until I forced myself to slip into numbness.
“How can you stand by this, Maj?” I asked bitterly. I didn’t look at her.
She sighed. “Elise, you have no idea what you speak of.”
“You are a coward.”
Silence deafened the space between us until she whispered, “If doing what I can to save my child is cowardly, then so be it.”
I lifted my chin. My mother had faults, but she was compliant now on my behalf. I disagreed and would prefer we fought for our lives or died trying. Her silence would sentence me to a fate worse than death. Even a night as Jarl Magnus’s wife would be worse than the hells. Either I would not survive, or by morning I would wish I were dead.
I never told Valen I loved him. I should’ve told him, should’ve held him a little longer. All I could do was pray that if I died, he did not lose himself. I prayed to silent gods that he would find his place, he would heal Etta. He’d find love again.
A tear fell for the Night Prince. For what might’ve been.