Chapter 73
Chapter
Seventy-Three
I gasp and turn on hands and knees, pressing my cheek to the coarse blanket and mat that make up the bedding in my cell. The voice I heard, asking if I was the princess. It’s unfamiliar to me, but they’re speaking the Lios tongue. I gaze at the tiny crack in the mortar of the rock wall, where the finger slips away again. I can’t see anything on the other side. It’s too dark. I’m reminded abruptly of Balon and his visits to the tower, the gossip he told me through the wall, and how I’d begged for him to free me.
A wave of longing hits me. It feels like a hundred years ago since those days.
“Who’s there?” I ask when the voice goes silent. I’m tempted to stick my finger through the hole to the prisoner on the other side, but what if it’s a trap? So I brush chips of mortar away from the hole, trying to widen it. “Hello?”
“I’m here.” It’s a woman,speaking softly enough that our conversation won’t be heard by the guards. “My name is Senna. I worked in the palace as a washerwoman. Are you really the princess?”
“I am,” I tell her, excitement racing through me. “It’s me. Candromeda.”
The finger appears through the rocks again, wiggling. “Give me a piece of your hair so I know it’s you.”
Oh. Hastily, I pull a few dark strands free of my messy braid and then wrap them around that wriggling fingertip. It retreats back behind the stone walls. A quiet moment passes, and I grow impatient. “Well?”
“It’s you, isn’t it? You even sound all impatient like a princess.”
Well then. “I’m not lying.”
“I know. I didn’t think it was really you until you mentioned the medicine,” the voice on the other side—Senna—says. “Riza is my friend. She told me about you and the potion you have to take daily. That you get sick if you don’t get your medicine. Why aren’t you in the tower?”
I bite back a sound of excitement when she mentions Riza’s name. I’ve missed Riza so much. I know she’s my maid, but she’s also my companion and friend and a constant person in my life…or at least she was before I entered the tower. “Where is Riza? Is she well?”
“She’s here in Darkfell,” Senna whispers. “She was sold off to a Fellian master and so I rarely get to see her anymore.”
Sold off? Like a farm animal? The idea is horrifying…but she’s alive and well at least. When I get out of this dungeon, I’ll make Nemeth free her. “What about my sister, the queen? Erynne? Is she here too?”
“Aye. She’s the slave of one of the Fellian princes.”
“Why is she a slave?” I choke, horrified. “What happened to Lios? Tell me everything!”
“She’s a slave because she’s pretty,” Senna says, her voice bitter. “When the Fellians took the city, they slaughtered the men and took the women captive. They brought us back to this place, but it’s just another tomb.”
“A tomb?”
“You’ll see.” She chuckles, as if this is all somehow funny. “So what’s the princess doing in the dungeon instead of in the tower?”
“I left the tower when there was no more food,” I confess.
“Mmm, aye. There’s no food anywhere above ground. The goddess weeps constantly, and the rain washes everything away. At least these Fellian bastards have food.” She laughs, and the sound is faintly unhinged. “Up above, we starved. Down here, there’s food but it’s a different kind of hell.”
I blanch. “Why are you down here?”
“Because I spit in my owner’s food,” Senna tells me, still laughing. “And food can’t be wasted. He had to eat it or give it to me. So he sent me down here to teach me a lesson. More fool him, I’d rather be here in the dungeon than out there. At least down here I’m safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“From the goddess’s wrath, of course. She’s not starving the Fellians. She’s got a very different punishment for them.” And Senna laughs again. “You can’t escape the eye of the goddess, even underground! She still watches!”
My skin prickles with goosebumps. Senna doesn’t sound…well. “About the goddess?—”
“CANDRA!”
The bellow comes from down a distant, echoing hall, but every pore in my body pricks to attention the moment I hear it. I know that voice. I jump to my feet, forgetting all about Senna on the other side of the wall, and I press my face to the bars of my cell. “Nemeth! I’m here!”
There’s a furious sound, a male roar of primal fury, and the sound of something crashing into a wall. “ Where is she?”
“Nemeth!” I cry again, shaking the door of my cell even as the guard swoops through the shadows toward me. “Let me out of here! Nemeth!”
“Female,” the guard hisses as I grab the empty cup from its shelf and bang it against the metal of my door. It makes a horrifically loud sound, which delights me, and even when he snatches it out of my hand and grabs me by the front of my dress, I don’t care. Nemeth is here. He’s going to save me. “Be silent?—”
The shadows thicken behind my guard, and then Nemeth coalesces into the open space behind him. His eyes are wild and frantic, his teeth bared and his wings tucked tight behind him in what I recognize as a warrior stance. His nostrils flare as he spots the Fellian male that has the front of my dress and he grabs him by the knot of horns at the back of his head and drags him backward. “You don’t get to touch her!”
Oh gods. Is Nemeth going to kill one of his own kind for mistreating me? “Wait! Nemeth, don’t!”
He stops.
To my vast relief, he stops. Nemeth stares at me for a long moment, as if not believing his eyes. He pushes the Fellian in front of my cell aside, and his gaze searches over my face. “Open this.”
The guard disappears in a flood of shadows and then returns a moment later with a key.
Nemeth doesn’t move. His eyes devour me and I know he’s making a mental note of every bruise, every scrape, and adding them to a mental list. His wings look brittle with tension, and even though he’s not fidgeting, I can feel the anger brimming through him. I reach out and touch his finger even as the guard fumbles with the keys to unlock my cell. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine. You’re in a dungeon.” Nemeth’s gaze darkens with fury. “A Darkfell dungeon.”
“A misunderstanding,” I reassure him. My indignation fades in the light of Nemeth’s fury. I don’t want him endangering himself, and I don’t know how his people will take it if he kills one of his own…because I absolutely believe that Nemeth would have killed the guard in that moment. There was something dark and unpleasant in his eyes when he saw I was in danger.
And I’m a terrible person because I like it.
I keep smiling brightly at Nemeth as the guard fumbles with the keys again. It’s too narrow for him to teleport in—or he doesn’t trust the guard while doing so—and we have to wait as the other Fellian mumbles apologies and tries to find the correct key. When the door finally opens with a creak, Nemeth all but yanks me out of its depths and into his arms.
He wraps himself around me tightly, one hand in my hair and the other on my back, and he hugs me to his chest. I cling to him, breathing in his scent, listening to the sound of his rapid, angry heartbeat. Tears threaten my eyes but I blink them back. I’ll cry over this tomorrow. When we’re settled and safe, I’ll cry. Until then, they’ll have to wait. “I’m safe,” I whisper to him. “I knew you’d come for me.”
He steps backward and cups my face in his hands, his thumb stroking my cheek. “You are injured. Was it this guard?”
“I’m fine,” I insist. “Misunderstandings are to be expected at times like this, and we can’t afford revenge. I’m just glad you’re here.” I clutch his arms, glad for his strength and his reassuring presence. “What happens now?”
“We are leaving,” he tells me in a low, furious voice.
We…are? But when he takes me by the hand and pulls me forward, away from the other cells, it seems that yes, we are in fact, leaving. “Where are we going, Nemeth?”
“Anywhere but here. I won’t let my mate be treated like this.” The bitter fury is still in his voice.
That worries me. We’ve run out of places to go, haven’t we? Lios is gone, a wasteland of mud and rain. There’s no food to be found there, just like in the tower. The Alabaster Citadel won’t have us. Isn’t Darkfell all that remains?
Before I can ask about his plan, the soldier that initially captured me—the unfamiliar Fellian—appears in a nearby alcove and immediately hops down onto the floor in front of us. Right after him, a second Fellian appears, this one tall and slender, but there’s something familiar about his face. He floats down next to the other and I get a good look at his clothing. Unlike the first Fellian, this one’s chest is covered with leather straps that braid and cross each other, holding an ornate chest plate over his heart. The designs on the chest plate look familiar, and I glance over at Nemeth.
“Brother,” he growls. “You look unwell.”
Brother?! This is the king? I stare at the taller, thinner Fellian. He has some resemblance to Nemeth, I realize upon a second look. It’s there in the set of the eyes and the stubborn jaw. This one, though, looks younger than my Nemeth. And he does look unwell, his gray skin a sickly pale shade.
“I’m recovering,” Nemeth’s brother says. “And I’m surprised to see you here. It’s true then. You left the tower? Abandoned your duty?”
“What about your duty to supply us with food?” Nemeth retorts. “We had no choice but to leave.” He steps slightly in front of me, just enough to put his bulk between me and the other two Fellians. It’s not obvious at first what he’s doing, but when they both narrow their eyes in my direction, I realize that Nemeth doesn’t trust them not to attack us.
The tall one grunts acknowledgment of Nemeth’s words. “You need to talk to the king.”
So this isn’t the king then. This is…another brother? I hold tight to Nemeth’s hand, wanting to ask a million questions, but I bite them back. There’ll be time for that later.
“I’ll speak to Ivornath but only after my wife has rested. We’re going to my quarters.”
The brother tilts his head. “Wife?” His gaze is withering as he looks me over. “You took the other Vestalin princess as your mate? Both my brothers are fools, then.” He gives an irritated shake of his wings, spreading them wide. “I will tell the king of your arrival…and your mate. He’ll find it interesting, to say the least.”
Nemeth’s hand just tightens on mine.
The two Fellians fly away, taking to the tall shadowy ceiling and disappearing into its depths. I watch as they go and it makes me wonder. Why is no one surprised or upset that we left the tower? Has something more happened?
And what did he mean by “both my brothers are fools”? What has he done with Erynne?