Bound to the Shadow Prince

Chapter 82

Chapter

Eighty-Two

I f I ever doubted Riza’s loyalty, ever, I need to be smacked upside the head. My former servant and forever friend tirelessly hauls my cart through the empty streets of Darkfell. She’s panting and sweaty, but doesn’t complain, and I hold her weapons in my numb arms and feel grateful for her loyalty. If I could hug her, I would.

The palace rises in the distance, and as it does, so do the voices. There are shouts of anger, followed by crashes of what sounds like pottery. Colorful hangings are on fire, ash drifting through the still air as we approach the mob of human slaves and the Fellian defectors.

I can’t help but notice there aren’t many Fellians with us.

I also can’t help but notice that every door we pass has a red mark on it, the mark of the plague. It’s terrifying and it makes me even more afraid for Nemeth. I can protect him from an angry mob, but if the plague is in the palace…

“Make way,” Riza cries as she carts me closer. “Make way for Princess Candromeda! We must get inside!”

A Fellian wearing a bright red scarf over his horns storms towards us. “Riza! You cannot be here. Tolian wants you safe?—”

She shakes her head, pushing past him. “Tell Tolian Candra needs my help. He’ll understand. Where’s the princess Erynne? Where is my mate?”

The Fellian glares at me as if I’m the problem (and I suppose I am) before following behind Riza. “They are deep inside the palace, hunting for Ajaxi and his whore.” He glances at me again and then growls, taking the handle of the small, rickety cart I’m seated in. “Let me do that for you.”

“We need to get to the dungeons,” I tell him, my words slurred because I’m exhausted and it’s taking all of my strength to stay upright. “Can you take us there?”

He looks to Riza, and she nods.

“Follow me,” he says. “And arm yourselves.”

We push into the fray inside the building, and everything is chaos. Many of the Fellians are wearing the bright red scarves over their horns, and they battle with others with bare heads and fight on the ground, their wings tightly protected behind them. The human women surge through the halls, destroying everything they can reach and shouting obscenities I’ve never heard coming out of women’s mouths. I don’t blame them, though. I’d be mad as shite too if I’d been enslaved. They attack everything with a vicious enthusiasm that tells me they’re avenging more than themselves. They fight for the memory of every person that was destroyed in Lionel’s awful war and the Fellian vengeance that followed.

Even if they free themselves, we haven’t won. No one wins in any of this. We’re all coming out of this battered and shaken, the world far more grim than it was two years ago.

Me, I just want Nemeth back. Even if I have to spend the next five years back in the tower again, I’d do so gratefully. I just want him whole and well. I want to talk to him and understand the machinations behind what he did. I want to hold him close and know that we’re all right.

But as Erynne, my once-gentle sister attacks a guard with a wild, vicious light in her eyes, two other human women spattered with blood at her side, I wonder if anything will be all right ever again.

“Over here,” Riza calls to the Fellian pulling my cart through the madness. She points at a side door, and he shoves his way forward, the cart rattling as he pushes fighters aside—both Fellian and human—with his shield.

The cart rocks and I let out a yelp, only to have Riza come to my side. She grabs a short sword from the bundle of weapons I’m clutching and uses it to stab at a Fellian hand that grabs at the cart. I cry out again as she chops at the Fellian’s hand as if it were a vegetable and not attached to a person. Hot blood splashes my face and I flinch backward.

Our guard moves away from the front of the cart and sinks his axe into the back of the Fellian attacking us, then kicks his corpse away as I stare.

“We can’t let anyone stop us, my lady,” Riza says in a hard voice, kicking at the dead man. “If we stop now, you’re dead. Understand? We won’t be able to carry you out. Not in this mob.”

I swallow hard, looking around. It’s madness everywhere, but no Fellian is using his wings or teleporting. Those things must be too dangerous. I nod at Riza. She’s seen too much of war and I haven’t seen enough, perhaps.

The guard straightens our cart again and then hauls it down the side hall, surging forward until we come to another door, and then a staircase heading down. “The dungeons,” is all he says. “Now I must rejoin the fight.”

“Thank you, Raxus,” Riza says in a sharp voice. “If you see Tolian, tell him to be careful.”

He grins, showing the tusk-like teeth of the Fellian men, and adjusts his shield and axe, then runs down the hall back towards the chaos.

Riza studies me, pulling out another weapon, a dagger. “Can you walk?”

No, I want to complain. My legs still feel shaky and weak, and I’m pretty sure my toes remain numb despite everything. But if Nemeth is in the dungeon, that’s where I need to be. “Aye.”

It takes far too long to get to my feet, but I manage. Weaving unsteadily, I take the blade she offers me and tuck it between my breasts, like I used to with my enchanted dagger. It doesn’t want to remain in place, thanks to my filmy Fellian-make dress, so I hook the crossguard on the neckline of my dress and wrap my shawl tightly around my shoulders, winding it twice so I won’t have to hold it in place. Just those small tasks make me feel utterly exhausted, but I force myself to stand straight.

Riza nods at me and heads down the stairs, her blade in hand.

I follow behind her. The stairs wind down, narrow and circular, and it’s pitch black inside. It reminds me of my days in the tower when I was desperately preserving wood and matches for fire. I lean heavily against the inside wall, my hand pressed to the stone to guide me, and I move down slowly, counting steps.

When we get to twenty-three, there are no more steps. Riza grabs my arm, and I hear the rustle of her clothing. “I’ll find a lamp of some kind. Wait here.”

She moves away and I wait in the darkness, my eyes closed. Again, I’m reminded of my time in the tower, and as I hear Riza’s clothing rustling as she searches for a light, I think of all the times I got by with nothing. I think of how I recognized Nemeth by the sound of his wings as he moved, and the heft of his steps upon the floor. Can I find him now?

I take a step forward, and my slipper-covered feet encounter straw on the stone floor. Rushes, I realize. Rushes that are meant to keep the floor warm and somewhat clean. The straw here smells moldy when I step forward, though, and something drips on me from above. It’s cold and wet and damp in here, and I think of Nemeth and how much he’d hate it here. He loves a warm fire.

A light flares somewhere behind me and Riza sighs with relief. “There we go.”

The dungeon is horrifying. It’s far more cramped than the rest of the rooms above, with multiple doors clustered tightly in a row, all of them seemingly too small for the large Fellians and their wings. I suppose that’s part of the punishment, but I shiver at the sight. Each door has only a small hole to look inside, and these dungeons seem far worse than the ones I was kept in. More than that, it’s foully dark down here, the ceiling low and oppressive and the walls damp. Between that and the gross straw, I want nothing more than to leave.

But if Nemeth is down here…

I stagger towards the first cell. It’s small, no bigger than a garderobe. Riza shines a light into it and shakes her head. “Empty.”

I peer inside just in case, but she’s right. I don’t see anyone inside. “How does one keep a Fellian prisoner if they can slide through shadows?” I ask her, trying to distract from the fact that I’m near to collapsing with exhaustion. “Won’t they just leave?”

“Magic,” Riza says. “Everything is always magic with Fellians. Tolian told me that the king’s dungeon is enchanted so that all magic is nullified down here. No one can teleport in, no one can teleport out.”

Makes sense, even if it makes things harder.

Riza shines her light into the next cell, and then shudders. “That one is dead. Recent, too.”

“How recent?” My voice is hoarse with terror. Before she can answer, I peek inside, because I’m unable to stand it. There’s a dead Fellian all right, curled up on the ground, his limbs twisted. An ugly dark rash covers his chest and face, but it’s not Nemeth.

I bite my lip, because I saw that rash on another dead man. That’s the plague. It’s not safe for him to be down here. We have to get him out, and soon.

Riza surges ahead and I follow after her. Most of the cells are empty, though a few have dead men—all Fellians—inside them. I’m horrified that the dead have been left to rot down here, forgotten, but I think of Ivornath’s body above and wonder if that’s Meryliese’s awful doing. I hate her more with every moment that passes.

If we’re lucky, Erynne will find her and stab her once or twice or twelve times and save me the effort of killing her myself.

In the second to the last cell, there’s a large Fellian with his back to the small viewing hole in the door. His wings are wrapped tightly around himself, as if he’s using them as a blanket, and his entire body quakes.

“Nemeth?” I call, my heart racing.

No answer. Whoever’s in the cell can’t hear me, either by magic or by the fever that has him trapped.

“Is that him?” Riza asks. “Can you tell?”

I open my mouth to speak, when the figure turns slightly, and a long, ragged scar is revealed on one wing. A whimper of agony escapes me. It’s Nemeth all right, and he’s sick with the plague. “Oh gods, we have to get him out of there, Riza.”

She thrusts the light into my hands, the magical globe held in place by a large wooden base with a finger-hole, much like an oil lamp. Riza tugs on the door as I hold up the light, my arm trembling with exhaustion.

The door doesn’t budge, and she casts a look around. “Locked. The key has to be here somewhere. Wait here, Candra.”

“I won’t leave.” I’m not going anywhere without Nemeth. I stare in at the sight of my poor mate. How long has he been down here? How long has he been sick? My heart aches and aches, and I fight back a surge of panic. Even if we get Nemeth out, how do we cure the plague? If there was a cure, surely Darkfell wouldn’t be so empty?

I’m terrified that I might lose him after all.

Riza checks a guard station by the door, digging through a desk and then searching the rushes on the floor. She goes over the first few cells again, but all their doors are locked as well. Lips pressed together with frustration, she glances up at the stairs. “The key might be above.”

“Go,” I tell her. “I’m not leaving Nemeth.”

She hesitates, and then nods. “Be safe. I’ll return as swiftly as I can.”

I watch as she races up the winding, narrow staircase again. I’m alone in the dungeon with my sick mate, and I turn back to gaze at him, watching with helpless frustration as he quakes, his wings shivering, and then he claws and scratches at his neck.

“Hold on, Nemeth,” I tell him in a low voice. “I’m here. I’m going to save you. I promise.”

He stills at my words, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to turn and look at me. To speak. Something.

“When we get out of here, we’ll go wherever you like,” I promise him. I think he likes the sound of my voice. Perhaps it comforts him, even in fever dreams, so I keep talking. “I don’t care if we stay or if we go, just as long as we’re together. Everything works out better when we’re side by side. It’s the world that keeps pulling us apart. We won’t let that happen anymore. You and I will raise our child somewhere safe and quiet. I’ll even let you read war poetry to him or her, though you know I hate that drivel. You can teach our baby Fellian poems and magic, and I’ll teach them Liosian dances and our holidays. More than anything, we’ll just be happy because we’re together.”

“So sweet,” coos a hard-edged voice. “A baby, you say? You’ll have to tell me if I’m invited to witness the birth of the next Vestalin.”

And Meryliese steps from the last cell in the dungeon, a smirk playing on her hard, beautiful face.