Chapter Twenty The Villainess and the Hostage
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Villainess and the Hostage
Even the bravest raiders cowered beneath the shadow of the Emperor’s monstrous steed.
Time of Lies, ANONYMOUS
Every fantasy palace worth its salt had a dungeon where they kept important prisoners. Rae knew the Palace on the Edge had one, too.
Rae wasn’t clear on where these dungeons might be.
Hunting through the green-and-grey passages of the palace in search of a captive princess, Rae spotted a young sentry standing at a gate that seemed to lead down into the dark.
He wore the blue and black guard uniform Key had worn once, with one of the new golden masks covering his face.
“Excuse me, is this the way to the Rooms of Despair and Lingering?”
The guard stayed silent and still as a statue. That wasn’t a no.
“May I borrow your keys? If you’re secretly on my side, don’t stop me.”
She reached out tentatively and took the steel circle bearing the row of keys from his belt. The guard’s gloved hands stayed by his sides.
“Thanks, I appreciate your help.” Rae sorted through the keys, and found one that fitted the lock. The gate swung open with an ominous creak, which seemed promising.
Rae walked down a long flight of shallow steps, stone that scraped her fingertips on every side.
The rough stone wasn’t cold to the touch, but warm as if she walked through the chambers of a stone heart.
This stone was heated for centuries by the flames from the dread ravine.
She walked into the heart of the cliff on which the Palace on the Edge was built.
At the foot of the steps Rae had hoped to find dungeons. Instead there were passages winding in several directions, as intricate as the palace passageways above ground. She found herself within another, darker palace, with nobody to guide her.
A process of elimination was called for.
Clean air from above blew freshness down several tunnels.
Rae rejected those tunnels on principle.
She was after the deepest dungeon. One tunnel looked promising, with the marks of many feet and chains worn into the stone.
Rae followed the deep groove of dragged chains with high hopes.
Above her head came a trumpeting sound, and a heavy hiss, as of a great serpent upon the earth.
Rae realized this tunnel must lead to the imperial menagerie.
She had seen fabulous story-tale beasts during the Queen’s Trials when she fought to protect Lia, but she hadn’t seen all the mythical creatures that the menagerie boasted. She hadn’t seen the best one yet.
Beautiful danger beckoned. Rae could take a tiny peep at the cool monsters, then return to her quest. The Emperor’s legendary steed must have arrived by now.
No. Dungeons before dragons. Everybody knew that.
Rae retraced her steps, selecting another passage that led down deep into the dark. Flickering torches lit the stone, showing red dust where the earth of Eyam had been recently tracked inside.
At the end of the tunnel shone a light. The light was cast by fiery torches set in steel brackets that formed a chandelier shape. The Rooms of Despair and Lingering had no time for crystal chandeliers. Dungeons were metal like that.
Dungeons were metal in many ways. Laid out before Rae was a maze of steel bars, sectioning off dozens of stone chambers. Most were empty, but a few shapes huddled on straw pallets. Rae wondered what clue she might find to locate the princess.
A voice rang and rattled the bars. “Lady Rahela!”
Rae ran through the steel labyrinth towards the sound. Vasilisa, Princess of Tagar, wasn’t huddled anywhere. In the books Vasilisa became the Ice Queen who ruled all Tagar. Trapped in the deepest dungeon of a strange land, Vasilisa stood as tall as any queen in an icicle crown.
“How fares my brother?”
Her brother was called Ivor the Heartless, but his sister had a heart.
Vasilisa had always believed in Rae, and never believed any of the rumours about the notorious Harlot of the Tower.
As soon as Rae warned Vasilisa of Ivor’s fate, she’d raced to save him.
Rae was responsible for so many problems.
“King Ivor appears to be in excellent health, and besieging our city. Don’t be afraid. The new Emperor will return you to your brother in exchange for peace.”
“No,” murmured Vasilisa. “I cannot be returned.”
Rae gazed around the low, dripping stone ceiling, the enclosing metal bars and the straw pallet. “You enjoy being imprisoned?”
“I enjoy not being married to Count Merac. The Meracs came for me. This invasion couldn’t have happened without Merac raiders.
Count Merac commands the vast majority of our armed forces.
Listen.” Vasilisa leaned forward, her grey-brown eyes sharpening as she delved into a question of diplomacy.
“Tagar is a bigger kingdom than Eyam, a stretch of wild wastes with a citadel in the centre. Meracs dwell in the far west, Starosts in the far east, and both these noble families command more territories and men than their ruler. The king provides a buffer between enemy lands, and keeps a fragile peace. The Starosts are in decline at present. The raiders are Merac men. They march only at the word of their champion. My brother Ivor must have promised my hand in marriage to Count Merac as his prize for winning this war.”
“When you love Fabianus.”
“I do love Fabianus,” Vasilisa’s voice trembled on his name.
“But I’m of royal blood. I never expected to marry where I love.
The thought that I might do so, and still forge an alliance with Eyam for my brother and king, was a great happiness to me.
If the dream of love is burned to ash by the fire of war, I will do my duty. But I will not marry Torhell Merac!”
Rae remembered Vasilisa telling her before about a suitor count who cared only for brothels and brawls. Still, Vasilisa’s vehemence indicated a deeper issue. Rae had read about the count, but Vasilisa actually knew him. She must have her reasons for wanting to marry anyone else.
“Do you hate Count Merac?”
Vasilisa shook her head. “We were children together. I care for him. I would never have wished to marry him, he was always wild, but… battle can cause a raider to run mad. He has turned to indiscriminate slaughter. To marry him would be to walk into the jaws of a monster and let myself be consumed.”
Count Merac was meant to die young. Ivor the Heartless was meant to be dead already. Both men waited outside their city walls. Rae couldn’t promise safety to the princess or herself.
“I’ll do whatever I can for you.” Rae feared it wouldn’t be much.
“I’m a hostage.” Vasilisa reached through the bars. “The Emperor will either kill me or surrender me to the raiders.”
And if she was surrendered to the raiders, she belonged to the count.
Rae touched the princess’s fingertips, though neither could reach through to hold hands. “I’m sorry.”
Vasilisa shook her head. “You have your own adversities to face. I hear you’re to marry the new Emperor.”
It was disconcerting to be pitied by someone in a dungeon.
“I’m not in chains, though. There’s that.”
The princess gave a wry smile. “Are you not?”
Rae remembered the Emperor saying his dead had dragged Vasilisa back to the capital. To marry him would be to walk into the jaws of a monster and let myself be consumed. She couldn’t blame Vasilisa for thinking the worst of Key, and fearing the worst for Rae.
“Can I bring you anything?”
“No,” said a voice behind Rae. “I’ll take care of the princess’s every need.”
Unexpected voices as you trespassed in the imperial dungeons were seldom good news. Rae clutched the bars as if she could hold on to Vasilisa and protect her, and risked a look over her shoulder.
“For the moment, I’m still betrothed to Vasilisa,” said Lord Fabianus Nemeth. “It’s my duty to care for her. It also happens to be the great pleasure and privilege of my life.”
Son and heir of the commander general, older brother of the Horrors, fiancé of the princess, Fabianus stood out in the dank dungeon. Mind you, a man wearing a purple satin waistcoat would stand out anywhere.
“I’m so sorry about what happened to your father,” Rae told him. “How is the general?”
Fabianus looked very tired. “He mends. Thank you for asking. And thank you for saving my sister’s life. The Horrors told me you’re the one who gave them the cure for Hortensia. Our family owes you a debt.”
Gave them the cure was one way to describe what she’d done.
“Trust me, I’ll collect. Sorry Hortensia glows now.”
“It does lead to certain challenges when advising her on matters of dress,” Fabianus mused. “Wearing jewels while shining from within looks so tasteless.”
At the mention of jewels, Rae’s hand flew up like a startled bird to touch the Abandon All Hope Diamond at her throat. It was strange how the cursed necklace kept slipping her mind. She fiddled uneasily with prongs like claws, and offered a smile. “Glad you’re keeping your spirits up.”
“The question of Hortensia’s dress genuinely haunts me.” Fabianus smiled back, but his attention slipped over Rae’s shoulder.
Vasilisa wasn’t stunningly attractive or distinctively hideous. Unusually for a book character and especially for a princess of fiction, she was average-looking. When Fabianus looked at her, you could tell he didn’t think so.
He walked past Rae without another glance, to stoop and kiss Vasilisa’s fingertips where they rested on the prison bars. Courtly as though they were in attendance at a ball, and Fabianus intended to beg the foreign princess for a dance.
“I’m just going to go,” Rae decided.
She sent Vasilisa a last wave, and departed down the long tunnel back to the surface and the Palace on the Edge.
At least Vasilisa was well and safe for now, but her fate was Rae’s responsibility.
Rae couldn’t let Key kill her. She needed a scheme to get the princess out of the dungeon, and out of marriage to the count.
The guard stood at the gate in the exact position Rae had left him. He gave no sign of surprise on her return.
Pushing her luck, Rae jangled the keys in front of his golden mask. “Can I keep these?”
Silence. He certainly was a taciturn fellow, but Rae wouldn’t hold it against him.
“Since you’re my friend, can I see your face?”
When Rae whisked off the golden mask, he stayed still as stone.
There was no help to be found here. This wasn’t a friend.
Key must have given orders for Rae not to be interfered with, and this guard didn’t have mind enough to do anything but mindlessly obey. The ghoul was fresh enough that he hadn’t started to rot, but was cold to the touch. In his calm, dead face, his milky eyes burned with remorseless hunger.
Hope was for fools. Rae had been talking to a dead man.
The prime minister said Key had killed someone at the last assembly. In the interest of saving lives, Rae asked to attend the next.
She was outraged to hear ministers debating whether they should put off the Queen’s Trials.
The rules of games in a story should be ever in her favour.
People loved stories with levels like a video game, well-defined punishments and rewards, and a clear winner.
Whether the games were in an arena or a maze, tournaments or riddles, voluntary or forced, fought for survival or power, whether they were tests to become a magician or an assassin or a monarch, all that was unimportant.
Flood, fire, earthquakes: nothing ever stopped the contest. The games must go on.
“The Queen’s Trials must and shall go on,” asserted young Lord Adel.
“Soon the raiders will beg us for peace. The morale of the populace must be kept high. The old books describe the ancient rituals just as Lady Rahela saw them in her visions. ‘He is coming,’ the prophecy said, ‘All the worlds are his empire.’ This is the hour of Eyam’s glory. We should celebrate.”
Lord Adel was an idiot. “Well said, Lord Adel,” said Rae.
She had outlined the ancient rituals of the Queen’s Trials exactly as laid out in the books.
Courage and Truth. A first stage to test the courage of maiden’s hearts, followed by a parade for the brave and victorious beauty of that round, and silverthorn pyres fired to celebrate the Emperor’s glory.
Then the second and last stage, to know each maiden’s true heart and choose the true queen, followed by a ball and the grand wedding.
The wedding never happened in the books, but this time would be different.
“Did you notice the dragon?” snapped Pio.
“I fail to see how you could have missed the dragon. It appears the raiders wish the entire city to witness their enchanted monster flying overhead, once by night and once by day. The dragon will continue to appear until morale is destroyed. Fires may cause a city-wide panic.”
“What do you suggest, then?” demanded Lord Adel. “Cower in fear?”
“The brave maidens of the tower are ready to participate in the Trials,” Rae assured the ministers, an edge of desperation in her voice.
Pio sighed. “I do not wish to create panic. But I have one more piece of bad news. My scouts returned from the Temple of the Divine Order. They found it deserted. There has been no reply to my messages. I fear the raiders’ dragon already destroyed them.
We do not know when the raiders may make their move, and there is no help coming. This is no time for games!”
The ministers looked to the head of the table, where the Emperor sat.
“Let it be as my lady desires,” said the Emperor. “Let the Trials carry on.”
“Thank you.” Rae meant it with all her heart.
She needed the Queen’s Trials so the Emperor could meet his true love Lady Glacia in a dramatic setting.
And over a sleepless night, she had hatched a plan to defeat the dragon.
The first stage of the Queen’s Trials offered a perfect opportunity to bring one of the Emperor’s greatest weapons onto the scene early.