Chapter 6
As she sought an entrance into the tunnels beneath the castle, Syla passed two hallways blocked by rockfalls—roof falls—and climbed over a pile of wood, tile, and stone higher than her head.
She glanced through a hole in the ceiling, half-expecting to spot that dragon peering down at her.
Every time a noise came from somewhere nearby, she spun in fear, certain its rider was after her.
Its very confusing rider.
Why had Captain Vorik claimed to have come to help her—to protect her, he’d said—when his people had been responsible for the horrible attack? And he’d surely participated. He’d been there, smashing a roof onto her head. Had he thought she wouldn’t recognize him?
True, she hadn’t in the dark, when she’d been in front of him on the dragon, but she would have eventually, even if Fel hadn’t warned her.
When they had come face to face. And that dragon?
In better light, she wouldn’t have missed recognizing the color of his green scales, the reptilian coldness of his eyes.
As she approached what had once been the royal theater, a place the family had gathered to be entertained by traveling and local troupes, she feared it wouldn’t remain standing.
Surprisingly, however, the arched ceiling had held up under the attack.
The tall windows were broken, with shattered glass littering the flagstone floors and rugs, but the rows of seats and the stage remained intact, barely disturbed.
A thunk sounded behind her, followed by softer clunks. A rock in the hallway she’d passed through shifting and falling off a rubble pile?
Syla jumped into the theater, putting her back to the wall near the door. Silence followed the noise, and she could hear and feel her heart hammering. Was it the rider following her?
After a moment of stillness, she heard something else. Boots on the floor, someone walking. Someone with a heavy, uneven gait.
“Fel?” she whispered.
“Yes, Your Highness.” Weariness and pain in his voice made her wince in sympathy.
When Fel stepped into the doorway and held her pack out to her, his sooty face was bruised, his shaven head spattered with blood, and he leaned right, favoring the other leg.
Emotions constricted her throat, but she didn’t want him to think her weak by crying, nor did she believe the gruff bodyguard wanted a display of sympathy.
She swallowed and said, “I thought you didn’t use Your Highness with me because your upcoming retirement has made you worry less about pomp?”
Fel slumped against the doorjamb. “Something tells me I’m not going to get to retire for a while.”
“Maybe we can get the shielder repaired in the next… seventeen days, was it?”
“Even if we’re able to do that, there’ll be a lot of rebuilding to do.” Fel looked out into the theater. “And the succession and who’s going to be in charge… Someone’s going to have to figure that out.”
His gaze settled on her.
“It won’t be me. And I’m not deciding who it will be either. But the shielder… I can help figure that out. But first, are you all right? You need healing again. I can tell.”
“Not now. The captain and his dragon are loitering in the area, probably doing whatever they came to do. Spying probably.”
“I thought the rider might come inside after me.”
“The last I saw, they took to the air, but they didn’t head out to sea. Instead, they flew inland. Off to frolic over the countryside and steal food or raze villages or who knows what.”
“How did you escape from them in the courtyard?”
“The dragon wanted to kill me, but Captain Vorik seemed… I’m not sure. They tried to kill us earlier, so I don’t know why he didn’t finish me off. I can guess why they didn’t kill you.”
“Oh? Why?”
“You know where the shielders are. Vorik must have intended to take you back to his people to question. To interrogate.”
“I… Yes, that makes sense, but his people must already know where the Castle Island shielder is. Or was.” Since Fel didn’t want healing at that moment, Syla headed up the aisle toward the stage. It was time to see if the shielder remained under the castle and was repairable.
“Agreed.” Fel trailed after her, noticeably trying not to limp.
Oh, Sergeant. She wished she could send him to the temple for a comfortable bed in a quiet room looking out over the sea. But the temple was gone. Her life was gone.
Pushing the thought aside, Syla climbed the steps to the stage. She couldn’t feel sorry for herself. She was alive and others weren’t. Still, a small, self-pitying part of her wondered if they were luckier than she. Whatever her future held, it wouldn’t be a life of ease.
“One worry at a time.” Syla knelt by a large piece of equipment that could swing thespians around in the air so they appeared to the audience to fly.
It had been years since her parents—yes, her father had still been alive then—had shown her the location of this entrance, and she had to pat all around before finding a button.
Fel stood guard, his hand on his mace as he watched the doorways. Judging by his expression, he believed the captain wasn’t frolicking over the countryside, as he’d suggested, but would return and try again to capture her.
Once Syla depressed the button, the equipment rolled to the side on oiled hinges and revealed a square trapdoor in the wooden floor of the stage. She opened it easily and peered into the empty space under the stage as well as at another trapdoor in the flagstone below.
After she swung down, shadows cloaking her, she knelt on it.
Flush with the floor, this door didn’t have a handle.
She pressed her fingers against the cool stone, willing her magic into it, much as when she sent healing power into a patient.
The trapdoor, as old as the castle itself, glowed around the edges, its ancient magic responding to hers.
A faint click sounded, and a handle made of a glowing tendril appeared.
She gripped it and lifted. Since the trapdoor was made from the same flagstones as the floor, it should have been heavy, but, for her, it rose with scarcely any effort.
Below, stone stairs led deep into the ground, more than twenty feet down, to one of the ancient tunnels underneath the castle.
There were sconces on the walls, but nobody had lit the torches.
She looked bleakly at them, afraid that meant what she’d feared.
None of her family, or even the closely trusted staff who tended them and knew some of the castle’s secrets, had made it into the escape tunnels.
At least not the ones near the theater. Perhaps elsewhere…
“Let’s hope.”
“Princess Syla?” Fel knelt on the stage beside the first trapdoor. “Do you need light?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see what I can find.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t go anywhere. There may be dangers down there.”
Syla hesitated, then nodded. It was wise advice. Besides, where would she go in the dark?
Not far, but she did creep down the stairs, intending to wait at the bottom. And to see… if anything could be seen.
The bleakness filling her at the thought that nobody had escaped was so overwhelming that she couldn’t help but hope for at least some sign that she wasn’t alone, that she wasn’t the only surviving member of her family.
At the bottom of the stairs, the tunnel stretched in two directions.
Down one way, a hint of light came into view, a torch or lantern burning.
It was so far off that Syla suspected it near an entrance across the courtyard in one of the other buildings.
In the other direction lay the stables, and Fel had mentioned that entrance was blocked off. That way was dark, regardless.
A shadow passed through the light at the end of the tunnel, and she jumped.
Had that been her eyes playing tricks on her? Or was someone else down there? And, if the latter, was it friend or foe? As much as she wanted to find living siblings or her mother, the dragon riders might be down here, some having lingered to explore.
“I can tell I’m going to need to find more of my bodyguard brethren to keep an eye on you,” Fel grumbled, coming down the steps behind her with two lanterns.
“Because enemies are going to keep trying to capture and question me?”
“Because you’re a pain in the ass who wanders off after agreeing to stay put.”
“I didn’t wander off. I came down the stairs. And I see you’re back to eschewing pomp and propriety.”
“My sore knees, feet, hips, shoulder, and everything else are making me grumpy.”
“And prone to call a princess a pain in the ass?”
“Yeah, my left knee specifically suggested that.” Fel handed her one of the lanterns, then, less gently than he might have, pushed her against the wall so he could step past her in the tight tunnel.
Syla smiled, not offended, not in these circumstances. Fel frowned balefully toward the distant light, then looked wistfully in the other direction, as if he would prefer to go down the dark tunnel. Maybe he, too, believed they would be more likely to run into enemies than allies down here.
“I thought I saw movement in the light that way. Just for a second. It might have been nothing though.” Syla waved to her spectacles to indicate the unreliableness of her vision, though she had a feeling her brain rather than her eyes would be to blame if she was seeing things.
“Which way to the shielder?” Fel didn’t comment on the rest.
Syla pointed toward the light.
“Naturally.” He grunted and then led off in that direction, lantern in one hand and crossbow in the other. In the narrow tunnel, he had to work to keep from scraping the edge of it on the stone walls.
When they reached the light, which marked a four-way intersection, a single lantern burned in a sconce at the corner.
The cross tunnels soon turned around bends, so they couldn’t see far in those directions or tell if more lights might be burning.
They couldn’t see anyone anywhere, but Syla had the sensation of being watched.