Chapter 13 #2
“Okay then,” Freya replied, satisfied, and we started forward again.
Now that there was sufficient light, I dropped Freya’s hand and flattened myself against the wall. I inched closer to the curve and tentatively stuck my head out as I continued along the wall.
There was a crude wooden door blocking the cave ahead, the light we’d noticed bleeding from between planks of wood.
I stepped away from the wall, earning a startled intake of breath from Freya.
I gestured for her to stay put and crept toward the door. I peeked through the gaps in the wood and could only make out more rock and a torch burning from a nearby sconce. If there was a sconce burning, it meant that people had been there recently. But were they still there?
I ran my fingers over the door, noting that it was locked from this side with a deadbolt.
With a frown, I unlocked the door and pulled it open with a loud creak that set my teeth on edge.
But nobody came barreling down the passage, so I opened the door the rest of the way and stepped through, studying the rock walls suspiciously.
“Is it okay?” Freya whispered, skulking up behind me. She looked at the torch. “Someone’s here.”
I grimaced. “Let’s take a quick look. If there’s no threat, I’d rather not have to venture into the freezing cold again to find another cave.” I gestured to the deadbolt. “Besides, we can always lock this.”
Freya fingered the lock. “Why is it locked from the outside?”
“Maybe there’s livestock ahead,” I reasoned. “If people are living in the area, they have to keep animals somewhere warm.”
“Perhaps,” Freya said, unconvinced. “Fine. Just a look.” But I didn’t fail to notice her unsheathe a dagger. That was probably for the best. I didn’t want to be caught by surprise any more than she did, although that would be a hard thing to do, given how tight the corridor was.
We didn’t have to go much farther before we came to another door, this one sturdier than the previous one, also locked from this side with a deadbolt. There were no gaps in the wood to see beyond this door, but another sconce burned beside the door, providing us with ample light.
“Well?” Freya asked, turning to me expectantly.
“I say we see what’s on the other side,” I said, looking over the door nervously. “But if it goes much deeper, I think we should abandon this cave and find another.”
Freya grunted. “You would say that now that I can actually feel my toes.”
I smirked, then paused, realizing just how warm it was. It was still chilly, but the arctic temperatures had given way to something that could be classified as comfortable. “Well, if there are no surprises here, maybe we can stick around just long enough for you to open another portal.”
Therese pushed her way out of the pocket in my bag, where she’d been wrapped in extra layers. “Yes, please. You wouldn’t believe how cold this body gets.”
Freya nodded. “I’m probably still a day away from a long-distance jump. If we can stay the night here, I don’t see any problems with getting out of here first thing in the morning.”
“Good.” I offered her an encouraging smile before unlocking the door. And before I could think about it, I gave the door a solid pull. Freya tensed beside me, readying her blade.
This door didn’t squeak, to my relief. The room ahead opened up, well-lit by several torches.
Black iron bars built into the walls created cells along either side of the room, allowing for a path through the center of the room that led to a stone staircase at the other end.
The room was quite large, with eight cells on either side, each the size of a small sitting room, but decorated with stone benches and beds covered with straw.
The smell of chamber pots was overwhelming, but at a glance, no prisoners seemed to populate the cells.
“A prison?” Freya whispered, eyes wide.
I nodded, walking into the room slowly. “Probably courtesy of the Ice Queen.”
“We should probably get out of here,” Therese said, sinking back into her pocket. “I’d much rather brave the cold for a short time than have another confrontation with a witch. No offense.”
“I’m with the frog-girl,” Freya said.
“Hello?”
We froze at the voice, a man’s voice from the last cell on the left.
I didn’t see anyone standing at the bars, but I was certain it had come from that room.
Freya took a step in that direction, but I clamped a hand over her arm, shaking my head vigorously.
If the man was behind bars, he could very well be dangerous.
And besides, I would rather leave this place without anyone knowing we’d been here.
Freya pulled her arm away. “Callum, if someone is a prisoner, we have a duty to assist them.” She hesitated, then stood taller.
“It could very well be someone who was in my own situation, rotting in a cell. And besides, enemies of the Ice Queen could be friends of ours. And we could use someone who knows these caves.”
I chewed on my lower lip, weighing her words. She was right, of course, but it still didn’t sit well with me. I followed Freya closely as she walked up to the cell the voice had come from.
The last two cells held stone tables, as well as cabinets against the back walls, full of medieval instruments, many with blades or decorated with spikes.
A man was strapped down to one of the two tables in the cell on the left.
He looked up as we approached the bars, and relief broke out over his face. “You’re not her,” he said.
I couldn’t open my mouth to reply; I was too stunned by the scene.
The man had obviously been tortured. His hands were restrained, fastened to the table by leather cuffs, where he was missing several fingers—and those that remained lacked their fingernails.
White bone could be seen through the skin where they’d been severed.
Even worse, the lower half of his body appeared burned.
“The keys,” the man said. He looked at us with kind blue eyes beneath graying eyebrows. He was probably well into his fifties and had little hair left on his head, save for over his ears. He nodded toward the staircase, where I spied a hook on the wall, a ring of large keys dangling from it.
“Freya …” I murmured, taking a step back.
“We can’t leave him like this,” she said, gesturing to the man.
“Oh? You don’t think they’ll notice if a prisoner disappears?”
“Mr. Witch,” Therese said at my back. “When someone is in need, it’s our duty to help them. It’s what Auggie would do.”
My heart twinged at Auggie’s name, but I tried to ignore it.
Of course Auggie would rescue this man. Because he had a bleeding heart.
And … I chewed on my lower lip as I recalled the relieved faces on the residents of Kingsbury, the children watching the fireworks who likely wouldn’t have had that chance without our intervention.
I closed my eyes. “Blast it all,” I muttered.
Against my better judgment, I stalked to the wall to retrieve the keys.
With any luck, there would be confusion about whether the prisoner was moved by someone else, and we would have enough time to find a new hidey-hole to lie low until the morning.
I glanced up the staircase. Stone steps curved up along the wall and out of sight. It was probably the passage that led into the castle.
Returning with the keys, I unlocked the cell door, throwing it open with more force than I intended. It banged against the outer bars as it collided with them. I sent an apologetic look to Freya before stepping into the cell alongside her, steeling myself for what I would see.
It was worse than it had appeared from the door to the cell.
The man had clearly been through a painful experience.
Two fingers were missing from each hand, and those that remained were black, a ring of salty white bleeding into the damaged fingers from the healthy skin of the hand.
Similarly, what I’d seen of his lower extremities before was an even darker black.
The skin appeared charred, those salty white lines randomly running over his dead legs and feet.
The maroon robe he wore was all but torn from his body, a goat’s head emblazoned across each of the robe’s shoulders.
“What happened to you?” I managed to choke out. I concentrated on looking into the man’s face, rather than staring at his wounds.
“Tortured by Her Majesty,” the man said, then coughed. He cleared his throat and smiled as he turned back to me. “I’m from a village a few miles south of here. I was trying to help him escape her.”
I frowned, then noticed that he was gazing over at the cell across the aisle.
“There may still be survivors.” The man continued, “If you let me loose, I’m sure I can get out of my own accord.”
Without thinking, my eyes drifted down to his legs. I noted that his toes were all blown to twice their normal size, as if painfully blistered.
“Frostbite,” Freya murmured into my ear. “He won’t have long. The infection will kill him soon.”
“I’m going to look in on your friend,” I said in a gentle voice, laying a soothing hand on his shoulder. “Okay?”
The man nodded, and laid his head back, a look of pain crossing his face.
I met Freya’s eyes for a moment before I slipped out of the cell and walked up to the one across the aisle. This room was set up similarly, but the boy strapped to the table in this cell looked untouched. In fact, he appeared to be sleeping. Maybe he’s dead, I thought, before shaking my head.