Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Pip caught just a glimpse of the elegant white spires of the castle perched on a cliff above the sea before a black hood was shoved over her head. With her hands now shackled behind her back, she lost all sense of balance as she was dragged from the train by two burly Mongavarian soldiers.
At least she could hear Prince Edmund’s stumbling footsteps behind her. He occasionally made some joking comment to his guards, reassuring her that they were still together.
After two days in the truck, they’d been transferred to a train for the rest of the journey to Landri. The train’s boxcar hadn’t been particularly comfortable, but they’d been left mostly alone.
The hood was stifling hot against her face, but the occasional ocean breeze cut through the fabric, giving her a refreshing breath filled with the scents of salt and sea.
The smell brought back memories of Dar Goranth and the storm-tossed northern oceans. How she missed the squadron. Her flyboys. Fieran. A soft bed beneath her instead of cold metal. The safety of an Alliance base instead of being constantly surrounded by enemies.
Each day that passed made it more and more tempting to escape. She could have done it at any point. But she’d stayed because Prince Edmund believed it was the best plan.
With a hood over her head and shackles on her hands, that no longer seemed like such a good option. She and Prince Edmund might very well find themselves hauled before a firing squad. That could even be where they were headed now.
The cold of stone surrounded her, the echoes of the footsteps telling her this was a tunnel of some sort. Perhaps beneath the outer wall of the castle?
After a few minutes, the stone arching over them vanished, although the stone cobbles below her boots remained. A courtyard of some sort.
Hinges creaked as a door was opened. Then Pip was dragged inside a building. She tried to keep track of the turns but lost count within a few minutes.
She could tell when they entered a more lavish section of the building because her footsteps became muffled by soft carpet.
More doors opened, and the echoes told her this was a large space.
She was hauled across the room before she was shoved onto her knees. At least the carpet here was thick and soft, sparing her from bruises.
The hood was yanked off her head, and she blinked at the rush of relatively cold air against her face and the lights beaming down on her.
Next to her, Prince Edmund had also been forced to his knees and the hood removed from his head. He swept a glance around the room before a slow smile broke across his face. “Empress Bella. It’s been a while.”
Pip faced forward and took in the room more fully. They were in some kind of lavish throne room with a blue carpet below her and walls so papered and gilded that it hurt to look at them in the shine of the electric lights overhead.
Ahead, a dais held a single throne where an old woman sat, bedecked in an extravagant blue dress and glittering jewelry. Three men, whose ages ranged from twenties to seventies, stood beside her, and all of them wore similar clothing and crowns.
The woman on the throne, Empress Bella, was tiny and somewhat hunched, but her long white hair was braided and coiled on her head, all the better to set off her crown. When she smiled, it was strangely sweet and soft. “Not long enough, Prince Edmund.”
If Pip had imagined what the elderly empress of Mongavaria would look like, it wasn’t this. This woman looked so grandmotherly that she appeared more apt to distribute hugs and cookies than start a war that had killed thousands.
“And who is this? One of your little spy minions who you hoped to plant within my empire?” Empress Bella waved a hand, rings glinting on her fingers.
Pip swallowed and kept her mouth shut. If she spoke, the empress was sure to hear the elvish accent in her Escarlish. As bad as it was to be considered a spy, it would be worse if anyone guessed that Pip had magic.
Prince Edmund shrugged, his smile still lazily nonchalant. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your family?”
He was neatly sidestepping her question about Pip. Pip would be more than happy if Prince Edmund kept the focus of the conversation on himself.
Empress Bella’s smile remained that far-too-grandmotherly one as she gestured to either side of her. “Prince Edmund, meet my son, grandson, and great-grandson. My line of succession is well-established.”
“Good for you,” Prince Edmund drawled with that sarcastic edge.
“Family, this is Prince Edmund. The man who poisoned my grandfather.” Empress Bella’s smile showed a sharp edge for the first time, something glittering in her perfectly blue eyes.
“Still parroting your father’s lies, I see.” Prince Edmund’s nonchalant look dropped, replaced with something hard. “I didn’t kill your grandfather, and you know it. Your father was the one who poisoned him and me. After all, why would I poison myself?”
“Perhaps you are an inept poisoner?” Empress Bella drummed her fingers on the armrest of her throne. “Or you were never poisoned at all. You escaped with rather a lot of energy and agility for someone who claims he was poisoned.”
Pip would have been rather confused at this conversation, if Prince Edmund hadn’t told them the story of what had happened back then. The roots of this war extended all the way to those events seventy years ago.
Prince Edmund’s jaw worked for a moment, as if that rejoinder had actually struck a nerve. His tone turned even harder. “I do wonder. How did your husband die? He passed away quite young, conveniently for you.”
“It was indeed a tragedy, losing my dear husband as I did.” Empress Bella’s tone was so sincere Pip might have believed her, if she hadn’t seen the sharp edge to her smile.
“But enough of this chitchat. Prince Edmund, you were discovered in my kingdom in a hijacked airship and wearing a Mongavarian uniform. I am well within my rights to have you shot as a spy.”
“But you aren’t going to do that.” Prince Edmund sounded far too sure of that.
“No, I won’t. Not yet, anyway.” Empress Bella’s smile turned even more sharp-edged. “You have far too many valuable secrets in your head, and I’m determined to pry them out of you.”
Pip’s chest seized. Was the empress implying what Pip thought she was implying?
The empress made a languid motion with her hand. “Take them away.”
Pip found that her legs were shaking as the hood was placed over her head again. She was hauled through several more corridors and down a set of stairs. After a jangle of keys, a door opened with a creak, her hands were unshackled, and she was pushed forward.
She stumbled, nearly falling to her knees. She yanked the hood off, tossing it to the ground and spinning around as a large door formed of metal bars was swung shut behind her. The guard gave her a sneer as he twisted the key in the lock, shutting her in.
Or so he thought. The whole front wall of this cell was one giant piece of metal she could manipulate if needed.
She hurried to the front of her cell, gripping the comfortingly solid metal bars as she peered one way, then the other.
The guard retreated down the passageway and climbed a set of stairs until he disappeared through a metal door at the top.
The passageway on the other side ended in a dark corner. The cells on both sides had barred doors while the occasional torch lit the space.
But there was no Prince Edmund.
“Prince Edmund?” Pip whisper-called the word.
No answer. Not even another prisoner calling back to her.
She was alone. Absolutely alone.
Pip paced back and forth across her cell as she tried to decide what to do.
Her cell was actually quite spacious at seven feet by ten feet and included a cot with an astonishingly clean straw mattress and wool blanket.
The corner out of sight of the door even had a metal sink and a rudimentary toilet rather than the bucket or hole in the ground as she might have expected.
A window set high in the wall peered into the castle courtyard at cobblestone level. It was blocked by bars and glass, of course, but large enough that Pip could wiggle through the opening if she removed the bars and broke the glass.
Should she escape? Try to find Prince Edmund?
Although she had her magic, she was woefully unprepared for escaping an enemy stronghold and hiding out in enemy territory. She couldn’t even manage to fake a Mongavarian accent.
There was a clang from the direction of the stairs, and Pip jumped, hurrying to the barred door of her cell.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, and two guards came through, dragging a limp body between them.
Pip gasped and gripped the metal bars to steady herself. That was Prince Edmund. She could only recognize him because of the color of his hair, his head hanging, his boots scraping against the stone floor.
The guards hauled him into the cell across the passageway from hers, taking the time to chain his hands to the wall instead of merely shoving him inside.
With a final kick, the two guards left the cell, locked the door, and retreated up the stairs, the door at the top clanging shut with a grim finality.
Pip waited only another few seconds before she shoved her magic into the bars, yanked them apart wide enough for her to step through, and dashed across the passageway.
At the far side, she shoved two of the metal bars aside as easily as she might a strand of yarn and slipped into Prince Edmund’s cell.
She crashed to her knees beside him. “Prince Edmund?”
He lay still, his body sprawled in a heap. His face was a bloody mask, rivulets of blood trickling across his skin and dripping onto the front of his shirt.
What should she do? Pip cast about, her heart squeezing.
Prince Edmund’s cell held the same cot, sink, and toilet that hers did, although his cell didn’t have a window.
She could try to get him on the cot, but she wasn’t sure she should move him.