Chapter 20 #2
Perhaps washing the blood from his face would be a start. Maybe the water would wake him up.
Jumping to her feet, she dashed to the metal sink. She nearly wet her sleeve before she realized that if she got blood on herself, the guards might notice and question how it got there.
Instead, she used her magic to slice through the end of her shirt. It was long enough that hopefully the guards wouldn’t notice that a piece of it had gone missing. Wetting the fabric in the sink, she returned to Prince Edmund’s side and dabbed at his face.
Prince Edmund groaned and stirred.
“Lie still. It looks like you took quite the beating.” Pip dabbed more blood from a cut across his cheekbone.
One of his eyes flickered open. The other was swollen shut.
When he attempted something of a smile, his swollen jaw made the expression more a grimace.
“I always wondered how I’d stand up to torture.
That always seems to be Farrendel’s thing.
The enemy takes one look at him and just has to torture him.
It always made me wonder if I could take it if I had to. ”
“If that’s an attempt at humor, it isn’t funny.” Getting tortured was no laughing matter. Pip dabbed at the blood streaming from his nose. “And you don’t have to take it. We should escape. I can get us out tonight.”
“No, not yet.” Prince Edmund pushed himself somewhat more upright, propped against the wall. “I learned a lot about what the Mongavarians know about the Escarlish spying efforts based on the questions they asked me. I’ll learn more next time.”
Really? He planned to use his torture sessions for spying? Pip shook her head as she stood, returned to the sink, and rinsed out the scrap of fabric. “You are even crazier than Fieran.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Prince Edmund wiggled another few inches more upright.
But when she returned to his side, he gently grabbed her wrist, halting her ministrations.
His one open eye searched her face, his expression returning to something far more somber.
“But you’re right. It’s one thing to risk myself to gain information, but I won’t risk you.
If it looks like the Mongavarians are going to hurt you in any way, then you need to escape.
Don’t worry about me. Get yourself out of here.
Find a place to hide in the city until help arrives. ”
“I won’t leave you behind.” Pip shook her head, her chest going tight. As tantalizing as escape sounded, she wouldn’t abandon Fieran’s uncle. Nor could she imagine trying to hide in the city all by herself for a week. She’d never manage it.
“You might have to.” Prince Edmund held her gaze rather firmly for a man who could barely sit upright. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” Pip nearly choked on the words.
It wouldn’t come to that. She’d make sure of it. After all, she had iron magic, and she had her shields. When she chose to escape, she’d just have to take Prince Edmund with her.
There came a rattle from the direction of the door at the top of the stairs.
Pip leapt to her feet, heart hammering. Dropping the rag beside Prince Edmund, she leapt through the bars, barely pausing to straighten them, and lunged across the passageway and through the gap in the bars of her own cell.
She’d barely put the bars back the way they’d been before the door swung all the way open.
A maid in a black uniform with a crisp white apron and a white cap over her glossy, dark brown hair paused at the top of the stairs, saying something to one of guards about how she would be fine alone.
Yet at the sound of her voice, Prince Edmund straightened, his good eye widening. He began struggling to his feet, using both the wall and the cot to steady himself.
After a moment, the guard shrugged and closed the door after her, leaving the maid to walk down the stairs by herself. She carried a tray that appeared to hold only two cups and two plates with bread.
At the bottom of the stairs, she set the tray on the floor and rushed forward, her voice a hoarse whisper that wouldn’t carry. “Dacha!”
Prince Edmund took a step toward the barred door of his cell, that grimace-smile back on his face. “It is good to see you, sena.” He used the elven word for daughter with the same warm emphasis Prince Farrendel used for sason.
Pip remained frozen in place for a moment. This maid was Prince Edmund’s daughter? That made her Jayna, the cousin Fieran hadn’t seen in two years.
Well, this explained where she’d been all that time.
Jayna gripped the bars of Prince Edmund’s cell, as if she desperately wanted to pull the door open to hug her father.
Pip might as well help with this touching family reunion. She pulled open the bars of her own cell again, crossed the space, and reached for the bars of Prince Edmund’s door. “Here. Allow me.”
Jayna jumped, her deep brown eyes swinging to take in Pip for the first time.
But she just nodded her thanks, slipped through the opening Pip created, and stepped into her dacha’s hug.
Prince Edmund wrapped his arms around his daughter, holding her close and murmuring words that were broken with emotion and too low for Pip to hear.
Pip’s throat clogged, and she turned away for a moment, blinking rapidly. How she missed her own dacha. She’d seen him far too briefly when he and Muka had returned from the dwarven mountains.
She just wanted to go home. To the far western rail terminal.
To the sounds of the clacking wheels on the tracks, the chug of the trains, the whistles piercing the still night.
Mak’s hugs, her dacha’s quiet strength, her muka’s boisterous laughter.
All those beautiful, peaceful moments untouched by death and war.
Yet home was so achingly far away. It wasn’t even just the physical distance, though that was great.
But Pip herself had changed so much. She wasn’t sure if it was even possible for her to return to the home she longed for.
She had a new home now. One where she was held safe and secure in Fieran’s arms. Where she fixed aeroplanes and laughed with her squadron. And, perhaps someday, her home would be brick buildings filled with inventions and magic in Aldon.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t get a pang of twisting melancholy when she thought of the home that was slipping away from her more every day.
When she dared glance over her shoulder, Prince Edmund was gently breaking the hug. “As glad as I am to see you, the guards will be suspicious if you stay much longer. Can you sneak back tonight?”
Jayna hesitated and looked at Pip. “You must have some kind of iron magic?” When Pip nodded, Jayna pointed toward the other end of the passageway where it turned a corner.
“This prison used to be part of the servants’ wing before it was converted into a dungeon.
They walled off that end of the passageway with a piece of steel. If you could open that…”
Pip nodded again, her throat still too clogged with the emotion of a moment before to speak. She wasn’t sure how Prince Edmund and Jayna could be so calm about this after being reunited for the first time in who knew how long.
Although, something told Pip the time they’d been apart was far less than two years.
“Then I’ll come that way tonight. If I don’t have to go past guards, I can bring more food. And some salve.” Jayna gave Prince Edmund one more quick hug before she slipped through the bars again. “I’d better go.”
“You…um…got a little something…” Pip motioned to Jayna’s front.
Jayna glanced down at herself and grimaced. The front of her apron had several blood spots, thanks to hugging Prince Edmund. “Well, that’s not great. Here, take the bread and water, and I can hold the tray to hide my apron.”
Pip grabbed the plates with bread from the tray, then the two cups of water.
Jayna picked up tray and positioned so that it would hide the stains from the guards.
With one last glance at Prince Edmund, she hurried down the passageway, saying loudly in a perfect Mongavarian accent, “Don’t complain, Escarlish scum.
That’s all the food you’re going to get. ”
Pip shook herself, shoved Prince Edmund’s water and bread to him, and returned his bars to normal. She had barely gotten herself back into her own cell and straightened the bars before Jayna reached the top of the stairs and called for the guards to let her out.
Once she was gone, the door closed firmly behind her, Pip sat on the floor behind her barred door. “So that’s Jayna. I see she’s in the family business.”
“Yes, she is.” Prince Edmund’s bruised smile still managed to hold a fond, fatherly warmth. He, too, sat on the floor at the end of the length of his chains, which prevented him from reaching the door.
Pip bit into the piece of bread. The crust was too hard, and the inside had gone dry. Yet while the bread was somewhat stale, it wasn’t moldy or otherwise spoiled. When she drank from the glass, the water was clear and tasted fine. “It’s sparse, but not what I was expecting for prison food.”
“It isn’t like the cooks keep watery gruel and spoiled vegetables sitting around just in case they have prisoners who need to be fed something awful.
” Prince Edmund shrugged, then winced as if the movement hurt.
“We’ll probably be fed random kitchen scraps of varying quality.
Whatever Jayna can bring us will help. We might have to be careful how much we eat, though.
The guards might notice if their prisoners get too fat. ”
“So we’re staying?” Pip gnawed off another bite of the bread.
“Can you think of a more comfortable hiding spot? We have private rooms, decent beds, and meals delivered to us each day. Even a convenient and secret way in and out.” Prince Edmund set aside what was left of his bread.
Perhaps chewing the tough crust hurt too much on his swollen jaw.
“All in all, we’re strategically placed in the heart of the enemy’s palace.
As long as they don’t turn their torture on you, I don’t see any reason why we can’t spend a more or less pleasant week here. ”
Comfortable and pleasant wasn’t exactly what Pip would have called it, especially since she doubted this would be the last time Prince Edmund would be beaten, but she could see how this would be somewhat preferable to trying to hide in some squalid hole while being hunted by Mongavarian soldiers.
Something about what he said niggled at her. “Strategically placed?”
Prince Edmund’s smile turned into something downright dangerous. “Oh, yes. We might as well put this week to good use. How do you feel about becoming a spy?”