Chapter 18
Viviane wasthe daughter of the queen of Kassia and the Commander of the Cervantes, and she knew a soldier from her parents’ army when she saw one.
And she saw four.
It made her heart skitter in her chest.
“Who are they?” Genevieve whispered. The two of them were lying, heads together, on the bench against the wall, and they had a clear view of the four soldiers chained to the wall in the antechamber outside their cell. The moonlight was just enough to illuminate them.
“I don’t know them, but they’re from Kassia and Cervantes.”
The quiet sound of a shoe on the flagstone floor had her lifting her head. Jon was crouched near them, as far as his chain would allow, his gaze focused on their would-be rescuers.
“They’re looking for us,” he breathed. “Everyone is looking for us.”
“Of course they are,” Vivi replied, but she felt the same relief she heard in his voice.
She had wondered how anyone would find them. But somehow, they were at least looking in the right direction.
“Did he enspell them, like he did with us?” Gen asked.
Vivi nodded. “How else would he take four trained soldiers from our army?” Her father made sure all his warriors were as good as they could be.
She thought their abductor had been badly injured sometime after they’d been taken, or he had a long term injury that had flared up. She hadn’t remembered him moving as if he were in pain on the night he’d taken them, but now he did—slow, tentative steps, and he had difficulty bending down.
Spell work was the only way he could have taken four warriors.
It eased her heart a little that these soldiers had been taken, just like she and her friends had been. They were older, stronger. More experienced.
Another rustle of clothing from the dark corner of their cell told Vivi that Ric was coming to join them. He had recovered the slowest of them all, and she still suspected their abductor had hurt him, not just put him into a magical sleep.
She’d kept a close eye on him since they’d begun moving around and felt more themselves, but he was slower, and moved like he hurt. Just like their abductor did.
He said he was fine, but she didn’t believe him, and she didn’t think Jon did either.
She slid off the bench and sat, leaning back against the hard wood, and covertly studied him.
He was chained further back than Jon, and ended up sitting cross-legged, his chain lifted off the ground and stretching behind him.
They sat in silence, but none of the four soldiers so much as stirred, and Vivi got a good idea of how things had been for her and her friends before they had finally woken, hungry, thirsty and stiff.
Their abductor came every morning with two jugs of water, a loaf of bread, four apples and a hunk of cheese, and they had to ration it how they saw fit through the day.
It was better that way, she had decided after the first day.
When he turned his attention to them more fully, things would be far, far worse. Of that, she was positive.
There was a glee in his voice and on his face when he opened the grate to one side to push the food and water through, and take the empty platter from the day before. Sometimes he set the platter and jugs just inside, and as the one chained closest, Vivi had to stretch out on her stomach to reach them.
At least there were two latrines built into the cell, one in each of the back corners. They were nothing but two overlapping brick walls set in the corner that shielded a hole in the ground. All of the chains were just long enough to allow them inside.
At least it gave a modicum of privacy, but Vivi had the feeling that they would have no secrets from each other by the time they got out of here.
And they would.
They would get out of here.