Chapter 24 The Rescue
I have a nephew. And Araine has a son. And I am such a selfish ass.
Here I've been, hating her because she wouldn't give me what I wanted. Blaming her and the whole world for my problems, feeling sorry for the wrongs that have been done to me, just like Araine said Besana and her followers do.
I didn't think about what Araine has to lose. What Araine has to protect.
I just blamed her for not doing enough for me. Blamed her, I'll admit, for existing at all.
As I stare at her now, she meets my eyes defensively, posture protective around the child in her arms. Her gaze tracks slowly to Raku and Jeksu, halting only briefly to take in Marton's dragonish appearance along the way.
"Hamish must have gone to the fight," Araine says tightly. "I told him not to..."
"Go," whisper Raku. "Take Sartok to bed. We will take them up."
Araine nods, her gaze sharpening into determination. "I'll be right behind you."
Then she's gone, disappearing back into the maze of carts and stalls. It's a moment longer before I'm able to regain the use of my feet, and the others are making impatient noises at me.
We continue on, slipping out of the hall without any more interruptions. And then it's up and up and around and around in a wind of tunnels, until we reach the cells.
The halls grow narrower and darker as we climb, and this is my first indication that we're entering an area not meant for casual habitation and convenience.
There's no room here for a dragon to shift.
Most of the doors we pass are made of stone, connected to the wall by heavily bolted hinges.
And there are brackets connected to the wall for bars to go across, locking inhabitants of the cells inside.
All the doors are shut, but not many are barred.
As we advance higher, we come to a passage of solid stone, with no tunnels branching off from it. The path ends in a dead end, the entire hall lit by a single torch in a wall bracket. Towards the middle of the hall there is a single stone door, left open the narrowest crack, its bar pulled back.
My hear begins to race as we draw nearer to it.
This has to be our destination. The tower.
The cell where they tell me Cherry and Vakhrin have been locked up together all this time.
They are only taken out when there is to be an arena fight, and then both are kept chained until Vakh is released into the arena, with a hundred dragons and wyverns around him in the stands, and multiple facing him in the ring. No way to escape.
And Cherry is made to watch, once a week, every week, while he is beaten.
Torture, for both of them.
I feel sick thinking of it, and sicker still as we approach the room that has been their cell.
What will it be like, on the inside? Is it dark and damp and moldering?
Is it constricting and small and filthy?
Are the walls and floors all stone, with nothing for them to sleep upon?
Is it cold in their cell at night? Does Cherry shiver?
I want to know. With an uncontrollable fervor, I have to know.
But a step before we reach the cracked door, Raku brings us to a stop. "Over here," he says, gesturing to the opposite wall. I turn and see a small wooden door leading into what looks to be a supply closet.
"The cell—" I begin to protest, my hand raised, near enough to touch that door. To push it open—
"Don't touch it," Jeksu hisses. "Bad enough your smell will be in the hall.
You must not go in or near the cell. You will get in this closet and wait.
The guards will bring the princess and the manticore back here in less than an hour.
Then our people will cause a distraction somewhere nearby, which the guards—who will already be few and distracted tonight—will go to investigate.
You will slip into the cell, collect your friends, and make like hell for the nearest exit.
That is all that you must do. Our advantage is in secrecy and speed. If you're sensed, or seen—"
"We're dead," I finish. I remember the plan. I've only heard it a thousand times already.
Raku eases the door to the supply closet open, and a host of alarming scents pours out. I wrinkle my nose, and Raku gives me a rascally grin. "Your accommodations, milady." He bows in a courtly manner.
I huff. Raku is all devilish humor to his brother's no-nonsense functionality. I can't say which one I appreciate the least right now.
Grabbing Marton's hand, I take two steps forward into the closet, pulling him after me.
The smells intensify, coming from a variety of empty buckets and containers piled throughout the tiny space.
Marton presses in close behind me, and I turn to make some parting words to the brothers—to thank them for their help or maybe to raise another objection—but the door is shut behind us, and footsteps file down the hall.
We're alone, and the true danger has begun.
"Remind me how much we trust them?" I whisper to Marton. Because here in the dark, surrounded by buckets and rags smelling of piss and feces and blood, I can't remember.
"We trust them," Marton whispers back, and his breath tickles the skin of my temple.
We are wedged together in here, with the side of my body pressed to the front of his.
I can barely see, so I imagine he can't see at all.
His hands climb to my waist and rest there.
To avoid accidentally touching something foul in this disgusting closet, I imagine.
"How strongly does it smell in here to you?" Marton wonders.
I make a muffled noise. "It smells like raw sewage and death."
"I'm glad I'm not really a dragon," he mutters.
My response is quiet, honest. "I'm glad you're not, too."
Marton's hands tighten on my waist. He's silent for a beat, and then he asks, "Why?" in a slightly troubled accent.
"Because—" My thoughts are a little disordered by the sensory overload they're experiencing—his hands on my body and the stench of the closet. "Because you're you. You're—better the way you are."
"Because dragons are bad?"
"No," I whisper. For the first time, I'm forced to admit it. "Dragons aren't bad." Araine and Raku and Jeksu don't seem bad. And maybe that means I'm not bad either. I've done bad things. But I've done good things too. And I can do better.
I can be better, and I want to.
I want to save the world with him.
Marton leans down to whisper in my ear. "I think dragons are magnificent."
I laugh hoarsely, an exhalation of breath. "That's because you're an optimistic fool."
"Yeah," he agrees easily, arms holding me loosely, and I muffle another laugh.
Turning, I bury my nose against his chest, trying to drown out the smells around me with his scent.
But his scent is hidden under layers of chemicals and resin.
Even his tunic has lost his smell. Still, it's better than the closet.
We stay like that for a small and infinite moment, Marton holding me in the dark. And then there are footsteps coming down the hall. Every muscle in my body locks with tension. There is a sound of skidding, of something being drug across stone, and the clanging of chains.
Both sounds grow louder alongside the footsteps, and then there is muffled complaining and conversation—in unfamiliar voices—before the stone door across the hall scrapes open.
"In you get," says a deep male voice, brusque with impatience.
"I'm going—don't touch me!"
My heart jolts inside my chest, my body going weak and electrified with tension all at once. Cherry. That was Cherry's voice. My legs twitch, wanting to propel me in her direction. To stop whoever is touching her from touching anything ever again.
Marton holds me tightly.
Don't, his tight grip says.
It is the hardest thing I have ever done, staying completely still in that moment.
But I do, and then there are descending, jangling footsteps, more rough, dragging noises, and a thud and groan as something—Vakhrin?
—is dumped in the cell. The guards scuff back out of the room, and then come the scrape and clanging sounds of the door being shut and barred.
Not much longer now.
I pray for the structural integrity of the door that hides the sound of my racing heartbeat from the guards. For the continual stench of the closet that hides our scents. For Araine's people to keep to their word, and do whatever they are about to do to draw the guards away as quickly as possible.
Suddenly, it feels as if the floor beneath us vibrates, and there are distant shouts and cries of alarm filtering up the hall.
The guards outside our door curse and mutter. "What the burning skies was that?"
"Should go check it out—"
"—the other cells—"
"—can't leave our post—"
"Stay then, guard the dust bunnies. Yura and I will go."
The sound of reluctant female muttering follows this, and then two sets of footsteps hurry off down the hall. One heavy set stays behind, shifting uneasily in front of the cell door.