Chapter 43 The Captives
An interminable amount of time passes in the dungeon. Day into night and night into day. It isn't so bad. Cherry and I are old hand at being captives, Cherry especially. My stomach turns to think of the amount of her life she's spent as a captive. In the tower, in the Trove, and now here.
Has she spent more time locked up than she has free?
I try not to let my thoughts turn into weapons against myself, but there isn't much else to think about in the dungeons. The fear I feel when I think about what my might be happening to Marton and Vakhrin... It is even worse than all the ways my brain can think to guilt me about Cherry.
The guards bring our daily "meals"—a crust of bread and a cup of water. My stomach gnaws on itself constantly, as if aware of the fact it hasn't been fed in weeks.
Cherry and I pass the time staring at one another; we count the bars of our cells, the bricks of the walls. We talk a little of what we have each experienced these past weeks. Each of us, I think, carefully editing what we tell the other. We are old hand at that, too.
But mostly, more than anything else, what we do is plan.
I have tried shifting partially, to see if my dragon form's girth would be enough to break my shackles. I nearly lose a hand in the process, and afterwards, we realize that we will need a key to release the chains. It won't get the collar off my neck, but it will be enough to offer mobility.
But before we can get that key, we need the key to our cells. Or we need the guards to unlock them for us. Really, all of this plan hinges on Cherry. Until my chains are removed, I won't even be able to reach the door to my cell.
Uselessness is not a feeling that I treasure.
After much trial and error, I find that I can shift enough to let my claws come out at my fingertips.
It is only when my wrists or ankles grow in size that the chains threaten to maim me.
Without the added muscle mass from my dragon form, I am not strong enough to break my shackles, but perhaps I can use my claws to pick the locks.
Cherry spends one long afternoon watching me try.
"Look for wards or springs," she advises. "Try to reach around the ward to press down on the spring."
As if that helps. I am flying blind, jabbing with my claw at small metal parts I cannot see.
Lockpicking is not a skill I have spent any amount of time practicing, always relying on the strength of my dragon form to see me through. Perhaps Cherry and I have both relied on that strength too much.
"I'll scream," Cherry suggests the next day, after watching me fail again and again to pick the lock.
"I'll pretend to be injured and scream for the guard, then you grab the keys.
.." She trails off at my look, remembering that I cannot reach the bars of my cell.
"Alright then, you'll pretend to be injured and I'll scream for them to come check on you.
You'll whimper and roll around, and when they unlock the door to your cell—"
"They won't." Cherry looks at me blankly, hands frozen in the air where she has been illustrating her plan. "They won't unlock it," I elaborate, certain. "Even if I'm hurt, even in the chains, they won't risk coming near me."
"You don't know that—"
"I'm a dragon, Cherry. I do know that. They won't care if I'm hurt. The king wouldn't care either."
She considers that for a moment, tapping her fingers on her knee. "So it will have to be me then, who's hurt."
I don't voice the possibility that they wouldn't care about that either. She is still the princess, still the king's daughter. The king took pains to keep her alive before, even when he sent her away. Perhaps he has reasons for wanting her alive now.
"Okay," she nods. "I'll pretend to be hurt, unconscious maybe. You'll scream for the guards. When they unlock my cell to check on me, I'll grab the key and—"
"And what? Fight off the guards? Both of them? Unlock my cell and my chains before they can stop you?"
She growls at me in frustration. "We'll do it at night, when only one guard is on duty."
"What if he doesn't have the keys on him?"
"He will. One of the guards always wears the keys at their belt. I don't think they're allowed to leave them unattended."
"And how will you fight him off?" I ask the question quietly. Although Cherry has had rudimentary training with a sword, she's starved and weak and has no experience with hand to hand combat or even self-defense.
Cherry clenches her jaw, her hands fisting the hem of her dress at her knees where she sits cross-legged on the ground. "Very well. What do you propose we do? It would be nice if you offered solutions and not just more problems."
"I'm just trying to be realistic."
"Well realistically, then, what do you propose we do?"
I take measured breaths, reminding myself that snapping back at her would not be useful. "You need a weapon," I finally decide. "Something to debilitate them with." I look down at my taloned hands, wishing there was a way give them to Cherry, just for a few moments.
And then an idea occurs to me.
It takes three days. Far longer than I would like.
Three days of imagining all the worst things that could be happening to our friends.
Three days of worrying that the king may decide to come for me before we have time to carry out our plan.
Three days of feeling the weakness in my muscles grow worse instead of better with each hour that passes without a decent meal.
Three days of seeing the dread in Cherry's eyes.
Three days to prepare, me keeping my motions as quiet as possible, Cherry frequently coughing to mask any incriminating sounds.
On the fourth day, we are ready.
Then it is a long, anxious wait until nightfall, watching the beam of sunlight from the single window creep lower along the floor.
I shift uncomfortably in my chains, feeling the chill bite in the air as the day's warmth fades.
Cherry begins to shiver.
At full dark, we listen to the sound of the guard change.
The murmur of voices, the rattle of keys exchanged.
When the footsteps fade away up the stairs, we look at one another.
My heart races, adrenaline flooding my veins.
This plan hinges on Cherry's strength, Cherry's ability to fight, her cunning, and her quickness.
All I can do is lie here in my chains and wait to be rescued.
Damseling, I realize, is not as easy as it looks.
The minutes crawl past, and when Cherry gauges that an adequate amount of time has passed, she gives me a nod in the darkness.
Curling up on her side, limbs sprawled as if she's landed roughly, Cherry closes her eyes.
Somehow, she manages to lie completely still, noting even moving with a shiver.
"Help!" I wince at the false quality to my voice, acting abilities nil.
I tip my head back, raising my voice. "Help!
It's the princess. She's hurt. Please!" My voice cracks at the end, a bit of real emotion lending credibility to my plea.
I hear the jangling of chains and the scrape of chair legs as the guard rises.
The door creaks open, torchlight spilling into the room from the hall as the guard enters.
He holds a candle dish in one hand, his other hand on the pommel of his sword.
As he approaches, his eyes go from me in my chains to Cherry lying unconscious in her cell.
His hand leaves the sword.
He's a big man, a bit younger than middle aged and right on the line between healthy and out of shape.
He doesn't wear the gold of the palace guards, but rather the brown leathers of the dungeon staff.
He steps closer to Cherry's cell, peering down at her.
He cuts me a look over his shoulder, anxious, probably, at having me at his back.
"Help her!" I hiss at him.
"What happened?"
"She was standing up, pacing, and then she just collapsed.
Something's wrong with her."
"Fainted," the guard grunts.
"She's starving." The anger in my voice is real.
"I'll get her some bread.
"
"No!" My chains rattle as I jerk towards him.
The guard flinches back a step. "She hit her head when she fell!
You have to check on her first. Please."
He watches me closely for several moments.
"You really care about her, don't you?" He seems amazed and appalled at the prospect.
"She's my sister."
He scoffs.
"She's a princess. You're..." He trails off.
I don't care what he thinks of me.
"If she's a princess, treat her like one.
Help her."
He harrumphs, turning away from me.
But he observes Cherry again, and the sight of her prone form seems to almost convince him.
"She's bleeding," I let some of my real fear spill into my voice.
"I can smell it."
He makes a noise of disgust at my inhumanity, but his hands go to the keys at his belt.
To my anxious brain, his movements seem maddeningly slow, as if he wades through molasses.
He takes the keys from his belt, flipping through them until he finds the correct one.
He raises it, fits it in the lock. A turn.
A click.
The cell door opens with a groan and cry of metal.
Cherry doesn't twitch, and I applaud her acting ability.
The guard approaches, one step and then two.
Three. He crouches by Cherry's head. He watches her for a moment.
Checks her breathing with a finger held before her nose.
Presses two fingers to her pulse.
"She's alive," he tells me.
"Check her head."
His hairy hands bracket her face, turning her head so that the side that is against the floor is exposed to the air.
The blood is real, from a cut she carefully gave herself to the scalp just before nightfall, using a chip of stone I had hewn out with my claws.
The guard prods gently at the side of her head.
Cherry's eyes open.
The guard doesn't notice, and it gives her the time she needs to roll her torso to the side, revealing the brick that I spent the bast few days carefully prying free of my cell wall, one claw at a time scraping out the mortar that held it in place.
Cherry grabs the brick in both hands.
The guard finally notices her stirring.
He drops his hands, unknowingly giving Cherry the space she needs.
She raises the brick.
"As hard as you can," I coached her last night.
"It might...it might do permanent damage, but it might not.
The most important thing is that it knocks him out.
You'll only get one shot. Make it count.
"
She brings the brick down with all her might.
Crack.
The guard falls with a thud, and Cherry scrambles up, eyes wide.
The brick tumbles from her limp hands. She meets my eyes in horror.
This is the first person she has ever hurt.
"Get the keys," I tell her, hating myself and her father and everyone else whose fault this situation is.
She paws for the keys with shaking hands, rises again with knocking knees.
She hurries across the hall, fumbling with the keys as she raises one to try on my cell door.
I don't tell her to hurry, that the guard could wake up at any moment.
I smell his blood now, too.
Cherry finds the right key on the fifth attempt, just as I am about to jump out of my skin from nerves.
Then she is there, in my cell, in arms reach.
We don't hug. She falls to the floor at my feet, rattling through the ring of keys once more.
On the second attempt, she finds the key that unlocks the manacles at my ankles.
The same key works on my wrists.
She tries every key on the lock that holds the chain to the collar at my neck.
None of them work. She drops the keys with shaking hands, terror gathering in her eyes.
"Try them again," I tell her.
"None of them work!"
"There has to be a key.
There has to."
"It's not here!
" she hisses.
"Check the guard.
"
On quick, bare feet she goes.
She pats at the guard's clothes, rummages through his pockets.
Nothing.
I spot something black peeking out of the neck of his shirt.
"Check the cord at his neck!
"
Cherry pulls the leather cord from the front of the guard's tunic.
On its end is a key. A black metal key that matches the collar at my throat.
Cherry comes back, fitting the key in the keyhole.
A click, and the chain rattles and falls as it unlocks.
I am frozen for a moment in disbelief.
"Get up, Tarah.
"
I fly to my feet. My legs wobble.
I throw my arms around Cherry, holding her tight.
"Are you hugging me or falling?
"
"I don't know," I mumble into her shoulder.
"We have to go, Tarah."
I exhale a tremulous breath.
Backing up, I meet her gaze and nod. Cherry stops at the guard's side.
He is breathing. Bleeding a lot and still unconscious, but alive.
Unclipping his sword belt, Cherry begins to strap it to her own waist.
I take the guard by his arms, pulling him into Cherry's empty cell.
The effort winds me more than it should.
Cherry locks the cell with the guard inside.
We step back, regarding our handiwork together.
Somehow, incredibly, our plan worked.
But now the dangerous part begins.