Chapter Thirty-Six Bladestone Prison #2
The child brightened. “Can I help?”
“Maybe. Two are twins, a male and female, pale with white-blond hair and blue Ire and eyes. You couldn’t miss them.
They’re practically mountains. The other is…
like living fire.” Her voice nearly cracked.
“Golden eyes and dark hair. Green Ire. Taller than the other two. Strong. And he probably looked very angry. He would have tried to talk to you.” She knew it in her bones.
“You’re describing warriors, half-breed,” said an older Sage female behind her. “You won’t find them in here.”
Reya spun. “Where would I find them?”
“If they catch you out of your cell, they will punish all of us.” She nodded across the hall to the child. “The weakest of us will suffer for it.”
Reya took a step closer, gripped one of the bars, and repeated, “Where would I find them?”
The female’s Ire was the warm gold of a sunrise—a healer.
There was gray in her hair, but her wrinkled hands were steady.
It was another sight she had rarely seen: a Sage who showed the signs of age.
Sages did show them, Caelan had explained, but not until they began to reach the end of their lifespan.
It meant that this woman had seen at least twice as many summers as Caelan, Thance, or Omira, and had witnessed perhaps even several ages of this world.
“Anyone of consequence is taken to the high-security cells for questioning.”
“And where is that?”
She gestured to the floor. “About three stories beneath where you’re standing.”
“You’ve been there.”
The female’s eyes were hard. “Once. Long ago.”
Reya gripped the bars with both hands now. “What are they doing here? Why keep you all like this?”
But the female shrank farther back into her cell. “Go back to your cell, half-breed,” she said, and curled onto the floor. “And pray they don’t come for you.”
Reya bit back her retort and turned to Fionán. “Do you know how often the guards come down this way?”
He nodded. “They come with the food.”
“But not in the middle of the night, when they think everyone is sleeping?”
He shook his head.
If the guards didn’t make rounds down the individual corridors at night, that meant she had hours to search before someone would notice she was missing. It was something.
“That’s very helpful. Thank you, Fionán.”
The child beamed.
And that’s when she saw it. So small and precious, glittering in the brown of his eyes.
A spark of hope.
No one could ever undo what had been done here.
But she could write a new ending, even just for one child.
If she could do that, if she could bring light to someone who had been abandoned to the darkness, then all the pain and grief and loss that had led her right here, and to whatever came next, were worth it.
“When you find them, will you come back and play pirates?” he asked, lifting his bowl, which she assumed was the pirate ship, so she could see the straw figures inside.
Reya didn’t want to leave him here. But she couldn’t take him with her. Not now. What if she tripped an alarm? He could get hurt, or worse. She needed to stick to her plan.
“Tell you what. When I come back, I’ll take you to meet a real pirate.”
Fionán looked at her like she’d just given him the sun in one hand and the moons in the other. A weight like she had never carried before settled between her shoulder blades, and she swallowed the knot in her throat. “Do you have any chalk left?”
Head bobbing, he scrambled to retrieve a tiny white piece, less than a nub, and handed it to her.
On the stones in front of his cell, Reya drew a long line through a circle. “This is Ryksis’s mark. It’s a sacred symbol, and all those who bear it are under his protection. That means no one will cross until I come back. Do you understand?”
Legends and lore were all she had left. Perhaps there was some truth to this one. The rune was on her father’s sword, and it had kept her alive this long.
When he nodded, she folded his hand around the chalk and squeezed his fist through the bars. Then she was running back the way she’d come.
Find Thance. Find Omira. Find Caelan. Find the exit.
Then raise all hell.
More Sages called to her as she passed, and she knew she was causing more of a ruckus than she should, but there was nothing for it.
She kept moving, kept checking cells. When at last she reached the other end of the hall, there was another lock for her to pick.
She pressed her ear to the wood, and when she heard no guards on the other side, she slid the snake’s tail into the opening.
Reya wished it wasn’t too risky to find and steal a set of keys.
While it would save her time, she didn’t know what sort of security measures were in place.
If a guard noticed them gone, they might be compelled to report it, sounding some kind of alarm that would lock down the prison until the keys were found. She couldn’t risk it. Not yet.
The door clicked open, and she glanced right and left down the hall that ran perpendicular to the one she’d just searched, choosing the path that slanted down in the direction she needed to go.
Reya willed her body to calm, imagined singing her Ire to sleep until it faded into her skin. Torches flickered on the walls, making the shadows dance. The darkness was just as much her ally as the light, and she knew how to wield both. So she became lighter than mist—a thief in the night.
The path turned to stairs, and she took them down two at a time, relying on sound and scent to look ahead.
She kept flat to the wall in case she needed to lurch back around a corner.
Every so often she passed an archway lined with bulges of stone, usually at a larger intersection of passageways.
It was as if there had been damage at one point and stonemasons had been brought in to do mortar repairs.
She noticed the same bulges along the base of the floor molding leading down the adjacent halls.
As best she could figure, the multi-story fortress was built around some sort of courtyard, every corridor rounded to wall in whatever was at its center.
She had no idea how deep the prison went or how many levels there were.
The halls crossed one another in so many places where older passages had been blocked off to support the new layout that dead ends had simply become part of the blueprint—an easy way to get lost or trapped.
As much as it pained her to admit, the Rhiterrans had been thorough.
The pressure in her ears increased with every floor, a helpful indicator—if a sharp reminder—of where she was.
Every time the stairs intersected a new corridor, she witnessed new horrors.
The cells had been customized to hold all manner of creatures, some she’d only ever read about.
She passed a hall that smelled so foul she had to cover her nose and mouth, blanching when she saw through the grated openings a half-rotted hand reaching out at the base of one of the cells.
She crossed another cell block that looked like it had been sealed off for years.
Reya reached the third level. Again, she passed a strange archway.