“I have risked as much on every campaign we have ever undertaken, Kol’Dre!” She was angry that he should question her. “I have built my reputation on taking such risks. Every victory I have achieved required risks. To sit back and simply let events unfold with no attempt at intervention is anathema to me. I would rather die ten times over than fail to take a necessary risk and be forced to crawl in abject defeat because of the poison a weasel like Sten’Or feeds my father! Risks are a part of life, when life is war. Now is not the time to draw back and forsake what got me where I am.”
She kept her voice quiet, but the power and certainty in her words were unmistakable—just as she intended. Yet there was a poignancy reflected, too. She had gambled everything on this chance at victory and redemption combined, and it seemed she had failed. Never had she felt so alone, and she did not care to lose the support of her best ally at this juncture. So however things might turn out, she needed to be honest with Kol. She still believed she had done what was necessary and right, and she believed he would see this as she did.
But Kol’Dre said nothing. He simply looked away. Ajin waited for a response—any response. When there was none, she closed her eyes, feeling a bitter despair bloom in the pit of her stomach.
Scattered flakes of snow began falling around her in the darkness. Well, there you are, she thought. A touch of my homeland come for a visit. But why do you come now? What does your appearance portend?
“You did what you felt you had to,” Kol said softly. “You did what you believed was right.”
She felt a pinch of gratitude, quickly replaced by renewed anger. She was not going to leave it at this. She was not going to be the sacrifice Sten’Or intended her to be. Not while she still had breath in her body and the ability to act.
Suddenly she was on her feet. “I’m going to have a talk with Sten’Or and find out exactly what he knows. I’m going to put him on his knees and hear him beg me to spare his life!”
She started off without waiting for Kol’s response, certain he would follow her, just as he always had—protective and committed. And in seconds he was there, matching her stride for stride. “Better watch yourself,” he cautioned.
But she was beyond listening to such advice, incensed at what Sten’Or had done to her or—if she was honest about it—what she had done to herself. Her own safety no longer mattered. She was about to lose everything she had worked so hard for. She was about to become a footnote in Skaar history, an afterthought. She was about to be killed along with her entire army and reduced to inconsequentiality.
If this were to be her fate, she would know exactly why first.
She found Sten’Or’s tent, dismissed his personal guards with a look that sent them off without a word, swept through the tent flaps, and dragged him from his blankets, half awake and thrashing madly.
A foot on his neck and a sword point in his face calmed him sufficiently that he went still and looked up at her with undisguised malevolence.
“Your father will not appreciate how you treat his generals,” he hissed at her. “Especially given that you are already in such deep trouble.”
“Which does not much concern me, given how you have betrayed me!” she snapped in reply. “What did you tell my father in your message?”
He laughed, and it took everything she had not to jam the sword down his throat. “The irony of this moment is sweet. You are so blind to how the world works, so caught up in your unshakable belief in yourself. Did you even stop to ask yourself this—what if you are mistaken? What if I didn’t send him a message?”
She pressed down with her boot. “He wouldn’t be coming if you hadn’t sent him a message! He would have no reason to come.”
She pressed down harder. “Gently, Princess.” His voice was strained, rife with pain. “I sent no message.”
“You lie!”
“No, I speak the truth. Look in my eyes and you will see. I sent your father no message. Not a single word. I have had no communication with him since we left Skaarsland.”
She experienced a tremor of uncertainty. He seemed so sure of himself. She could detect nothing in his eyes or his voice to suggest he was lying. Usually, she could tell at once.
He glared up at her, and she eased up the pressure on his neck. “Remove your boot,” he snapped. “I have given you my word. I sent no message to your father. I had no reason to.”
She hesitated, undecided. Something…was still wrong…
But it was Kol who saw it first. “No, of course you had no reason. Because the message you sent wasn’t to the king—it was to his queen!”
Sten’Or shifted his gaze swiftly to the Penetrator, and Ajin saw the truth in his sudden change of expression.
Down came the boot once more. “You messaged her? You conspired against me with her? Of course you did, you coward! A clandestine liaison with that pretender to undermine my authority and my competence—so like you, General!”
He was choking now, gasping. His big hands were scrabbling at her leg in a panic. “Your…boot! I can’t…breathe!”
“I should kill you right now and be rid of you.” She growled the words in a tight rage. “But I want you alive to tell him yourself what you have done. And tell him you will, or you will die screaming for mercy!”
She eased off. “You and the pretender. How fitting. Two snakes cursed with the same poisonous character. Conspirators intent on destroying my family. My mother and me—and perhaps, one day soon, my father, as well? Have you royal ambitions, General? Do you see yourself as a queen’s consort? Or perhaps even as a king? What fun my father will have with you when he arrives.”
Sten’Or rubbed his throat. “You father has made up his mind about you, Princess. You won’t change it. He won’t believe you. His wife makes his decisions for him now.”
She moved her foot up to his chest and pinned him fast to the ground. She exchanged a quick glance with Kol’Dre, who nodded. “I sent him a new message, General,” she said to the man on the ground. “I acknowledged my mistakes and asked him to come see for himself how matters stood. By now, I think he might be having second thoughts about me.”
“He will be having no new thoughts about you,” Sten’Or said. “The queen has convinced him that she is better suited to the task of keeping you in line. To be sure he doesn’t falter, she intercepts all messages and destroys the ones she thinks he doesn’t need to see. She has been doing so for months.”
“She would never dare do that!” Ajin hissed in fury.
Her treacherous commander sneered. “Clearly you haven’t been paying attention to how things have shifted in court for the past year or so. He’s allowed her greater access to his affairs than ever he did to any councilor. And so she steers him in the directions she thinks best. He has become more puppet than king, girl.”
Ajin nearly killed him then, even though she suspected that this time he spoke the truth. It would explain so much about his abandonment of her when she called for help. But Kol’Dre reached her before she could act and pulled her away. “Let him be,” he whispered. “Your father might not be as stupid as he thinks. And Sten’Or will die, anyway, when the Federation comes.”
She glared at him for a long moment, then turned and walked away.
* * *
—
A short time later, Kol caught up with her. She was waiting for him pretty much where they had been sitting earlier, looking out over the river. Without a word, he sat down beside her. Together, they watched the flow of the Mermidon’s swift waters as starlight reflected off its choppy surface. To the south, on the far bank and beyond, all was dark and quiet. There were no signs of life. The skies, clouded and snow-filled north of the Dragon’s Teeth, were clear and untroubled here.
“What did you do with him?” she asked finally.
“Trussed him up and put him under guard, with orders that no o
ne was to be allowed to see him.”
“Better than he deserves,” she muttered.
“You should go to your tent, Ajin,” he said. “You’ve been awake for too long. You need sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. Not now, knowing what I do. Knowing why my father hasn’t come as I asked. Knowing he is the pretender’s puppet, and we are doomed.”
“Rest then.”
“I keep thinking the same thing over and over again. I’ve schemed and manipulated and tried so hard to make things right, and it’s all come to nothing. I wanted my father to come with his armies and save our brave soldiers—even if he also steals away all the credit for what I have achieved. But I don’t think he will. I think Sten’Or is right—the pretender has taken control of him.”
Her father—strong of mind and body, confident of his ability in all things—had become a puppet of that creature. It was more than she could endure—more than any daughter should have to.
“Perhaps the Federation has decided not to retaliate,” her companion suggested. “Perhaps the loss of his army was sufficient to persuade Vause we would be too much for him to handle.”
She shook her head slowly, long hair shimmering. “He will take whatever small amount of time he needs to think it through, but in the end, he will arrive at the only obvious conclusion about what really happened. Then he will come for us with a force that even we cannot stand against, and he will crush us like bugs beneath his boots.”
“You cannot be sure.”
“I can, Kol’Dre. So stop trying to comfort me.”
“You make it sound like I am asking for you to make the sun rise in the west.”
She looked at him and smiled. Loyal Kol’Dre, her partner in so many conquests of foreign lands. So clearly in love with her, so determined to find a way to make her his. He was beneath her station, not of royal blood, and she had done nothing ever to suggest that such an arrangement would happen, and yet he persisted. If she didn’t find it so endearing—and he so very useful—she would have shucked him off ages ago. But here he was. She might have other friends among those many men who curried her favor, but none so genuine as Kol’Dre.
“It would be interesting to see what a westerly sunrise would look like,” she said after a minute. She looked at him. “I am constantly amazed by your positive outlook, Kol’Dre. You really are quite extraordinary.”
He shrugged. “If you don’t believe in the impossible, you don’t stand a chance of seeing it happen. Can we go in now? It’s getting cold.”
“Skaarsland is colder,” she said quietly.
“Freezing out here won’t help our people back there.”
She nodded. “Just a few minutes longer, Kol. Then we’ll go in.”
She did not look at him again, and they sat in silence, watching the darkness deepen as storm clouds began to fill the sky over the river.
THIRTY
In Arishaig, Rocan Arneas and Shea Ohmsford had slipped from hiding and were standing at the gates leading into Assidian Deep. A watch called down to them for identification, and Rocan replied with a single word. The watch disappeared from view, and within seconds the gates began to swing open on their hinges with deep growls of protest.
“So far, so good,” the boy’s companion whispered.
Shea wasn’t inclined to agree. Having the gates opened to receive them did not make him feel any better—even if they were gaining the admittance they sought. What he kept thinking was that getting in might turn out to be a whole lot easier than getting out.
“Keep your head down and your face out of sight,” Rocan added, and started through the opening.
Shea followed, head lowered, eyes on his companion’s boots as they entered the prisons. He was all the way inside before he risked a quick glance around and instantly regretted it. They were in a tiny courtyard, surrounded by massive stone walls that soared skyward and seemed to lean inward. There were no doors leading out save the ones they had come through; the rest only led deeper into the complex. Shadows and gloom shrouded everything, and the windows he could glimpse were as dark as the surrounding night. The looming walls were capped with barbed wire and iron spikes. At each corner of the Deep’s front wall were watchtowers, but there were no guards in sight. There was no one to be seen anywhere, for that matter. There was no sign of life at all.
The massive scale of the structure pressed down on Shea like a great weight, which seemed to grow heavier with each step he took. He realized he was shivering and was sorry he had ever agreed to come. He felt trapped and helpless and impossibly vulnerable. He wanted to flee, but already he could hear the gates closing behind him. He breathed deeply to steady himself—to stop the shaking—but the air was foul and dead, and he choked on it.
Nothing could live in a place like this for long, he thought. Nothing could survive.
He had just managed to stop shaking when the door of the huge building just in front of him—a structure not quite as high as the walls, but every bit as intimidating—began to open. A black-cloaked figure appeared, hooded and faceless. A wraith, it seemed, come out of the darkness to gather them in. But Rocan kept walking toward it, anyway, and Shea followed him, trying not to look as frightened as he felt.
When they reached the shadow-wrapped form, a hand emerged and a piece of paper appeared. Rocan took it silently and nodded. Then the black-cloaked figure turned back toward the door leading into the building, and the Rover and the boy followed.
As with the gates, once they were past the entrance, the door closed solidly behind them.
They were standing in an entryway with a scattering of wooden chairs and tables pushed up against the walls, and in the open spaces between, several closed doors were visible. The cloaked form pointed to one before disappearing through another, leaving Rocan and Shea alone. The boy looked around doubtfully. He had no idea what they were supposed to do next.
Rocan, however, did. He moved quickly to the door the cloaked figure had indicated and opened it. There was a solitary torch burning in a stanchion just inside, and on the floor a pair of smokeless lamps. Rocan picked up the lamps, handed one to Shea, and kept the other for himself. Then he unfolded the paper he had been given and motioned the boy closer.
“This is where we are,” he whispered, pointing to a black dot. A maze of connected lines angled away from one another as they meandered across the entire width of the paper. Beside each line was a number.
Shea stared at the paper and then at Rocan. “What am I looking at?”
“A map!” Rocan snapped, as if it were as plain as the nose on the boy’s face. “This is the waste system that runs through the prisons. It has vents to prevent the gases from collecting, and it’s flushed out regularly so you can breathe in there.” He pointed again to the black dot. “This is us.” Then he traced the connected lines with his finger across the paper to an X. “This is Tindall.”
“A waste system?” The boy shook his head vehemently. “I’m not crawling through any waste system!”
“Well, if you won’t, we might as well turn around and go home. This is the only way to get Tindall out. He’s in a cell nineteen floors up. All you need to do is follow the map, crawl through a duct on each floor until you come to a ladder, then climb for as many floors as the number on the map tells you to. Do this until you reach him.”
Rocan paused. “It won’t be as bad as you think. The ducts were washed out this morning, so there will only be a few bad spots to get past. Just hold your nose.”
“Easy for you to say!” Shea was furious. “You’re not the one doing the crawling…”
“Because I can’t!” Suddenly Rocan was right in his face. “You’re going in because we have no other option. I won’t fit, and Seelah can’t expose herself to all this iron. That leaves you.”
His tone was harsh and certain, and there was an unmistakable edge to it. If Sh
ea tried to back out now, he would likely find himself inside these walls for good.
He gritted his teeth. “When this is finished, we’ll be setting up some ground rules about what I will and won’t do from now on!” he snapped.
Rocan cocked an eyebrow. “We’ll discuss it later. Here.” He produced some rubber gloves. “Wear these. It will at least keep your hands clean.”
Wordlessly, Shea slipped the gloves on his hands. When he was finished, Rocan handed him the map. “Don’t lose it—and pay close attention to the numbers. If you mess up, you’ll get lost for sure, and likely end up living here for the rest of your life.”
“You’re so thoughtful,” Shea sneered.
His companion took him by the shoulders and held him fast. “Shea, I need you to do this. Tindall is an old man. He will not survive for long if we abandon him, and there’s too much at stake as it is. Trust me when I tell you that the risk you are taking is worth it. Annabelle is worth any risk, and only Tindall can make her work! Here.”
He released his grip on Shea’s shoulders and reached into the front of his tunic, pulling out a package of something cold and pliable and wrapped in a piece of leather, handing it to the boy. “When you get to the nineteenth floor, find Tindall’s cell, dab a small bit of this on the lock, then spit on it. The substance will ignite and burn away the lock. Then do the same with all four bars on his cell window. Just be sure to use the substance sparingly.”
Shea shook his head. “What happens once I’ve done all that?”
“You wait.”
“What?”
“You hang a bit of cloth outside the cell window after you’ve burned away the bars to let me know you’ve finished, and then you wait. Help will come, to get you and Tindall the rest of the way out.”
“What sort of help?”
Rocan shook his head. “Just trust me. Help will come.”
“What if someone sees me in there while I’m waiting on this help you promised?”