Padraig forced himself on toward the torchlight beckoning from a turn of corridor beyond the iron gate that stood open at the far end of the gruesome supply room. There was still no sound of anything living in the dungeon, and Padraig wondered with anguish how anyone could survive down here for long under the terminal weight of dread emanating from the very stones.
Padraig crept forward, clenching his jaw against the emotion that prickled behind his eyes.
Please, God, spare her. Spare her for her kindness, even to those who doona deserve it. Spare her for her courageous heart. Spare her for her clever mind. The people of Northumberland will need her hope and her fortitude nowmore than ever.
Spare her also for me, so that I may spend the rest of my life caring for her, and seeking to be as good and honorable as she.
Padraig came around the corner, and for a moment his eyes couldn’t differentiate between the shadows beneath the tall, wide table and the shapes on the floor. But then the shape closest to him jerked, and a breathy squeal emanated from it.
It was Caris Hargrave, her face a terrible gray, her eyes bulged, her lips turned blue, as her own fingers dug into her throat like claws.
And beyond her, facedown, lay the still, crumpled shape of Iris, a white, fluffy pile near her dark hair. Satin.
The cat yowled pitifully.
“Nae.” Padraig sheathed his sword and stepped over the noblewoman to drop to one kneeat Iris’s side.
“Iris,” he called. He lifted her upper body and turned her in his arms, holding her against his chest. “Iris, look at me, lass.”
Her eyes weren’t closed evenly, he noticed, and her lips were slack. Her dark hair was like an inky river around her pale face and he smoothed it back with a shaking hand to lean his ear close to her mouth. He cursed the pounding blood that roared in his head and drowned out any sound—he could neither hear nor feel breath.
“Nay. Nay.”
Padraig gathered her high up in his arms and then stood, stepping once more over the noblewoman. The cat mewed, and its lithe, fluffy limbs scissored past Padraig, sending him like a streak out of the chamber and toward the stairs.
Padraig carried Iris up the interminable spiral, feeling the heat increase, the choking smell of smoke thicken as they climbed, and he wondered that he wasn’t delivering them both into an inferno. He bumped his shoulder into the panel at the top of the black stairs, and the lamp he’d left on the table was only the tiniest twinkle of starlight in a black sky. The room was nearly filled with smoke, and so he knew that the passage beyond would be impassable to them.
Satin was nowhere to be seen, and he sent up a breath of prayer that Iris’s beloved pet would be spared.
He stood just beyond the door of the hidden passage, Iris still limp in his arms, struggling against the fear that wanted to overtake him. Their only two options were to retreat once more to the stone dungeon to pray that the burning keep did not collapse and smother them,or the window.
Padraig couldn’t imagine spending his final moments in that ancient den of torture, and so he strode through the ever-thickening smoke to the single, narrow window in one of the oldest chambers of Darlyrede. He lowered Iris to the floor and then rose up to push at the thick wooden frame. It rattled, bowed, but then Padraig stopped, coughing, his lungs already burning.
Once the window was open, the room would become like a chimney for smoke and flames—once begun, he couldnot hesitate.
Padraig dropped down to his kneeand shook Iris.
“Iris,” he shouted. “Iris, you must wake up.Wake up! Iris!”
She gave a raspy moan in her throat—the slightest sound—but it was like a choir of angels to Padraig’s heart.
“Can you hear me, lass? You’ve got to stand on your feet—we have to go through the window.”
“Padraig,” she whispered. “My legs feel strange.” Shebegan to cough.
Padraig pressed his lips together with a curt sigh.
Have faith.
“Listen to me, lass,” he said in a rush, his own throat raw with smoke. “I’m going to break out the window and lower you down. I doona know how far it is, you ken?”
“Lady Caris…”
“I couldna carry you both,” he said, guilt heavy on his heart. “Ihad to choose.”
“She poisoned me,” Iris whispered. “She killed Cordelia. She was going to kill me too.”
Padraig couldn’t let the shock of her words overtake him in the moment, and so he ignored the horrifying declaration. “Shh—you must try to stand, ken? Up you go.” He lifted her around her ribs and leaned her up against the wall near the window. Iris slid at first, but Padraig propped her higher, and her knees seemed to lock. “Hold just there. You must stay up, Iris. You must.”
