Gesturing to the other room with a wild hand, I made a face and prayed to the Light that no one was watching me. The little flame danced more frantically. I took a step toward it, and it settled some.
Okay, so it wanted me to follow. But why? Was it trying to help me? Or trap me.
ChapterTen
Ipressed my back to the stone and slithered as close to the guard post as possible. A quick look around the corner showed five burlier and less civilized guards than usual. Their pale skin and yellowed teeth promised a hard life of hard work. They clustered around a wobbly table, cards being thrown between them and then swiftly picked up again while coins jangled and fists pounded.
Gambling by the looks of it.
Torches circled the room, offering more light than the stairwell. But to their left was a dark hallway that stank of bile and waste. I had found the darkest dungeons of Extensia, and they were a foul pit of despair. No light, no clean air, no hope.
The little light bounced around over their heads without them noticing. Their glassy eyes were fixed on the game. I watched from the shadows as it disappeared into one of the bright flames of one of the lit torches.
I wouldn’t have believed what happened if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Suddenly and so quickly, I still wasn’t sure what I was watching, the torch fell off the wall. In a stone structure as cold and damp as this one, it shouldn’t have caused too much damage. Maybe one of the guards would have leaped to his feet and stomped it out. Or maybe, against that wall, where the press of the river seeped in through the cracks in the stone, it would have flickered out on its own.
But one of the guards had removed his cloak in the heat of the game and draped it over a chair that had been pushed away from the table. And that chair and cloak sat next to a small food supply in linen sacks piled on top of each other.
The torch fell directly onto the cloak, which seemed to explode with fire. Then quickly spread to the food. The five men shouted in surprise, jumped back from the climbing flames, and then burst into action all at once. A fire below the castle would be dangerous enough. But one that would set dangerous criminals free—or burn them to ash where they were trapped in their cells—was an entirely different emergency.
While the guards put the fire out, I slipped down the corridor toward the prison cells. Their shouts and orders echoed off the rounded ceiling, covering my noisy progress. Soon enough, I was hidden in the darkness of the passageway. As my eyes slowly adjusted, I became aware of how slick and sludge-like the floor had become.
Now I faced a new difficulty. The light had disappeared into the fire, and I had no idea where I was going.
Sensing a new presence, the prisoners began to stir. I jumped when one of them used a stick or pole to slide it along his cell bars. “Who’s come to play?” he asked in a sickly sing-song voice. “Here, kitty kitty.”
“Who’s there?” demanded another gravelly voice. “You smell so very... sweet.”
“And young,” another voice taunted. “Come here and let me look at you, you sweet, young kitten.”
I knew they were locked away. I knew that. But their voices were so close. And I couldn’t see anything. A hand reached out and brushed my frock. I bit back a scream and tried to still my violent shivers.
“A kitten has come to play?” laughed another voice. “A kitten has come to play!” he shouted, then dissolved into maniacal laughter.
“Brahm?” I demanded in a harsh whisper, praying for a second miracle. “Brahm Havish?”
“Oooh, the kitten is here for the traitor,” the first voice declared loud enough for the guards to hear. “Maybe the kitten is a traitor too?”
“Brahm?” I asked in a louder voice while the madmen began to cackle and taunt more regularly. “Brahm Havish, I need to speak to you. Please.”
I could not stand much more of this. The voices began to echo and bounce off the ceiling, sounding as feral as a wild pack of jackals. It had become harder to walk too, my boots sinking deeper into the sludge that coated the floor. And the stench. Dragon’s blood, thestench. How could anyone survive this for longer than a few minutes?
More than the awful smell, I knew the dark would make them mad. So dark you could not see a hand in front of your face. So dark that you could not tell what you were eating or drinking. So dark the days would blend into endless nights when there was no reprieve and no rest. The bugs and the rats and the creepy-crawly things that lived down here would become your only friends. And slowly, slowly, you would descend into an endless abyss of confusion and hallucination.
As was exhibited all around me.
Suddenly a meaty hand lashed out through prison bars and grabbed my hand. I could not help it when I cried out. But my plea for help only incited the surrounding prisoners to riot with crazed laughter. They beat on their cell bars and whooped and hollered mindlessly.
The hand held tightly to mine, though, unafraid of the crazed men around us or the ghosts I’d begun to imagine in every black corner. I found myself more afraid than I had ever been. More terrified than when I’d outrun a wildebeest. More shaken than when I’d fought Crenshaw. More unnerved than when a hundred arrows had flown for my head. At least then, I’d been able to see my enemy. I knew what I was battling. This bodiless hand could belong to a demon straight from the pit of Denamon, and I would still never see its face.
I began to tremble. My body could not hold the terror pulsing through me. A scream built in the base of my lungs, ready to unleash an ungodly shriek that was sure to get the guards’ attention. Until a voice spoke in the darkness. It was a low, gruff rumble, but the face it belonged to was close enough to the cell bars I could make out his words despite the madness all around me.
“Who is here for Brahm Havish?”
I closed my eyes and hoped that this was he. That the miracle I’d prayed for had somehow found me in this cruel place. Dropping my voice and leaning in, I confessed, “Tessana Allisand. Daughter of King Fredricks. I’ve come to speak to him.”
His punishing grip on my hand relaxed a little. “The Lost Princess? Why would you come to this place, child? It’s not safe for you.”
“I must speak with Brahm the Mighty,” I told him urgently. “Please tell me you are him.”
