“I thought I was going to fall to my death!”
He scoffed and took her hand, leading her into the shadows. “Now, not another word until we get there.”
She knew better than to ask wheretherewas. It was clear that he was trying to avoid being detected by any guards or castle staff. At the courtyard’s corner, he pushed open a wooden door that looked like it might be a closet for gardening supplies, but to her surprise, led to another set of stairs. The staircase was very dark with only a faint glow coming from somewhere deep.
After winding down the twisting stairs and into a narrow stone passageway, Valenden held up a hand. “Wait here.”
He moved into the flickering lamplight up ahead. She heard him exchange low words with someone, then the clink of coins changing hands. He returned with a grave look as he took her hand. “Hurry. We don’t have much time. This is the only guard I can buy off, and his shift ends in ten minutes.”
He pulled her into a dank underground chamber lit only by a few weak lanterns.A dungeon.Puddles of groundwater made the stone floor glisten, and she heard more cave-like dripping water throughout the rooms. The bedrock had been hewn into small, windowless cells, each secured by iron bars. She glanced in each cell as Valenden pulled her forward; a skeletal man with a thick beard rested against the bars of one with a wooden bowl at his feet. Most of the others were empty.
Valenden stopped at the last cell. “I’ll come back for you in five minutes, so speak fast.”
A figure who’d been sitting on the cell’s floor pushed to his feet and approached the bars. Bryn’s apprehension surrendered to relief as Rangar’s face moved into the light.
She grabbed the bars. “Rangar.”
“Bryn. You’re okay?” He reached through the bars toward her face, but she pulled back on instinct, thinking about Mage Marna’s spell.
He said, “Do not worry. The spell that forbade me from touching you was tied to your marriage, and that’s over now.”
Putting her trust in him hesitantly, she leaned forward and let him graze his fingers over her bare arm, relieved to find no black marks cropping up. She melted into his touch.
Her eyes scoured the deplorable cell; it was nothing but damp rock, a single blanket, and a bucket to use as a latrine. Her throat constricted to think of him here: it was even worse than she’d imagined.
His eyes were large and full of pain as he turned her chin to meet his gaze. “Bryn, I’m not a murderer. I would never do that to Trei—”
“I know,” she reassured him, finding his hand through the bars and clasping it. “I never believed you were guilty. The knife . . . ”
“I haven’t seen that knife since I gave it to you in the forest months ago. I suspect it got into the hands of Captain Carr’s spies. He must have threatened or bribed one of the bathhouse girls who found it. They used it to frame me.”
Bryn’s chest felt tight. “When I married Trei, I didn’t think about the risk to him…”
“Trei…Trei always knew the risks.” Rangar’s voice broke when he said his brother’s name. He swallowed. “Listen, there are things you don’t know.” He squeezed her hand, using his other thumb to tip her chin up to look him directly in the eye. “Did my aunt tell you there were combative wounds on Trei’s body?”
She gave a slight nod.
“Valenden spoke to the undertaker who examined him. The first wounds were low on Trei’s chest. Not athisneck height, but atyours.”
Bryn’s eyes went wide. “You think Trei wasn’t the target?”
He nodded solemnly. “I think the spy was hiding in your room in the dark, thinking you’d be the first one back, as you usually are. They didn’t expect Trei to return early, so they weren’t prepared when he defended himself. Then they slit his throat and laid him in bed, then left my knife to frame me.”
“But if your father and aunt know that I was the target, not Trei, then they should believe that you didn’t do this!”
“There isn’t enough evidence Treiwasthe target,” Rangar said. “They can’t release me without proof.”
“They can’t hold you without proof either!”
He shook his head. “My knife with Trei’s blood on it, my threat against him . . . thatisproof according to many.”
She pressed her face against the bars, the cool iron soothing her hot skin. “We have to get you out of here.”
“No. We have to getyouout of here. I don’t trust the guards will keep you safe—look how easily Val and Calista were able to incapacitate them. There’s a good chance Captain Carr’s spy—or spies—killed Trei but meant to kill you. You must leave Barendur Hold. It isn’t safe.”
She stared at him, speechless. Finally, she whispered, “Where would I go?”
She was crown heir to the Mir kingdom, but as far as she knew, her people still planned on stringing her up on the gallows as soon as she returned.
