A flash of white whisked me away into a new memory. Iron bars spread across my vision as I floated beside Fraleigh within her small cage. Her manacles rattled as she trembled. Soldiers in blue marched around her, laughing and slurping down skeins of mead as they enjoyed the spoils of their conquest.
Waves crashed against the cliffs to the west. The sea of tents turned into stone buildings further inland with banners of blue hanging from the rooftops. Chains of the barbarian slaves dragged across the grass of the Hyton camp. All the people Fraleigh once knew as neighbors kept their eyes down as Alastar the Conqueror spoke with an old man with a long white beard. Fraleigh might not have understood his words, but she still recoiled when Alastar pointed at her.
The old man responded in Latiman, tripping over his consonants and mixing up words. After his tongue failed him, the old man pulled a boy forward, one with white hair and deep eyes. The older man gestured to the boy and I could make out the words “good” and “mind.”
The boy spoke up, speaking in near-perfect Latiman that even brought a smile to Alastar’s face. Alastar gestured to Fraleigh and the boy cautiously walked over.
The boy stopped when he was three feet in front of Fraleigh’s cage. “Please…don’t hurt me.”
Although I understood him because Fraleigh did, his vowels were rounder and his consonants sharp as spears—he was speaking Old Tongue.
Fraleigh held her breath and did not move.
The boy’s hands curled into trembling fists. “Don’t kill me, I’m trying to help you.”
Fraleigh’s eyes darted to Alastar, who glared at her from the other side of the cage. “How do you speak his tongue?”
I knew the answer to that—Alastar’s father and Marcus Janus had conquered the other provinces before they ever set foot onNordingaard. We must have been in the town that would later become Hyton.
The boy’s mouth formed a fine line. “I had to learn the language quickly. If the Latimans think you’re useful, you get to stay unchained.”
Fraleigh swallowed. “What does he want with me?”
The boy let out a breath. “He wanted me to tell you that unless you want to spend the rest of your days in a hole underground, you will make him gold. Lots of it.”
“Gold?” Fraleigh’s eyes watered. “I cannot make gold! My magic doesn’t work that way!”
The boy swallowed. “Sorceress, don’t cry.”
“If he finds out I can’t make gold, he’s going to…he’s going to…”
The boy stepped toward the cage and Fraleigh scampered back into the bars like he had struck her. His eyes widened as Fraleigh started to sob.
What…what had Alastar the Conqueror done to her?
The boy cut a glance over his shoulder and then scooped some pebbles off the ground.
“Aurum, lamia!” He shook the pebbles in his palm. “Aurum!”
I wish I had a body so I could knock the idiot boy away from the cage. How was screaming about gold going to help?
Fraleigh shook as she cried, but then the boy dropped to his knees in the grass and held his hand through the bars of Fraleigh’s cage.
His voice fell to a soft whisper. “I’m an alchemist’s apprentice—my power is the art of illusion.” He shook the pebbles again. “We’re going to make him believe you turn stone to gold.”
Wait…
I focused closer on the boy’s dark eyes, finding flecks of violet within. The boy was not a mere meddlesome annoyance, he wasthemeddlesome annoyance.
Daigen.
Darkness swallowed me as if I had been forced underground. A trapdoor opened above me and light from a full moon flooded into a small stone chamber.
Fraleigh stood beside me and looked up at the light. Stacks of gold coins glittered on a small table—the only piece of furniture in the dungeon.
Alastar the Conqueror had not even given her a bed.
Daigen dropped from the ladder into the dungeon and Fraleigh quickly clawed a hole in the dirt floor with her hands. As my gaze followed Fraleigh’s hands, I could not help but notice a stake in the ground that held an iron chain around her ankles.
