But, as he exited, he paused on the landing, scrabbling in the half dark for something. The pirates exchanged glances, but not one of them knew what he was doing.
Then with a scrape and a loud clang, the prince swung a metal door shut and sealed his workshop. Next came the tinkle and turn of keys.
They were locked in.
“WHATare we going to do now?” Urtzi asked with the quietest version of his voice Ula had ever heard in all the years she’d known him. Shock on this ogre of a boy was completely unsettling—and a complete indication of Taillefer’s madness.
Dunixi opened his mouth, ready with his de facto leader’s answer, but Ula cut him off, not bothering to wipe the wetness streaming down her cheeks.
“We’re going to help him, that’s what,” Ula snapped, springing up and slipping past the two boys, out of their meager hiding spot.
She ran to the prisoner then, touching his arm. “Luca, it’s Ula. I’m here. And I’m going to help—oh.” Her breath caught as she saw the raised, festering wound up close. The women of the orphanage in Eritri had often told her stories of dragons, and this looked exactly like what might happen if a beast like that matched a claw with human skin. It ran straight down the middle of Luca’s sternum, over his heart, and beneath it his chest struggled to rise, and his eyes blinked open.
But then something else caught her attention. A black mark, sitting just to the right of his newest scar. Her eyes pinned on it, all moisture leaving her mouth. Even her tears seemed to evaporate, time slowing, everything drying up into a pinprick of reality that only held that mark.
“Did… did Taillefer apply this ink to your skin?”
Luca hesitated, pain and surprise muddling together on his face as he took his time in answering the question. “No. It’s my mother’s work. Before I left the Torrent.” Ula felt him trying to read her face through vision that was surely blurred from what he’d just been through. “Why? Ula, what is it?”
“Your mother gave it to you?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded small. Meaning to her syllables barely attached. “Not your father?”
“It could’ve been him,” Luca said. It appeared that every word was an effort. “All I know is I had it when I arrived in Ardenia. My mother was dead before I had the words to ask her.”
Blindly, Ula nodded, her heart pounding at the shape—a stick triangle, but more. Five points. The snout and eyes were there, forsure. The ink satin despite its age. A chill grew on her spine, her eyes unable to tear themselves away.
“Ula, what is it?”
If it was what she thought it was, it was what she’d waited for her whole life.
She wasn’t sure. But this boy must not die. That much she knew.
And so she said, “Urtzi, Dunixi, we need something for his wound. Do you see turmeric? Honey? Look!”
Urtzi did as she ordered, reading labels, but Dunixi laughed. “Turmeric? It’ll turn yellow. Honey? Taillefer will be able to see that glaze from a mile away.”
“I don’t care how it looks, only that it works,” Ula snapped.
“We won’t escape without Taillefer coming back and letting us out,” Dunixi sniped back, as if she were an idiot. “If we change how the boy looks, it’ll be trouble. And I’m not sure why you’re wasting time on this anyway—it’s not as if he’ll die of infection in a few days’ time.”
“Have a heart, Dunixi.”
“We need him alive only enough to draw the princess out. But we can’t get him out of here without Taillefer first seeing him. An obvious change to his appearance is an invitation for the prince’s curiosity.”
Ula turned to Urtzi. “Alcohol. We’ll use that.”
She began rummaging around, pulling off stoppers and smelling the contents, looking for anything that could count.
“Madiran,” Urtzi crowed, holding up a cask; then, without caution, he took a swig.
Ula flew into action, leaping to snatch it away. “No, don’t; the prince—”
“Yep, Madiran.”
Of course he’d know wine on sight. Still, she was concerned. “Bring it here.”
She took a sniff herself, waiting to see if Urtzi showed any sign of poisoning. It was indeed the powerful red wine of the mountains. Discarding sagardoa, it was the best disinfectant in the region.
When Urtzi didn’t keel over, Ula rewarded him. “Perfect. And it’ll blend in. He won’t notice.” Dunixi didn’t argue, not that it mattered much to her. Ula’s eyes shifted to Luca. “This might sting.”
