By Darkness Hid (42 page)

She lay awake praying Arman might show her what to do. Vrell wanted to help Er’Rets but could see no way to make a difference. She set her mind on finding Sir Rigil and freeing Achan before he was made to become Master Hadar’s pawn—or was killed for a crime he didn’t commit.

She tried bloodvoicing Achan but could find no sense of him despite holding the lock of hair she had cut from his head when he had been out with fever. Either he had run out of karpos fruit or he had perfected blocking.

There had to be someone who would help Achan. Perhaps Sir Rigil would. Achan had said that he’d come to his aid once before, and Bran seemed to like Achan as well. Yes. Vrell would find Sir Rigil. He would keep her safe and help Achan. It was a perfect plan. But what if she couldn’t find Sir Rigil? Mags might know. If only there were someone else who could help Achan, then Vrell could focus on her own problems.

Suddenly she knew. She crept down into the massive foyer of the Mahanaim stronghold, wove between the columns, and stood before the entrance to the Council’s meeting chamber. She snuck past the golden doors and examined the displays along the entry corridor.

Every five steps on both sides of the wall, little alcoves jutted off displaying tributes to the great Kingsguard commanders of old. She passed a bronze bust of Moul Rog the Great, the Kingsguard commander during King Trevyn the Explorer’s reign. Pittan Remy, a native of Carmine, served during King Johan’s time. There was a full body statue of him.

She stopped before a fluted pillar that held a limestone bust of a man with long hair and a braided beard. A cracked shield hung on the wall behind it. Vrell stepped around the bust, laid her hand on the shield, and, with her mind, sought out the face of the person it depicted.

The Great Whitewolf.

21

Achan Cham.

Achan lay on his stone bed, staring at the cobwebs hanging down from the ceiling and trying to ignore Sparrow. The runt was sitting outside his cell, picking at his mind with some strange trick that penetrated his walls and drew a headache.

He was still mad at the boy. Bran had asked him to deliver Achan’s stuff, not ransack it. The whelp had no business snooping. Achan sighed. He should’ve read Gren’s letter.

He lifted his head and thunked it down gently on the hay-strewn stone bed again and again. Everything looked the same in his cell, no matter the hour. He had no idea what time it was. Late. Sparrow had brought him dinner hours ago. The prisoner down the hall had stopped moaning.

So many times since leaving Sitna, he’d meant to read Gren’s letter. He didn’t want to admit he hadn’t done so because he was afraid of what it might say—but what else had stopped him? He’d likely never see Gren again. Probably he didn’t read it because her words would’ve felt so final. Like she’d died somehow. In a way, Achan guessed she had.

Still, that Sparrow read Gren’s words when Achan had not… It was like the runt held a secret that wasn’t his. Something about that bristled the hair on his arms. Now he wanted to know more than ever what Gren had—

A crash in the corridor outside Achan’s cell shot him to his feet. He darted to the door and peered outside. A man with shaggy, blond hair and a black cloak bent over an unconscious guard and pulled the keys from his belt. Achan flattened against the wall behind the door and waited. The bolts on the lock clicked, the door swung open, and the man stepped inside Achan’s cell.

Sparrow’s voice broke the silence. “What are you doing?”

“Where is the squire?”

“Who are you?” Sparrow asked.

Then came a scuffle, and the lad screamed like a girl.

Achan jumped out from behind the door. The man had pinned Sparrow to the floor. “Hey!” Achan kicked him in the side. “You looking for me?”

The man sprang up and elbowed Achan in the temple.

Achan went down, head throbbing. He rolled, trying to stand. He could hear Sparrow struggling and whimpering, but everything blurred before his eyes. He focused on his breathing, trying to clear his head.

The man’s blurry form leaned over him. A finger wormed between Achan’s lips and a woodsy liquid dribbled into his mouth.

Achan tried to spit the substance out, but a hand covered his mouth and held him down until he stilled, his eyes drooping. The man hoisted Achan off the floor and slung him over his shoulder. The door slammed shut and the lock clicked into place.

“No!” Vrell’s voice. Pounding on the door. “Guards! Help!”

Where were the guards?

Achan’s captor ran through the maze of dark corridors and down a flight of stairs, making Achan’s head bounce with each step. Achan wanted to protest, but words wouldn’t come. Blackness shrouded his vision.

The bouncing stopped. “Inko!” his captor said. “Help me.”

Achan felt his body lowered onto an unstable surface. Pale, yellow light danced over a dark, craggy ceiling. A cave?

“Did you be giving him the soporific?” a low, raspy voice asked in a jilted accent.

“Aye,” his captor said.

Achan felt like he was falling. He gripped the wooden edge of something, which caused the bed he lay in to rock. A boat! He was in a boat in some underground canal. The motion made him queasy, and he focused again on his breathing until the pale light faded to black.

Over the next period of time—minutes? days?—he jerked in and out of consciousness, only to feel lost in a dream. Had he been taken into Darkness? Had they crossed over to the other side of the Evenwall?

Eventually they stopped. Someone lifted him out of the boat and tried to help him stand, but Achan’s legs were as faulty as his vision. Cool air gripped his pores. Water sloshed against a wall of some sort. A single torch burned to his left but did not shed enough light to help his cause. Footsteps clunked over hollow-sounding wood. A drawbridge? A dock?

Again he was tossed over someone’s shoulder and carried up several flights of stairs. A door creaked open. His captor brought him inside and lowered him onto a firm surface. Achan wanted to wake and see where he was, but sleep won out before he could focus.

*          *          *

Achan awoke on a straw bed. He swung his legs off the side and managed to sit.

He first noticed a small fire burning in a smoke-stained hearth. It brought the only light to a small room. He blinked. Bare walls, the ceiling dripping with cobwebs. A scuffed wooden floor. Achan turned to the other side of the room and jumped.

A man with grey skin stared at him. He sat in one of two mismatched chairs at a battered table on the other side of Achan’s bed. His white hair grew straight up off his head like a round hedge. Like his abductor, this man wore a black cape.

“Who are you?” Achan asked.

“You may be calling me Inko.” The man nodded, eyes fixed past Achan’s shoulder. “He is being named Sir Caleb.”

Sir? Achan swiveled his head back past the fireplace. His wild-eyed kidnapper sat on the wooden floor beside his bed, leaning against the bare wall. His chin-length, blond hair was frizzy. He looked to be middle-aged. The firelight darkened the weathered lines on his cheeks and forehead. “You’re a knight?”

“Aye. We both are.” Sir Caleb smirked. “Or were.”

Were? “What do you want with me?”

“Only to hold you until our master arrives.”

Dizziness washed over Achan. He propped a hand on the bed to steady himself. “Who is your master?” Achan blinked fast to regain focus. His voice sounded far away and hollow. “And what does he want with me?”

“All in good time.” Sir Caleb stood and pushed Achan back down to lie on the bed.

Sleep, lad. Sleep.

Achan’s eyes fluttered closed, then snapped open. He bashed a fist into Sir Caleb’s jaw, hopped off the bed, and managed to run to the door before crumpling to the floor in a haze.

Inko swept him up and tossed him back on the bed. Sir Caleb grimaced and massaged his jaw.

Achan glared. “Don’t play with my mind!” He tried to focus on the allown tree, but his head merely throbbed.

Sir Caleb’s wild eyes grew wider. “It’s true? You
can
bloodvoice, then?”

Achan feigned ignorance and scooted back on the bed until his back touched the wall. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Those who can sense it have the power to do it themselves.”

Achan remembered Sparrow’s warning that some would seek to abuse his power. Playing the fool was his best defense for now. “What power?”

“Bloodvoices.”

Achan forced a cynical laugh. “You speak of kingly fables. No such ability exists in the real world of flesh and blood. Besides, I’m not a king.”

Sir Caleb leaned over the bed, his shaggy hair framing his face like a sunflower. His bulging eyes glistened in the firelight. “The gift runs in royal blood. You do not have to be a king to have it, although you may be.”

*          *          *

Vrell banged on the door of Achan’s cell and called for help until she lost her voice. Finally, one of the guards regained consciousness enough to stagger to the door and let her out.

She ran to Master Hadar’s chamber to report. She found him sitting at his desk, writing. She sucked in a long breath. “Someone has taken the prisoner, Achan. He’s gone.”

Master Hadar bolted to his feet. “Who?”

“I know not,” Vrell said, her heart still beating wildly from her run up eight flights of stairs. “He locked me in. I—”

The door flew open and banged against the interior wall. Lord Nathak strode into the chamber. “You!” He pointed at Vrell. His eye was bloodshot and bulging. “You were left to watch him and warn your master of any complications. Where is the stray?”

Vrell shook at the volume of his voice. “I-I am sorry, my lord. I-I do not know.”

Lord Nathak seized Vrell’s shoulder and held a dagger up to her throat. “Where?”

Vrell choked back a sob. “Please, my lord! I-I do not know!”

Lord Nathak gripped the side of her face and stared into her eyes.

Master Hadar hurried over. “Lord Nathak, please allow me.”

Lord Nathak released Vrell with a slight push and she stumbled.

Master Hadar’s sunken eyes drilled into hers. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Vrell explained how the man with the wild hair had attacked her and carried Achan away.

“Can you sense the squire?” Master Hadar asked.

Vrell shook her head.

Lord Nathak pointed the dagger at her throat again. “Try.”

“Seek him out, boy,” Master Hadar said. “You’ve spent enough time with him. It shouldn’t be difficult.”

Vrell did not want to. If someone had rescued Achan, he was better off not being found. But if she did not try, she could face Lord Nathak’s blade. Yet even if she reached out, Achan could block her. He had been blocking her all day. She was too good a teacher, it seemed.

Vrell closed her eyes. She cupped her hands over her face and breathed in the smell of the clove and calendula ointment that lingered on her hands. She thought about Achan’s scruffy face, dark hair, and grey eyes.

Images of a dark chamber grew in her mind.

“He is close.”

*          *          *

Achan Cham.

Achan lifted his head off the straw mattress.
Sparrow?

Are you safe?

He wasn’t certain. He lay on his side on the straw mattress, hands bound behind his back, ankles bound too. But he sensed no hatred or hostility from his captors. Both men sat at the table mumbling to each other. He certainly didn’t want to go back to Lord Nathak.
I don’t know. They’ve bound me.

Lord Nathak wants me to locate you.

“No!” Achan thought of the allown tree, and Sparrow faded away.

Sir Caleb was at his side in an instant. He sat on the bed beside Achan, a fresh bruise swelling on his jaw. “I’m sorry for the restraints. You left me little choice.”

Achan’s heart thundered in his chest. Who to trust? He sighed heavily. He’d take his chances with these men over any life with Lord Nathak. He decided to confide this truth. “Lord Nathak is looking for me.”

“How do you know?” Sir Caleb asked.

“He’s using Sparrow.”

“A bird?”

“A boy. The old man’s apprentice.”

Inko jumped to his feet and bounded to the bed. “Be blocking it, quickly!”

“No. Let’s see what they know.” Sir Caleb nodded once. “Tread carefully.”

Achan pictured Sparrow’s small, ever-blushing, round face and narrow, green eyes. Voices from that targeted location flooded his mind, and he cringed as his head filled with pressure.

You must be patient, Lord Nathak,
Hadar said.
The boy can do it.
The old man stood over Sparrow, sunken eyes like stone caverns. He wanted Sparrow’s secret.

Achan frowned. What secret?

The boy is too slow, Hadar!
Lord Nathak screamed, pushing the old man closer.
Do it yourself.

I cannot,
Hadar said.
I’ve spent no time at all with the squire. Leave it to Vrell.

Vrell? Achan frowned. Oh, right. Vrell was Sparrow’s first name.

Lord Nathak pushed the old man away and seized Sparrow by the hair. Something sharp bit into the boy’s throat.

Coldness flashed over Achan. He clutched the stinging tickle at his neck but found no weapon. All he could feel were the prickles of his own need to shave.
Sparrow? I feel pain at my throat. What are they doing to you?