The Swarm Trilogy (18 page)

I crawled over to the tray and took a sip of the water. The guard had said he’d let Mags go yesterday, so I hadn’t been out for too long. But still, I didn’t want to upset my body by downing the entire mug of water. I wanted to keep it down, not feel it come back up.

He said he’d let Mags go. Everything had happened so fast I couldn’t remember exactly where he was positioned. I know he had been next to Mags, but after she fainted I thought he moved away.

I nibbled on the bread and washed it down with more sips of the water. Slowly I felt my strength coming back. Not enough to fight an army, but enough to prove to myself that a full recovery wasn’t far away. I had to formulate a plan to get out. I couldn’t control my magic enough to blast my way out and get away. There were too many barriers, too many innocent people who could get hurt. I was done with hurting people.

Images of Albree danced in my memory, reminding me of the times when we were little girls, before she decided she was better than me. She was fun to play with, always pretending to get married. We would play Choosing Day and drape cloths on our heads, imagining we were candidates for bride of the king. Of course she was always chosen and I became her maid, but it had all been in good fun, until Albree turned the ripe old age of five and realized I would never be her equal.

My chest ached as I thought of her the moment before she fell off the dais to her death. I hadn’t meant to kill her, but I couldn’t control myself or my magic. I wasn’t ready to use my magic and Albree’s death was the result of my lack of control. I thought I was ready to kill and deal with the consequences.

I was wrong.

The guilt gnawed at me worse than the fire ever did.

A few hours later, my guard showed up again. He knocked on the door, opened it and, stepped in. I hoped he wasn’t afraid of me anymore. I had no intention of hurting him unless he hurt me. I had no friends left anyway. Mags and Bryden were gone and Aric dead. If he wanted to be kind to me, I’d take it.

“I see you ate your bread and drank your water. Hope you didn’t do it too fast,” he said.

I shook my head. “No nausea. I’m okay.”

He picked up the mug and refilled it with water from a pitcher and tossed another hunk of bread on the tray.

“Thanks.” I didn’t want to get too close, for fear of spooking him. “Do you know what the king’s plans are for me? I know everything I did was considered treason so am I up for the chopping block soon?”

I swallowed hard and rubbed my neck. I didn’t want to think about Aric’s head, but I couldn’t help it. It would be better to know than to wonder about what he was going to do to me.

The guard chuckled. I couldn’t imagine how what I’d asked was funny. “They’re too afraid of you. They think if they bring you out of here that you’ll blast them all to bits.”

“Then why are they even holding me hostage down here? Couldn’t I blow them to bits just as easily from down here?”

“They’re hoping you realize that blowing the castle up from the bottom would just kill you too. There’d be no way out of here if you rained down rubble upon yourself. They also think you’re too kind to hurt anyone innocent, so here you stay.”

“So I’m in limbo,” I said.

He shrugged. “It’s better than being dead, isn’t it?”

I nodded. I’d seen what this place had done to Mags in such a short time. I didn’t know if I’d stay sane in here for more than a couple days.

“Look, girl, you make me just as nervous as the next guy, but I honestly believe you were only trying to help your friends. If there was anything I could do to get you out of here, I would do it, as payback for trying to help the queen and because I know Aric would have wanted me to do it. Is there anyone I can send for? Anyone who can help you?”

My head dropped as Bryden flashed into my mind. But he was gone and I had no idea where to find him. Beyond him there was no one else. I shook my head.

“No. There isn’t anyone left who can help me. I suppose I’m stuck here until they figure out what to do with me.”

He nodded his head and turned toward the door. “I’m John,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The next morning I was woken up by the grating of the door as it pushed open. I took a deep breath, as if I was rising up from being underwater. The nightmares were back, more vivid than ever. I could still hear the boat creaking as it rocked back and forth. My eyelids fluttered, stunned by the flood of lit candles marching into my cell. I curled up into a ball, the only defensive move I had against so many people, and hoped for the best.

I couldn’t see who was holding the candles, but there were three flickering lights moving in the darkness. I couldn’t tell exactly how many people were behind them. I might be able to take three and if John was still out there, he just might let me escape like he did Mags.

From my crouch, I balanced on my toes ready to spring up and take down the first person. They didn’t look ready for an attack, the way they were holding the candles, but without any knowledge of their intent I had to be prepared either way. I flexed my arm muscles to make sure they were ready and I didn’t feel any tension or fatigue. Years of training made my body more refined and less likely to atrophy after just a couple days of lockup in the dungeon.

“Lianne?” one of the voices called out. He sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “Lianne, child, are you in here?”

I sat still, not ready to reveal my location in the darkest corner until I knew for sure who he was.

“She’s in here, right?” he asked.

“I know she is.”

The second voice was John’s. I’d know his voice anywhere. It was the only friendly voice I thought I’d hear for the rest of my life.

“The head librarian is here to talk to you,” John said. He set two candles down on a ledge and the librarian set his candle next to them. John set something else down on the floor and when all of the candlelight stopped shaking I could focus on what they were doing.

The librarian took a pack off his shoulder and sat on a stool, which had to have been the other item the guard had set down. I’d been over every inch of this dark cell and the stool hadn’t been there before. It would have come in handy as a weapon if Kellan ever came back. I hoped they’d leave it there when they left.

I crawled out of the corner and into the pale light. It was the same old man I’d seen that day in the library when Bryden was waiting for me. Only a few days ago, yet the memory seemed so far away.

“I’ll leave you two to it.” The guard headed back to the door. “If you need anything, call me,” he said to the librarian.

He looked me up and down and then glanced back at the guard. “I won’t be needing you. I’m not afraid of a little girl.”

“You should be afraid of this one,” John said over his shoulder as he left the cell, then closed and locked the door behind him.

I didn’t say anything. Instead I stared at the librarian. I couldn’t imagine why he’d be here to talk to me. I had nothing to say to him, or anyone.

He took a book out of his pack and opened it to the first page. Then he pulled a quill and ink out of his pack. A light flickered in the darkness when he used a small knife to sharpen the end of the quill. My brain swam with possibilities of how I could steal the knife away from him for use as a weapon. It wouldn’t kill anyone, but it could give me more of an edge than I had now.

“You’re going to tell me how you did it.” He stared at me impatiently, like I should have spilled my story already.

“Did what?” I asked. He had no way of making me talk and I didn’t feel like telling him anything. I didn’t care that he’d directed me to Bryden’s table at the library. I didn’t care that he’d never done anything wrong to me. I wouldn’t tell him anything.

He sighed and tapped the quill against his forehead.

“Don’t make this difficult. The king asked me to take a record of how you managed to regain magic and how you were able to create the explosions.”

“I didn’t do anything to regain my magic and I didn’t cause the explosions.” Both were true. If he wanted answers, I’d make him work for it.

For an eternity he asked me questions, but he never asked just the right questions. He didn’t ask about my birthday or the Awakening. He didn’t ask if I knew anyone else with magic. His questions centered around the day of the beheading and I had so little to do with what happened there. Bryden had set off the original explosions. All I’d done was send Albree to her death and even that was an accident. If I knew how to control my magic I would have done more damage than that, but I left that part out of my explanation.

A loud scuffle in the hall broke into our conversation. They must have been bringing a new prisoner in. It sounded like he wasn’t happy to be here and was fighting.

“Well, that’s about all I need to know.” The librarian wiped off the end of the quill on his ink-stained cloak and placed it back in his bag. He pulled out a tiny bag filled with sand and sprinkled it on the manuscript he’d just written. Then he placed the book in his bag with his other tools.

Standing up, he brushed the dirt off his robe.

“You may want to smooth out your hair,” he said.

The noise outside the cell grew as more guards were involved in the fighting.

“What?” I asked him, not sure I heard him right. Why would he care what my hair looked like?

“Your hair,” he said. “Do you want Bryden to see you like that?”

“Bryden?” I asked, scrambling to my feet. “Is Bryden out there?”

I ran to the door, but couldn’t jump high enough to see out the few grates. They were too high, only there for ventilation.

“Of course he is. You didn’t really think he would leave without you, did you?”

I didn’t answer. I did believe he was gone, but a tiny hope had always remained - the hope that he would rescue me. But with his leg, I didn’t think it could be a possibility. How could he get in the castle dungeon and get us both out fast enough?

“How?” I said, not knowing what else to ask.

The librarian shook his head. “Don’t ever underestimate love.” Then he chuckled. “And a determined boy with magic.”

“So this whole thing was a hoax? All of this questioning?”

The librarian laughed again. “No, that was real. The king wants to know exactly how your magic works and how you were able to use it against him so successfully. I needed to have answers that sounded like you otherwise people might recognize it as a forgery. It helps that I knew the whole story from Bryden already so I knew what questions to ask you. I could get answers without giving anything away. It had to be natural, organic, or someone would see through it.”

“But why?” I asked.

“I have no problem helping you escape, but I don’t want to be the next neck on the chopping block. I’ll give the king exactly what he asked for.”

“But he’s going to know I escaped. He’ll think you had a hand in it.”

“Doubtful,” the librarian said. He walked over to the door and listened. The fighting had stopped. What was happening out there?

He knocked twice on the door. “I’m done interviewing the prisoner.”

The door opened and John stuck his head in the space in between. “Ah, just in time.”

John’s lip was bleeding and puffy, but he smiled in spite of it.

“It’s a good thing you left before the fighting started,” he continued. “Wouldn’t want the librarian to get hurt in a prison break.”

“No, that wouldn’t do,” the librarian said. “The stool is over there, if you need it.” He looked at me and motioned with his head. I nodded and ran over, grabbing it in my hand.

I followed the librarian into the hallway and at the other end, leaning up against the wall was Bryden. My heart fluttered. I saw the line of five guards on the floor, unconscious I hoped, in front of him.

“Who says a warrior needs two good legs?” he asked.

I ran past the librarian as he shook his head at us. I didn’t care if he thought we were ridiculous. Throwing my arms around Bryden’s shoulders, I pressed my lips to his, hungry for his touch.

He pushed me back with a grin on his face. “Not now. Later.”

“Hey, lovebirds, you forgot something,” the guard called from the doorway. He waved to us from the other end of the hall as the librarian stepped carefully between the bodies in the hallway. He walked past us without a word and left the dungeon.

“Oh yeah,” Bryden said. “He helped me, but we can’t leave him under any suspicion, just like the librarian. One of us needs to knock him out.”

“And don’t you dare use any of that magic on me,” he said. “Looks like it hurts. You’re a warrior and you know how to knock a guy out without hurting him too bad, right Lianne? Get me with that stool.”

I walked over to him, gripping one of the stool’s three legs in my hand. “Are you sure you want me to do this?”

“Gently,” he said still grinning. I couldn’t believe he was enjoying this so much.

I cocked my arm back, stool in my hand, and cracked him over the forehead with it. He fell backward to the floor, his head landing on the dirt-packed floor with a soft thud. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then turned back to Bryden.