“Archer, are you feeling all right?” he asked as the room tilted a little.
“Sleepy,” his friend mumbled, looking pale. Realizing they would soon be unconscious too, Khoury grabbed Archer by the arm and searched for somewhere to hide. They were too exposed at the table. Running out of time and with few options available, he finally led his companion behind a pillar out of sight of the others. Irresistible darkness claimed him as, throughout the hall, all of the prisoners slept.
SHE HURRIED TO the great hall door, her worn slippers whispering guiltily against the stone floor. She paused, pressed an ear to the cold planks, and then turned the handle. Pushing the door open a crack, a draft of wood smoke and spices filled her nostrils, cramping her stomach with renewed hunger. After a cursory glance, she entered the hall where men slept scattered about the long tables. She closed the door carefully before scurrying to the nearest table and ducking behind the odorous bulk of one of Father’s guests.
She surveyed the room a final time. They were all sound asleep.
Then she let out a breath, smiled and stood up. Snatching pieces of food from the plates, she filled her tied-up skirt. Flitting from table to table, she looted bread and meat and fruit, pausing only a moment to stuff a hunk of warm, crumbly biscuit into her mouth, and then continued her gathering.
Unlike the rest of the Keep, the great hall was gloriously toasty and well-lit. When her skirt was full, she pilfered a leg of game bird and squatted down to rest her loot in her lap. She tore the still warm meat from bone. Warm juice dripped down her arms. She hadn’t finished licking her fingers when she heard the thump of his staff.
“Daughter,” echoed his graveled voice, “I know you’re here. Again.”
She sighed, brushed the crumbs off her bodice and stood up, hiding her guilt under downcast eyes. One hand still clutched the treasures hidden within her skirts. A peek from under her curtain of pale hair showed him standing near the hearth, dusky robes hanging loosely on his gaunt frame. His gnarled hands gripped his staff tightly, but his face was merely disappointed.
“I couldn’t resist,” she said. “It smelled so good.”
“You are not starving, Daughter,” he admonished. “And you know I don’t like you bothering the guests.”
The girl nearly rolled her eyes. She knew nothing would wake these men. She’d made a game of it when she was younger. They were beyond her capacity to bother.
“I don’t think I’m bothering them,” she said with unusual contrariness. “I’m just, you know, cleaning up a bit.” She grabbed an overripe sun-fruit from the nearby table and bit into its juiciness with a loud slurp.
Father’s brow clouded with annoyance and she cringed, expecting harsh words. But he only sighed. “Eat up, but be quick about it.”
And with that, she was dismissed from his thoughts. As he shuffled between the tables, checking his new arrivals, she thought he seemed unusually tired. The wrongness in his body larger somehow.
“Remember not to drink the ale,” he said for the thousandth time.
“I know.” Irritation gave an edge to her voice that earned her a stern look. She humbly cast her eyes down avoiding his glare. She felt strangely peevish.
“And tomorrow night, the tower,” he said.
“A full moon already?” she whined, fiddling with a plate on the table.
“None too soon if you ask me. Moonrise, girl. Don’t be late.”
A good daughter should have been glad to help him and usually she did feel a measure of pity. But tonight she felt unaccountably irritated. Whether she wanted to or not, she would be there tomorrow in the tower. She watched as he grabbed one of the men by the wrists and wrestled him with great effort through the door leading deeper into the Keep. She didn’t offer to help since he had forbidden her to have any contact with his guests. It was bad enough she was standing in the same room with them.
When the door shut behind him, she turned back to the tables. Unrest marred her usual placid thoughts. Her skirt had enough food to last a while, but she didn’t want to leave the warm hall just yet. The storm outside had abated, leaving a quiet so deep it had weight. It hung about her like a thick blanket. She didn’t mind it. She had grown up with the stillness and, if truth be told, liked it. The storm’s ferocity had its own allure, of course. That’s how she knew the banquet would be here. It was always the same: storm, guests, food.
She thought it was her imagination at first when a whisper slithered through the stony silence. It was only a small, breathy sound, but it definitely didn’t belong. She turned in surprise, scanning the area, but found nothing amiss. After a few minutes, she shrugged and turned to leave. Then she definitely heard a groan. It raised goose bumps on her arms. She followed the noise to a pillar near the corner. Behind it, two men slumped against each other, apparently unconscious like the others.
What are they doing over here? Nothing else seemed out of place. She studied them with abstract curiosity. The one was very different from her father’s typical guest: larger than the others with striking red-gold hair. Thick and trimmed to shoulder length, it was the color of sunset on a clear evening. She thought it strange how, with such red hair, his beard was almost golden. Fascinated, she moved closer.
The second man’s short black hair was not nearly as striking as the burnished mane that had caught her attention. But his bold, dark brows spoke of strength. It was a surprisingly pleasant face despite a faded tracing of scars and a nose had been broken at least once. A fresh wound crossed his right temple, scabbed over but still red.
What kind of man is this? She studied the face again as if looking for the answer there and found him more intriguing for the scars. Her fingers itched to trace the lines of violence and as she leaned closer, his breath mingled with hers. Her heart skipped with illicit tension. She’d never been this close to a guest before.
“Who are you?” Her cool whisper grazed his cheek and an answering warmth echoed back, brushing her face, tingling and ephemeral like magic. Not her Father’s sharp sorcery, but a feeling that brought to mind sunshine and the greening tundra. An unearthly breeze lifted the hair off her neck sending a cold-heat down her spine. She felt a wrenching in her chest as if something had broken loose. Even the light in the room changed somehow, but she couldn’t explain what was different. Her pulse went from skipping to pounding.
Then the red-haired man moaned, breaking the spell. She shot him a quick glance, but his eyes were still closed, his sleep merely restless. When she looked back at the dark-haired man, the uncanny feeling had passed. No warmth tingled between them. All was ordinary.
Even so, her curiosity grew. On impulse, she moved to touch the red-haired man’s cheek. Just before her fingers landed on the coarse-looking beard, he murmured again and she jerked back in surprise, overbalancing and landing on her rump with a squeak. A few fuzzy sun-fruit rolled along the floor.
She hastily retrieved the fruit, watching him carefully. His eyes were still shut, but through barely parted lips she heard a single word: “Please.”
Only Father had ever spoken to her. And though this guest wasn’t actually talking to her, his unconscious request somehow stripped her of her usual invisibility. She was suddenly exposed, naked. His nearness was a palpable force as he continued to mumble. His brows knotted as if in pain. The words came faster, indecipherable and urgent.
As she gazed into his sturdy face, the strange feeling of change returned. She was moved by the man’s distress.
It’s none of your concern, the stern voice in her head reminded her. How often had Father told her that?
She pulled cool dispassion around her like a well-worn cloak though the feeling of having been touched remained.
A disapproving cluck startled her, and she scrambled backward with guilty fear.
“You know the rules,” Father growled. “Do not disturb my guests.” She looked up to see him peering down his hawkish nose with a fearsome scowl. “Now get back to your room.” Angry, he nudged her no
ne to gently out of the way with his foot and grabbed the red-haired man’s wrists, dragging him away like the other.
When she was alone and the silence fell heavy around her again, she got shakily to her feet and brushed herself off. Her luscious loot once more secured in her skirts, she went to the door that led back to her tower. Standing in the doorway, she couldn’t resist one more look back at the scarred man where he sat leaning against the pillar. A nameless longing curled up under her ribs where it stayed as she headed back to her room.
ARCHER WOKE ON the black-stoned floor of a windowless room. The only light came from torches in the hall beyond the barred door. He had no idea how long he’d been out, but he was starving. His breath fogged in the biting chill. Standing on sore legs, he grabbed the thin wool blanket from the cot pushed up against the back wall and pulled it around his shoulders, rubbing his arms briskly as he surveyed his prison. The door was sturdy, made of iron bars. At the bottom was a small slot where a plate with cold gruel had been pushed through. Next to it was a small bowl of frigid water.
“Dinner is served,” he muttered, picking up the bowl and downing the water in three gulps. He took the plate and scooped the unsavory slop into his mouth as best he could. With a frown, Archer slid the bowl and plate back into the hall, hoping meal times were more than once a day.
He pressed his forehead against the bars, peering up and down the dim hallway. Other cell doors lined the corridor.
“Captain!” His shout wasn’t the booming echo he’d expected. His voice fell flat, snuffed out like a flame. “Captain Khoury!” No answer. He rattled the door on its hinges but even those sounds were strangely muted.
Frustrated, he turned back to his cell. With nothing to do but wait, he stretched and walked, working out the stiffness and humming softly. He knew the captain would be working on an escape. If anyone could find a way out it would be him, and he’d never leave without Archer.
Archer had met Captain Khoury during, or rather at the end of, the Barakan War when the wounded left behind were taken to him as prisoners. They had been fools to fight under Barakan’s flag, he and his older brother, Connor. Archer had lost his last scrap of family that day, the same day the captain granted him freedom when any other Sword lord would have slain him outright. In the past seven years, he’d grown quite fond of the man who’d stepped unwittingly into the empty space left by Connor.
Once warm, Archer sat on the cot and amused himself with raucous tavern songs, his velvety baritone almost obscene in the brooding silence. Time ticked by with painful slowness. There was never movement in the hall, never any sound. And every so often, Archer would go to the door and call out without response. When he tired, he lay on the cot telling fireside tales of home to himself until he fell asleep. When he woke, there was gruel on the plate and water in the bowl. He ate and called out for the captain again. Still no answer.
Without windows, there was no way of knowing if it was day or night. So he counted each sleep as a day and after about a week by this reckoning, Archer’s nerves were raw and taut. The quiet of the Keep permeated the cell like a thick, suffocating presence. A window, or even a small draft, would have made Archer feel less isolated. But there was nothing, nothing except cold black stones and silence. He longed for action, for something—anything—to happen. Time stretched out like the tundra, endless and empty. Briefly, Archer wondered if he was already dead, a ghost with no memory of his demise.
No sooner had he thought of ghosts than a pale figure flitted across the hall, just a smudge of brightness at the edge of his vision. He froze, wondering if his mind was playing tricks. Turning his eyes toward the door without moving his head, he saw nothing. Quickly, he backed up to the wall out of sight of the door, and waited, ready to fight. Nothing happened. He listened carefully for footfalls, but there was only the interminable silence. Had Khoury found a way out or had the sorcerer come for him at last? Unable to contain his curiosity, he leaned to the door and peeked out.
A small woman stood beyond his door, staring straight at him, her hair a pure white curtain to her waist.
He blinked in surprise, and then said, “Hello there.”
She stared at him in silence.
“Thought you were a ghost,” he said.
“Sometimes I think so, too.” Her voice was tiny.
He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. She radiated the same ancient stillness as the black stones or the silence. But where they felt dark and heavy, she was light, her eyes such a startlingly pale blue they reminded him of ice on Manowa Lake in midwinter. A sapphire amulet hung from a silver chain at her throat, its precious glow out of place against her shabby clothes, which were scarcely more than rags. She took a step toward the door.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“The Northlands west of here.”
“Your hair is so red.” Her hand rose up as if to touch it, but she pulled it back. “Are your people all like that?”
“Most of us have red hair.”
“I’ve never seen its like.”
“My name’s Archer.”
She said nothing.
“What do they call you?” he prompted.
She shuffled a little closer and lowered her voice. “Daughter.”
“That’s not a name.”
“It’s the only one I have,” she said with a frown. Her eyes held him like the Keep did, suspended in limbo.
He shook himself. “So you live here?”
“Yes.”
“With the old man?”
“He’s my father.”
Archer couldn’t believe his ears. “Your father is Sidonius?”
“Yes, didn’t I just say that?”
“And your mother?”
“Mother?” She rolled the word over her tongue like it was unfamiliar. “I don’t remember a mother.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“Father came from the Far Isles. They’re across a sea. He said the men there were untrustworthy. Jealous. They didn’t understand his work. So he came here.” Her speech was so childlike he wondered how old she was.
“So you came with him?”
“I must have.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t remember the islands he talks of, but I’ve seen pictures in the books in the library.”
“So you read?”
“Oh, not the magical tomes. They’re forbidden.” She glanced up and down the hallway.
“You don’t do magic?”
She smiled then, a bright momentary flash. “Don’t be silly. You have to be strong to do magic.”
She was making little sense, but she had to know what was going on. “Can you tell me why I’m here?”
“You’re going to make Father young again.”
Archer didn’t like the sound of that. “Young? How?”
“The ritual,” she said in hushed tones. “That’s why you’re all here.”
Archer sucked in a breath. All the barred cells, all the men in the wagon, were they all going to die to keep this sorcerer young? It wasn’t that startling a revelation given how casual the old man was about the men who burned to death. But the way she said it with those big wide eyes, innocent and yet without remorse, made it all the more foreboding. He raked a heavy hand through his hair, his nerves stretched to breaking. He needed to find Khoury and soon. “I came with a companion. Have you seen him?”
“We have many guests.” She avoided his eyes.
“Dark hair, blue eyes and—”
“It’s not allowed,” she hissed sharply, checking the hallway again.
“I just want to know if he’s okay.”
“Assume what you like. It doesn’t matter.” The callousness of her reply sent a shock of anger through him.
“I won’t assume he’s dead.”
“Then believe he is alive. It changes nothing.” She had retreated behind a cold wall of indifference. Her smile’s warm brightness was only a mirage after all.
“It changes everything.” He grabbed the bars, shaking them and startling the girl, though her bland expression returned quickly.
“Time has forgotten this castle, Northerner. Life here is always the same. The guests come and they go.”
“You mean he kills them.”
“As you wish.” She shrugged but refused to meet his gaze.
“And what about you?”
She swallowed hard as if tasting something unpleasant. “I go to the tower, too.”
“But you survive.”
Her brow furrowed. “I think it tries to kill me.” She shook her head as if to shake loose bad memories. “But it’s a daughter’s duty to help her father, isn’t it? Even if I did die. It’s what a good daughter would do.”
“That’s your choice, though.”
“What happens to us in life isn’t choice. Our path lies not in our own planning but with fate.”
Archer coughed a short laugh. “Maybe for you or me. But you don’t know the captain. Fate has yet to lay her hands on him.”
The girl frowned. “No. Your fates have already been decided. You are here.”
“Khoury has cheated death more times than I have fingers and toes. He will escape this place, too.”
Her eyes got huge, and her white skin paled even further though he wouldn’t have thought it possible. He could see her trembling. “No man escapes the Keep.” Her words were vehement, but Archer sensed doubt and terror.
“If you truly believed that, then it wouldn’t matter if you found him for me, now would it?”
“You don’t understand. I cannot,” she hissed, growing more agitated. “I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“Maybe it was fate.”
She backed away, fear in her eyes. “No.”
“Fate that you met me.”
“No. My fate is here with my father.”
“Only time will tell.” He knew he was being cruel, twisting her fear when she was little more than a girl, but he had to find the captain.
Quest of the Dreamwalker (The Corthan Legacy Book 1) Page 3
