Without looking at him, she asked the most urgent question on her mind, more urgent even than her quest to help Varidian’s Ceo San children. “Tell me about my parents. Do you know what became of them after I left? Seraphina, she said the house had been burned. Were my parents … Were they …”
When he didn’t answer right away, she forced herself to meet his gaze. There was pity in it, and she feared the worst. The tiny bit of hope she’d been holding slipped away, and she set her jaw, steeling herself for the words that were about to come.
“Tell me. Please. I need to know.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but Shira came streaking into the cave, right past Mariah and Vasdaf and into the tunnel opposite the opening. They’d found when they arrived that it led deeper underground. However, after just a few yards, it tapered to a size too small for a human, let alone a bear, to squeeze through. What was Shira doing? The same question was obviously on the lieutenant’s mind, and they both watched and waited. After a brief scuffle, Shira backed out of the little tunnel, something orange and white hanging from her mouth. Mariah couldn’t make out whatever it was because it wouldn’t stop moving. The little animal snarled fiercely and snapped at Shira’s muzzle, sharp white fangs flashing.
Without stopping, Shira waddled back through the cave again and out the exit tunnel. Mariah hopped up and followed her with only a single look and a wave of her short sword at their prisoner.
Shira didn’t leave the tunnel completely and instead stopped just inside its mouth.
“What on earth are you doing?” Mariah hissed. She saw now that the animal, with its huge bushy tail and small body, was a fox. It didn’t seem hurt, but how Shira managed to hold it in her jaws without crushing it was beyond her. “Do you have something against foxes?”
Shira growled menacingly but didn’t let go, shaking her head ever so slightly when the animal began to nip at her again and staring, not at Mariah, but straight down her nose at her captive, as if warning the creature.
After a brief yip, a flash of heat singed the air, and then a blast of icy cold froze the tip of Mariah’s nose. Shira stumbled backward as her jaw was forced open. Her prey had suddenly become too large to hold onto. The fox was gone, and in its place, having just landed hard on his backside in the dirt, was a wiry old man. The shock of hair that covered his head and filled out his beard was mostly white, but streaks of orange, much like his fox, infused it.
“Mine!” He screamed, rubbing his backside with bony fingers. “This cave is mine, and I didn’t give anyone, let alone some giant ball of fur, permission to be here. Who do you think you are?”
He still hadn’t looked directly at Mariah, but she was certainly looking at him, unwilling to believe her eyes. She felt the wash of Shira’s magic turning her friend human once again as she stared.
“Tibbot? Is that you?” It looked like him, but all of the time they’d spent together had been in a tall, dark tower lit only by weak light from high windows. When they had escaped, he had scurried away down into the sewers, and she had flown upward and away from the city.
“How did you know my—” he started at the same moment Shira spoke.
“You know this …?”
They both turned to look at her, but she had eyes only for the old man. How many times had she lain awake, worrying over his fate? Over Ruby’s? Over those of all the other prisoners whom they had been unable to save, whom they hadn’t even considered saving until it was too late?
When he finally met her gaze, the fox man’s green eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be. You actually made it out, Hawk. I was sure you would’ve been shot down over the wall.” He grinned. “Does your beak still hurt?” He touched his nose.
Resisting the urge to throw her arms around him—she doubted Tibbot would appreciate it—she said, “No, thank the gods.” She couldn’t help but return his smile. How many times had she hit that blasted wall with her beak, trying to transform and break free only to find herself hanging from those cursed shackles and swinging hard toward the stone? The memories were a bit fuzzy. “Well, old man, it would seem that we both have somebody watching out for us after all.”
Old Cat Eyes had been visiting Tibbot in visions long before Mariah had been tossed into the dungeon and he had visited her. He had encouraged the fox to be patient, to hold out hope for freedom. Tibbot hadn’t believed a word of it. Had things changed, now that his chains were off?
“You actually believe all that rubbish?” he muttered, but he laid a hand on Mariah’s forearm, obviously not expecting an answer.
Which was good because she still wasn’t sure what exactly she believed. The presence of the gods had become abundantly clear, but their intentions were nowhere near so.
Mariah laid her own hand over the one on her arm. “I’m glad to see you too.”
Before she could say more, Tibbot suddenly let go of her and turned to Shira, who was staring openmouthed at the two of them. “Not sure who your ill-mannered friend is,” he nodded at Shira, “but I’d like to know why you brought one of them into my home.” His gaze and his bony finger were aimed down the tunnel toward the cave as he slipped a knife out of his belt.
“Vasdaf!” Shira gasped, turning her back on Tibbot and running back down the tunnel. They had left him alone.
Mariah and Tibbot followed.
She grabbed his arm as they ran. “Please don’t hurt him. At least not until I talk with him. We need information, and he can’t give that to us if he’s dead.”
Chapter Eleven
Interrogation
Vasdaf hadn’t moved. His eyes were closed, and the back of his head was resting against the rough wall, his chest rising and falling with each deep breath. As soon as he came into view, Tibbot stopped, backtracking a few steps.
“What’s wrong?” Mariah asked.
“Don’t want him to see me, to know what I look like. You shouldn’t have let him see you, especially if he knows what you are.”
“It was a mistake,” Mariah admitted, “but it’s too late now.” Her decision to go to Eaglespire had just led to one more complication after another. Until now. Knowing that Tibbot had survived, that he was free, was such a great relief.
“What’re you going to do with him?” he muttered.
“I was hoping to get some answers out of him about my family. He’s from the village where I grew up.”
At that moment, she realized she knew very little about the old man across from her, and he knew little about her. In their shared time in the king’s dungeon, neither had shown much inclination for sharing life stories. They’d bonded over the simple facts that they were both Ceo San, both doomed to die at the hands of the king. They’d just wanted out, to end the suffering that the miserable place had wrapped around them. They had become friends through shared circumstance—living in their own filth, half-starved and half-crazy, in pain from the enchanted shackles they had been forced to wear and the positions those shackles forced them into. She could still feel the phantom aching in her shoulders and wrists.
It didn’t matter how well she knew Tibbot. He was one of them, a Ceo San, and she would protect him and respect his wishes, even if it meant remaining hidden from their captive. “I also … Shira and I …” she lowered her voice to a bare whisper, hoping her Ceo San friends would be able to hear what the lieutenant couldn’t. “We have a purpose, a mission I guess you’d call it, and I hope he can give us information that can help.”
Tibbot didn’t react to that particular bit of information. Instead, he said, “I thought you were going home, over the sea. Isn’t that what you told him? Old Cat Eyes?”
“I did.” Mariah swallowed hard. “But I guess he was right. I couldn’t stay away.”
Digging both sets of fingers into the mounds of wiry hair on his head, Tibbot paused. “Is what you’re doing—your plan—will it hurt him?”
“The man f
rom the vision?”
Tibbot sneered. “Of course not. The king! Will it hurt the king?” The old man held a particular hatred for King Rothgar, the one responsible for the time—years?—he had spent in the filthy tower dungeon. Apparently, Tibbot couldn’t be tamed by the magic golden cuff and chain that had turned so many other Ceo San into slaves, so Rothgar had thrown him into the dungeon, close enough to hear the screams of the other Ceo San being tortured but far enough away to be forgotten. Mariah’s eyes strayed to the scars on his wrists. Were they from the attempt to cuff him or from the enchanted shackles? Rubbing at her own arms, Mariah wondered why the king hadn’t just killed him. And was his time in the dungeon the only thing Tibbot was holding against the king? It was enough, but Mariah still had a feeling there was more to it.
“Not directly,” she replied. “But it should at least put a damper on his plans to use our people as tools.” Our people. When had she come to see herself as one of them?
Tibbot’s bony hand moved to his beard, where he continued to scratch. “It’s enough,” he stated as if making a proclamation. “I want in.”
Mariah’s eyes widened. She hadn’t even asked. “What? Don’t you have … Don’t you have a family here?” Why else would he have chosen this place instead of getting as far from Varidian as possible. It wouldn’t have been that hard for him to stow away on a ship in fox form, not as clever as he seemed to be.
“Oh, I help out the others now and then. All that’s left here are the true foxes, but they can get by without me. Did for years as a matter of fact.”
Her mouth fell open a bit. The Foxgrove was named for actual foxes? “That’s not what I meant, Tibbot.”
He stopped his scratching and met her eyes with sudden clarity in his green orbs. “I used to have a family, Hawk. They’re gone now.” His silence filled the air with heaviness, and his sudden harrumph made her start. “But if they weren’t, I wouldn’t go anywhere near them. Might as well wave my hands like a beacon and hand them over to the bastard myself.”
Oh, Tibbot. Her heart ached for him. Mariah hadn’t come to this place looking for the old fox, let alone his help, but she decided she would take whatever he was willing to give. She looked around the cave. Not sure what else to say, she mumbled, “I’m sorry we invaded your home. I didn’t know it was yours.”
“She knew,” Tibbot growled, his gaze on Shira, who was standing just inside the cave mouth, listening.
“What?” Mariah looked between them, and Shira looked at her feet for a moment before speaking.
“I smelled him ’soon as we got here, it’s true, but it’s not like we had a choice. Where else were we gonna set up the ambush?” She looked back at the soldier sitting against the wall. “Besides, I didn’t know when the fox was comin’ back. We coulda been in and out before he was any wiser.”
Mariah sighed and allowed her voice to return to normal. “We should wake up the lieutenant. We need to get information, and then we need sleep. I want to get moving first thing tomorrow. I don’t think it’s a good idea that we stay still too long. And we’re not doing anyone any good out here in the middle of the woods.”
“I’m not sleeping.” The soldier said, opening his eyes lazily. “Whatever you need to know, just ask.” He sounded so sincere. Had he helped to capture other Ceo San like that? By being friendly?
Shira turned, eyeing the man suspiciously. Mariah started to go toward him but hesitated, looking back at Tibbot, but he waved her forward, folding himself into a sitting position out of sight of Vasdaf.
“Why would you go tellin’ us anything all willin-like?” Shira asked, hovering over him.
“Because I owe Mariah that much.”
“What do ya mean?” Shira looked up at Mariah. “Do you know what he means?”
“He said he knew me. Before I left Eaglespire, when we were young. He said he”—she swallowed uncomfortably—“he said he used to follow me around when I left the house to fetch water for my father.”
The lieutenant sat upright. “I was just a kid!”
Mariah could hear Tibbot’s grumbling from the tunnel. “And they think we’re the crazy ones.”
“What?” Shira snapped at Vasdaf, stalking closer to him.
“I owe her. I just want to help.”
“Why should we believe you? Your loyalty obviously lies elsewhere.” She kicked at his boot, and Mariah hissed at her.
“That’s not necessary!”
The lieutenant ignored it and instead spoke directly to Shira. “My loyalty is to Varidian,” he said softly. “I … I don’t know why you should believe me. I just know that since the day she was chased out of the village, I’ve wished I could go back and find some way to help her.” His eyes shifted to Mariah. “My … some people say that your kind is a curse on the kingdom or that you are a weapon to be utilized. I don’t know what’s true, but I want to help you. You’re here now, and I’m not going to let the opportunity to keep you safe pass me by again.”
There was awe in those eyes, in his expression, and Mariah knew that whatever fascination he’d had with her as a boy was not completely gone.
“Don’t go fallin’ for that, lady,” Shira said. “He’s just usin’ his wiles to get you to let down your guard.”
Mariah ignored her. “Okay, if you want to help, tell me about my parents.”
* * *
According to Hanas Vasdaf, only luck and incompetence had prevented Ashanya and Magnus Griven from getting arrested or, worse, executed after Mariah had fled.
Some of the lieutenant’s information came firsthand. As a boy, he had continued to live in the village for another two years after she had flown away. Later, he had joined the guard, and much of his information came from the stories he had heard from his comrades during that time.
The two guardsman that had arrived in Eaglespire the day of Magnus’s injury had been Trappers, but they were among the first. The Trappers that existed now, soldiers who were specially trained to trap and hold Ceo San slaves, had been few in number then and had yet to be used widely by the king. The two soldiers that Mariah had run from had been passing through Kannuk on their way to Kilgereen when they heard about a possible Ceo San hiding in Eaglespire.
If Vasdaf knew more about who had gotten word to those soldiers, he didn’t let on. Up until six months ago, when Gwyn had given her the letter she’d been holding for years, Mariah had believed it had been her own mother who had betrayed her by notifying the soldiers. In that same letter, written right before Mariah had stepped out of her childhood home for the last time, Ashanya had implicated the baker, who had lived just across the road. She had also told Mariah to go to Direstrand to seek protection. Guided by visions from Old Cat Eyes, Gwyn had hidden that letter from her for seven years, and Mariah had only recently learned the truth.
According to Vasdaf, the two soldiers, apparently ashamed at having lost an inexperienced half-bird, half-girl in just a matter of minutes, had continued on to their next assignment in Kilgereen, never reporting her sighting to their superiors.
“But the king’s network of spies is extensive,” Vasdaf said. “And the soldiers forgot that they had left behind gossiping citizens. Word spread.”
Mariah gestured impatiently for him to go on.
“According to the stories, the king quickly discovered the incident and who was responsible and called them back to the capital. They reported directly to him in his solarium. Aside from select servants and soldiers, only his closest adviser, Dalinore, and new slaves are ever brought into that room.” His voice was grim, and she didn’t care to know why. “The four of them were closeted there for hours before the king and his adviser emerged. From what I heard, the two guards never left the room.” He swallowed, his eyes on his boots. “It’s said that the servants found two piles of ash in the solarium the next morning, but that was all.”
Mariah turned away o
nly to find Shira staring at the man, horrified. “None of that explains what happened to Mari’s parents.”
“Of course,” Vasdaf replied. “After the … interrogation, the king sent a small unit, including a new Trapper, to Eaglespire. They were the ones responsible for what you saw at the old blacksmith’s house.”
“So, my parents were slaughtered … by this unit?” Mariah’s voice cracked as she spoke.
“No … No!” He leaned in her direction, his hands spread wide as if he wished to reach out to her, but the bindings prevented him. “I don’t know how, Mariah, but your parents, they were gone before the soldiers arrived.”
The wash of relief that rushed through her was so strong that she slumped sideways into Shira, who steadied her with an arm around her shoulders. “They weren’t killed?”
The lieutenant shook his head. “At least not that day. I was there when the guard arrived. They banged on the house door and threw open the doors to the smithy. The house was empty, as if someone had spirited Magnus and Ashanya away in the middle of the night. The guard found neither trace nor trail, although they questioned just about everyone in the village, even me. Magnus hadn’t even left the house or risen from his bed since his accident. I’d run a few errands for your mother, you see. I still don’t know how they managed to escape.”
Unbidden tears leaked from Mariah’s eyes, and she turned away toward the wall, not wanting the lieutenant to see her weakness. She laid her head on Shira’s shoulder and saw Tibbot’s eyes gleaming in the darkness of the tunnel beyond.
“I’m sorry, lady,” Shira whispered softly. “But this means they could still be alive somewhere.”
Mariah could only nod.
Shira turned back to Vasdaf. “Anything else?”
Revelation of the Dragon Page 12
