by Tara Grayce
I return to the window in my cell. “How is everyone doing?”
Trygg grunts. “I almost have part of the grate broken off. Of course, that might not matter? Should I keep at this?”
“Yes. Just in case.” I lean against the bars. I don’t see Herockghyrra, but the screech of metal against stone doesn’t halt. I take it that Herockghyrra is carrying through with her intention not to depend on a naiad for rescue. “Brett?”
“I’m fine.” The strain in his voice, the way he ends those words with a cough...
He isn’t fine.
I sigh. I can’t do anything to help him besides figure out a way to escape.
What would Dad or Gary do in this situation? What would they do next?
Scout the situation. That’s what they’d do. Dad wouldn’t make any move without getting more information. That’s what made him such a good king and so respected by the others in Averell.
“Done.” Nella says from behind me. I turn as she bounces back to her feet. She grins. “What next?”
Do I dare ask her to do this? She could get caught. Can I ask her to put herself in danger for us?
If I don’t, Brett may die. Melltra could succeed in starting a war.
I don’t have a choice.
This is the part about being a princess—a leader—that isn’t so fun. I’ve never had to experience this part before. Dad and Gary are the ones with the responsibilities and duties. I usually just have to smile and make sure I don’t embarrass my parents.
But now, for some reason, Nella, Brett, and Trygg are looking to me to lead them. Even Herockghyrra seems to be taking her cues from me.
I can’t let them down.
“Nella, do you think you could scout our way out of here? Maybe locate where they keep the keys?”
“Sure, I can do that.” Nella bounces on her toes, then spins in place. “That will be easy. I will be back soon.”
With a faint splash, she collapses into a puddle of water. The water ripples and seeps through the slot at the bottom of the door where the guards shove my food. She won’t be able to travel far that way, and she’ll probably need to return to a stream soon after she gets back to keep herself from drying out.
I stand on tiptoes and watch as Nella’s puddle of water trickles across the dungeon floor and up the stairs. I watch until the water disappears out of sight.
Might as well put my time to good use. I’m not sure I can stand the tension if I don’t do something.
Returning to the latrine grate, I tug and yank on it. Something gives, and I brace my feet and put all of my leg, shoulder, and back muscles into it.
The piece of metal breaks off. I tumble backwards, slapping my hands and elbows on the stone floor. I can’t help a small shriek.
“Amy?” Brett’s voice is whispery thin.
“I’m fine. I just managed to break off a piece of my grate.” I push myself into a sitting position and inspect the metal in my hand. One end appears like it could be made small enough, with some work.
Setting it aside, I tug on the rest of the grate and frown. I’d broken off the one piece that had been really rusted. The rest of it remains sturdy. I don’t think I’m strong enough to break off any more.
No matter. Nella will find the key, and we won’t even have to pick the locks.
Still, I set to work thinning the end of the metal by scraping it against the wall of my cell. It is rusted enough that parts of it break away, leaving the thin, sturdy core of unrusted metal behind. It is something to do, at least, to distract me from thinking about Nella. Trying to sneak past whatever guards are up there. The danger she is in.
All she is doing is scouting. She doesn’t even have to use a silvaran form, just flow around as a puddle of water.
And who really pays attention to a puddle of water, anyway? As long as they don’t notice how the water is flowing up the stairs or around corners in a way water doesn’t do on its own. The worst she might have is some farffle trying to drink her.
She’s going to be fine. We’ll be fine. Our families are going to be fine.
I push the metal harder against the stone, scraping off rust. Filing away the end until it is gleaming silver.
My knuckles scrape against the stone wall. I grit my teeth, but I don’t stop.
“Ami!”
Trygg’s call halts me. I sit back on my heels, gulping in panting breaths, my ears ringing even after I’ve stopped scraping the metal shard on the stone. I clamber to my feet and totter over to the door of my cell, tingles spreading through my awakening feet.
Only at the door do I hear what Trygg has picked up even through all the commotion coming from Herockghyrra’s and my cells.
Splashing water, flowing faster and faster, along with some dull clinking sound like metal on stone. But above the splashing, comes grunting and stomping boots.
Knuckles stinging, I grip the bars to my cell and pull myself onto tiptoes to try to see more up the stairs.
A surge of water plunges down the stairs, something gleaming and clinking at its center. Three farffle-turned-silvaran guards hop down the stairs after Nella, a yard or two behind her.
Her momentum slows at the bottom of the stairs without the slope to aid her. But now I can make out the gleaming thing held suspended in the water.
The keys.
She’s tried to get the keys for us.
I grip the bars tighter, my heart hammering in my throat. I should call out encouragement to her. I should shout for her to hurry.
But she’s already going as fast as she can, and the lump in my throat is too tight.
She isn’t going to make it. Even if she gives the keys to one of us, the guards will take the keys away before we can use it.
One of the guards outdistances the others, a shackle gripped in one hand. He chitters and tosses the shackle down onto the puddle that is Nella.
The instant the metal touches the water, Nella pops into her girl form with a cry, the keys clutched in her fist.
As the guards descend on her, she scrambles to her feet and throws the keys toward my cell.
I can see from the moment the keys leave her hand that the throw isn’t far enough. The keys curve in a steady arc through the air before landing with a jarring clink on the stone floor five feet in front of my cell door.
The farffle guards clamp the shackle around Nella’s ankle and drag her across the middle of the dungeon. Tears stream down her face as she struggles. They toss her in the cell between Herockghyrra and me, slam the door after her, and retrieve the keys.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to get the keys. I’m sorry I messed up.”
I sigh. “No, I’m sorry I asked you. I’m sorry I brought you into this mess.”
Thanks to me, Melltra has captured someone else. She now has a weapon to use against the naiads as well.
I can’t fault Nella for trying to get the keys. I probably would’ve asked her to get them once she returned from her scouting mission anyway.
That pricks even more guilt in my chest. Nella can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen. And I put her in danger. I should be a better princess and person than that.
Nella sniffs. “I was glad to help. Honest. And I still got a message out, remember? I did help.”
“Yes, you did.” I let out a long, slow breath. I’m only fifteen. The others in the dungeon are all the same age or younger. We can hardly be expected to know what to do in this situation.
“So what do we do now?” Nella’s face appears in the window of her cell. She scrubs the last of her tears from her face.
“Back to Plan A. Pick the locks.” Trygg’s smile is too wide, too cheery. But seeing it relaxes the knot in my chest and brings the light back into Nella’s eyes.
“Trygg’s right, we’ll—” I freeze at the sound of boots tromping down the stairs to the dungeon once again.
It isn’t time for our next meal yet.
Quickly, I place the piece of metal across the latri
ne grate. The shiny end doesn’t blend in with the rust of the rest of it, but hopefully the farffle guards won’t have the brain power to notice it. I probably could’ve left it in the middle of the cell, but I don’t want to chance it. Not when that piece of metal could be our last chance for getting out of here.
By the time I return to my cell’s window, the two guards stalk down the last stairs.
What do they want? Are they taking one or two of us?
They both pivot and head for my cell.
Chapter 16
A Monster’s Morning Breath Nearly Kills Me
I do a better job of paying attention this time as the guards lead me up the stairs out of the dungeon. The dungeon stairs open up into a small room crawling with farffles, both the two other enchanted farffles-turned-silvarans and the rest still in rabbit form.
This room leads into a passageway. This part of Eekrok Castle remains solid, and the passageway only goes in one direction. Which makes sense. The original builders of the castle weren’t going to put the entrance to the dungeon right next to the castle’s back door, as much as that would’ve been handy for us now.
A few other rooms branch off this passageway, but from my quick glance inside as we pass, I don’t think any of them lead to the outdoors.
We turn a corner and pass another tower, though the doorway to this one is blocked with fallen stones. We might be able to escape that way, but there is no way of knowing how many stones we—well, Herockghyrra—would have to move before we had an opening large enough to fit through.
Once again, the guards take me around one more tower, this one intact and probably where Melltra is living, and the large double doors to the Great Hall loom to our right. Ahead of us, daylight shines through the hole in the wall where the gates to the castle keep once stood. Dead stalks of grass wither between the cracks in the cobblestones. One part of the outer castle wall that I can see from here is nothing but a pile of rubble.
Out there is freedom.
We just have to figure out a way to get there without getting caught by the farffles again.
The guards pull me into the Great Hall. Like last time, Melltra sits on her half-burned throne. This time, daylight pools in patches on the floor and walls, leaving the places not touched by the sun in even darker shadows.
I clench my fists and try not to shiver. It was bad, standing in the Great Hall facing this monster when I had Trygg and Herockghyrra beside me.
But now is worse. Much worse. I’m alone. Does this mean she plans to kill me now? Has my dad’s unwillingness to fight made my dead body necessary to Melltra’s plan?
I lose the battle with my shivers and give in to the trembles shaking through my legs and fingers. When the guards let go of my arms at the base of the dais, I collapse to my knees. I don’t even try to get back to my feet. It’s all I can do not to curl into a ball on the ground.
I may be a princess in this world, but I can’t hold my head high the way Herockghyrra does. Somewhere—in another life, another realm—I’m a normal high school girl whose biggest concern is getting her science project done and fighting an annoying, high school crush.
Not fighting a rogue magician-monster. Not wondering about a war that could get my dad killed. Not worrying about when my friends and I are going to die.
“You had a naiad friend come to rescue you. Who else did you contact?” Melltra’s eyes gleam, as if the dragon half of her is roaring to be unleashed.
“No one. Just Nella.” That is the truth. I only contacted her. She contacted the rest of her family.
“You want me to believe you didn’t get a message out?” Melltra rises from her throne and stalks down the stairs toward me. Half way down, she morphs into her half-dragon form, her wings spreading out behind her. A purple-colored smoke drifts from between her parted lips, curling on its way to the floor. “Who else knows you are here?”
I don’t think she’d believe me if I lied and said no one. And I’m not about to tell the truth. That leaves me with only silence.
More purple smoke gushes from her mouth. The first tendrils brush my skin. I cry out and scramble back, my skin burning and itching as if I’d brushed up against one of the stinging nettle plants that line the fields near our farmhouse in Michigan.
Her smile widens to show off a mouth filled with pointed teeth. “Who else knows?”
I shake my head. I can’t tell her anything. I won’t.
She opens her mouth, and more smoke pours out, too much and too fast for me to scramble back quickly enough.
The smoke coats my arms, digging into my skin, prickling even through the fabric of my slacks. I try to get to my feet. Try to run.
But the guards push me back to the ground, right into a cloud of the purple smoke.
My eyes flame. The skin on my face burns and itches. I gasp, and the smoke burns down my throat into my lungs. Somewhere, distantly, the guards grunt and squeal, and their hands leave my shoulders.
But I can’t move. I cough and curl into a ball, rubbing at my face, my arms, my legs. I think I cry out. I’m not sure. I can’t be sure of anything beyond the burning, itching, flaming pulsing through and over and in my body. I’m gagging and coughing and gagging again.
“Who else knows?” Melltra’s words slither through the renewed gust of smoke.
I’m fifteen years old. I’m a princess in this realm, a normal high school girl in another. I’ve never even so much as broken a bone before. Right then, wrapped in the torture of the purple smoke, I do what any other fifteen-year-old would do in my place.
I tell.
WAKING UP IN THIS DUNGEON cell is becoming all too familiar, as is the worry in Trygg’s voice as he calls my name. This time, Nella is also calling my name.
It takes longer to pick out Brett’s voice. It’s now soft, weak, as he gasps out my name. He doesn’t have much longer before he falls unconscious. I don’t even have to check my internal clocks to know that.
“I’m fine.” I say the words first in Averellian, then in English, even though my voice croaks like I have a toad stuck in my vocal chords. I clear my throat, but the inside of my mouth and my throat ache like I have strep throat. When I breathe in, my lungs throb so much I don’t think I’m imagining that I can physically feel them inside my chest.
It’s harder to stagger to my feet than it was after being knocked out by the farffle venom. I grip the bars in my cell’s window to stay upright.
“Ami! You’re—oh.” Trygg’s grin fades. “It’s a good thing there isn’t a mirror in your cell.”
“What are you...” I trail off as I see the backs of my hands. They are covered in a bright red rash. My arms too are covered. “My face...is it...”
“Sorry. It is. A little puffy too.” Trygg winces. “It’s just a rash, right? It should go away.”
“It’s probably a reaction to the smoke Melltra breathes out. It isn’t regular smoke. It’s purple and stings and burns. It must be some sort of noxious gas.” I drag in another breath, trying to ignore the ache in my chest. The fumes are probably magical in nature, and I’m not sure what sort of reaction I might have to them. I lean against my cell’s door. “I think I told her about sending a message to the naiads. I’m not really sure what I said. I...”
“It’s okay, Ami.” Trygg’s deep brown eyes are focused on me, his mouth flat and unsmiling. “Considering how bad you look...it must’ve been pretty horrible. I wish...” He shakes his head, his fingers tightening on the bars of his cell.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Even my tears sting and burn.
I don’t want to see Trygg like this. He’s Trygg. He doesn’t do serious. He’s supposed to be all grins and jokes and reckless daring.
But if we get out of this alive, I don’t think any of us are going to be quite the same. We can’t be.
“I’m sorry, Princess Amarani.” Nella’s voice quakes, and I don’t have to look to know she’s crying. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. I’m sorry I got caught getting the keys.”<
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“No, I’m sorry.” Somewhere through the haze, I remember Melltra telling me, shortly before I blacked out, that none of us would be getting any more water. “She isn’t going to give us any more food. Or water.”
That’s a death sentence for all of us, but most of all for Nella. The rest of us can last a few days without water, even though we will be miserable. But Nella is a naiad. They are water in many ways. She’ll die within a day—literally dry up where she is in her cell—without water.
And she’s already used so much water sending her message and during the scouting mission.
“Melltra didn’t ask about anything else besides the message the water creature sent?” Unlike the rest of us, Herockghyrra’s voice carries the same scornful tone it always does.
I force my eyes open. I blink several times before my vision focuses enough to make out her face between the bars of her cell’s window. She isn’t looking at me, but inspecting something below the level of the window. Probably her fingernails again.
“No, she didn’t.” It feels like that must be somehow important. Herockghyrra wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t. But I can’t seem to figure out what she’s getting at.
Herockghyrra raises an eyebrow as she turns to face me. “Then I don’t know why everyone is losing hope and thinking this is the end of our chances. We still have this.”
It takes me a few seconds to recognize the object she holds up. The piece of metal she’d broken off the grate in her cell.
Plan A.
A surge of new strength fills me, and my hands and legs grow steadier. This isn’t over yet.
“Amy? If you’re planning on picking the locks, you’re...” Brett’s voice trails off into a cough. He gathers a deep breath. “You’re going to have to do it soon if you want pointers from me.”
I pull myself straighter. I’m not fragile. I’m not going to break. Not with one setback. Not with fifty.
Because this is about more than me. It’s about more than my streaming eyes, congested nose, and itching, puffy skin. It’s even about more than just my life.
