“What happened? Lyria! Are you all right? Wake up!”
She went limp in my arms, and I was lucky to catch her, it happened so fast.
Chapter 24
Lyria’s eyelids fluttered as I pulled the blankets over her after she had once again kicked them away in her restless sleep. She mumbled something I couldn’t make out. I pressed my palm to her forehead, to check if she was developing a fever, though it didn’t seem to have anything to do with having a fever. It had to be strain from using all that magic. She had been talking in her sleep, too, telling me all kinds of fractured tales that had to do with courtiers, fae riches, dark corridors and night…With my touch, as I felt her forehead, she peered at me through squinted eyes. Slowly, she seemed to come to. In the hazy evening light of our dungeon cell, she seemed positively ghostly, her beautiful golden brown skin ashen.
“Are you okay? Lyria? Come to me. Are you okay? I was so worried…Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay…I…Someone saw me,” she muttered. “Not Cantillion. A woman, a fae woman. But Cantillion was there, too, in the background, and he reacted….Then it all becomes a blur. I don’t know what happened then. I must have pulled away from the connection or lost my hold of the Unity necklace.”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
She shook her head, looking tired. I went to get the water flask, brought it to her, and raised it to her lips. She drank it almost empty. The paleness of her face was already making way to a healthier look.
“How long have I been passed out or sleeping?”
“Since yesterday.”
She stirred and looked down at her blankets, likely checking if she had injuries or perhaps if she had thrown up, I imagined, or soiled her blankets. She hadn’t, but I’d given her a new blanket just now, because she had been drenched with sweat.
“And is it evening now? Really, so long? They could be here any minute,” she said, struggling to prop herself up against an elbow.
“Who could be here? Cantillion? Do you think he could tell where you are, just from the connection through the necklace?”
“Yes! It’s part of it. They’d know, if they recognize the place…in some fashion. I hear that with practice, they can look at these images quite clearly. Although, like I said, I really don’t know very much about this. But I could feel Cantillion there in the vision I saw, and he was looking straight at me, a look of recognition flashing onto his face and a kind of feral, victorious, gloating look, as if I’d done exactly what he expected me to do.” She sighed. “Skies, I’m famished.”
“Of course you are,” I said, hurrying to get her something to eat from the foods Taramon’s soldiers had brought.
We were sitting down, eating from the ample collection of feast dishes we had been given, when we heard noise from the outside. Lyria was offering me the dark bread with seeds and a white one; we had collected the different fruit and cheeses and loafs of bread that Taramon was providing, and put together a batch from over a few days, so that we could enjoy a sort of a dungeon prisoner’s buffet. We had quite a collection of fruit platters now. Taramon was keeping us well fed, that I had to give him. I was glad to see Lyria had the strength to eat, and she ate like a wolf now that she had woken up from her long sleep.
The noise came from the yard. Clamoring, crashing, perhaps weapons clanging. We shared glances.
Then the sounds were nearing, and what was most clear was that a guard was telling someone to stop, and then there was the clang of swords…and a terrifying scream, followed by yelling from a small crowd.
And lots of people joining in, a fight starting.
Lyria stood up, her face serious. The sounds of battle were unmistakeable and heartbreaking. I got up to my feet as well, with my hand instinctively going to my spelling stones. We both rushed to the window as if by mutual agreement.
Lots of men moved about, forty, fifty. Fae capes billowed and silver glinted in the moonlight. I spotted a group of Taramon’s guards getting together to form a shield against whoever was attacking, a formation, but a fae spear broke them up.
In a huge crash that made us both swirl around, the door broke in, splinters flying, whole tiles of stone hitting the cell walls. A tide of lilac mist swirled above it all — fae magic.
“How…?” I muttered, but pulled myself together and immediately started on my best spell. “They broke the wall with nothing but that magic…?” It chilled me inside. Hadn’t Lyria’s father built this to be a fae-proof cell?
“There’s so many of them,” Lyria said in a steel harsh voice. “They can unite their magic powers. I’m afraid we’ll see it in action…Stick with me, stay inches from me.”
It felt like a blow, just when I’d began to trust my own powers. The moonlight coming in from the doorway was blocked as a tall figure paused there, arms raised to the sides of the entrance — Cantillion, clad in crimson robes and brandishing a spear, looking every bit the warring race the fae were said to be.
He stepped in, almost too tall to easily fit in the opening, his broad figure filling the entrance entirely. First thing, he took in the entire chamber, before he took that second step over the shambles that landed him into the cell. I was reminded of how he would see in the dark with his fae eyes. Only now I realized Lyria had seen it all, too, all this time, the bones, the dust, everything. Not that it mattered much at the moment, but in a fleeting thought, I felt sorry for her, and thought I understood one tiny morsel of what she was struggling with.
“I knew you’d come around, Lyria,” Cantillion said. “You’re a smart woman. I knew we’d meet again, only, didn’t expect this so soon.”
“Cantillion,” Lyria said, and from her tense voice I could tell she wasn’t going to be easily shaken or talked over. “We have no agreement yet.”
“I assumed you had taken a good look at your realities and were finally agreeing to our deal?”
“That was your own assumption. I merely called you to restart our negotiations.”
“Ah, yes…And you didn’t have a clue what you were doing,” Cantillion was quick to say. “The look on your face was like a scared child’s. Did you know what you were seeing? You were watching a rite of fertility, and you interrupted a lady of rather high esteem,” Cantillion laughed, lifting his chin as he bellowed, freely and heartily, but with a lethal harshness to it. “The whole world saw it. It was quite a surprising turn.”
“I’m sure it was. I don’t care that much about your politics, to feel embarrassed by a very human reaction.”
“Human, eh,” Cantillion said with a lop-sided grin.
Lyria brushed it aside. “If I agree to your deal, what will I get in return?”
“You want your castles and your dear kingdom?”
Lyria spread her hands to the sides in a faint gesture.
“I shall deliver them to you with a bow on top, if you convince your human kings to join me in my effort. You speak their language. You understand their strange ways.”
“My ways,” Lyria said sternly.
“Yes, certainly, apart from throwing around a bit of courazs,” Cantillion said dismissively. “What shall it be?”