Twenty
Griffin
Last night, Griffin had returned to the dungeons and moved Raleigh’s and the guards’ bodies to a cold storage room, hiding them behind enormous ale barrels. The cold would hide the smell long enough, he hoped.
He went back to the old queen’s room, where he put Maggie, finding her on the floor, tucked behind the bed, in the throes of a nightmare. He stayed with her, holding her, worried it would be the last time he would ever get to touch her. His plan was reckless. Outlandish. Impossible—but it was all he could think of.
Griffin went to Jori before dawn, telling him that Raleigh was in the Middle, dealing with unrest at the marketplace, but that Maggie was well guarded in the queen’s rooms. Jori seemed to believe in Griffin’s fealty, yet went to see her with his own eyes. “Just to be sure.”
Jori had the guards remove Esmera and Sybil from the tunnel before speaking to him. He waved at a soldier who brought Griffin’s and Malcolm’s swords. The soldier passed Malcolm his weapon, then, at the prince’s request, gave Griffin’s to Jori. He held it up, checking the sharpness and balance as if he was about to enter the arena. “Maggie was where you said she would be.” Jori winced a smile, handing the weapon to him. “I hope you take no offense at my . . . confirmation.”
Griffin did his own testing of the blade, hoping Jori would leave, but he didn’t. He stretched an arm, leaning on the wall. “Griffin, where did you sleep last night?”
“What? What are you accusing me of?”
Jori walked around him. “I was told you left the queen’s room before dawn this morning.”
“You were told wrong.” Griffin chuckled. “You’re growing as paranoid as your father, Jori. You have the throne. You have Maggie.”
“I do. And she cannot escape. Not this time.”
Griffin smirked. “She’s a wily creature. And powerful, as you well know. What makes you so sure?”
“She’s shackled.”
“Why?” Griffin asked more vehemently than he should have.
“Her power,” Jori confessed, “is stronger than anything either of us has seen. I’ve bound her for the same reason we bind the creature you are about to face. To avoid becoming lunch.”
Griffin gasped.
The dagger pierced his skin below his ribs. The blade was so light and sharp, the blow so hard, it cut through him like a butcher’s first strike on a pig, deep and with purpose. Griffin couldn’t breathe. He kept his back against the wall to keep from falling over.
Jori twisted the grip, then let his hand fall. “Your dagger. I return it to you. You won the bet after all.”
Griffin looked down at the jeweled hilt protruding from his gut. The seeping blood was barely noticeable on his new black tunic.
“Now go out there and put on a good show.”
“Griffin?” Malcolm caught his arm. “Griffin, what the hell? Jori!”
He slid his sword back into his scabbard. “Maggie! We have to get Maggie!”
Guards blocked the stairwell. More filed in from outside the arena, filling the tunnel.
“I have an announcement,” Jori said to the guards. “As soon as it’s over, Sir Malcolm and Sir Griffin will enter the arena. Tell Perig to bring Rendicryss.”
Jori vanished into the stairwell. Malcolm propped Griffin against the wall beside the lift and waved, yelling for Maggie. Fruitless. Even if she heard, she would never be able to get down the stairs. There were too many guards. And her hands were bound. Griffin looked down. The Phantombronze dagger. His dagger, which the king had gifted him. He threw his head back, laughing. The message was unmistakable. Jori had been plotting for this day from the first moment his father favored Griffin.
All along he had acted, pretended, waited for the opening he needed. Well, his moment had certainly come.
The pain in Griffin’s abdomen was unlike anything he ever felt before. Cold more than hot, like the blade was forged with the same kind of magic that lived in Maggie.
“That’s it. . . .” The answer to freeing Rendicryss hit him like a bolt of lightning. Bracing his back against the wall, Griffin pulled the Phantombronze dagger out. He fell to his knees, but managed to slide it into his belt before the guards hefted him to standing.
Jori’s voice echoed through the arena. Griffin heard him tell everyone of his father’s death at a traitor’s hands. The people’s reactions were swift and filled with disbelief and fear.
Jori told the crowd of the duplicity of Xavier the Ambrosius and revealed that Maggie was the true sorceress. “I will ensure your safety and guarantee the superiority of our kingdom in one fell stroke, by taking control of this sorceress and her immense power.” Then he ushered her to the front of the balcony, in chains. “Before the sun sets on this day, she shall be my wife.”
Outrage. He could feel it radiating off every man and woman seated in the arena.
The stands broke into a unified stamping. Griffin glimpsed flags waving in the Bottom section. Maggie’s scar sketched on them. Above the noise, Griffin could just make out Jori saying Maggie’s name and fiancée in the same sentence. There were boos and jeers and angry voices. The frustration in Jori’s voice as he tried to silence them kept Griffin’s heart beating, kept him alive and present much longer than he should have been.
Griffin never heard Duncan call for them to enter the ring. He didn’t remember being lowered by the lift, but suddenly, Griffin was there. The throngs chanting his name while gasping as he stumbled here and there. His sword in his hand was somehow too heavy to hold. It clanked uselessly on the ground. Not that he would use it. Griffin had only one goal before he died: to save Maggie. For that, he hoped he had all he needed.
Rendicryss’s chains rustled from deep inside the shaft of the tunnel in the keep. Malcolm drew an axe.
Griffin reached for Malcolm’s shoulder, but missed and fell over. The crowd went wild with panic, demanding he get up. Malcolm knelt, his eyes fixed on the keep’s dark tunnel.
Griffin grabbed his knee. “The pulleys; we have to break the wheels.”
“Are you mad? That dragon will have enough lead to kill people in the stands. To reach my sisters!”
“Have faith, Malcolm.”
“A dying man’s last words are always of faith. Why is that, Griffin?”
“Because a dying man’s last deeds are righteous.” He rolled forward, yanking the dagger out, turning it over to Malcolm. “Phantombronze. I can’t fight off the guards to get to the pulleys. You can.”
“But the dragon?”
“She will be sufficiently distracted. Help me up.”
Malcolm lifted him, then sprinted into the gloom of the keep.
Griffin held on to his bleeding stomach with one hand and reached for his sword with the other. The cold burn spread through his abdomen until he couldn’t feel the wound anymore. He couldn’t feel much of anything at all.
He heard Maggie call his name, but was afraid to look up. Cries of dissent echoed from the people. The stadium shook. The air vibrated with Maggie’s name. Griffin’s name. Malcolm’s name. When Jori tried to calm them, the chant changed.
“Let us out.”
“Open the gate!”