Caledon glances down at the handkerchief, then scoots back and opens his hands, which are tied behind his back. His fingers close around the fabric before he slides it up his sleeve. “You’re not alone,” I add impulsively, letting go of the bars just as the guard looks in my direction. I’m not sure what I’m going to do or how I’m going to do it, but I have to help him.
I back away, holding my hood across the bottom of my face, and slip through the back of the crowd. I walk a few yards, following the road, then stand on the front step of the Brass Crab to watch the cart move on. Caledon stares at me as it goes, eyebrows knit together in confusion. I can’t tell for sure whether he knows I’m the girl from the abbey.
His gaze roots me to the spot, and the world around me drifts away into the background; there’s only the road ahead, and Caledon. We remain this way—watching each other—for a long, long time, until the cart finally disappears over the hill.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Caledon
THE JOURNEY TO DEERSIA IS grueling—and painfully slow. The brittle cart bumps relentlessly over deeply rutted roads as it winds its way into the foothills of the border mountains. Before they’ve even reached the halfway point, Cal’s legs are already sore and bruised, his arms and shoulders ache from being held behind his back, his wrists chafe raw against the rough restraints.
For the first part of the trip he resists the urge to fight or flee. Even if it wouldn’t be difficult to escape from the tightly (but poorly, he notes) knotted ropes and overtake the guard and the driver, he cannot. He has been given an assignment and he must see it out.
The two men don’t speak to him. They hardly speak to each other, either, and when they do, it’s about nothing useful—just boasts about women, gambling, more women. So Cal has plenty of time to consider what happened with the strange girl in town. Who is she? Why did she give him . . . ? What did she give him? He struggles to grasp it in his fingers again. Just a scrap of cloth? Or is it a message from the Guild? He tries not to curse aloud; he’s pushed whatever it is even farther up his sleeve.
Is she his replacement? Could the Guild have already chosen the new assassin? He feels a burst of irritation at the thought. He hadn’t considered the possibility of someone taking his position so soon. And then immediately: No, he is not so easily replaced. More likely she was simply a messenger. Finally, he manages to get ahold of the edge and yanks the fabric down into a ball in his hand. He doesn’t want the guards to see that he has it. He squeezes it but doesn’t feel anything sewn into the material.
Maybe he’d seen her around town before? He tries to remember. She looked so familiar, and yet he couldn’t quite place her. Had she been selling sunflowers in front of the haberdashery last week? No, that girl had lighter hair, pinker skin, a bright yellow shawl. This one wore a merchant’s dress in muted colors, tans and browns, and a hooded linen cape. With a long, thick chestnut braid over her shoulder, woven with a lavender ribbon. Cowlicky curls framing her forehead. Big brown eyes, skin the color of amber honey.
The girl at the abbey. She also had dark hair, he thinks, though he can’t exactly remember seeing it. Maybe it’s her black hood that he remembers, not her hair? He didn’t get a good look at her face that day. She was gone almost as soon as he showed up to save her life. And look where that got him.
The fortress of Deersia—formerly Castle Deersia, used by the earliest members of the Dellafiore dynasty—looms in the fog up ahead. The tall gray structure, as ragged and menacing as the mountains around it, sits on the highest point for a mile in any direction, with sheer cliffs on three sides. It appears to grow naturally from the rock itself, and that’s by design; the base of the castle was carved out of the very mountain on which it sits, making it as indestructible as its surroundings. The Dellafiores intended this to be a reminder of their power—as natural and awe-inspiring as the earthly creations of Deia Herself. Only the upper levels were constructed by human hands, with stone quarried at the foot of the mountains and dragged up the skinny road or hoisted up the sides with pulleys. It cost a fortune, in coin, years, and labor, not to mention lives. Almost every family in Renovia has stories of ancestors who died while building Deersia.
The road is the only way to access the building. Or leave it alive. Caledon’s heart sinks into his gut. The prison was chosen for the most difficult captives. How long will he be stuck here? When will the queen send for him?
The ride uphill feels longer than the entire trip did up to that point. Parts of the path are so narrow the cart turns slightly on its side. Cal’s stomach lurches each time it sways. He decides to close his eyes the rest of the way.
They come to a stop in front of the entrance, where a shabbily dressed man holding a lantern waits for them. A large iron ring full of keys hangs from his belt. The guard flips down the back of the cart and yanks Cal out, tossing him onto the ground in front of the gates. “Now get up,” the guard says.
Cal doesn’t say what he wants to say; he bites his tongue instead.
“I said get up,” the guard repeats. Cal struggles to stand. His right foot is numb and his legs are wobbly from sitting on them for so many hours. When he begins to rise, the guard pushes him down with his boot. “Try again,” he says.
Would it have been so bad to let the prison guard in on the plan? Cal thinks. It’s going to be a long stay, even if it’s only a few days, as he hopes.
The keeper at the gate steps forward and addresses the guard. “All right, Edmun. Enough. Plenty of time for all that.” They both chuckle.
Once Cal’s finally to his feet, the guard takes out a blindfold and wraps it around his eyes. From there he’s dragged all the way through the fortress, the guard on one side and the keeper on the other. He trips, purposely, to slow down the guards and get some idea of what’s around him, but they just continue to yank him along until he manages to get his feet back under him again. “You know that’s not helping, right?” he says. They don’t respond, just pull harder. He decides it’s better to keep his comments to himself after that. Instead he listens for other prisoners. There’s surprisingly little noise aside from the raspy breath of his captors and their feet shuffling against the floor. He knows he can’t be alone in the fortress. They must be keeping him in an isolated wing.
He concentrates on memorizing how many steps they take before each turn, and whether they turn left or right, to create a crude map of the prison in his head. They go up at least four flights of stairs, the last even steeper than the others. They are so high up that he can feel a slight sway in the building from the wind. The air is thin too; the guard stops to catch his breath. They must be in one of the tall, skinny turrets. At least he’ll have a nice view.
They jerk him to a stop. He hears metal keys clanging together and the creak of rusty hinges, a thick door sliding open against the uneven floor. The guard pulls the scarf down from Cal’s eyes, leaving it dangling around his neck. He’s in a cell with a tiny barred window that looks out beyond the cliff, past the Renovian Sea, all the way into Montrice. “Best room in the house!” the keeper says. “Got a privy and everything!” He whistles.