Fel stood guard, his hand on his mace as he watched the doorways. Judging by his expression, he believed the captain wasn’t frolicking over the countryside, as he’d suggested, but would return and try again to capture her.
Once Syla depressed the button, the equipment rolled to the side on oiled hinges and revealed a square trapdoor in the wooden floor of the stage. She opened it easily and peered into the empty space under the stage as well as at another trapdoor in the flagstone below.
After she swung down, shadows cloaking her, she knelt on it. Flush with the floor, this door didn’t have a handle. She pressed her fingers against the cool stone, willing her magic into it, much as when she sent healing power into a patient. The trapdoor, as old as the castle itself, glowed around the edges, its ancient magic responding to hers. A faint click sounded, and a handle made of a glowing tendril appeared.
She gripped it and lifted. Since the trapdoor was made from the same flagstones as the floor, it should have been heavy, but, for her, it rose with scarcely any effort.
Below, stone stairs led deep into the ground, more than twenty feet down, to one of the ancient tunnels underneath the castle. There were sconces on the walls, but nobody had lit the torches. She looked bleakly at them, afraid that meant what she’d feared. None of her family, or even the closely trusted staff who tended them and knew some of the castle’s secrets, had made it into the escape tunnels. At least not the ones near the theater. Perhaps elsewhere…
“Let’s hope.”
“Princess Syla?” Fel knelt on the stage beside the first trapdoor. “Do you need light?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see what I can find.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t go anywhere. There may be dangers down there.”
Syla hesitated, then nodded. It was wise advice. Besides, where would she go in the dark?
Not far, but she did creep down the stairs, intending to wait at the bottom. And to see… if anything could be seen.
The bleakness filling her at the thought that nobody had escaped was so overwhelming that she couldn’t help but hope for at leastsomesign that she wasn’t alone, that she wasn’t the only surviving member of her family.
At the bottom of the stairs, the tunnel stretched in two directions. Down one way, a hint of light came into view, a torch or lantern burning. It was so far off that Syla suspected it near an entrance across the courtyard in one of the other buildings. In the other direction lay the stables, and Fel had mentioned that entrance was blocked off. That way was dark, regardless.
A shadow passed through the light at the end of the tunnel, and she jumped.
Had that been her eyes playing tricks on her? Or was someone else down there? And, if the latter, was it friend or foe? As much as she wanted to find living siblings or her mother, the dragon riders might be down here, some having lingered to explore.
“I can tell I’m going to need to find more of my bodyguard brethren to keep an eye on you,” Fel grumbled, coming down the steps behind her with two lanterns.
“Because enemies are going to keep trying to capture and question me?”
“Because you’re a pain in the ass who wanders off after agreeing to stay put.”
“I didn’twander off. I came down the stairs. And I see you’re back to eschewing pomp and propriety.”
“My sore knees, feet, hips, shoulder, and everything else are making me grumpy.”
“And prone to call a princess a pain in the ass?”
“Yeah, my left knee specifically suggested that.” Fel handed her one of the lanterns, then, less gently than he might have, pushed her against the wall so he could step past her in the tight tunnel.
Syla smiled, not offended, not in these circumstances. Fel frowned balefully toward the distant light, then looked wistfully in the other direction, as if he would prefer to go down the dark tunnel. Maybe he, too, believed they would be more likely to run into enemies than allies down here.
“I thought I saw movement in the light that way. Just for a second. It might have been nothing though.” Syla waved to her spectacles to indicate the unreliableness of her vision, though she had a feeling herbrainrather than her eyes would be to blame if she was seeing things.
“Which way to the shielder?” Fel didn’t comment on the rest.
Syla pointed toward the light.
“Naturally.” He grunted and then led off in that direction, lantern in one hand and crossbow in the other. In the narrow tunnel, he had to work to keep from scraping the edge of it on the stone walls.
When they reached the light, which marked a four-way intersection, a single lantern burned in a sconce at the corner. The cross tunnels soon turned around bends, so they couldn’t see far in those directions or tell if more lights might be burning. They couldn’t see anyone anywhere, but Syla had the sensation of being watched.
