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I reached into the pouch Asker had given me, past a piece of corn bread, and ran my fingertips over the smooth stones of salt before I pulled a random one out. Black, hairline tendrils of shadows slowly writhed within when I angled my palm toward the light. If I released them, they might offer me cover while I snuck across.
Or they might start killing everything and everyone in their path, including me. Too bad I hadn’t been able to come up with a better plan…
After an internal prayer to the gods to not let these shadows eat the flesh from my bones, I slammed my fist onto the stone the way I’d seen Darien, the dressmaker, do it.Crack.Shadows poured out from between the powdered and crystalized salt. Slowly, they slithered across the ground and expanded, extending the darkness.
Taking a deep breath and holding it for extra measure, I dove into the plumes, squinting against the blackness that encapsulated me. Gods, I couldn’t see a thing.
The wall!
I placed one palm against it, letting it guide me along rough stone, dips of mortar, patches of moss. Wood. Wood. Wood. Then rough stone again until—
I slipped around the corner and out of the shadows, nervously glancing over my shoulder at the guard as I stumbled backward into the looming darkness of the wall. He hadn’t seen me.
With a silent exhale of relief, I continued, stomping my boots into the snow along the bottom of the wall ever so carefully. Where was it? Somewhere beneath this snow, there had to be—
Thud.
I stalled and stomped again.
Thud.
Boots dragging over the snow, I shoved it all off with the edge, revealing the hatchway that hid beneath. When I was eleven or so, the builders had added this to get kindle and wood down to the guards’ and jailor’s rooms faster. Or perhaps because several guards had lost their lives in an attempt to carry wood down the spindling stone stairs, slipping on the slick rock before they hit their heads or broke their necks.
After I carefully removed the chains that secured the hatch, I lifted it away. I let myself slip into the angled slideway, making sure to lower the wooden cover while keeping one corner slightly agape. The stone chafed on my cloak on my way down into one of the storage rooms, the air inside the dungeons rank with moisture, sweat, and the scat of rodents. One jumped out of the pile of split oak on which I landed—a rat, by the size of it—scurrying into a dark corner while I skidded down the shifting pieces. So far, so good.
I slipped out of the room and checked the dimply-lit corridor, some of the oil lamps already flickering rather low for the lack of fuel.
Just like I thought, empty.
With every man, boy, and even some of the women busy preparing for a siege, there wasn’t a single soul to spare to guard prisoners locked away behind thick bars of steel. Where was she?
Regardless of the silence down here, I wouldn’t dare call out her name. Instead, I hurried from one cell to the next. Empty. Empty. A barrel. Empty. Stacked crates. Empty—
“Galantia,” a female voice croaked.
The sound of my name sent gooseflesh across my skin, eyes going to that cell across at the end of the corridor. “Marla.”
That fate better have answers about my past, considering the risk I took, should we get caught. As things stood, there probably weren’t a great many alliances left Lord Brisden could exchange me for, no benefits to overlook my treason.
I crossed the corridor, but my steps grew hesitant the closer I came to the cell and the hollow-cheeked woman who blinked at me through the tight weave of bars, her long, black hair matted in some areas, revealing bald patches in others. Squatting to her height, I reached into the satchel, retrieving another salt crystal.
“You know my name.” Not only that, but she’dexpectedme. Which was promising, putting a slight tremble in my fingers as I reached the salt crystal toward the iron lock of the door. “Tell me you’ve seen my past. Tell me you know who Itrulyam.”
She struggled herself onto her knees under groans, her shadowcloth tunic and black breeches nothing but tatters that revealed cuts, bruises, and filth. “Nobody can know who you truly are but yourself.”
That… wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for. “But you’ve seen my past?”
“For months, I’ve seen nothing else, until the—” A cough ripped through her words, wet with phlegm that put an audible rattle into her chest. Gods, she was in bad shape. “Until the visions stopped, and none came for a long time. Now I know why. You were captured and taken to Deepmarsh. The goddess showed me how you returned after having found your wings at last, just like she hoped you would.”
I swallowed. “The goddess?”
“Your mother,” she said. “The fate Lilieth.”
Lilieth. A name I’d never heard before, meaningless to my memory, yet it resonated deep in my core, reverberating through my bones until my entire body shook.Lilieth,I said silently, shifting my tongue around, tasting her name.Lilieth.
Somewhere in the dungeons, metal rattled.
We couldn’t stay here.
