David Wells - Linkershim

Wren sniffed back her tears and frowned. “I don’t think I really understood what you’ve been fighting for until right now. I’ve always thought of evil as something you hear about in stories-make-believe. But it’s not, is it? It’s real.”

Isabel nodded sadly, another tear slipping down her cheek. “This is part of growing up that I didn’t want you to have to do, but I’m proud of you. Some people can stare into the face of evil all their lives and never really understand what they’re looking at.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“I came here to kill Phane. I got a knife into his belly, just not deeply enough. I have a plan to finish the job but I can’t do it alone, so I’m trying to call for help. Failing that, we need to escape, and that means we need to find a way out. Since the guards will be watching me carefully, I need you to explore the city for me.”

“But won’t the guards stop me?”

“No, Phane wants me to kill you; it’s an important part of his plan, so he’s ordered his men to leave you alone.”

“Except when he’s ordering them to hit me,” she said, touching her cheek tenderly.

“He did that to provoke me, and it worked,” Isabel said, shaking her head. “I have to be more careful, I can’t let him force my hand like that.”

“If you say they won’t hurt me, then I believe you, but I’m still afraid of them.”

“Good, that fear will keep your mind alert and help you spot danger before it gets too close. I want you to avoid Phane whenever you can, but I need you to explore this place and find a way out of here if there is one. Also, if you can find a knife or two, it would be good to have a weapon.”

Wren nodded.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go out and look around a bit, both of us. After that, I’ll start sending you on errands to get you out of this house and onto the streets.”

She nodded again.

“This next thing is going to be hard,” Isabel said. “If I don’t seem like myself, you need to run away from me and hide until I can regain control. In fact, that’s something else I want you to look for, hiding places, both in the house and out in the city.”

Wren nodded again.

“You get some rest now. We’ll talk more later,” she said, offering Wren a reassuring smile.

Isabel went to the balcony and reached out to Slyder. He was perched atop a tree watching the Karth encampment. She sent him into the air, circling higher and wider in an effort to pick up the trail, but the jungle was too thick and the skills of Karth’s soldiers were too good to find any trace of their passage. After an hour of searching, she told Slyder to remain in the area, then she returned to her body.

She was sitting on the balcony thinking through her options when Wren joined her.

“I’m not that tired and my face hurts just as much when I lie down as it does when I sit. What’re you doing?”

“I was trying to send a message with Slyder, but I can’t find my friends.”

“When I was in the boat, Lord Reishi came to me and told me he was sending help. Was that just a dream?”

“No, that was him,” Isabel said, smiling to mask the lump suddenly welling up in her throat.

“Then why doesn’t he come to you now?”

“I don’t know,” Isabel whispered. “I’m terrified that something horrible has happened.”

“Isabel,” Wren said, squeezing her hand, “he’s Lord Reishi. He’s probably just really busy.”

Isabel nodded, struggling to keep from crying because she knew that something was wrong. He would have come to her if he could have. The thought of losing him was something she fled from within her own mind. Despair capable of claiming her sanity accompanied that thought-yet another pathway to victory for Azugorath.

Lacy was miserable. Her hand was healing wrong, leaving it useless and a source of constant pain. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through the night. Every time she moved, the pain would wake her and it would be an hour before she could drift back into welcome oblivion. And then there were her dreams. For weeks she’d had visions of her father beseeching her to go to Ithilian, warning her that she was going the wrong way. But nobody would listen to her when she asked to go to Ithilian. Drogan and Commander Arnd had both told her repeatedly that such a voyage was far too dangerous. They assured her that she would be safe on Karth under the protection of Prince Phane and the Regency.

She wasn’t so sure. The Regency sailors and now the Regency soldiers had a way of looking at her that made her feel uncomfortable, not the way young men look at young women, but the way the soldiers outside the walls had looked at her the day they’d come to her home and destroyed her quiet little life. At least these soldiers all looked away when Drogan caught them leering at her, but that didn’t change what was in their hearts.

The ship had docked at a city on the southwest tip of Karth. Commander Arnd said they would be safer traveling from there to the Regency headquarters fortress. Lacy wanted to ask “Safer from what?” But she knew she wouldn’t get an answer, so she held her tongue and waited.

From the looks of the place, the little sea town had recently been converted into a shipyard. The people were busy building more than a dozen warships, and the Regency soldiers seemed intent on pushing the workers to the breaking point. Seeing the working conditions, Lacy began to wonder anew if she was making a terrible mistake by coming here. But then, when she tried to imagine the course she might have taken, she couldn’t pick a point in her journey where she would have chosen differently. It was just that so many of her decisions had been made for her, all of them bringing her one step closer to where she stood this very moment.

The journey from the port town took nearly a week. A hundred soldiers rode escort and her covered carriage was armored and well manned. Drogan spent most of the journey with her but he wasn’t interested in conversation-not that Drogan was much of a talker in the first place. Lacy passed the time looking out the window at the staggering variety of foliage in the lush jungle.

When they neared their destination, she couldn’t see the fortress wall because the carriage didn’t offer a forward view, but she did see the heavy stone gates and the array of defensive apertures cut into the hundred-foot tunnel leading through the wall. When the carriage slipped back into the light of day, it turned sharply before coming to a stop. A moment later, a soldier opened the door to the sound of trumpets in the distance.

The soldier offered his hand with a smile and a deferential bow. Unlike the other soldiers, he was wearing a clean and well-pressed uniform with a number of medals prominently displayed on his chest, and was armed with only a bejeweled short sword dangling from his hip.

She took his hand and stepped onto a carpet leading from her carriage to a small white gazebo that was terribly out of place in the austere stone square. Over a dozen high-ranking soldiers awaited her, each accompanied by a woman wearing expensive-looking dresses and jewels. Standing in the center of them all was a very handsome man wearing a dark brown robe that matched the color of his wavy, shoulder-length hair.

“I am Captain Erato,” the soldier said, offering her his arm once she’d stepped from the carriage. “Welcome to the Regency headquarters fortress. Please, come with me.” He spoke with charm, elegance, and practiced ease. His confidence in such a suddenly formal setting only served to undermine Lacy’s.

He walked her to the gazebo, stopping directly in front of the man in the robe. “Prince Phane, Generals and Ladies, it is my honor and privilege to present Princess Lacy Fellenden.” With that, Erato stepped back, bowing low and taking a place just outside the gazebo as if standing a ceremonial guard post.