Chapter 17

I turned back to the room only to grab my shouldersack before creeping out into the corridor. Wracking my brain to remember how I got here, I jogged down to my left.

I had to find the thrall’s quarters. There was no way I was leaving without Lhoris and Kara.

I roamed the halls, keeping my feet as light as I could and careful not to make any unnecessary sounds. I only saw one guard, a human sitting in front of a large door decorated with a skull. He was nodding his head in sleep, and in the low light provided by the wall sconces, it was easy to slip past him.

I stayed on the level I was on until I was certain the thrall’s quarters were not on that floor. I reached a staircase dressed with a plush black carpet. Choosing down, I pressed myself to the wall and rushed down the spiral stairway.

It took me what I guessed was most of an hour, but eventually, I found a large archway leading into a hallway furnished with a long wooden table. Stations at the table had clearly been set up for embroidery, polishing, knife sharpening, and various other menial tasks. Six doors led off the rooms, and all of them had grates lined with iron bars across the top.

I crept up to the first door and peered in. It was a bunk room, sleeping figures filling four beds. None of them looked like Kara or Lhoris, so I moved on.

I looked through the bars of the fourth door, and the room only held two occupants.

My heart swooped in my chest, hope filling me on seeing them. It looked like Ellisar had been telling the truth. Lhoris and Kara had been kept separate from the other thralls.

The huge, hunched figure of Lhoris completely filled one bunk. Kara’s tiny form pressed to the wall on another, taking up barely any space at all. Reaching and scrabbling about for anything to throw, I found nothing. I moved to the table and found a tin of ivory buttons. Picking up a couple, I moved back to their door and threw a button in, aiming for Lhoris.

As I had hoped, the warrior instinct in him reacted instantly. He sat bolt upright, his hands in fists and eyes alert.

I shoved my hand through the bars, waving at him.

“It’s me,” I hissed, as he jumped up from the bed and came to the door. He gripped my hand through the iron bars, relief filling his eyes.

“You are unhurt?” he whispered.

“Yes. Completely. You? Kara?”

He nodded. “They put us in here, fed us, and have not been back. How did you get out?”

“Somebody pushed a key under my door.”

Surprise and then concern crossed his features. “Who?”

“Maybe Ellisar? He has been sympathetic to us so far. And he is human.”

Lhoris scowled. “He is a traitor.”

“Whoever it was, I don’t plan to waste the opportunity. Do you know how we can get you out? Where do they keep the keys?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“You don’t suppose…” I pushed my hand into my pocket and pulled out the key that had been given to me. I had little to no belief it would work, but it cost nothing to try. I slipped it into the lock on the door.

Lhoris’ eyes widened as it turned with a click. “Odin’s beard, somebody in here likes you.” He ran over to Kara’s bed, touching her shoulder lightly. “Come, girl. We are leaving.”

“What? But…” Her sleepy eyes cleared when she rolled over and saw me standing in the doorway. Tears filled them as she leaped up and raced to me, wrapping her arms around my waist in a fierce hug.

I embraced her back, feeling emotion flood my own cheeks, making me hot. “Hey,” I said, pressing my face to the top of her head.

“Are we really leaving?”

“Yes. We are.”

* * *

I knew we needed to head for the grand hall, and the exit. We couldn’t leave through the secret cavern we’d been brought in through, since the Prince’s shadow magic had created the door in the rock. But, there must be a way in and out. If we followed one of the many staircases down, we would eventually find the main hall, and the way to freedom.

I led my friends down the same spiral staircase I’d come down to find them, checking each landing as we reached it.

“I believe the gates to the palace will be on the lowest level,” Lhoris whispered.

“I agree. All the way to the bottom?”

He nodded, and we kept heading down. When there were no more steps, we made our way silently along the narrow landing. There were no doors here at all, and the walls were decorated differently, I realized. Still the same shade of dried blood, but there were faint silver imprints on the red, making up images. They were mostly animals. Snakes and ravens I expected now, but there were also wolves and bears and huge lizards.

“I don’t recognize this,” I hissed at Lhoris.

“There will be an exit somewhere,” he murmured.

We made our way all the way down the corridor until it ended in a door. It was made from solid wood, and decorated with one giant claw.

“This doesn't look like an exit,” Kara whispered.

“No,” I agreed. “It doesn't. But it must lead to one. Let’s go. The palace will be waking up soon, and we need to be long gone.”

We pushed the door open, and stepped into the room beyond.

The smell was immediately different. Hay and shit.

We all paused, the gloom thick and hard to see in after the relative light of the corridors. “Stables?” offered Lhoris quietly.

“Maybe.” Only, horseshit didn’t smell this bad. Whatever made the horrid stench must eat meat, I thought.

As my eyes adjusted, I could make out stalls on either side of us, lining a long path through the gloomy room. Except they looked nothing like horse stalls. They were made of iron bars, and stretched the full height of the room, keeping whatever was inside them trapped.

I swallowed down my building nerves, and stepped further into the room. “Come on. You must be able to get out at the other end.”

I looked into the stall on my right as we passed, keeping my fingers crossed for a horse.

It was empty, but the back wall had a large, square doorway, hinged at the top, dim light showing around the four edges. A door for the animal to get outside?

Hopefully, whatever creatures were kept in the stalls were all out there.

We hurried along, all my senses on high alert for any noise or movement that seemed out of place.

Lhoris and I drew up to a halt at the same time, both shooting an arm out to stop Kara moving any further forward.

"What’s wrong?” she whispered fearfully.

“Hear that?”

A snarling, growling sound came from up ahead.

“Yes.”

“Let’s go slowly.”

We resumed moving, but at a fraction of the pace. Every stall I peered into was empty. But the growling grew louder.

Something caught my eye, movement in front of me, and my stomach lurched. I froze. But it was a feather, snowy white, drifting to the dusty ground right at my feet. I looked up and saw a brief blur of white. A soft hoot sounded, and the blur became an owl, swooping in front of us. He perched on the bars of the stall to our left and I stared at him, trying to suppress the uneasy feeling crawling through me.

Owls, in the ancient legends, were guides to the underworld. In this dark and dusky place he stood out as much as I did.

“Perhaps you are a pet of a spoiled fae?” I whispered.

He was beautiful enough to be a prized pet. He had a white face surrounded by a golden mane of feathers, which blended back to white on his lower body. He fluttered his wings out. They were white, too, with golden tips and speckles of gold across the softer down and across his chest.

Dropping down, I picked up the feather that had dropped at my feet. A voice entered my head, instantly.

“Am I mistaken in thinking that your hair is not brown?”

I sucked in a startled breath and dropped the feather.

The owl hooted again, launched from his perch, and picked it up in his beak. Both Lhoris and I had ducked instinctively as soon as the owl had taken off, but Kara was standing, open-mouthed. The owl dropped the feather before her, and she caught it. Her eyes widened instantly. “Erm, yes. Her hair is copper,” she said quietly, before holding the feather out to me. “He wants to talk to you.”

Hesitantly, I straightened and took the feather from her. “In my capacity as your magnificently wise protector, I should warn you that the gates have been opened,” the male voice said in my head.

I tried to process the words as the owl blinked at me, settling back on the bars. “I’ve lost it,” I muttered. “It’s all been too much, and my mind has broken.”

“Then I will leave now. I have no time for broken minds,” the voice said.

“Are you really talking to me?”

His wings folded over his back again, and he shifted his weight between his taloned feet. “Yes. Although the conversation is not promising, so far.”

“How? How are you talking to me?” My voice was a croak of confusion.

“As long as you hold my feather, you will hear me.”

“Who—, why—” I shook my head, trying to think straight.

“I shall overlook the fact that you are not on your knees, revering me as you should, because you seem fairly stupid. Also, you are about to be eaten.”

“Eaten?”

“Yes.”

I looked up at the path between the stalls ahead, and realized the growling had been joined by the mechanical sound of metal grinding. Lhoris looked between me and the path.

“Did you just say eaten?” he said.

“Erm, yes. Eaten by what?”

The owl didn’t need to answer me. There was a roar, and the most enormous bear I had ever seen barreled out of a stall just twenty feet ahead of us.