7. Sage

CHAPTER 7

Sage

Sawyer's eyes widened with realization. "I might not be able to petition the king to free you from the Black Tower without you being severely punished or be able to convince him that my name had been drawn in error. If he truly is Edred's ally, then we'll both end up in prison or dead."

"Which means our only way out of this is for you to find a way to break the binding spell." I grabbed his arm, urging him to start moving again. "And we can't do that here. We need to get to your room, get supplies, and get into the tunnel before Edred sends someone to fetch me."

"Except I can't remove the binding spell," he said, trying to keep up with me and catch his breath as we rounded the corner to the back of the keep.

Udara, still sitting on the kitchen step, watched us approach. She dropped a clean potato in the bucket beside her and picked up another one, but I couldn't tell from her expression if she'd heard the news or not. It had only been a few minutes at most and both Dodd and me — the people Edred usually used to run messages — were busy. That, and even if it broke her heart that Sawyer's name had been drawn and she knew it was wrong, she wouldn't speak up against Edred. No one would.

"My lord," she said, bowing her head at Sawyer while still scrubbing her potato.

"Udara," Sawyer replied as we hurried inside, stepping out of the oppressive heat into a just as hot kitchen then beyond into a cooler, dimly lit, servants' stairwell.

We hurried up the stairs to Sawyer's room and rushed inside.

"I'm not a sorcerer," he said, continuing the conversation Udara's presence had interrupted. "I can't break a fae spell."

"But you're smart and you have a knack for finding obscure pieces of information." If my strange ability was a heightened intuition, Sawyer's was accidentally discovering just that perfect, obscure detail to baffle his tutors. "If anyone can find a way to break or circumvent the binding spell, it's you."

I opened the large trunk at the foot of his bed, pulled out his rucksack, and shoved in two shirts, two pairs of pants, and Sawyer's old, worn, brown jerkin.

"It's more likely I'll be able to figure out who Edred coerced into manipulating the lottery results."

I jerked my attention to him. "Don't you dare. If Edred's influence goes all the way to His Majesty, the second you show your face in court, even if you wait until you're of age and no longer need Edred's help to approach the king, you'll be imprisoned or killed."

"So what?" he asked. "I just run away?"

"Right now. Yes. You run away until it no longer makes sense for the Black Guard to come after you once they discover the truth." I rummaged to the bottom of the trunk, pulled out the short sword and dagger Sawyer had been given when he was a child then grabbed his old pair of boots and his cloak and shoved them into his arms. "Now come on."

We rushed back into the hall and down the servants' stairs, stopping just out of sight at the bottom. A quick glance around the corner confirmed no one was in the kitchen and Udara still sat on the step scrubbing potatoes with her back turned to us.

With a jerk of my chin, I indicated it was all clear, just like I used to when we were children and were sneaking into the kitchen to steal Udara's freshly baked tarts. But instead of taking tarts, Sawyer wrapped the handful of apples, the half-eaten loaf of bread, and the chunk of cheese sitting on the countertop in his cloak, and I grabbed a candle and holder and lit the wick in the kitchen's fire. Then we hurried down the stairs into the cellar and went straight to the narrow wooden door at the back that was partially hidden behind a stack of barrels.

A heavy wooden beam secured the door against outside intruders, and I handed Sawyer the candleholder and set down the weapons and rucksack so I could lift the beam with both hands and try to silently set it on the floor.

Thankfully, I didn't make much noise as I struggled with the beam, and I tucked it against the wall as out of sight as possible and gathered my things. We wouldn't be able to secure the door after we left, but the moment Edred realized we were gone and hadn't left by the main gate, he'd know we slipped out through the tunnel.

I could only pray that it would take him a while to figure out what had happened, that no one would accidentally notice that the bar on the tunnel door had been removed, and that we'd have enough time to get to Olinon and use the fae ring.

Once we'd gone through the ring, the only way Edred would know where we'd gone was if someone in the village had watched us leave. And I was hoping even if someone did, their dislike of Edred and their love for our mother and father would protect us… at least until we'd taken a second ring to another location.

Knowing the hinges on the door creaked, I slowly eased the door open.

Inside lay a long narrow staircase, the steps, walls, and ceiling smooth, carved from the stone Herstind castle sat on.

I didn't know why the tunnel had been originally built. If the castle was under siege, it was a serious weakness in its defenses, but I'd been told it had been built as a means of escape for women and children — or in Edred's case, Edred himself — in the event that a siege had turned dire or the main gate had been breached.

Sawyer, still holding the candle went first, his partially swallowed coughs making the flame tremble. His pace was slower than I liked but it was as fast as I knew he could handle without completely losing his breath.

The air was cool, nothing like the cold I'd felt from the mist in my vision, but it reminded me of what I'd seen.

I didn't know how I'd actually seen it, but I knew in every fiber of my being that it was true… or would have been true if Sawyer had become a member of the Black Guard. What I didn't know was how I'd seen it in the first place or what it might mean.

I'd had premonitions since I was a child. A sense of dread would overwhelm me and leave me wondering what was going to happen and when. Everyone said I just had a nervous disposition, but then the dread turned into a vague knowing, a storm was coming, the brigands were going to attack a nearby village, the winter's yearly sweating sickness would be worse than usual.

I'd kept it a secret for fear someone would claim I was fae-touched and send me to the king to be used like the handful of other fae-touched humans discovered in Erellod. And when mother had married Edred, I tried even harder to keep my ability a secret, knowing he wouldn't hand me over to His Majesty, he'd keep me for himself.

Over the last couple of years, the premonitions had grown stronger and more frequent, and the sense of what and when had also grown stronger. But I'd never actually seen anything before, and now I couldn't make myself stop seeing Sawyer's lifeless eyes staring into nothing, the cold mist swirling around him, and the Shadow Gate towering above him.

I hugged the rucksack tighter as if it would help keep me warm against the cool air. I was going into that mist and going to see that gate in person. I was going to have to lie and pray I could keep lying until Sawyer had left the Five Great Kingdoms and had gotten as far away from any fae ring as possible, and I had no idea if I could actually do that.