Chapter 31

We're lost. There is no doubt about it. The tower was designed for this, to fool any attackers. To keep the lizards from being able to reach the important parts. We've twisted and turned over and over until I have no idea how to get back to where we entered.

"Gada, we need a torch," Khiara says.

"Not much further," Muda says.

"Further to what? How do you know where we're going?" I ask, suspiciously.

Have we been set up? Are we walking into a trap?

Muda spins around with a deep frown on his face. He pokes me in the chest, having to reach up to do so.

"I do not," he snaps, his voice cracking. "But look." He points at the wall then the floor. "See the marks? That is what I'm following. They come this way often enough to leave a trail. Also, there is no dust. Did you not see the other hall had undisturbed dust?"

I don't want to admit that I didn't see that. I wasn't even thinking of it. I don't know what my plan was mostly because I didn't have one. How do you make a plan when you know nothing about what you're going to see?

"Hmm," Khiara growls. He kneels and rubs his fingers across the floor. "He's right. Someone came this way."

"Well done, Muda," I say.

I should apologize but I honestly cannot bring myself to admit how much of a fool I was. The young one is smart and clearly will be an excellent tracker.

"Thanks," he says, nodding his head. He smiles and turns around then he curses.

"What is it?" I ask.

"That door," he says, pointing ahead. "It's got a lock."

I walk over to the door. It's a solid stone door at the end of the hall. There is a quality lock on it. I look at Khiara and then back at the door. We don't have a key, or tools, but this door is in our way.

"Thoughts?" I ask.

"Only see one way," Khiara answers and I nod agreement.

He and I stand shoulder to shoulder, take a step back, then moving almost in unison we step forward and kick the door. Our steel reinforced boots ring out loud as they crash to the stone. The stone vibrates but shows no other signs of distress.

"Huh," I grunt.

Khiara agrees and we repeat the action. We kick the door over and over. With every kick my anger builds. I think of Gweneth. Of her needing me. Anger becomes rage and as it does, I feel it feeding into Khiara then coming back to me redoubled. As one we roar, letting the rage fill our veins, fuel our muscles and our feet strike the door again.

The stone door shatters. Dust and debris fill the air in a choking, cloying cloud. Muda emits an excited yelp, jumping up and throwing his fist into the air. Knowing that if there are any guards on the other side of that door there is no way they don't know we're here, I run through with Khiara right on my heels. I come to a stop in a pitch-black hall, even with my low-light vision unable to see a thing.

"Torch," I bark.

Muda runs up to us with a lit torch. The dark is so thick and oppressive in this hall that it seems the torch barely does its job. Doors with grates and some kind of a miniature door in the middle of them line the hall.

"Hello?" a soft, female voice calls.

"Gwen!" I yell, though the moment I do I realize two things. That wasn't Gwen's voice and the voice spoke in Urr'ki, not Zmaj. "Speak again, I'm coming."

"Here," the voice says again.

It sounds familiar. A voice I know, but who do I know that would be trapped in the dungeons?

I follow the sound of the voice to a door. Even as I do, I'm thinking about how to get these doors open. We have no keys and I cannot spend the time it would take to bust each of them down. I cannot imagine it will be long before guards come for us.

I kneel before the lock on the door but it's a simple mechanism. There is a small latch that slides to one side, then another that lifts and that will free the lock. I work the mechanism and it gives a satisfying click.

The door isn't well set on its hinges and scrapes loudly as I pull it open. It sticks part way and I have to jerk to get it to open the rest of the way. Muda is at my side with the torch, but the pool of light barely penetrates past the door frame. The darkness seems to resist the torches efforts to illuminate.

"Hello?" the female voice, so familiar that it tugs at my memory. I know this voice, but I cannot place from where. "Who are you?"

Her feet step into the flickering pool of light. Unshod I can see that they are delicate, definitively female.

"My name is Dilacs," I say. "I am looking for someone. Perhaps you can help?"

"You're looking for Gweneth, the Star Person," she says, stepping fully into the light.

My heart stops. Khiara gasps and Muda drops the torch. The three of us stare in stunned silence.

It's her. It can't be… but here? How?

I try to speak but only manage to splutter. Too many words crashing on the way to pass over my tongue. I blink several times, then Muda drops to his knees, bowing his head until it's resting on the ground. Numb with confusion I lower myself to one knee and bow my head while Khiara mirrors me.

"No, please, rise," she says. "Dilacs, stand. You must be Khiara. Gweneth spoke of both of you. I am sorry, young one, I do not know your name."

She knows my name? She knows Gwen? How is any of this possible?

"My Queen," I manage to say without my voice cracking, and I am not ashamed to take some pride in that fact.

"Dilacs, Khiara, please," she says, her voice soft and now I know why it is so familiar. It feels like a lifetime ago when I last heard her address her people. She'd reassure us that we would survive, that life was not bleak, nothing like it has become since she disappeared. "Gweneth was taken not long ago. I know the way to her. Help me to help her. Please."

"Help… her?" Khiara says and I understand his struggle.

This is our Queen. She was supposed to be sick, indisposed, and supposedly she had given control to the Shaman. Yet she is here, not only in the tower, but clearly a prisoner. Her hair, once luxurious and beautiful, is limp and dank. Her eyes and cheeks are sunken. The clothes she wears are little more than a sackcloth, a far cry from the beautiful gowns I have only ever seen her wearing.

But through all the confusion the meaning of her words slices as sharp as any blade. Gweneth has been taken and she knows where she is. That pushes aside everything else. I leap to my feet so fast my head spins. Realizing my lack of deference to my Queen I bow my head to her.

"Please?" I ask, motioning with one arm.

"Of course," she says, follow me.

I glance at Khiara and he blinks, shaking his head. I shrug, because what else can I do or say, then follow in the wake of our Queen.