Awakened by Magic (The Four Kings Book 1) by Katy Haye (13)

Chapter Thirteen

If I’d thought the citadel was dim and dismal outside, the situation inside the palace didn’t improve. We were heading – I presumed – towards the kitchens, but the air was thick with a rancid smell I couldn’t name.

The thought that sprung to mind as I stepped deeper and deeper into the Emperor’s stronghold was that the scent was despair itself, crawling across my skin and up my nostrils. There were no windows and the darkness was alleviated by torches stuck into sconces on the wall, which added smoke and soot to the unpleasant mixture.

“Keep up.” The cook glanced back to snap at me. She was confident in the gloom. I was struggling. I needed to give her the slip. But not while her attention was fixed on me.

The steps finished, leading to level flagstones. Walking along a corridor, we passed a doorway. Glancing inside, I found a narrow room where half a dozen people were preparing food – chopping vegetables, mostly, it seemed to me.

Escaping from a room with several witnesses would also be tricky.

The next room was equally narrow, and cold. But it was empty. Apart from the four deer carcasses slung across a broad table in the centre of the room. The cook kept walking, but I saw my opportunity.

“I can skin a deer.”

She stopped, spinning to look me up and down doubtfully.

I jerked a thumb towards the open doorway. “I can skin a deer,” I repeated. “If that’s what’s needed. Butcher them, too, if you like.”

“You can?” Her tone showed that the servants of the palace didn’t consider the citadel’s other residents to have useful skills. Perhaps that was normally the case.

I held her gaze. “Yes, I can.”

“Good.” She turned, strode to the table and opened a drawer beneath it to reveal an assortment of butchery instruments. “Skin and gut.” She eyed the carcasses. “Do you need help to hang them?” She waved towards hooks suspended from the ceiling.

“I can manage.” The last thing I wanted was for someone to come and help.

“Good.” She presented a viciously sharp knife to me. “I’ll be back…” She glanced down at the deer once more, assessing the scale of the task she was trusting me with. “In two hours. There’ll be something else for you to do then.”

She strode out and the door banged shut behind her.

Two hours. Two hours to find Essa and get us both out of the citadel. I had no intention of sticking around for more chores.

I peered out of the door, then ducked back when I saw the cook talking to someone else in the corridor. I trussed and hung up the deer so it would look at first glance as though I’d made a start on the job.

Then I took the short skinning knife, pushed it into my waistband at my hip, and tried the door again.

The corridor outside was deserted. I darted back the way we’d come, up the stairs. I slowed towards the top, but everyone inside the palace who needed help preparing for the wedding seemed to have found the assistants they required. The door was firmly closed and there was no sign of guards.

“I need to find the cells,” I murmured. If the kitchens were at the bottom of the palace on one side, perhaps I needed to be on the other side. My heart pounded as I walked slowly, looking around every corner and doorway to avoid the guards. “Essa has to be there.”

It had been a while, but the kings had clearly been waiting.

“Can you feel her?” Axxon asked me.

“No. Should I be able to?”

“Your blood calls to each other,” Rey told me. “Close your eyes.”

I really didn’t want to do that. Anything might be waiting when I re-opened them. I glanced either way, stopped and closed my eyelids for a fraction of a second. “I can’t sense anything.” My tone was sharp. If one of them mentioned using my magic to find her…

“Head downwards,” Rey advised. “I believe I can sense your blood below us.”

I bit my lip. I hoped he was right and I wouldn’t be walking straight into a troop of guards. I found a staircase leading down on the left. Down to the cold and darkness. Rey’s feelings at least chimed with my beliefs of where I’d find the Emperor’s prisoners.

“We are with you,” Axxon promised.

“Only in thought,” I muttered. A laugh resounded in my head. I thought it was Rey, possibly Axxon. Vashri didn’t strike me as the laughing sort.

I stepped silently around a turn in the staircase, holding my breath in expectation of coming face to face with a guard or servant. The air was colder now, the unpleasant, mouldering smell stronger. Anxiety bloomed in my chest. This had to be the cells.

I turned the corner. Two guards stood with their backs to me, right beneath the light of a pair of torches. I flattened back against the wall, but I was too slow. They turned. “Hey!”

“I’m sorry, I – I’m lost.” My foot pushed back, trying to find the edge of the step while I kept my eyes on the guards.

I expected anger, or contempt. To my surprise, the guards looked relieved. “Have you come to prepare the prisoner?”

“Prepare the… What?” My heart stuttered. Was Essa being prepared for something? Was she going to be some kind of a sacrifice? For the wedding? I had to rescue her. Now.

“That’s right.” I straightened, gathering my courage. “I’m here to prepare the prisoner.”

One of the guards waved me on while the other sat back down, yawning. “Come on, then, no time to waste.” He thrust a pile of clothing into my arms and stepped past his friend.

Beyond the torches and the guards’ seats was a row of doors fastened from the outside with heavy, iron bolts. The cells. The guard reached for the bolts on the closest, yanking them free of their brackets.

My heart banged against my ribs. Essa was the other side of this inch of oak.

The door swung open. The guard grabbed my shoulder and shoved me inside.

“Hello?” I called out softly, blinking as I tried to make out the inside of the room. There was no window, of course. And the smell of damp and dirt was overwhelming. Poor Essa. She was always so beautifully dressed and clean. This place would be a torture in itself.

“Essa? Are you there?” I glanced behind me. The door had been left ajar, and the guard had retreated to continue his conversation with his friend. I took another step inside. “I’ve come to get you out.”

There was a sound from the depths of the room. The poor light illuminated what looked more like a pile of rags than a human being. The rags stirred, releasing a choking stink of filth and blood and ammonia that caught in the back of my throat.

My heart stopped. This couldn’t be Essa. I’d seen her walk through the gates hours before, as upright and strong as she’d ever been. She couldn’t be reduced to this already. This wasn’t Essa, but whoever was inside, they needed help. And the guards expected me to prepare them, whatever that meant.

“I’m a friend.” I spoke softly, crouching as I neared the prisoner. “I’m here to help.” It didn’t look as though the prisoner had much energy to fight me if they took me for an enemy, but I said it all the same. “I have fresh clothes for you.” They seemed like they needed food and a bath more than clothing, but that was what I had to offer.

I reached out to the rags. “Can you stand?” Another glance back. I wondered how long I had before the guards would come to hurry us along. I wondered what the Emperor’s deadline was.

A racking cough sounded as though it were removing the skin of the cougher’s throat. I winced again and reached for what I thought was a hand stretching towards me through the rags. “Here.”

The fingers were bone-thin, stiff with cold and grey with dirt. But they closed around mine with more strength than seemed possible.

“That’s right. Let me help you up.” Hands clasped, I reached for the prisoner’s elbow with my free hand, cupping the bony protrusion in support. Trying to be firm without hurting them, I levered them into a sitting position. Their eyes were fixed on the ground, so all I could see was the messy crow’s-nest of hair that hung down to their shoulders. I had no idea whether I was helping a man or a woman, but at least it wasn’t a child the Emperor had left to rot here.

“Lea – leave me.” The prisoner’s voice was a broken croak that set off another round of coughing, but I thought the pitch marked him as male. He coughed again.

The situation was pitiful. I was covered in water, my damp clothes sticking to me, my hair still occasionally dripping onto my shoulders. And yet, I didn’t have a drinkable drop to offer this poor soul.

“We can help.” Rey’s voice rang in my head. There was a swirl of air, of power. As I watched, the air between me and the prisoner misted over. The mist thickened, and I realised what Rey was doing.

“Quick. Cup your hands.” I put my arm around the shoulders of the prisoner, my other hand helping him to bring his hands together.

After a beat he understood, cupping his thin hands one within the other. The mist of water solidified, settling into his curved palm.

He brought his hands to his face, slurping at the water, giving a sigh of satisfaction when he was done.

“Thank you,” I told the kings. I put my hand around the prisoner’s shoulders again. “I’m sorry, the Emperor wants to see you. I have to get you ready.”

A hollow, creaking laugh met that statement. “The Emperor. I knew it wouldn’t be long now.” He reached for me, his grip remarkably strong. “You shouldn’t have come, Kyann. You’re in danger.”

The walls of the cell swooped around me. He knew my name? Was there something familiar in that scratchy, damaged voice? “Do I know you?”

“I know you. Even after all this time.” He fell back against the wall, using that to help him straighten. He pushed back the rags that had once been the hood of a cloak.

My breath stilled in my throat, my teeth clacking together in shock. The face was covered in hair and beard, and older than I remembered, but I recognised it. This face belonged to one I’d believed long-dead. That I’d hoped dead… “Father?”