Chartile: Prophecy (35 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Shadows of the
Past

The gleam of a spear point caught Piper’s
eye. Sentries stationed mere yards away would have caught her had
she not seen it. She flattened herself to the ground behind one of
the many butterfly bushes the Elven palace was famous for. She was
thankful she had extinguished the small flame she had created for
light as soon as there was the faintest bit of sun for her to see
by. It may have slowed her up a bit, having to squint at the tiny
compass in her hand, but she didn’t care. Piper knew she had
several hours on her companions and was not worried about them
catching up to her. She knew they would discover she was missing
soon enough and come after her, but she would already be in the
castle by then.

Pangs of remorse ran in waves up and down
her spine when she thought of them. She felt guilty for leaving
them behind. She had promised the boys she would always be there
for them, and worse, the last words she had spoken to Dimitri and
Valin had been in anger. She clenched her jaw and pushed her
feelings aside. This was her task to do. Gran was depending on her
yet. And then there was Taraniz – her sister. She had to find her
and speak with her. She had to know. She had so many questions.

The soldiers turned to speak to each other,
and Piper reached into her pack, feeling around for the tabard. It
wasn’t there. Panicked, she dared to sit up, and emptied the pack
of its contents on the ground before her. She must have forgotten
it in her haste when leaving the campsite. She glanced at the
soldiers through the butterfly bush, wondering if she could sneak
to the dungeons and work her way up through the palace from below.
She had to chance it. It was the only way.

The magic she had once feared only weeks ago
was now her greatest asset. She took a deep breath and closed her
eyes. She shifted a tree limb several yards away, but the guards
continued their conversation. Piper rolled her eyes, and flicked a
small spark at a passing bird. It chirped and dropped the seed it
had been carrying on one of the guards. This time, they looked up.
Again, Piper made the tree limbs sway and rustle, and lifted
several large stones, allowing them to fall to the earth again.

She had never been to the dungeons, even as
a child, but she recalled the map she had studied in Valin’s
library the day they left Cannondole. If she remembered correctly,
the door she now faced led downward into the dungeons. The map had
labeled only the perimeters and the inner gardens of the palace.
Once she was inside, she was on her own.

The guards headed toward the sounds. She
used compact balls of air to create the sound of footsteps hurrying
away.

“
Do you hear that?” one of
the guards asked, looking in the direction of the sound.

Piper made a distant butterfly bush dance as
though someone had hidden behind it.

The first guard looked at his comrade, who
nodded. Their spears lowered, the two men slowly approached the
bush. Piper took a deep breath and steadied her trembling hands.
Silently, she moved behind them towards the door. Her hand touched
the heavy iron latch. The guards were almost at the bush. She
pressed the handle with her thumb, and it creaked with age. The
door swung wide, pulled by gravity, and it creaked even louder.

The guards whipped around, their eyes wide
with surprise.

“
Stop!” one cried, and
they charged her. Piper barely had time to pull her sword from its
scabbard, but instinct over took her. She commanded the wind with
ease, and knocked the two men to the ground.

They shook their heads, dazed, and the
second guard cried, “It’s her! It’s her! Send the warning!”

The first guard glanced at a pile of
kindling mixed with a blue powdered mineral that Piper had not
noticed at first. It was a signal fire. It would send a cloud of
colored smoke into the air. Taraniz had known all along she would
come. Piper was closer to the kindling than the soldiers. She
scattered and pile and rubbed it in the earth. One of the soldiers
grabbed her, forcing her arms behind her back. Fire erupted from
her hands at the guard’s waist and caught his gambeson ablaze. He
jumped back, beating at the flames franticly. The other guard
raised the butt of his spear toward Piper’s head, but she was
faster.

She swung her sword, slicing the man through
his stomach. She turned, and knocked her pommel hard into the still
flaming soldier’s forehead. Both men fell to the ground, and the
burning gambeson was smothered under the soldier’s weight.

Breathless, Piper dropped her sword. She
felt sick. These were her soldiers. Men who would soon pledge
themselves to protect her. And she had killed them. She had killed
them for doing their job. She thought of Tathias and wondered if
these men were at peace now that they were free from the magic she
knew Taraniz was using on them.

Piper moved their bodies behind the
butterfly bushes, tears pouring down her face. She wiped her eyes
and hurried through the dungeon door.

The smell hit her in the face as hard as a
kick in the gut. The stench of human waste and decay wafted up the
stone steps from deep underground. Piper wondered how she hadn’t
noticed it before. The dungeons were certainly not meant to be a
place of luxury, but as she descended the stair, the unhealthy
conditions of the prisoners loomed at her out of the shadows of the
flickering torches lining the walls.

Some of the holding cells had only standing
room. In one, a body lay at the door, its face covered by a ragged
cloth. Piper knew he must be dead, placed there by his fellow cell
mates, waiting to be taken by the guards. The young queen-to-be
felt tears sting her eyes again. Whether from the odor or the
heartbreak of the deplorable conditions, she did not know. She
wiped them away, and began searching the ragged faces for Gran.

Eyes caught the torch light, looking her,
then hiding again in the shadows. “Kaytah,” she whispered in the
dark.

“
New here, eh?” said a
middle aged man to her left. He looked cleaner and more bright-eyed
than most of the prisoners. “We don’t see many pretty faces among
the guards here. What’s your name, lovey?” He leaned against the
bars of the cell door, a smile on his face and playful mischief in
his eyes.

Piper narrowed her eyes at him a moment,
trying to read his intentions. “I am looking for an elderly woman
named Kaytah. She was brought here several weeks ago.”

The man frowned and shook his head. “I have
been here for longer than that, lovey. No old ladies come through
here.”

“
You look rather well to
do compared to the others,” Piper noted, a cold edge to her
voice.

The man shrugged. “This ain’t my first time
round, darlin’. I know the guards. Know who to bribe and who to
take care of when I get out. Though ain’t no one getting outta here
no more. They shove you in and throw away the key now. No more
trials or hearings. No pardons or punishments. They just forget
about you and drag out the bodies when you’re dead.”

Piper blinked at the man in disgust. “How is
that possible? The Noble Conclave would never allow such a
thing!”

“
Ah!” The man smiled
again. “Now I know you are an intruder! Everyone knows the nobles
have no power anymore. The Princess tells them what to do, and they
jump. The ones that stay the longest, ask how high.”

“
What do you mean?” Piper
pressed.

The man’s eyes darted back and forth. He
looked over his shoulder at his cell mates huddled in the corners.
He beckoned Piper closer. Reluctantly she obeyed, breathing through
her mouth instead of her nose to keep her stomach from
churning.

“
They say she’s got magic
on them,” he whispered.

Piper retreated a few steps away. “Has
anyone seen proof of this?”

“
No need, lovey. All the
proof you need is right in front of all our noses. Aramor was
stabbed in his bed. The cells are over flowing because of petty
crimes. Princess Taraniz ain’t taking any chance of a rebellion
against her.”

“
If she has magic, then
why doesn’t she just kill everyone who opposes her? Why keep you
locked up?”

“
Because the magic has
driven her insane,” he whispered, tapping his head with a dirty
finger and smiling.

There was a commotion to Piper’s right
toward the entrance to the castle. She looked along the line of
cells, hoping for a sign of escape.

“
Around the corner,”
whispered the man and nodded to his right. “There’s another
entrance. Pull on the torch to the left of the wall. It will take
you straight to the noble’s quarters of the palace.”

Piper looked at him doubtful, but he nodded
reassuringly to her.

“
Thank you,” she
whispered, and took off as quickly.

“
Wait!” called the man.
Piper stopped in her tracks, praying whomever had caused the uproar
at the main dungeon entrance had not heard. “I didn’t get your
name, lovey. Seeing as you’re probably the last pretty face I’ll
see before I rot away in here.”

Piper slowly turned to face the man. She
held her head high, the light of the torches making her red hair
appear as flame in the darkness.

“
My name is Piper Romilly.
I am Princess Taraniz’s sister, and I will make this
right.”

She left the man staring, his mouth hung
open in awe. He turned to his cell mates as Piper rounded the
corner he had indicated. It ended at a dead end wall, framed only
by two torches. The sounds of footsteps were coming closer. She
thought she heard the man in the cell shouting for the soldiers’
attention, and she vowed she would pay him back the favor of aiding
her escape. She raised a hand to the torch on her left. It would
not budge from its bracket. She pulled hard, and heard scraping.
The bricks of the wall moved slightly. The uproar of the prisoners
increased, and she saw a group of five soldiers run passed her,
drawing their swords, and paying no mind to her. She breathed a
sigh of relief, pulled the torch with all her strength, and
squeezed through the small opening it had created. Moments later
she heard the scraping sound again as the torch and its bracket
returned to its normal position and the wall slid back into
place.

Piper found herself in a small alcove. To
her left and right was an enormous, golden hallway with the trunks
of trees carved as great columns in the center of the hall. She
looked up and saw the branches of the canopy above had been woven
together over time, creating a ceiling that would keep any weather
out. The sight was somehow familiar to her.

The hall was quiet and deserted. This only
made Piper more on edge. She kept her hand poised over the hilt of
her sword as she went. Torn between looking for Gran and wanting
desperately to find Taraniz, Piper wandered the halls, lost in
strange memories. She had visited the palace with Gran on numerous
occasions, but it did not seem to help her remember her way through
the winding corridors.

Ghostly figures materialized before her down
the hall. Piper recognized one as Gran, but from many years ago.
Her hair was flecked with honey brown, and she wore it in a knot at
the base of her head as Piper remembered when she was very little.
The ghostly images faded, and Piper hurried after them.

She wandered the hallway, looking side to
side at one closed and locked door after another. She did not have
Dimitri’s gift of unlocking doors, and she dared not try wasting
her time to pick the locks. Instead, she continued through the
halls, growing increasingly more uncomfortable with the lack of
people.

The noble’s wing was where members of the
royal family, the Conclave of Nobles and select ambassadors kept
their rooms and quarters. If an army was ready to march on Mount
Kelsii, the noble’s wing should have been crawling with
dignitaries, noble messengers, beck-ands, and palace guards. But
not a soul stirred in the vast, echoing hall. Piper was certain she
could have heard a feather land on the golden tile floors.

The ghostly image of a dress train
disappeared through a door toward the end of the hall. Piper ran
full out toward it. She did not care how much noise she made. She
stopped in the doorway, and saw the ghostly figures of her Gran, an
old man she did not recognize and herself as a child.

The figures glided over the moss that served
as the floor for the elven library. This was one of the original
rooms of the palace. The trunks of the trees were carved into
towering book shelves. A partial ceiling had been built around the
boughs of the trees, but she might as well have been standing in
the middle of the Belirian Forest by the palace butterfly bushes.
It was the perfect climate for preserving the delicate skins and
parchments of the ancient documents.

“
I need a favor of you,
Raoul,” said Gran in a distant, echoing voice. “No one must know.”
She pulled a piece of parchment from a scroll case she carried and
handed it to the man. He stared at it, his expression unmistakably
one of shock. He looked at the little girl running her hands and
toes through the soft moss at his feet.

“
Is she—” he began to ask,
but Kaytah held up a hand to silence him.

“
No one can know,” she
said again.

The figures vanished and Piper was left
staring at the vast, empty library. She knew she would never find
her birth record in the labyrinth of trees and parchment. She would
have to worry about that later. She needed to find Taraniz. She
needed to talk to her sister.

Movement caught the corner of her eye. Piper
darted into the hall and saw two little girls, one red-haired and
one blonde meet at the end of the hall.